International Day of Peace, 2017

Each year the International Day of Peace is observed around the world on 21 September. The General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.

The theme for 2017 is “Together for Peace: Respect, Safety and Dignity for All.”

The theme honours the spirit of TOGETHER, a global initiative that promotes respect, safety and dignity for everyone forced to flee their homes in search of a better life. TOGETHER unites the organizations of the United Nations System, the 193 Member States of the United Nations, the private sector, civil society, academic institutions and individual citizens in a global partnership in support of diversity, non-discrimination and acceptance of refugees and migrants. It was initiated during the United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants on 19 September 2016.

See more here:

International Day of Peace 21 September - the United Nations

Happy Labor Day

Thank a Union.  #Strongertogether

September, Redux

Entertainment Overnight -- September

What Are We Celebrating This Month?

Here they are, ladies and gentlemen--all the things we're celebrating here in America in this new October month:

Adopt A Shelter Dog Month
AIDS Awareness Month
American Cheese Month
Antidepressant Death Awareness Month
Bat Appreciation Month
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
(World) Blindness Awareness Month
Caffeine Addiction Recovery Month
Celiac Disease Awareness Month
Celebrating The Bilingual Child Month
Children’s Magazine Month
Christmas Seal Campaign (10/1-12/31)
Church Library Month
Church Safety and Security Month
Class Reunion Month
Co-op Awareness Month
Cut Out Dissection Month
Down Syndrome Awareness Month
Dyslexia Awareness Month
Eat Better, Eat Together Month
Emotional Intelligence Awareness Month
Emotional Wellness Month
Employee Ownership Month
Energy Management is a Family Affair-Improve Your Home Month (10/1-3/31/13)
Financial Planning Month
Feral Hog Month or Hog Out Month
German-American Heritage Month
Global Diversity Awareness Month
Go Hog Wild – Eat Country Ham
Halloween Safety Month
Head Start Awareness Month
Health Literacy Month
Home Eye Safety Month
Italian-American Heritage Month
International Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC) Awareness Month
International Starman Month
International Strategic Planning Month
International Walk To School Month
LGBT History Month
Long Term Care Planning Month
Month of Free Thought
National Animal Safety and Protection Month
National Apple MonthNational Applejack Month
National Arts & Humanities Month
National Audiology Awareness Month
National Bake and Decorate Month
National Book Month
National Bullying Prevention Month
National Caramel Month
National Chili Month
National Chiropractic Month
National Cookbook Month
National Cookie Month
National Crime Prevention Month
National Critical Illness Awareness Month
National Cyber Security Awareness Month
National Dental Hygiene Month
National Dessert Month
National Disability Employment Awareness Month
National Depression Education & Awareness Month
National Domestic Violence Awareness Month
National Ergonomics Month
National Fair Trade Month
National Family Sexuality Education Month
National “Gain The Inside Advantage” Month
National Go On A Field Trip Month
National Kitchen & Bath Month
National Liver Awareness Month
National Medical Librarian Month
National Orthodontic Health Month
National Pasta Month
National Physical Therapy Month
National Pickled Peppers Month
National Pizza Month
National Popcorn Poppin’ Month
National Pork Month
National Pretzel Month
National Protect Your Hearing Month
National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
National Reading Group Month
National Roller Skating Month
National RSV Awareness Month
National Sarcastic Awareness MonthNational Sausage Month
National Seafood Month
National Spina Bifida Awareness Month
National Stamp Collecting Month
National Toilet Tank Repair Month
National Window Covering Safety Month
National Work and Family Month
National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Awareness Month
Organize Your Medical Information Month
Pear and Pineapple Month
Photographer Appreciation Month
Polish American Heritage Month
Positive Attitude Month
Raptor Month
Rett Syndrome Awareness Month
Rhizomes and Persimmons Month
Rhubarb Month
Right Brainers Rule! Month
Self-Promotion Month
Spinach Lovers Month
Squirrel Awareness Month Link (Different Than Squirrel Appreciation Day in January)
Tackling Hunger Month
Talk About Prescriptions Month
Vegetarian Month
Wishbones for Pets Month (10/15 – 11/30)
Workplace Politics Awareness Month
World Menopause Month

What will you be celebrating?

Labor Day, 2015

It's Looks To Be A Busy, Even Great September

Just glimpsing into what this September is going to bring us, besides Autumn and cooler temperatures, which is always welcome, it seems there's not just a lot of things that are going to take place but a lot of good to great things. Some examples:

--The Iran Deal. Agree or disagree, like it, love it, hate it, whatever, we're very likely now going to get the negotiated Iran deal which we--everyone--need so badly. Sure, disagree if you wish but scientists, military advisers actually in the military and experienced in the region as well as hundreds of Rabbis all came to the same conclusion, that this is a good and smart move. It's good for Iran, good for the region, good for the US, heck, good for the world. (see links, below).

--On a lot lighter side, we get Stephen Colbert back. This has, all of a sudden, become Stephen Colbert's week and even month, what with his Late Night talk show beginning this Tuesday. I don't know anyone brighter or any funnier than Mr. Colbert nor full of more energy and what appears to be downright, welcomed intelligence.

--Also lighter on subject, football. The NFL. And normally I wouldn't mention this but this year, especially the first game of the year, is especially poignant since the New England Patriots and their quarterback/leader Tom Brady will be highlighted. Coming off that rather auspicious win, what with his/their/our "deflategate" seeming scandal and the belief on so many people's part that the game looked rather shady, at least, if not out and out stolen, it should be interesting. Then there was all the courtroom drama this Summer and not that long ago---weeks---when a judge threw out the case of the NFL and commissioner Tom Goodell against Mr. Brady and his Patriots. Heck, the commentary alone on that opening football night and game should be interesting. Fun, even.

--On a far more local, Kansas City note, there's always the Fall art shows--Westport Art Festival next weekend and the Plaza Art Fair--and the UnPlaza Art Fair, of course--the 3rd week.

And that's just a short list. Heaven knows it will be a busy month. Enjoy, y'all.

Links:  Dozens of retired generals, admirals back Iran nuclear deal

29 US Scientists Praise Iran Nuclear Deal

340 rabbis urge Congress to support Iran nuclear deal

This is an astoundingly good Iran deal

On This Day, September 2

For whatever reason, I thought September 2nd to be a day of significance. With that in mind, I thought I'd put together a few highlights from the date, down through the ages. Partly fun, partly educational, partly historical significance. Hopefully enjoy.

490 BC - Pheidippides, Greek hero and inspiration for the modern marathon, dies

44 BC - Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.

- The first of Cicero's Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the next several months.

1649 - The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro. (I love that. Pope Innocent)

1666 - Great Fire of London begins at 2am in Pudding Lane, 80% of London is destroyed

1732 - Pope Clement XII renews anti-Jewish laws of Rome. (Don'tcha' just love those oh-so-innocent Catholics?)

1864 - Union General William T. Sherman captures and burns Atlanta during US Civil War

1894 - Forest fires destroy Hinckley Minnesota: about 600 die (I can't even fathom that one)

1901 - VP Theodore Roosevelt advises "Speak softly & carry a big stick"

1902 - "A Trip To The Moon", the first science fiction film, by film great Georges Méliès released

1919 - Communist Party of America organizes in Chicago (It didn't really catch on. Not permanently, anyway)

1936 - 1st transatlantic round-trip air flight

1942 - German troops enter Stalingrad

1944 - During WW II, George H W Bush ejects from a burning plane

1944 - Holocaust diarist Anne Frank was sent to Auschwitz

1945 - Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam independence from France (National Day) (Years later, Americans would learn nothing whatever from France's loss and exit from Vietnam and instead, attack the country)

1946 - Nehru forms government in India

1957 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1962 - Stan Musial's 3,516th hit moves over Tris Speaker into 2nd place

1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

1963 - Alabama Gov George C Wallace prevents integration of Tuskegee HS

1963 - CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes

1964 - Keanu Reeves birthday, Beirut, "actor"

1969 - Ralph Houk signs 3-year contract to manage Yankees at $65,000 a season (think things haven't changed a lot?)
        - The first automatic teller machine (ATM) in the United States is installed in Rockville Center, New York.

1971 - Chris Evert & Jimmy Connors win their 1st US Open tennis matches (Chris who? Jimmy who?)
         - Also his, Jimmy Connors', birthday, 1952

1972 - Rod Stewart's 1st #1 hit (You Wear it Well)

1973 - J. R. R. Tolkien, British author (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings)--as if you had to ask--dies of an ulcer at 81

1982 - Rolling Stone Keith Richard's house burns down

1987 - Donald Trump takes out a full page NY Times ad lambasting Japan

1997 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Montreal Canada on CHOM 97.7 FM (and we still haven't gotten rid of him)

2005 - Bob Denver, American actor (Gilligan of "Gilligan's Island"), dies of complications from treatment for cancer at 70
So now, get out there, kids, and enjoy your September 2nd.

Entertainment Overnight -- September Grass

Wake Me Up When September Ends

September Song

September Is

September Is

BY MARY JO BANG

September is work to the center
Of arguments and controversies.
Prejudgments and incomprehensions.
What will I love if not that
That was enigma?
The years of infancy, Memory says,
And there we are, with the demon
Of the art of living
Traced on the glass of some window.

In the beauty of the night of May,
Clear of moon, to the lume of a candle
There was a design like the profile
Of a landscape almost abandoned. Gone
But not gone yet. It's fascinating,
These mysterious uncovered feelings.
Enigma of an afternoon of autumn, the picture
Of which is a composition
Of the eye of my mind. Every hour

That I watch this picture
I see again still that moment.
Nevertheless the moment is an enigma
For me, in how much is inexplicable.
The physical things hide in the architecture
Of the event. The enigma of a mock-up,
Of a shadow, the spectral and eternal aspect
Of the moment. Praises to you for being
One great box of surprise,

Your head the scene of a wonderful theater
Of the most tender gray of the fog
That joins the sky to the earth.
A tangling of truth and memory,
Mythology and iconography,
I watch with the eye
Of the mind the city that accommodates
That one beautiful day that is now infinite.
It deepens. It begins. The cyclical method.

Memory is deeply not alive; it's a mock-up
And this renders it hateful. Yet, it is not a fiction,
Is a truth, indeed a sad and monstrous truth.
I was assigned to you, together we were
A beautiful and melancholic picture.
This last picture is the realization
Of the overwhelming moment
In which the acute eye perceives you as a now
That is over. A now that is fixed
In the swept past.

Mary Jo Bang, "September Is" from Elegy. Copyright © 2007 by Mary Jo Bang. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press.

See You In September

Entertainment overnight

For Donna at JUST ME and all:

Happy Labor Day

Labor Day, 2013

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."  --Abraham Lincoln

Link:  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin395631.html#KSEj1VTzE7T20o0P.99

Happy Labor Day and Labor Day Weekend!

Have a terrific, relaxing, rejuvenating, safe, fun weekend.


And by the way, you're welcome.


Signed,

--Labor Unions and labor workers across the country for the last 100 years.

It's done. We have curfews

I heard on KCUR this evening that the City Council and Mayor James got their curfews passed. As I said earlier this week, it seemed inevitable. They had to have solutions by tomorrow evening and a heavy police presence just wasn't going to cut it. The details, according to The Kansas City Star: • From Memorial Day weekend through the last Sunday in September, it will be 9 p.m. for all youth under age 18 for five entertainment districts in the city — the Country Club Plaza, Westport, the Downtown Business District, 18th and Vine, and Zona Rosa. Elsewhere in the city during the summer, the curfew will be 10 p.m. for youths 15 and under and 11 p.m. for 16 and 17-year-olds. • The rest of the year, from October through Memorial Day, the curfew for all minors will be 11 p.m. weeknights and midnight on Friday and Saturday. • The fine for parents of curfew violators, currently $1 for a first offense, will increase to a maximum of $500 for each offense. With as many layers as it has for the different ages and different parts of town and times of the year, I doubt the police appreciate this little gift. Let's see if this all works. Here's hoping it does. Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/18/3084943/kc-sets-earlier-curfew-hours.html

Donations on the Country Club Plaza---really?

It seems a huge juxtaposition to see a clearly wealthy and beautifully appointed and coiffed woman with several beautiful and beautifully, rather expensively-clothed children on a street corner on the Plaza asking for financial donations. It happens repeatedly. They're obviously from a family--or some families--of some means but they ask for donations for their school. Wth? Seriously? And why would I do this? You choose to have your children go to a private, again, not-inexpensive school and you request assistance for the school? Uh, no. I don't think so. This would be another in a long line of definitions of the word "chutzpah". Have a great weekend, y'all.