MARTIN LUTHER KING"S SPEECH

Reblogged from Author Thelma Cunningham:

http://youtu.be/smEqnnklfYs

Martin Luther King's Birthday

Americans honor the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday celebrated on the third Monday of each January.

The holiday was established to serve as a time for Americans to reflect on the principles of racial equality and nonviolent social change advocated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As a political organizer and advocate of nonviolent protest, King was pivotal in persuading his fellow Americans to end the legal segregation that prevailed throughout the South, and in gaining support for the civil rights legislation that established the legal framework for racial equality in the United States.

Read more… 362 more words

A great man who has inspired countless numbers of people around the world to work towards justice and humanity for all.

John Lennon for President

I’m sick and tired of hearing things

from uptight-short-sighted-narrow

minded hypocritics

All I want is the truth

just gimme some truth

I’ve had enough of reading things

by neurotic-psychotic-pig headed politicians

All I want is the truth

just gimme some truth

No short haired-yellow bellied

son of tricky dicky

is gonna mother hubbard

soft soap with me

with just a pocketful of hope

money for dope

money for rope

I’m sick to death of seeing things

from tight lipped-condescending-mommies

little chauvinists

All I want is the truth

just gimme some truth

I’ve had enough of watching scenes

Of Schizophrenic-ego-centric-

paranoic-prima-donnas

All I want is the truth

just gimme some truth

* * *

GIMME SOME TRUTH

Copyright Lennon Music, from the album Imagine, by John Lennon

Happy Mother’s Day

Translation: “Mother’s Day: I only found an artichoke, but my heart’s in it!”

On May 12, 1907, Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia held a memorial service for her departed mother in Grafton, West Virginia.  This simple act of devotion started a trend that spread to every state in the nation.

The second Sunday in May was declared a federal holiday—Mother’s Day— by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

It became customary to wear a red or pink carnation to honor living mothers and a white carnation to honor the deceased.

The greeting card companies seized on this opportunity to promote sending flowers, cards, and gifts. In her later years, Anna Jarvis resented the commercialization of Mother’s Day and lobbied to abolish the holiday.

Whether we honor our mothers with store-purchased items or handmade goodies, the idea behind Mother’s Day is still valid. My mother worked hard all of her life. She was unhappy and stressed out much of the time. But she tried her best to love us, protect us, and give us what we needed.

One of my fondest memories is a rainy night in 1965. The school chorus was giving a concert, and the streets in L.A. were flooded. I was afraid that my mother wouldn’t be able to attend our performance. But somehow, someway, she made it, and I always remembered that. Her efforts let me know how much she cared. 

She’s gone now, and I miss her, but she suffered from chronic pain and a severe heart condition. Death brought her relief. And I try to remember that even as I wish she were here.

HONOR THE ONES YOU LOVE EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR. I wish now that I had done more for her.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, EVERYONE!

Dawn Pisturino

Vintage Macabre

 Ransom Riggs pieced together a whole novel around his collection of weird photographs. (And I do mean pieced together because, by the end of his book, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the story had become disjointed and frayed around the edges. The photographs were always the main selling point for the book, however, so that hardly mattered. I still gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.com.) But what a brilliant idea, writing a novel around weird photographs!

So I scoured the Web looking for a few macabre samples—photos that would make your skin crawl and send the heebie-jeebies up and down your spine.

Did I succeed?

Are you feeling just a little bit uncomfortable?

What kind of book could you write around these morbid photographs?

A blood-sucking dummy? A ventriloquist that kills?

A writer and his muse? A Bram Stoker-winning team!

.

This photo really gives me the creeps!

Halloween—or a twisted version of the Ku Klux Klan?

Historic Route 66 – Kingman, Arizona

1926-1948

The Laughlin River Run began Thursday in Laughlin, Nevada. This weekend, thousands of  motorcyclists, tourists, and car enthusiasts will head for the open road, especially Historic Route 66, now known as the Mother Road. At the height of its popularity, Route 66 covered 2,448 miles between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California. Portions of the road still exist in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

Santa Fe Train Station, Kingman, Arizona

In the 1950s, the glamour of California drew tourists across country along Route 66. Mom-and-pop businesses sprang up all along the road,  giving rise to the first fast-food restaurants and unique styles of architecture. Tourists still travel through northern Arizona to see the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, and Meteor Crater. Long stretches of Route 66 have been well-preserved, thanks to the efforts of the Route 66 Association.

Hotel Brunswick, Kingman, Arizona (reputed to be haunted)

Historic Route 66 has been immortalized in a popular hit song and the Route 66 TV show from the 1960s.

Route 66 between Kingman and Oatman, Arizona

The most treacherous portion of Route 66 is between Kingman and Oatman, Arizona. The hairpin turns and narrow road will make you tremble with fear! Imagine escaping the Dust Bowl of the 1930s along this route!

Bonelli House, Kingman, Arizona

The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 led to the decline of the Mother Road, and it was officially declared defunct in 1985. The road has been included in the National Register of Historic Places. Kingman, Arizona hosts an informative Route 66 Museum, and Route 66 memorabilia can be found in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Dawn Pisturino

April 27, 2012

Posted on Helmet Hair Motorcycle News, May 2, 2012.

Copyright 2012 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

a pinko commie under every bush

Patty Hearst

Yes! I admit it!

When I was fifteen years old, I read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

In an era when hordes of university students were toting around copies of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, this wasn’t anything unusual.

Who, after all, could ignore these glorious words?

“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.

“They have a world to win.

“WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!“

Can’t you hear the fist-pounding and finger-pointing in those words? Can’t you hear the stampeding hordes and gunfire behind those phrases?

ALL GLORY TO THE REVOLUTION!

We already had the Women’s Liberation Movement, La Raza, the Black Panthers, the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay and Lesbian Movement, Earth Day, peace-loving Hippies, the Free Speech Movement, Timothy Leary, the Sexual Liberation Movement, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement. Tune out, drop out. Question authority. Don’t trust anyone over 30. If it feels good, do it!!

The anti-establishment revolution. Black is beautiful. All Power to the People!

“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles . . .”

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,

The government becomes a little bit bolder

And a little bit colder

And you know that we told her it would happen.

The Left of the Right began to struggle with all its might

And decided to declare a revolution.

It’s the only solution to the capitalist institution,

And you know we’ve got to do it for our own evolution.

written spring 1971

a pinko commie under every bush

ring out the old, bring in the new

the clash of two opposing ideas morphs into Hegel’s dialectic

Cold War, a flash of nuclear destruction

and death.

Copyright 2012 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

“1955″

 1955. A year of innovative beginnings.

The first McDonald’s opened its doors under bright golden arches.

Walt Disney threw open the gates to “the happiest place on earth.”

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and started the Civil

Rights movement.

And a year of sad endings.

After filming Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden, a brilliant young actor   named James Dean lost his life in a tragic auto accident.

The Cold War split the world into two opposing camps. East against West. Democracy against Oppression. The threat of nuclear holocaust prompted terrified Americans to build bomb shelters in their basements. In South Vietnam, civil war began. In the United States, the House Un-American Affairs Committee raged on, issuing “contempt of Congress” citations to any citizen accused of anti-America activities.

In Washington, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency concluded that “less than one percent of all publicly held stocks [are] owned by individuals.”

James Baldwin penned Notes of a Native Son for a public obsessed with Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and the Comets. Rock and Roll music and TV ruled the air.

Beatnicks howled in coffee houses hazy with smoke.

And in the midst of all of this, I was born. Rebellious, angry, contentious, afraid, confused, seeking social justice and equality for people I did not know, condemning the status quo, rejecting old values and mores, fighting for something new and things I did not understand . . .

Chaos and confusion. Inner turmoil and ambivalence. Foggy, drug-induced dreams. Sweaty, free-loving sex.

The fear-mongering fifties bounced into the free-wheeling sixties, the violent, clashing Age of Aquarius. Poetry and politics became my royal couple, my release, my escape. Anger ruled the world into the seventies and beyond.

And all of this shaped me as a person, as a writer, as a thinker. Nature vs. nurture. Environment DOES take its toll on our psyche and well-being.

We may not understand the world, but we are part of it, and we are caught up in its rhythms and flow whether we want it or not.

I did not choose to be rebellious and angry. I merely reflected the world around me.

And it took many years and a lot of heart-rending experiences to teach me to look inward, inside myself, for the peace and rationality that I craved.

Copyright 2012 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.