Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Missed Opportunities

Lots on my mind today. Catching up on the Sunday NYT today, I was appalled to see that on Juneteenth, eight senators voted against issuing a formal apology to lynching victims and their descendants (the first time Congress had apologized to African-Americans for any reason). "The intent was to erase what lawmakers called a stain on the Senate's history: its repeated refusal, throughout the first half of the 20th century, to make lynching a federal crime". The Dirty Eight were:
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee;
Thad Cochran of Mississippi;
John Cornyn of Texas;
Mike Enzi of Wyoming;
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire;
Trent Lott of Mississippi;
John Sununu of New Hampshire;
and Craig Thomas of Wyoming.
Drop them a note.

Tangentially related, I was bummed to realize that I had missed the Sugar Grove underground Railroad/Abolitionst Centennial Celebration - Oh well, maybe in the next 100 years...

Gannon is running workshops for high school aged writers.

Blow off the horrible Bewitched remake this summer and head to Erie instead for Bell, Book, and Candle In it, a witch casts a spell over a handsome, unattached publisher, partly to keep him away from a rival and partly because she is attracted to him. He falls head over heels in love with her at once, but it turns out that a witch can't fall in love - insert your own bitter joke about marriage here.

The Erie Art Festival kicks off next week, I'll be blowing off the second and third rate bands and heading to the student Filmmaking Competition instead.

Finally, a local doctor, John M. Karian, has opened his own online gallery shop, Wetland Splendours. (Too much extra time and money, eh? Whatever happened to all the doctors having to leave Pennsylvania because of their being driven to penury by malpractice insurance, but I digress...) His work isn't my cup of tea:

but it's really reasonable. Turn off your speakers before you go there; he's got an annoying cricket chirp and water lap noise playing endlessly.

No comments: