Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

The short video documentary that goes with the article "Animals Are Persons Too" follows lawyer Steven Wise’s effort to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans.

More about creativity: "18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently." Excerpt:

While there's no "typical" creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here is one of 18 things they do differently.
    They ask the big questions.
    Creative people are insatiably curious – they generally opt to live the examined life, and even as they get older, maintain a sense of curiosity about life. Whether through intense conversation or solitary mind-wandering, creatives look at the world around them and want to know why, and how, it is the way it is.

Doe Branch Ink is in the far outback in the mountains north of Asheville, North Carolina. The first week in June, I'll be leading a writing week there and would love for you/your writing students or friends to join us.
    Accommodations are a big lodge house with lots of desks and views. We'll have one feedback session a day of up to about 2 hours, and the rest of the time free for writing, reading, hiking. Fiction or nonfiction writers are welcome.
    Beautiful place and the food is terrific. I'm doing this for the 3rd time; I've found being there both productive and a lot of fun (went to town for Thursday night bluegrass and buck dancing).
    I hope you'll consider coming or telling your students/writer friends.

Dear Yale 1964 Classmate:
    Last year you took the time to write an essay for our reunion classbook, and in doing so you showed your fundamental understanding that our fiftieth reunion presents a unique opportunity to re-connect with friends whom we haven't seen for years and to share the varied life experiences that are expressed so beautifully in our classbook. Now that we have heard from you, we want to see you!
    If you're getting this email, you have not yet registered for the reunion....
    We fervently hope that you can join us!
    For those who, for financial reasons, find the cost of the reunion to be beyond their means, please note that, on an absolutely confidential basis, our class offers financial assistance to those who need it....

Race fools, again: "Modern racists just repeat conservative talking points: Donald Sterling, Cliven Bundy and the ugly face of GOP policies." Excerpt:

During a recent soccer match between Barcelona and Villarreal, a fan threw a banana at Barcelona player Dani Alves as he was about to take a corner kick. Instead of getting upset, Alves, who is Brazilian, calmly picked up the banana, took a bite of it and took his kick.
    In much the same way that Alves treated the fan’s bigoted act as a gift, we can consider the antics this past week of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling as gifts and opportunities to accept Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s invitation in her dissent in Schuette v. Bamn — to “speak openly and candidly on the subject of race.”
    ...Bundy’s remarks about the good ol’ days of slavery, when black families were intact and raising chickens and tending gardens, are similar to the rhetoric espoused by a “marriage pledge” signed by former GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann – a pledge claiming ”a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”
    Bundy’s comments about black men sitting idle also echoed recent comments made by Republican congressman Paul Ryan, who decried the lack of work ethic among “inner city” men. While Bundy may not be a GOP spokesman, he is pretty good at repeating conservative talking points.

Cartoon sing-along: Cliven Bundy's Home on the Range video.

And: "Stephen Colbert sings 'The Ballad of Cliven Bundy': 'His land belongs to you and me, that’s what he told Sean Hannity'.”

As you may already know, I loved the book Heaven Is for Real. I bought and gave away about 14 copies a year or so ago. Not everyone read it but I tried. Anyway, they have made a motion picture from the book and it is out right now. We went to see it today. It is very, very good. Even if you do not believe it really happened it would be a good movie to see. Take Kleenex.

An old man and woman were married for many years. Whenever there was a confrontation, yelling could be heard and the old man would shout, "When I die, I will dig my way up and out of the grave and come back and haunt you for the rest of your life!" Even neighbors feared him.
    He died of a heart attack at 98. After the burial, the neighbors , concerned for the wife safety, asked her "Aren't you afraid that he may indeed be able to dig his way out of the grave and haunt you for the rest of your life?"
    The wife said, "Let him dig. I had him buried upside down. And I know he won't ask for directions."

A classics professor goes to a tailor to get his trousers mended. The tailor asks: “Euripides?” The professor replies: “Yes. Eumenides?”

I am interested in diet because as I get older I see more and more people blindly hurting themselves with food because they put blind faith in medical doctors, who by and large perpetrate the illusion that food is unrelated to health.

Limerick of the Week:

There wasn't time to write a sestina,
nor to make haste slowly ("festina
    lente," as they used to say in Rome,
    or "more haste, less speed," we say at home),
so I made do with a modest trestina.

The emblem used since Roman times to illustrate festina lente

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Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean

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