This will link you to my post last year on Juneteenth. I tried to include a variety of views and thoughts.
I made the decision not to do new content this year for the simple reason to encourage you to search out Black voices about today and what it meant in history and what it means today.
As I see things posted, I may return and link them below.
Today Wednesday is was World Otter Day. Everyday should be World Otter Day!
Apparently, I had the wrong date in my planner and this makes me sad. My kids, my son especially have had an obsession with otters for several years now. There is a beaver near where we live, and for the longest time, my son called him an otter. When we explained that it was a beaver, he continued to call it an otter….or a skinny beaver. We see him throughout the spring, summer, and part of fall.
When my daughter and I went to Florida a couple of years ago for my aunt’s 95th birthday celebration we went to Flamingo Gardens where we saw real, live otters. We were so excited. They were enthralling.
Two years later, this past February, right before the pandemic, my son was able to go their with my husband and see the same otters. He was thrilled.
I thought I would share this video that I took in 2017, and I also wanted to encourage everyone to check out the work of the International Otter Survival World Fund (IOSF) and donate if you can.
Pope Francis invites us to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si’, his encyclical on our common home:
Catholic News reported in March about this week long celebration, and the week, beginning today and ending on the 24th with prayer has many activities to do at home and with other groups virtually relating to our home, the planet Earth and some of the ways we can enjoy, respect, and take care of her.
Laudato Si’ Week Activities can be found here. This site has many other resources for you to use. The prayer card for the final day (May 24) can be downloaded and/or printed from here. The prayer is to be said at noon in your local time.
The following graphic is provided by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg. I will be posting reminders of their activities on the mornings of each one. I hope you can find the time to attend at least one. If you can’t, try to get out in nature and see the earth with new eyes.
Activities for Laudato Si’ Week from RCDONY. (c)2020
These are fun things I’ve found online from a variety of people, famous and not, offering their talents while we all stay at home and flatten the curve. Please enjoy.
Do What You Can – new song from Jon Bon Jovi. Write and sing the second verse and post on social media with the hashtag: #DoWhatYouCan
Hamilton OBC Reunion on Some Good News
My Free Bingo Cards (Make your own Bingo Cards)
The Broadway Coronavirus Medley – from Zach Timson
Social Distance – a parody by Randy Rainbow – check out his other videos on YouTube
Follow @avantgame on Twitter for a Stay at Home Daily Challenge similar to a scavenger hunt.
Will Smith et al on The Graham Norton Show (2013) This never fails to make me grin from ear to ear. It is the definition of feel good.
Neil Patrick Harris – 2013 Tonys Opening Number
Your Moment of Zen – Hiking, Stream, Woods (Video)
Follow Patrick Stewart on Facebook and he will read a sonnet from Shakespeare daily.
LeVar Burton reads Chivalry by Neil Gaiman
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Plays “Ode to Joy” from their Homes
Daniel Matarazzo on You Tube – he has two Coronavirus Parody songs
Rick Springfield Sings (No) Human Touch
Radio Free Burrito: Wil Wheaton Reads Star Mother (Soundcloud)
Wash Your Hands by Lin-Manuel Miranda
From the NE Ohio Sewer Service: Is it Flushable? Ask them on Twitter and they will answer. As useful as it is fun.
Text the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and they will reply with an SMS message to your phone with a related picture. Text “Send me ____” to 57251. Fill in the blank, and see what they send!
My Dad Looks like the Food Critic in Ratatoille
Andy Slavitt’s Twitter Thread: The Best of Us
Dr. Anthony Fauci receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, 2008. Getty Image. (c)2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the NIAID, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, a part of the NIH, the National Institute of Health for the US Government. He has been in that position since 1984 and has worked as Director successfully with six Presidents, both Democrats and Repulicans. You may have seen him at various press conferences, coronavirus task force updates, and in television interviews. Here are a few more things if you want to read about him and his response and outlook for this unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak. He has been serving in a public health capacity for over fifty years.
A Conversation with Dr. Fauci (at Regis HS President’s Dinner)
Facebook Live with Mark Zuckerberg
Interview with comedian, Desus Nice
A Reflection Written by Anthony Fauci (how his faith informs him as a doctor) (Photos on a Twitter timeline)
Interview with Dr. Fauci on MSNBC (aired April 12, 2020)
Vanity Fair: Anthony Fauci on the New Rules of Living with Coronavirus
From Crooked Media:
Time travel.
Love it or hate it, it will give you a headache.
I think the most apt description I’ve ever found for time are a combination of Quantum Leap which relies on the string theory that time is like a ball of yarn and you can jump from one to the other, and Doctor Who where time is a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ball of stuff, which really sums it up nicely and succinctly.
I thought there were many more time travel episodes in the Supernatural universe, and I could only remember about five. The rest that were in my head were more of flashbacks, which aren’t time travel per se, but in doing my research in the Supernatural wiki, I saw that they counted twelve, which I will list here even though there are a couple that I didn’t particularly consider them for my personal list. For example, in As Time Goes By, Henry Winchester travels forward from 1958 to 2013 and in Lebanon John Winchester travels to current day Kansas despite his being dead canonically. I was looking for the episodes where the brothers traveled through time.
At any rate, these all have something to love, and yes, they will still give you a headache.
1. In the Beginning [4.03]
2. The End [5.04]
3. The Song Remains the Same [5.13]
4. My Heart Will Go On [6.17]
5. Frontierland [6.18]
6. The Man Who Would Be King [6.20]
7. Time After Time [7.12]
8. As Time Goes By [8.12]
9. King of the Damned [9.21]
10. The Vessel [11.14]
11. Family Feud [12.13]
12. Lebanon [14.13]
This film won for best short at last week’s Oscars. It is well worth your time to watch this beautiful movie.
Juneteenth is a celebration of African-American Emancipation. It commemorates the day in 1865 in Texas that General Gordon Granger read the proclamation declaring that ALL SLAVES ARE FREE. While Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 with an effective date of January 1, 1863 that did not include border states not in rebellion or Texas where slaveowners moved to escape the fighting (unless these slaves escaped to non-slave states).
Now, they were all free with all the rights and privileges of all Americans (except of course for the reality of being Black in America in 1865).
One year later, in 1866, Freedmen celebrated the first anniversary of Juneteenth in Texas.
Contending with whites only spaces that continued for too many years, many pooled their money to buy land of their own in order to congregate and celebrate. Emancipation Park in Houston, Booker T. Washington Park in Mexia, and Emancipation Park in Austin are three of these places.
While celebrated in several states as a recognized holiday or observance, the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation is seeking an official designation of Juneteenth as an observation in all 50 states through Congress.
What is Juneteenth by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Slate (from 2015): The Black American Holiday Everyone Should Celebrate But Doesn’t
Juneteenth Honors March to Freedom (from 2008)
From the television series, Black-ish:
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 