January 2021

Kamala Devi Harris takes the oath of office to become the 49th Vice President of the United States on the Capital steps.

On his last full day in office, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that multiculturalism “is not who America is.”

He is wrong, of course. America has always been a multicultural nation. Our music, literature, art, and beautifully varied forms of worship make that clear. They’re all informed by the people who stepped forward to represent their cultures. They shared their experiences of growing up African, Asian, Latinx, Native, gay, bi, or transgendered.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — (**American Libraries Magazine***/photo by* **Elena Seibert**)

The day after Pompeo made his ridiculous statement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor—the first Latina on the Supreme Court—swore in Kamala Devi Harris as the 49^th Vice President of the United States. As Vice President, Harris will represent a whole new realm of possibilities for Black women, Asian women, women who are the children of immigrants, and just simply WOMEN of any color or background.

A woman who has frequently been told it “wasn’t the right time” for her to reach for a new career achievement, Harris simply says, “I eat ‘no’ for breakfast.”

What does it mean to represent?

Harris represents opportunities at the highest levels of government. But, if you look around, you’ll see that it’s important for people to represent themselves and their cultures at every level of society and in every field of endeavor.

Take Omar Thomas, for instance.

Thomas is a contemporary American composer who writes for symphonic and wind ensembles. Equally grounded in classical music and jazz, he has been lauded for bringing a fresh new voice to the stuffy and inbred symphony world.

Two photos of composer Omar Thomas — **Omar Thomas** *(L-R © 2017* **Omar Thomas Music**; **WASBE**)

If you want to meditate on the holy spirit, listen to the first movement of Thomas’ work, Come Sunday. If you want to stand up and dance, listen to Come Sunday’s second movement. Thomas dedicated the work, “To all the black musicians in wind ensemble who were given opportunity after opportunity to celebrate everyone else’s music but our own – I see you and I am you. This one’s for the culture!”

Thomas is far from the first Black American composer, but his impact on classical music caused conductors to re-evaluate music by earlier Black composers. So, for instance, Col. Jason K. Fettig, who conducts the United States Marine Band, slid Black composer Adolphus Hailstork’s Fanfare on Amazing Grace in among the Sousa marches and patriotic standards at the Biden/Harris inaugural ceremony.

Photos show the US Marine band playing at the 2021 Biden-Harris Inauguration, and composer Adolphus Hailstork. — *The US Marine Band played at the 2021 Inauguration. Col. Jason K. Fettig included music by Adolphus Hailstork in the performance. (L-R:* **USMC** **photo by Staff Sgt. Chase Baran** *via* **Daily Hampshire Gazette***; Adolphus Hailstork photo courtesy of* **Africlassical**).

Being the First

But what do you do if you are the first?

In 2007, a skinny sixteen-year-old London-born Indian kid had a ferocious argument with his mother. She wanted to take him to an open audition for a new teen drama on British TV. He argued it was pointless because there were no brown faces like his on British TV.

She dragged him to the audition anyway. After that, there was at least one brown face on the telly: his face.

A year later he snagged the lead role in a little indie film everybody thought was going straight to video release. But the movie got great word-of-mouth buzz. By the time he was eighteen, Slumdog Millionaire had ten Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. And Dev Patel’s brown face was plastered across busses and billboards all around the world.

A photo from the movie bears the title “Slumdog Millionaire.” — (**MovieKoop**)

Today, Patel has an ardent fan base throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He has begun to break out of the “exceptional Asian” roles. Now he turns up in what he calls “regular dude,” parts. You can catch him in TV shows like The Newsroom, and Modern Love.

In 2018 he snagged the classically British role of David Copperfield, in Armando Iannucci’s new film, The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Dev Patel as David Copperfield — *Dev Patel stars in the film The Personal History of David Copperfield. ©Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Searchlight Pictures (via* **the New York Times***. Photo by* **Dean Rogers**).

Perspective from Dev Patel

Patel is acutely aware of his responsibility to open the way for other non-White actors. “When you get to a place of privilege or success,” he says, “Make sure you send the elevator back down for your friends.”

Because, no matter what Mike Pompeo thinks, we are a multicultural nation. We are a multicultural world.

“We’re talking about humanity,” Patel says. “It’s a story about love. It’s a story about unification and diversity. There is room for stories like that.”

Gratitude for Those Who Represent

We should all be grateful for the Kamalas and Sonias, the Omars and the Devs, who step up to represent their realities. And if you don’t see yourself represented? Maybe it’s time you stepped up, too.

Dev Patel and Octavia Spencer share a laugh during their interview. — *Dev Patel and Octavia Spencer talk about representing their communities with **Variety**. This delightful interview with two outstanding actors is available in both* **video** *and* **article** *format. (***Art Streiber** *for* **Variety**)

IMAGE CREDITS:

Many thanks to AFP and WION for the photo of Vice President Kamala Harris’ swearing-in. We appreciate American Libraries Magazine and photographer Elena Seibert for the photo of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. We also thank Omar Thomas Music and WASBE for the photos of Omar Thomas.

Many thanks—for their service, their music, and their photo—to the United States Marine Corps Band, and photographer Staff Sgt. Chase Baran. Also, thanks to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, for the photo of the USMC Band. We also thank Africlassical for the photo of Adolphus Hailstork.

We thank MovieKoop for the Slumdog Millionaire movie banner. Thanks to Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Searchlight Pictures, the New York Times, and photographer Dean Rogers for the photo of Dev Patel as David Copperfield. And finally, thanks to Variety, as well as to YouTube for the video, and to photographer Art Streiber for the photo, of Dev Patel and Octavia Spencer.

This quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. says, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

What might Dr. King say to us today?

By jansgephardt

On January 20, 2021

In Creative Life, Cultural Diversity, Equity and Equality Issues, First responders, Holidays, Law Enforcement, Social Justice, USA Patriotism

In the wake of the holiday that honors him, I’ve been wondering “what might Dr. King say to us today?” The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a man whom many of us consider a moral beacon for the ages. His life ended more than fifty years ago, but we value moral beacons because their guidance transcends their own times.

We certainly could use a moral beacon right now. We’ve just lived through a year of historic tumult and upheaval. The pandemic has disrupted our lives on every imaginable level. We lived through a long summer of mass popular demonstrations against systemic racism. An incredibly divisive political season has so far crescendoed (at the time of this writing) into the spectacle of a thank-God-failed insurrection/coup d’état.

What might Dr. King say about all of this? It’s impossible (unless you believe in séances) to ask him directly. But some of the things he wrote and said point us toward his probable reading of some of today’s major recent events. If I tried to address all of today’s issues with his thoughts, this would be a very long post. Instead, I’ll focus on two top headlines of today.

What might Dr. King say about the insurrection at the Capitol?

Dr. King loved his country. Even though he opposed white supremacists in positions of power, he still could write, “the goal of America is freedom.” In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963) he cited “the American dream,” and the goal of “bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

The white supremacist mob that stormed the Capitol would have looked all too familiar to him. Their (literal and spiritual) parents and grandparents created the Jim Crow South where he focused his resistance work. Of their racist laws, he wrote, “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.”

As seen from directly above, an angry crowd of Trump supporters beat a Capitol Police officer who has fallen on his face on the Capitol steps. — *The insurrectionists attacked this police officer with a crutch, a night stick, fists, and assorted poles—including a pole attached to an American flag. (***WUSA9**)

He also would have condemned their violence. King decried “hate filled policemen [who] curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters,” but his whole life was devoted to nonviolence. He would have unequivocally decried assaults such as the one pictured above.

“Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace,” he wrote. Moreover, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

What might Dr. King say about the impact of the pandemic?

I think he would have been most outraged by the stark, enduring, inequalities the pandemic laid bare. The scourge of poverty, and the systemic racism he sought to dismantle all his life, roared into vivid prominence when COVID-19 pervaded the nation.

This chart, based on data from the American Community Survey of county public health departments, shows that rates of infection were much higher for Latinos and Blacks in San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Alameda Counties, and the death rate for Black people was almost double that of any other group. Latinos came in second. — *This chart captures a snapshot of data from May 5, 2020 that demonstrates the uneven impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different racial groups (***Todd Trumbull/San Francisco Chronicle**)

Unequal access to health care, environmental pollution in poor neighborhoods, and inadequate access to healthy nutrition in “food deserts” had already afflicted communities of color with higher rates of diseases and health conditions that made residents of these communities more vulnerable to the disease and its most virulent manifestations.

In this case, we don’t have to ask, “what might Dr. King say?” because we know he said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We know he advocated for “the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”

In 2020, we outgassed a lot of platitudes about the value of “essential workers,” many of whom are Black, Latinx, or Asian. But although they can’t work remotely and therefore court death each day they go to work, they often still don’t have adequate health coverage, and they weren’t in the earliest cohort of vaccine recipients, even though they were supposed to be near the front of the line.

A hallmark of capitalist systems is tiers of access, a hierarchy of who gets how much, of what quality, and when. As King put it, capitalism “has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he said, “There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.”

What might Dr. King say about where we go from here?

I think he’s left us plenty of guidance on that question, too. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools,” he warned. He also said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

“If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight,” he wrote from the Birmingham jail.

A Navajo Nation food bank. — *Native Americans of the Navajo Nation people, pick up supplies from a food bank. It was set up at the Navajo Nation town of Casamero Lake in New Mexico on May 20, 2020. (***Mark Ralston**/**AFP** *via* **Getty Images** *and* **ABC News**)

On a different occasion, he warned, “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

Let’s not be too late. After all, “The time is always right, to do what’s right.”

IMAGE and QUOTATIONS CREDITS:

IMAGES: Many thanks to WUSA 9, for the horrifying photo of the police officer being beaten by the insurrectionist mob at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. I’m grateful to graphic artist Todd Trumbull of the San Francisco Chronicle for the “Racial Disparities in COVID-19” chart from May 5, 2020. I also want to thank Mark Ralston of AFP via Getty Images and ABC News, for the May 20, 2020 photo of the relief station in the Navajo Nation. Many thanks also to Gecko & Fly, for the header image.

QUOTES: Many of these resources supplied overlapping quotes, while others offered new insights. For a deep dive into the wisdom and sayings of Dr. King, I appreciate Christian Animal Ethics, The African Studies Center of the University of Pennsylvania (complete text of Letter from a Birmingham Jail), Gecko & Fly, Food for the Hungry, In These Times, and Common Dreams.

This montage of images from the riot at the Capitol shows insurgents pushing past police barricades, roaming the halls of Congress in their extremist costumes and T-shirts, taking photos in the Rotunda, and milling in a hallway in a cloud of tear gas.

The Riot at the US Capitol

By jansgephardt

On January 13, 2021

In First Amendment Series, Law Enforcement, Response to Disasters, Social Justice, USA Patriotism, Weird Sisters Publishing, Workplace issues

So much for 2021 being a quieter year than 2020! “Weird Sisters” Jan S. Gephardt and G. S. Norwood both posted pleasant, hopeful blog posts early in the day on January 6, 2021.

In what feels like an image from an alternate reality, a beautiful golden sunrise forms the backdrop for block numbers “202.” In place of the “1,” the silhouette of a young woman stands with her arms up as if in joyous greeting to the new year — **Romolo Tavani/123rf**

They went live before the treasonous terrorist riot at the US Capitol. But this week we couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened. The riot at the US Capitol might not have had the same death toll as 9/11, but we will always remember that day.

Eventually, you’ll see the posts we originally planned to run this week. But this week we need to speak out—especially after we posted so often on First Amendment issues through the summer of 2020.

G. S. Norwood on the Riot at the US Capitol

Man, did that blog post become obsolete in a big hurry!

I had no sooner posted a sweet little blog entry last Wednesday—all about New Year’s traditions and starting off on the right foot—than angry mobs of far-right extremists were sacking the US Capitol building and trying to overthrow our democracy. Congressional Representatives and Senators were terrorized, art and historical artifacts were damaged or destroyed, blood and other bodily substances were smeared around those hallowed halls . . . And five people died.

In case I have to spell it out, a seditious uprising is NOT the right way to start the new year.

The shock is still wearing off for me. Yes, I know there are dangerous white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and just flat whacko groups out there. I wrote about some of them back in October, when they marched on the Weatherford, Texas, square. I know that a lot of people refused to accept the results of the November 3 presidential election, and were fighting it tooth and claw through the legal channels of the courts.

Worst losers ever

I also understand that President Trump is a monumentally poor loser who will probably still be insisting that he won by a landslide 100 years after he’s dead. The disembodied voice will whine up from his grave on the nights of the full moon.

But never in a million years did I expect to see a mob of armed rebels storm the halls of the Capitol. Never. Not in a million years.

So much for my powers of prognostication.

This montage of images from the riot at the Capitol shows the Trumpist mob scrambling up the steps of the Capitol Building, and three scenes of reactions by staff and Congress Members trying to protect themselves from the violent invasion. — *Barbarians storm the gates: Clockwise from upper left, the Trumpist mob jams the stairs outside the Capitol (***Ricky Carioti**/**The Washington Post***); Congressional staffers don gas masks against the tear gas (***Andrew Harnik/AP***, via* **The Washington Post***); other staffers use heavy furniture to bar the door as they shelter in place (***Amanda Voisard***/for* **The Washington Post***); Members of the House of Representatives and their staffers hunker down behind whatever they can in fear for their lives (***Andrew Harnik/AP***, via* **The Washington Post**).

Fantasy, meet Reality

Here’s the bottom line for me: I may write urban fantasy, but I believe in reality. I particularly believe in reality-based political action. Any party that spins fantasies to justify policies to hurt real people in the real world has lost my vote. We have a lot of problems to deal with in our pluralistic society, but deciding the winner of the November 3, 2020, election isn’t one of them.

People stand socially-distanced in line to vote in Baltimore. — Residents of Baltimore City line up to cast their votes in the U.S. Presidential and local congressional elections at Carver Vocational Technical School on November 03, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by **J. Countess**/**Getty Images***, via* **Pew Research Center**).

The election was held as outlined in our Constitution. It’s done. It’s over. Every precinct, every county, every state across our nation certified that the elections they oversaw were secure and the results were accurate. State officials—Republican and Democratic—accepted those results. Local, state, and federal courts accepted those results. All the Constitutional requirements have been met. The Electoral College voted and, now, those votes have been accepted by the joint Congress of the United States.

We cannot allow lies and whining and temper tantrums—even oft-repeated ones; even from the highest elected officials of the land—to overrule our laws. Keep repeating that. We are a nation of laws, and everybody—even the whiners, the pouters, the arrogant asses, and the violent malcontents—must abide by the law or suffer the consequences.

Jan S. Gephardt on the Riot at the US Capitol

Were you surprised by the events of January 6, 2021 and the riot at the Capitol, as Senator Pat Toomey said he was, on Meet the Press the Sunday after? Some were, apparently. Such as—allegedly—the Capitol Police.

Many in Washington D.C. were struck by the disparity this image conveys: 1,100 National Guardsmen and hundreds of Federal Law Enforcement officers for the Trump rally that turned into a well-planned assault on the US Capitol, versus 5,000 National Guardsmen and 1,600 Active Duty Troops called for mostly-peaceful Black Lives Matter protests last June. — *Compare the responses. The difference is glaring (***WUSA 9** *photo montage)*

I don’t know what planet they live on, because we were warned. We were warned in a hundred ways, large and small. “very fine people on both sides” warned us. The plot to kidnap Governor Widmer warned us. “Stand back and stand by” warned us. The “Biden bus incident” warned us.

Every single Trump rally warned us, or should have. Breaking norms (“Lock her up!” for political adversaries). Ignoring common decency (Disability met with mockery). Ignoring Constitutional limits (Journalists threatened). Flouting science (mask-less super-spreader events).

Death by a thousand cuts

Bit by bit, we grew inured. Jaded. Immune to being shocked. I know many of us tried to hold onto our sense of “What is normal?” in the face of so. Much. Contrarian. Intransigence.

Politically incorrect was suddenly correct, and a badge of “original thinking” (as if falling into clichés was ever original). Up is down, green is red, and right is wrong in Trump World (Michael Cohen calls it “MAGAstan.”)

Aerial view of the Mar-a-Lago Club. — *Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, FL. (***Getty Images, via Town & Country**).

Lies—Trump has told well north of 20,000 lies, in the course of his presidency, according to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker. He was averaging 50 false or misleading claims per day, by last October. This is a political tactic. It even has a name: Bury them in Bullsh**t.

Somewhere in the massive loads of bullsh**t, we and the truth got buried.

Lie by lie by lie, the Truth dies, and all we have left are “alternative facts.” At which point, sure! Why not? A cannibalistic child-porn ring can hold orgies in the basement of a pizza parlor without a basement, and the most secure election in US history can spawn virulent, persistent claims of voter fraud.

What’s ahead?

If we manage to get through the week or so until the Inauguration without further bloodshed, it will be a miracle.

That’s not just my opinion—many in law enforcement agree. At the FBI’s January 12 press conference about the riot at the Capitol, they stressed they have already started more than 100 investigations. In the weeks and months ahead they anticipate hundreds—even thousands—more. And we’re already getting warnings of new threats.

Because bit by bit, lie by lie, unseemly thing by unseemly thing, thousands of Americans have come to believe the crazy. That autocracy is better than democracy. That white supremacy is a virtuous cause. And that they have the right to “take back” what never was theirs in the first place.

It’s up to the rest of us, in solidarity, to show them how wrong they are.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Oh, wow, do we ever have a lot of people to thank this time. We appreciate Romolo Tavani of 123rf, for the greeting to 2021. Many, many thanks to The Washington Post, as well as Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, Jim Lo Scalzo, EPA–EFE, Shutterstock, Ricky Carioti, Andrew Harnik/AP, and Amanda Voisard, as well as Irish Times, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney on Twitter), and Saul Loeb/AFP for the photos in the two montages from the riot at the US Capital.

We also thank Jemal Countess, Getty Images, and the Pew Research Center, for the photo of people in line to vote in Baltimore; WUSA 9, for the graphic comparing the responses in June 2020 and January 2021; and Getty Images, via Town & Country, for the photo of Mar-a-Lago.

This quote from the Dalai Lama says, “If we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster!”

After disaster, now what?

By jansgephardt

On January 6, 2021

In Artdog Quote of the Week, Response to Disasters, Social Justice, USA Patriotism, Visions of the Future

This New Year’s season feels to me a bit like climbing out of the rubble after disaster has struck. I don’t think I’ll get much pushback about whether 2020 qualifies as a disaster. The worst part is that the disaster’s not finished with us.

Those certainly are not the jolliest New Year’s reflections ever shared, but here we are. The painful joke about hitting bottom and then starting to dig definitely applies to 2021, so far.

This quote from author Chuck Palahniuk says, “Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.” — **Quotefancy**

Already starting to dig

COVID-19 just added two frightening, virulent mutations to the mix. Vaccine distribution hasn’t gone smoothly. The predicted spike in infections from Christmas travel has only begun to hit, but many hospitals are already overwhelmed.

Although the countdown on homicides resets at the turn of the year, here in the Kansas City metro area we had two homicide deaths on New Year’s Day alone, after a record high in 2020. Just as bad, two persons experiencing homelessness were found dead from exposure during the holiday weekend. My home metro area is not alone. Homicides are up all over the country. So is homelessness, which has been extra-dangerous during the pandemic, even before winter started.

And speaking of the weather, if you think 2020 had a high number of natural disasters (it did), climate scientists warn that things will only get worse. Gosh, have I cheered you up yet?

This quote from Mandy Hale says, “Change can be scary, but you know what’s scarier? Allowing fear to stop you from growing, evolving, and progressing.” — **Everyday Power**

Are we “growing, evolving, and progressing”?

I think that’s actually on us to decide. It’s easy to let the gloom and doom suck us down. After the pandemic hit, depression in the US tripled. COVID-19 disrupted mental health services all over the globe, so you know that misery had company worldwide. And goodness knows after disaster upon disaster, we had things to be depressed about.

But some of us were able to find opportunities despite all the disruption. Some of my artist friends found they had more time to focus on larger, more ambitious projects, or on building new relationships with companies that wanted to license their images for hot new trends such as jigsaw puzzles.

People became more focused on locally-owned small businesses. Websites such as Independent We Stand, with a robust local business search function, helped us reconnoiter.

It became kind of a civic duty among some of my friends to buy local, order carry-out from their favorite restaurants more often, or order from their favorite local bookstore (and incidentally save the cost of shipping), then swing by in person to pick up their purchases. IndieBound and Bookshop bolstered those efforts online.

This quote from John D. Rockefeller says, “I always tried to turn every disaster into and opportunity.” — **BrainyQuote**

Some of us got newly active; let’s never be complacent again

Famously, 2020 was the year when millions of white people could no longer ignore the crippling racial disparities in our country, and when millions of people from all backgrounds took to the streets about it. Income inequality and health care disparities were part of it, but police violence riveted our attention more.

The George Floyd murder—8 full minutes and 48 seconds of despair and agony playing out on video under the knee of an uncaring white cop—provided the catalyst for protests against police brutality and racism, not just in the United States but all over the world.

This quote from Catherine the Great says, “I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.” — **BrainyQuote**

We in the US are far from the only country with a race problem, but our history means in many ways we’re still fighting the Civil War. And we’re woefully far from being “post-racial.”

No honest person could deny that fact, after the summer of 2020. How do we fix it? It won’t be a quick fix, that’s for sure. Despite record sales of books about anti-racism, there are still plenty of bigots walking around (whether they realize it or not).

And it’s not up to white people to step in and take over the “fixing.” That may surprise some of us who are not as “woke” as we think we are. It is up to us to extend a hand of friendship. To listen—really listen—to Black and brown people. And then to work in partnership with POC leaders who’ve been doing this for a long time already. They already know lots more than any latecomers have even thought of, yet.

Traditions in a time of turmoil

My sister wrote a great post for The Weird Blog this week, about New Year’s traditions and her unique spin on them. I think she has a good philosophy, about taking what works for you or adapting familiar ideas to new situations.

I’ve heard that a lot of people are adjusting their new year’s resolutions in response to recent events, opting for wiser, less stereotypical choices.

With this post, I’m reviving a tradition that I allowed to lapse in 2020, but I’m bringing it back in a new form. After my schedule grew too busy to continue my old practice of writing 2-3 blog posts each week, I reluctantly dropped the “Quote of the Week” and “Image of Interest” features. I simply didn’t have time. Alert followers of Artdog Adventures likely saw it coming, but I made it official in April.

Those posts got a lot of love over the years, though. And I missed them too! So I’m going to try a “Quotes of the Month” approach in 2021. That starts with this “After disaster” post you’re just finishing here. I plan, as much as possible, to make the first post of each month an essay-with-quote-images (and hope that effort won’t be a disaster). Please let me know what you think of them!

IMAGE CREDITS:

Many thanks for the illustrated quote from author Chuck Palahniuk, to Quotefancy. I’m grateful to Everyday Power for the quote from author Mandy Hale. Many thanks to BrainyQuote for the wisdom from industrialist John D. Rockefeller, and also for the quote from Russian empress Catherine the Great. Finally, many thanks to Picture Quotes, for the words of His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Nurturing creativity with art, animals, and science fiction

Month: January 2021

Month: January 2021

Why We Need to Represent

By G. S. Norwood

What does it mean to represent?

Being the First

Perspective from Dev Patel

Gratitude for Those Who Represent

IMAGE CREDITS:

What might Dr. King say to us today?

What might Dr. King say about the insurrection at the Capitol?

What might Dr. King say about the impact of the pandemic?

What might Dr. King say about where we go from here?

IMAGE and QUOTATIONS CREDITS:

The Riot at the US Capitol

G. S. Norwood on the Riot at the US Capitol

Worst losers ever

Fantasy, meet Reality

Jan S. Gephardt on the Riot at the US Capitol

Death by a thousand cuts

What’s ahead?

IMAGE CREDITS:

After disaster, now what?

Already starting to dig

Are we “growing, evolving, and progressing”?

Some of us got newly active; let’s never be complacent again

Traditions in a time of turmoil

IMAGE CREDITS: