Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Second rate reporter says what?

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Lift Off! Donovan Livingston Inspires

Lift Off! Donovan Livingston Inspires

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Text of his spoken word poem:

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin,
Is a great equalizer of the conditions of men.” – Horace Mann, 1848.
At the time of his remarks I couldn’t read — couldn’t write.
Any attempt to do so, punishable by death.
For generations we have known of knowledge’s infinite power.
Yet somehow, we’ve never questioned the keeper of the keys —
The guardians of information.

Note to self, NEVER read the comments at YouTube.

I was in the 7th grade, when Ms. Parker told me,
“Donovan, we can put your excess energy to good use!”
And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.
She gave me a stage. A platform.
She told me that our stories are ladders
That make it easier for us to touch the stars.
So climb and grab them.
Keep climbing. Grab them.
Spill your emotions in the big dipper and pour out your soul.
Light up the world with your luminous allure.

To educate requires Galileo-like patience.
Today, when I look my students in the eyes, all I see are constellations.
If you take the time to connect the dots,
You can plot the true shape of their genius —
Shining in their darkest hour.

We were born to be comets…. (full text here)

I thought we could use a little inspiration to go into the weekend.

Open thread.

ETA: Regarding Authors In Our Midst, I have enough for one more post, but as I was reading through the previous posts there were quite a few others who mentioned their projects in the comments. It was too overwhelming to pull them from the comments, but if anyone wants to be highlighted in the next post, send me cover art, blurb of your work and link to where we can find it. Email is Whats4DinnerSolutions (at) live (dot) com.

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    As comets endlessly travel in a circle (okay, an ellipse) until they expire, am not particularly moved by the analogy.

    YMMV.

  4. 4.

    mental.masala

    Beautiful story on PBS Newshour about service dogs that are helping children cope with the very difficult courtroom situation of testifying about their abuse. The featured dogs serve in the Riverside County court system:

    Getting child crime victims to open up is never easy for investigators and asking them to tell their stories to a jury can be brutally traumatizing. To help these kids overcome their fears, some courtrooms across the country are employing comfort dogs, canine companions who take the stand alongside them to calm and bolster their spirits. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports.

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/meet-the-courtroom-dogs-who-help-child-crime-victims-tell-their-stories/

  5. 5.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    I know I shouldn’t infest a new thread with Trump but I just cannot believe Trump is a major candidate in this country. I think I would never see a worse candidate than Dumbya. And watching Scott Adams on Bill Maher scared the shit out of me. Trump really seems to be using Hitlerism/hypnotism to win this election. I try to remember the 2012 electoral map to give me comfort but OMG President Trump sounds very possible and I am not an Andy Sullivan pants on fire kind of person.

  6. 6.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    I listened to this week’s Snap Judgement podcast on TuneIn. #NowPlaying http://tun.in/thqV4W
    They interviewed one of Mark Sanford’s aides during the Appalachian hike period and it’s just really funny. I had forgotten how surreal the whole thing was. I wonder why HBO or Netflix hasn’t done a movie about it.

  14. 14.

    Central Planning

    Race day today. I’m in a men’s 8 at the local regatta. It will be the third time we’re rowing together so it should be interesting. I’m hoping for not last.

    We have 3 yoots in the boat which is really throwing off our handicap. Average age of one of the boats is 62. We’re at 41, and some recent college grads are fielding a boat… They’re average age is 22. :o

  15. 15.

    Boidica

    @NotMax: Be prepared for many complaints of “the system is rigged” after he loses. Not that we’ll care.

  17. 17.

    Gian

    my grandfather, who fled the WVA coal mines used to say “education is the one thing they can’t take away from you” or something close.

    he did lose part of a couple fingers. used to read three newspapers a day

  18. 18.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Scott Adams is a crank who has bought into a version of pickup-artist/neurolinguistic programming theory because it dovetails with his notions of Will altering reality itself, and also with his sense of himself as far smarter than the masses. In 2008 he was going around saying that McCain was going to win in a landslide because the average schmuck was just too racist to vote for a black man, and he was sorry but that was just the way reality was.

    Trump is indeed trying a version of the old Hitler playbook, but it’s not unbeatable.

  19. 19.

    imonlylurking

    I wish there was a wiki for all of the really talented balloon-juicers. So those of us who like to support talent could find everything in one place. How hard would that be to put together?

  24. 24.

    Central Planning

    @Big R: yup! We didn’t place but we were happy with our performance. Only the 3rd time rowing together

  25. 25.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Felanius Kootea: When the very first line makes you go WTF, its hard to get into rest of the poem, brilliant though it might be.

    As NotMax pointed out, comets have highly elliptical orbits. Halley was able to calculate the period of the comet which was later named after him using Newton’s work on classical mechanics. So motion of the comets is periodic just like those of the planets in the solar system. So the very first analogy in the poem doesn’t make much sense. This is basically high school level physics, not some fancy stuff.

  27. 27.

    nutella

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Scott Adams is a crank

    Yeah. Remember when he used to be funny? Before we knew he was an MRA and a white supremacist.

    The first red flag was the helpful explanation in one of his earlier books about how affirmations work. That’s when I knew he was a dope but I was surprised to find out later that he’s a dangerous dope.

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