The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 have said they will participate in the protest next Wednesday [Oct. 5].
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
SEIU brothers and sisters join Occupy Wall Street
For everything (even 9/11) there is a season
As always, the arts were front and center during this morning’s televised tenth anniversary of trying to make sense of 9/11.
Performances by choirs and singer/songwriters and classical musicians punctuated the reading of the names at the Twin Towers memorial. Each of the politicians who spoke referenced a poem or a Biblical verse, which is another type of poetry. You might even say that the reading of the names is a very long epic poem. The readers themselves ended their recitations by remembering their loved one who died on 9/11. A short personal haiku amidst the epic poem.
Former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani read the verse from Ecclesiastes that was put to song (“Turn, Turn, Turn”) by anti-war and environmental activist Pete Seeger in 1959 and made famous among non-Bible readers in 1965 by rock-era legends The Byrds.
After Giuliani’s speech, Paul Simon sang "The Sound of Silence" accompanied only by his guitar. Simon began composing the song after the Kennedy assassination. It became one of the standards of Simon & Garfunkel performances and nearly every young person alive in the sixties knew the words. This morning, Simon’s words and guitar chords echoed eerily off of the big buildings still under construction. His words argue that “silence like a cancer grows” and many prophetic warnings are gobbled up by the sounds of silence. Sounds a little bit like what we’ve seen the past 10 years in the U.S. The silence, however, is really the sounds of millions of screaming voices blaring out of the Tower of Babel worlds of the Internet and Cable TV.
The famous hymn “Amazing Grace” was performed by flautist Emi Ferguson. “Amazing Grace” was co-written by repentant slave ship sailor John Newton and renowned British poet William Cowper. It’s now performed often on bagpipes, notably at the funerals of fire fighters and soldiers. I heard many pipe band renditions of this standard over the weekend at the Scottish Irish Highland Festival in Estes Park.
It’s no namby-pamby verse. The author is crying out in anguish, thanking God’s “amazing grace” for saving “a wretch like me.” This takes humility. This takes courage. Something that we saw plenty of in those who gave their lives for others on 9/11/01.
Performances by choirs and singer/songwriters and classical musicians punctuated the reading of the names at the Twin Towers memorial. Each of the politicians who spoke referenced a poem or a Biblical verse, which is another type of poetry. You might even say that the reading of the names is a very long epic poem. The readers themselves ended their recitations by remembering their loved one who died on 9/11. A short personal haiku amidst the epic poem.
Former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani read the verse from Ecclesiastes that was put to song (“Turn, Turn, Turn”) by anti-war and environmental activist Pete Seeger in 1959 and made famous among non-Bible readers in 1965 by rock-era legends The Byrds.
Ecclesiates 3 1-8This only seems to emphasize the fact that, while poems and music and Biblical verses bring some comfort and understanding to tragedy, they don't seem to make grief any easier to bear. Sometimes they bring up issues that still desperately need to be faced.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
After Giuliani’s speech, Paul Simon sang "The Sound of Silence" accompanied only by his guitar. Simon began composing the song after the Kennedy assassination. It became one of the standards of Simon & Garfunkel performances and nearly every young person alive in the sixties knew the words. This morning, Simon’s words and guitar chords echoed eerily off of the big buildings still under construction. His words argue that “silence like a cancer grows” and many prophetic warnings are gobbled up by the sounds of silence. Sounds a little bit like what we’ve seen the past 10 years in the U.S. The silence, however, is really the sounds of millions of screaming voices blaring out of the Tower of Babel worlds of the Internet and Cable TV.
The famous hymn “Amazing Grace” was performed by flautist Emi Ferguson. “Amazing Grace” was co-written by repentant slave ship sailor John Newton and renowned British poet William Cowper. It’s now performed often on bagpipes, notably at the funerals of fire fighters and soldiers. I heard many pipe band renditions of this standard over the weekend at the Scottish Irish Highland Festival in Estes Park.
It’s no namby-pamby verse. The author is crying out in anguish, thanking God’s “amazing grace” for saving “a wretch like me.” This takes humility. This takes courage. Something that we saw plenty of in those who gave their lives for others on 9/11/01.
Karen Cotton's New York City photos on display at Clay Paper Scissors Gallery starting Sept. 8
I've known the multitalented Karen Cotton for ten years. She's not only a fine musician and writer, but this Green River native has a warm spot in her heart for New York City.
In honor of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Clay Paper Scissors Gallery & Studio will present “New York City: Rising from the Ashes.” This exhibit features photographs by Karen Cotton taken four years after the attack on New York City’s Twin Towers. The mix of images combines the vibrant resiliency of New York with haunting images of ground zero, and memorials.
In honor of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Clay Paper Scissors Gallery & Studio will present “New York City: Rising from the Ashes.” This exhibit features photographs by Karen Cotton taken four years after the attack on New York City’s Twin Towers. The mix of images combines the vibrant resiliency of New York with haunting images of ground zero, and memorials.
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Opening reception is Thursday, Sept. 8, 5-8 p.m./, as part of the Art Design and Dine art walk. A second reception will be held during the next AD&D night on Oct. 13. The exhibit continues through Oct. 23.
The gallery is located at 1506 Thomes Ave., Suite B. It's in a renovated historic warehouse off of 15yth Street across from the railyards. Open every Saturday from 1-5 p.m. or by appointment. Call 307-631-6039.
The Irish diaspora brought us The Great Shame and -- for many -- much better lives
Looking for some especially depressing books to read during St. Patrick's Day week, I chose The Great Shame, and the triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking world by Thomas Keneally. Keneally is an Australian of Irish descent who wrote such great books as Schindler's List, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and To Asmara. I've met Keneally several times and he looks a bit like a leprechaun (see book jacket). A leprechaun who can write!
It's an old story. Irish peasant gets sideways with his landlord, goes to jail and is convicted, and eventually is deported to Australia. Hugh Larkin was his ancestor who was shipped away in chains and, strangely enough, into a better life. He missed the Great Potato Famine, for one thing. There were jailers and landlords in Australia but not nearly so many. A man with grit and wit could make it there.
That's what so many Irish found during the diaspora. If they survived.
Thomas O'Shea, who somewhere along the line changed his surname to Shay, was born in County Clare, Ireland, on Dec. 20, 1815. He died in Clear Creek Township in Johnson County, Iowa, on May 14, 1879. According to his very precise gravestone at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Iowa City, he was "63 years, 4 mos, and 24 days." Not sure about the hours and minutes.
His wife was Ann (Anna, Annie) Agnes Burns, born somewhere in Ireland about 1825. My daughter Annie bears her name. My daughter was born on March 9, 1993, in Cheyenne in County Laramie, USA. Wonder how much of the Irish Annie is in our Annie? She's stubborn as hell and beautiful and smart. I wonder if she would have made it to the U.S. intact from famine-ravaged Ireland. I think so.
Annie and Thomas emigrated around 1850. It could have been earlier. But the cause is clear -- threat of starvation. The 1850 New York census shows Thomas Shay, 30, and Annie Shay, 23, living with their three children in Brockport in Monroe County, just a bit west of Rochester. The family left for Iowa about 1859, just in time to avoid most of the Civil War.
The 1870 federal census records show that Thomas Shay owned real estate worth $4,000 in Clear Creek Township, Iowa. It was 96 acres. He and Annie, 43, now had eight children. The youngest was Michael, 6. The family owned three horses, four mules, four milk cows, four "other cattle," and 18 swine. He and his family farmed wheat, corn, oats and (of course) "Irish potatoes." They harvested 15 tons of hay and produced 300 pounds of butter and 30 gallons of molasses.
Beats the hell out of eating weeds or grass, the only crops growing in the Irish countryside. Not an easy journey across the ocean and across half of the country. But, in the end, Thomas probably thought it was worth it.
Ann Burns Shay was buried next to her husband in 1909. By then, her youngest son Michael's first-born son Raymond was 16. Raymond's son Thomas was born in 1923 and, after he married Anna Marie Shay in February, 1950, I was born 10 months later.
There are many family stories mixed in with the data. And so many relatives named Michael and Patrick and Molly. Show a little imagination people! Our names are traded like baseball cards. My father was named after his great-grandfather Thomas from Ireland and his uncle Thomas, who died in 1918 from the Spanish flu. He was in the Iowa National Guard at the time with his older brother Ray. They were in France with the AEF. More Johnson County boys died of the flu than died in battle during World War I.
My middle name is Thomas. I have a younger brother Thomas. We call him Tom or Tommy. I have a nephew Thomas who is trying to get into medical school. My sister Molly is his mother.
We've done pretty well here in the States. My parents never traveled to Ireland to look up relatives. Neither did I. Maybe we're beyond that. The Republic of Ireland, until recently, was known as the Celtic Tiger and some Americans of Irish descent traveled back to The Old Sod to work. They may be back soon.
Happy St. Patrick's Day on Thursday.
I'll raise a pint to the dear departed -- here's to you, Pat! -- the living, and all those Michaels and Annies and Patricks and Mollys yet to come.
It's an old story. Irish peasant gets sideways with his landlord, goes to jail and is convicted, and eventually is deported to Australia. Hugh Larkin was his ancestor who was shipped away in chains and, strangely enough, into a better life. He missed the Great Potato Famine, for one thing. There were jailers and landlords in Australia but not nearly so many. A man with grit and wit could make it there.
That's what so many Irish found during the diaspora. If they survived.
Thomas O'Shea, who somewhere along the line changed his surname to Shay, was born in County Clare, Ireland, on Dec. 20, 1815. He died in Clear Creek Township in Johnson County, Iowa, on May 14, 1879. According to his very precise gravestone at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Iowa City, he was "63 years, 4 mos, and 24 days." Not sure about the hours and minutes.
His wife was Ann (Anna, Annie) Agnes Burns, born somewhere in Ireland about 1825. My daughter Annie bears her name. My daughter was born on March 9, 1993, in Cheyenne in County Laramie, USA. Wonder how much of the Irish Annie is in our Annie? She's stubborn as hell and beautiful and smart. I wonder if she would have made it to the U.S. intact from famine-ravaged Ireland. I think so.
Annie and Thomas emigrated around 1850. It could have been earlier. But the cause is clear -- threat of starvation. The 1850 New York census shows Thomas Shay, 30, and Annie Shay, 23, living with their three children in Brockport in Monroe County, just a bit west of Rochester. The family left for Iowa about 1859, just in time to avoid most of the Civil War.
The 1870 federal census records show that Thomas Shay owned real estate worth $4,000 in Clear Creek Township, Iowa. It was 96 acres. He and Annie, 43, now had eight children. The youngest was Michael, 6. The family owned three horses, four mules, four milk cows, four "other cattle," and 18 swine. He and his family farmed wheat, corn, oats and (of course) "Irish potatoes." They harvested 15 tons of hay and produced 300 pounds of butter and 30 gallons of molasses.
Beats the hell out of eating weeds or grass, the only crops growing in the Irish countryside. Not an easy journey across the ocean and across half of the country. But, in the end, Thomas probably thought it was worth it.
Ann Burns Shay was buried next to her husband in 1909. By then, her youngest son Michael's first-born son Raymond was 16. Raymond's son Thomas was born in 1923 and, after he married Anna Marie Shay in February, 1950, I was born 10 months later.
There are many family stories mixed in with the data. And so many relatives named Michael and Patrick and Molly. Show a little imagination people! Our names are traded like baseball cards. My father was named after his great-grandfather Thomas from Ireland and his uncle Thomas, who died in 1918 from the Spanish flu. He was in the Iowa National Guard at the time with his older brother Ray. They were in France with the AEF. More Johnson County boys died of the flu than died in battle during World War I.
My middle name is Thomas. I have a younger brother Thomas. We call him Tom or Tommy. I have a nephew Thomas who is trying to get into medical school. My sister Molly is his mother.
We've done pretty well here in the States. My parents never traveled to Ireland to look up relatives. Neither did I. Maybe we're beyond that. The Republic of Ireland, until recently, was known as the Celtic Tiger and some Americans of Irish descent traveled back to The Old Sod to work. They may be back soon.
Happy St. Patrick's Day on Thursday.
I'll raise a pint to the dear departed -- here's to you, Pat! -- the living, and all those Michaels and Annies and Patricks and Mollys yet to come.
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