My two memes delayed and combined

 For Saturday's Critters...a bit late to the table due to the holiday!

Some photos of my 3 sons and myself (with curls and a bandana) and my ex-daughter-in-law.

Not sure which grandbaby is shown here, but likely William. The kittens are Tiny Patches, Garfield and probably their mom, Patches.

Sharing with Saturday's critters!

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And for Sepia Saturday...another favorite meme that I sometimes contribute to...usually a day early, and seldom on topic...

How about free art?

A clay puzzle piece, size 14 x 22 inches. Backed permanently on a piece of board...it is rather heavy and ready to hang...with a wire attached on the back. This is more or less the true color.

But I don't want it any more. And so I gave it to the local thrift store Kiwanis.

I meet the theme of this week on Sepia Saturday by having a sepia art work in clay. Sepia, I tell you! Sepia!

In everyone's life, at some time,

our inner fire goes out. 

It is then burst into flame 

by an encounter with 

another human being. 

We should all be thankful 

for those people who 

rekindle the inner spirit.

Albert Schweitzer

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

 -Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (1802-1885)

Savor moments big and small,

Let worries go then watch them fall.

With open heart, dear grateful soul,

In every breath let joy unfold.

                      blogger Cloudia 

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Climate Change notes:

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re already well into a hot summer - and Reuters just launched Climate Monitor, an interactive globe showing how much hotter (or colder) today’s temperature is compared to what was typical on that date between 1961 and 1990.
 
I spent a few minutes on the site. Where I live in Dallas: 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 2.6C) above normal this past week. Toronto, Ontario, my hometown: 19.6F or 11C degrees above normal. 11C above normal is incredible to me, and in case you didn’t know, Toronto’s one of the World Cup cities with an outdoor stadium! That stopped me in my tracks.

Yesterday, Philadelphia cancelled their 250 year celebration parade as the heat index soared to 118F, and in DC, temperatures 22F above normal led to the closing of the Great American Fair on the Mall.
 
This week, take just a minute and look up your city. Look up where your parents live, where your kids go to camp, or somewhere currently experiencing a heat emergency. And don’t stop there. Talk about it! Share what you find out — not as a lecture, but as a conversation starter: “Did you know it’s 6 degrees warmer than normal here right now? I just found this tool that shows you in real time.” 
 
Abstract statistics about global average temperatures are easy to dismiss. But when someone sees that their hometown is running 8 degrees hotter than usual, or that the town where their grandchildren live is having its warmest July on record, it hits differently. Climate change stops being a headline and feels personal. 

Thanks  Katharine Heyhoe

Fighting for freedom

  

Continental Army’s North Carolina Brigade marching through Philadelphia on Aug. 25, 1777

This is a great drawing of the American Revolution, showing women and children in the wagon, taking their parts in the conflict.

This 250 year long experiment in democracy by a republic called the United States of America is not doing so well at this time.

Whether it shall long endure has become a question in many people's minds. In the months until the November election there are strange and awful possibilities to be thrown at the world from the current authoritarian clown.

We shall see...

Me visiting my second son and his family in Atlanta for the Fourth sometime in the  early 2000s. This year he and his family will be in Philadelphia at a World Cup Soccer game!

The frequent and well populated demonstrations show that many many Americans are opposed to the actions coming from the White House.

What is the United States of America? See Rebecca Solnit's article in The Guardian.

that article link is worth reading!

International Women's Day

 How do you celebrate the efforts of half of the population? And the incredible history of womanhood to make life better for themselves and the whole world?

Party!

Remember!

Post a few wonderful photos accumulated through time of women!

In the Pagan tradition, the maiden, mother and crone.

Rebecca West, English journalist

by Susan Seddon Boulet

Energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be changed and transformed.

The great goddess from Çatal höyük, 6000 BC, sitting on a throne flanked by two felines. She is later known as Matar Kubileya, Kubaba or Cybele. Found at Çatal höyük, 45 kilometers south of modern Konya, Turkey

Ruth Bader Ginsburg painted by Joan Baez

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Virginie Demont - Into the Water! 1898.

The efforts of thousands, through many lifetimes, to get equal voting rights.

Eco-feminist Joanna Macy

by Sally Hewett, U.K. Ectomy, 2017.

Greta Thunberg

Poster 1920

What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together.

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER

Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Women's History Month - 9

A woman for all time, well deserved to be in Women's History Month!

The ERA:

When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked what amendment she would most like to see added to the U.S. Constitution, she replied that she would choose "the Equal Rights Amendment," noting that when her granddaughters read the Constitution, she would like them to see "that that is a basic principle of our society." Although more than 80% of countries guarantee gender equality in their constitutions, including, as Ginsburg noted "every constitution written since the Second World War" -- the period during which most of the world's constitutions were written -- the world's oldest written constitution does not include this protection.

In effect since 1789, the U.S. Constitution was written during a period when gender equality was far from being an important societal value. Over time, the US has passed many laws protecting women's rights but, as Ginsburg observes, "Legislation can be repealed. It can be altered... That principle belongs in our Constitution." The U.S. Constitution is exceedingly difficult to amend, however the ERA was nearly added to the Constitution forty years ago. The Amendment, which was originally drafted by suffragist Alice Paul in 1923, was approved by both houses of Congress and endorsed by then President Richard Nixon in 1972. It then went to the states for approval, but ultimately only received 35 of the 38 state ratifications needed to become a Constitutional Amendment.

Today, there is renewed interested in an Equal Rights Amendment, which, according to Ginsburg, would recognize that "women are people equal in stature before the law." Many older women's rights activists observe that young people are often shocked to learn that the Constitution does not guarantee equal rights for women; in fact, one survey found that 72% of adults incorrectly believed that the Constitution included such a gender equality guarantee. Justice Ginsburg did not see the passage of the ERA in her lifetime, She said it's an essential part of ensuring women's equal protection, observing that a "prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded."

RGB's life:

Here is the excellent biography from Britannica

Wikipedia says this:

Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton to replace retiring justice Byron White, and at the time was generally viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. She eventually became part of the liberal wing of the Court as the Court shifted to the right over time. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor

Ginsburg was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Her older sister died when she was a baby, and her mother died shortly before Ginsburg graduated from high school. She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University and married Martin D. Ginsburg, becoming a mother before starting law school at Harvard, where she was one of the few women in her class. Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated joint first in her class.

Despite two bouts with cancer and public pleas from liberal law scholars, she decided not to retire in 2013 or 2014 when Obama and a Democratic-controlled Senate could appoint and confirm her successor. Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2020, at the age of 87, from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. The vacancy created by her death was filled 39 days later by Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative. 

The Wikipedia article has much more information about her long life and many judicial decisions.

She left a great impact on women's rights.

Some Sepia photos I've been hanging onto

 

A famous photograph of men lunching on an I-beam (640 feet above the New York streets) while building Rockefeller Center during the depression. It was planned on September 20, 1932, on the 69th floor of the RCA Building, It appeared in the Sunday photo supplement of the New York Herald Tribune on October 2, 1932. For many years noobody knew who the photographer had been, but it was credited to Charles C. Ebbets in 2003. Incidentally, the floor below it had been finished already, so this view kind of belies the fact of only being 20 feet or so above another floor.

The rest of the story...

A movie was made of the immigrants who worked as construction iron workers...I'm not sure who the director was...probably an immigrant. There was some mention of Irish immigrants, and American Indians. Only a few of the men in the photo have been identified.

And then there's another immigrant, 

Sergio Furnari, to whom the photograph spoke...

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Sergio Furnari's "Lunchtime on a Skyscraper"

"...Decades later a poster of the photograph hung in shop window on Fifth Avenue when sculptor Sergio Furnari walked by. The Sicilian-born Furnari was new to America and the image captivated him. The faces of the workers—mostly immigrants—spoke to him. 

“ 'I know how they felt,' he later recalled to New York Times reporter Leslie Chess Feller, 'I looked at those faces and knew I had to capture them in clay. Like me, they were immigrants, poor people who worked hard.'

"Furnari started out creating a life-size version of the photograph. The figures were executed in terra cotta, cement, fiberglass and metal. One-by-one the completed statues were welded to an I-beam which Furnari attached to his truck. The work in progress was exhibited around the city, wherever the artist would park.

"As he worked on the astonishing sculpture he said 'Those men were real people. Each one has, I think, a soul. I feel it when I sculpt them, when I touch their faces and make their features come out of the clay. It’s like I keep their spirit alive.'

"Furnari called his work “Lunchtime on a Skyscraper—A Tribute to America’s Heroes.” That title would take on new significance on the morning of September 11, 2001.

"The work was nearly finished. Only one figure was left to complete. That morning Furnari and his wife, illustrator Julia Licht, watched the collapse of the World Trade Towers from their apartment window.

"Within the next few weeks working heroes would have a new meaning for Furnari and his sculpture.

photo by Alice Lum

Each figure was executed with minute detail -- photo by Tien Mao

Furnari's sculpture became a mobile piece, touring the country -- photo newyorkdailyphoto.blogspot.com



The work was completed in October. Meanwhile hundreds of workmen toiled in the still-smoldering ruins of Ground Zero. “The twin towers were made by the ironworkers, and it was the ironworkers that had to remove the whole steel out of Ground Zero,” he later related.

:Furnari transported the inspiring work to the site as both a tribute and an encouragement to the workmen. 'When they were down in the hole, nobody was smiling. But when they were by the statue, they were inspired, and realized their work was appreciated,' he said. The sculpture uplifted the workers for five months.

"In 2003 Furnari attached the 25-foot, one-ton sculpture onto his truck and set off on a nationwide road trip in hopes of bringing ;the American and New York spirit all over America.' He encouraged people across the country who saw the work to sign his truck. Before the end of the tour, millions of Americans had seen the sculpture.

''

"Upon its return to the city “Lunchtime on a Skyscraper” became a sort of mobile museum, appearing here and there and always attracting a great amount of attention. Unfortunately, in January 2007 it attracted the wrong type of attention.

"Thieves broke into the Furnari’s Queens facility and one of the figures was unbolted and stolen.

“I feel like they stole a part of me a part of my life,” the artist told a New York Post reporter. The 100-lb. figure was never recovered.

"The essence of the work moves the observer and in 2010 a copy was commissioned by owners of a Valparaiso, Indiana restaurant named “Industrial Revolution.” One of the owners, Mike Lesson, explained 'The restaurant is dedicated to everyday people who take risks and is a tribute to the workers who built this country.'

"Furnari still tours his sculpture around on his truck—a newer one than the one which first transported the work—providing a unexpected delight for New Yorkers an d tourists lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time."

SOURCE: Daytonian in Manhattan: The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating, by Tom Miller, HERE.

I don't know who drew this, but I firmly agree with what RBG said. What a woman. What a leader! May we all live our lives with as much dedication to our belief in democracy and freedom of all people as she did.

All alone sitting by the shore. Sepia Saturday shows this gentleman, probably taken sometime before the 1960s...I'd guess the 30's. Check out what other's have come up with as this may inspire them. And by the time Saturday comes, it will have some details of the photo, giving it credit and date (I hope.)

A more modern photo of a friend who recently visited the shore, listening to the waves in a seashell. Well, you do know about that, I hope. Try it if you haven't ever done so.

At the end of the road

Walker St.

And I've not been up to the very end of the road but a couple of times. It means stopping and resting several times to catch my breath. I'm not walking it this evening because at 7 pm it's still 78 degrees out. I'm happy to post blogs for the future (since I wrote this back last Friday.)

 Looking up at the end of the road...two driveways invite people up to houses which I could not see. And on the far left is a driveway of a house very close to the road. You can see the black post of a mailbox on the far right, for a house which has an electric gate across their drive (not shown). If you look closely in the middle of the photo, you can see a tilted mailbox that stands next to a drive up through all the greenery (not the one with two tracks that has light towards the end.

And looking down the hill from the end of the road, you can't see much except that fire hydrant. I'm glad the town of Black Mountain is protecting these homes.

I must add this photo and my feelings about Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying yesterday. We all know the people who are ruining our government will try to replace her and take away many of the rights which she fought to keep for women. So I and all the women I know have a duty to do whatever we can, in our small ways, to stand for justice as RBG showed us...that her strength didn't rely upon physical size, that her words were well chosen and thoughtful, and that this heroine of American Justice will have dedicated her life for a cause which will continue.

Today's Quote:

We often think that vulnerability is a kind of weakness, but there’s a kind of vulnerability that is actually strength and presence.

RAM DASS