Scared and Alone

Scared and alone.

I cry out,

But the night

Swallows me

From within.

It is stronger

Than me.

I become

One with it.

Accepting the night

Frees me

To look at my soul.

Please discuss.

Trap Door

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.


Paul Beatty (American Poet)

A Rose from my Garden

Copyright, Catherine Wiese 2007

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare, 1594

Inure

Inure means to make accustomed or used to something painful, difficult, or inconvenient.

How does one become inured to unpredictable moments of helplessness?

Stephen Kuusisto, Planet of the Blind

Please comment with your own sentence.

What is a Minority?

What is a minority? The chosen heroes of this Earth have been in a minority. There is not a social, political, or religious privilege that you enjoy today that was not brought to you by the blood and tears and patient suffering of the minority. It is the minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world.

John Bartholomew Gough (1817-1886)

Do you agree?

Ask the Experts at Oxford University

What a thrill to find the Oxford University's "Ask the Experts," while poking around on the Internet. If you are a major English dork like me, you'll love this site. In addition to FAQs, there are sections broken into everything from word origin to usage. If you can't find your answer in FAQs, there's a link to send your query to Oxford University. There's also a section on better writing, which contains subgroups such as letter writing and useful phrases. You can even play crosswords and hangman, just don't get sucked into it at work! The site is available at http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/?view=uk.

Houseboy

If you are interested in colonialism in Africa and the deeply layered tragic effects on the sub-continent's residents, then Ferdinand Oyono's Houseboy is a must-read. Houseboy is a novel in the form of a diary written in French in 1956 and translated into English in 1966.

Toundi, the young African male who pens the journal, finds life in his village difficult and longs to become more European. He goes to work for a missionary and becomes a Christian with a new Christian name, Joseph. As he comes to idolize the priest he works for, he begins to look down on his own people more and more, but he is not accepted by the Europeans either.

When the priest dies, Joseph is sent to live with a commandant and his wife, where he realizes that whites are not as wonderful as he thought. But by now it's too late. The commandant's wife has an affair and when it becomes apparent that Joseph knew, he is severely beaten and tortured. He escapes but is too hurt to survive and his diary is read after his death.

Even though he is told repeatedly by those around him, Joseph lacked the sense of survival needed to make it as an African in colonial Africa. He doesn't understand the imbalance between the Europeans and the Africans or the lack of power and as a consequence he suffers and dies.

Please discuss.

The Angry Mob

Oh angry mob, is there any problem your wisdom and torches can't solve?

Jon Stewart (10/7/08)