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On Borrowing Shakespeare’s Naughtiness

Written by caramia on October 23, 2011 · 1 Comment

Now I don’t usually support name-calling, nor do I encourage it at any age. But doggone it, reading Shakespeare is enough to force those firmly-held beliefs into flitting gently out the back window, at least for a little while. I’m certain I shall come to my senses again in the near future, when I will even more firmly go off about the complete indecency, incivility, and inappropriateness of slinging insults. Until my good sense returns, however, I intend to thoroughly enjoy myself with this inimitable Shakespearean collection of insults. If you feel that you, too, could use major help in [...] Read more »

Categories: Books, Culture, Human Nature, Humor

On God, the Offering Plate, and the Parish Hall

Written by caramia on October 20, 2011 · 2 Comments

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Last week the father of one of my students told me how his daughter, at age 5, has already been showing fiscal awareness well beyond her years. In church that week, after the offering plate went around, she turned to her dad and loudly wanted to know “how we gonna get that money to God?” Indeed, Elesha. I often wonder that same thing myself… In the New Testament of the Christian tradition, God calls us to care for those who cannot support themselves, as the apostle James, the brother of Jesus (or in the Catholic tradition, the cousin of Jesus) [...] Read more »

Categories: Culture, Kids, Religion

On Ampersands and Etceteras…Oh, My!

Written by caramia on September 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment

In case you wanted to know the (very interesting) history behind a recently-disappeared letter of our English alphabet, dictionary.com just published a brief obituary of it. Read more »

Categories: Culture, Education, Language

Wikipedia and Me: A Beautiful(ly Evolving) Relationship

Written by caramia on August 17, 2011 · Leave a Comment

I adore Wikipedia. Let me just say that for those of us who weren’t blessed with a photographic memory for every single fact, detail, and situation we have ever encountered or will ever encounter in our life’s sojourn here, Wikipedia exists as a most beautiful back-up. Can’t remember the capital city of India? Check. Can’t seem to find much source material on a much-maligned, scarcely-footnoted female of the early alcohol temperance movement in the United States? Check. Don’t have housing the size of a 4-story library to house all the knowledge (aka, books) you are convinced you need access to? [...] Read more »

Categories: Books, Culture, Education

On the Women of the Temperance Movement

Written by caramia on April 7, 2011 · 2 Comments

Notwithstanding the wonderfully hilarious photo above, I have long viewed the American women's temperance movement of the 19th century with a great deal of respect. Read more »

Categories: Culture, Politics, Random, Religion

How to be a poet (Wendell Berry)

Written by caramia on December 22, 2010 · 2 Comments

I recently came across this beautiful poem, and it’s too lovely not to share. For those of us who aren’t poets, this poem could just as well be titled “How to go about living.” I hope you like it as much as I do. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill—more of each than you have—inspiration, work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity. Any readers who like your poems, doubt their judgment. ii Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate [...] Read more »

Categories: Books, Culture

Fighting Bullies with Babies

Written by caramia on November 9, 2010 · 2 Comments

I have often observed through the years that families with lots of children or with widely-spaced children (where the older children were actively involved in the care and nurture of their younger siblings) often seemed to produce children with higher-than-average empathy skills. This was only anecdotal observation on my part, so you can imagine my surprise when the New York Times recently published an absolutely fascinating article about the innate power babies have to teach empathy to children. A wonderful educator out of Canada took this concept into the school classroom, formally implementing the interaction of children with a baby [...] Read more »

Categories: Culture, Education, Kids

Free Concert Tickets!

Written by caramia on October 15, 2010 · 1 Comment

If you are from the Washington, D.C. area, this is a great opportunity not to be missed! (I happen to be a sucker for free and complimentary tickets of all kinds to just about anything, and I’ll cheerfully cop to that right up front.) The Cathedral Choral Society is giving away free tickets to first-time concert attendees for their Sunday, October 17 concert featuring French choral and organ music at the Washington National Cathedral. To get in on the free goodness, click here. Read more »

Categories: Art and Craft, Culture, Music, Random

American presidential history in less than 4 minutes

Written by caramia on October 7, 2010 · 2 Comments

This clip showcases every single U.S. president’s image, and then using modern technology, it morphs each face into the chronologically next president’s face. I was simply amazed at times by how similar the bone structure was between several former U.S. presidents, but perhaps I was most surprised by how little “morphing” had to happen between our current president and our last one! Both have wide smiles and some similarities in their faces that I had missed before now, I think. True confessions of embarrassment here: I seemed to have completely forgotten that Millard Fillmore (1850-1853) was ever president. He was [...] Read more »

Categories: Culture, Politics

In Homage to Oregon

Written by caramia on September 27, 2010 · 2 Comments

Before we moved to Washington, D.C., I had the opportunity to live in Oregon for several years, where my husband worked for a start-up computer-games company. I recently had the opportunity to revisit Portland, OR, for the first time in several years, and it made me slightly nostalgic about a few West Coast cultural aspects I miss. Here (in no particular order) are some of the things I love about Oregon: 1) It doesn’t matter how you’re dressed. In a place that prides itself on being counter-cultural, millionaires may choose to look like bag ladies…you just never know. There is [...] Read more »

Categories: Culture, Places

WNO’s Opera in the Outfield

Written by caramia on September 23, 2010 · 2 Comments

I dearly love opera. And even more than I love opera, I love free opera. This means that the Washington National Opera’s annual outreach event, Opera in the Outfield, a free, live-over-the-giant-screen-in-the-Nationals-baseball-stadium-opera-tunity, is a home run for me. (Yes, please excuse the corny and quite lame baseball allusions which will be scattered throughout this post. Let it not be said that my athletically-challenged, sports-statistics-and-knowledge-clueless self is not making an effort here.) The opera shindig and I originally got off to an unfortunate start. A friend sent me an e-Vite for the opera, and I was very excited until I read [...] Read more »

Categories: Culture, Music

The Metro

Written by caramia on September 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Let me first say that I am truly grateful for the metro (subway line) here in the Washington, D.C. area. Many parts of the United States don’t have a system of public transport at all, so it’s a big boon to have ready access to the underground: I want to make it clear I don’t take this for granted. With that said, however, there are numerous humorous (and not-so-humorous) aspects to using the metro on any given day. This wry little ditty highlights a few of those things. May your transportation today be far less eventful than our hapless singer’s [...] Read more »

Categories: Culture, Humor, Random, Traffic, Video

Dean Abbott on Meetings

Written by caramia on September 3, 2010 · 3 Comments

My friend Dean Abbott recently wrote one of the funniest pieces I’ve ever read about the topic of meetings, or rather our naive belief in American culture that getting everyone together for a meeting will actually enable things to get done. As Dean helplessly shares from the trenches of a recent week of meetings, this often isn’t the case. At all. If I’m not mistaken, reading his brief post will bring you the funniest 5 minutes of your day. Enjoy! Read more »

Categories: Culture, Human Nature, Humor, Leadership

A strange and un-library thing

Written by caramia on August 8, 2010 · 2 Comments

I do love libraries. I love the books in them. I love the tactile feel of the books—the weight, the height, the size, and the heft of the wrapped and covered words. I love the texture of the plethora of printed matter as it slides under my fingers. I adore the intoxicating mixture of mingled book scents everywhere— of new paper or old binding, of fresh ink or old news. I like the (mostly) quiet, inviting space the library presents to anyone who cares to use it and delight in it. I enjoy watching the wide variety of people—the very [...] Read more »

Categories: Books, Culture, Education