You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
American actress, playwright, and screenwriter, Mae West, was born on this day in 1893 (died 1980)
Oh, Mae, I never did get up to see ya.
But no regrets if you do it right the first time…I mean right?
No matter how old we are, or are not, we all have those moments in our lives that we’d like to do differently.
Mug Shots (click the pic)
I’m not sharing mine, and you don’t have to share yours (but do share my posts).
It’s simple, the past is for remembering, not for reliving.
It is also not for forgetting.
And while I’m endeavoring to move on, I’m just going to drop this quote right here.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
From 1984 by George Orwell
If you’ve not read the book, you should. Maybe more than once.
I can’t tell you what to think.
I can, however, tell you that you do, indeed, need to think.
So, as has been my practice for a few weeks now, I’ll include some links at the bottom that you really should take a look at.
And don’t forget to consider the “Verse of the Day.”
But, back to what Mae said, I’m working to get things right.
I’ve been taking care of my health, and my finances, and my writing, and my forty-three jobs.
I may have exaggerated there. You’ll recall that last week I mentioned the resignation of Richard Nixon. That happened after I took my last math class.
Trust me, I got that one right.
So, whilst I’ve been working on things, and have made some progress, I’m certainly not done.
The script is ready, even though I keep reading it over and over. I now have a complete cast of readers for my September debut with the Richmond Playwright’s Forum. I am both excited, and nervous.
I’ve also made progress on the upcoming newsletter. I’ve identified the service I’ll be using. It’s coming. In September. You’ll be amongst the first to know.
It does feel as if the summer is getting away from us. The Mrs. starts her new job as a teacher on Monday. Truth is, she’s already been working on it with meetings and classroom plans and things, but that’s the first official day of reporting.
That means the 17-year-old has two more weeks of freedom before he’s back for his senior year. We did senior pictures earlier this week.
My day job is on an even keel right now, but I really need to have a conversation with the person in charge of the September calendar.
It ain’t pretty.
Yet still we struggle on, because that’s what we do.
The news isn’t going to get any better. It’s just not.
Trust me, I made the mistake of reading some headlines in the midst of writing this.
So, we plan for fall. I do hate to see summer go. I’m not sure I did this one exactly right.
But I did get my closet cleaned out and I am reminded that I really look good in sweaters.
Thoughts on Virginia’s Historical Monuments Ed Gillespie for Governor
There is a balance that can be struck here, one that recognizes the outsized role Virginia has played in our history, while acknowledging that we have not always been on its right side.
Trump Follows Obama’s Example of Moral Equivalence The Wall Street Journal
President Trump sees himself as the antithesis of President Obama, and that’s true in ways large and small. Both men, however, share a fondness for the identity politics that continue to poison U.S. race relations.
There Are Still More Than 700 Confederate Monuments In The U.S. FiveThirtyEight
There are currently more than 700 monuments to the Confederacy in public places, located predominantly in the South. Only a tiny fraction of them have been removed so far. And as this weekend’s protests showed, efforts to take the monuments down — or even to relocate them to less prominent locations — often encounter vocal opposition.
AND ONE FOR THROWBACK THURSDAY
Let’s not fool ourselves The Write Side of My Brain
Getting rid of the Confederate flag will not stop the next racially motivated attack. We are naive to think that it might.
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which are largely shielded from political factors in Virginia — will save them from the consequences of a bad decision.
