"I called Joe," Stewart remembers, "and asked if he wanted to come to spring training with me. I said, 'The Mets have this pitcher they picked up. They got him pitching in secret, under a big tarp. He has a 168 mile an hour fastball and he plays the French horn and went to Harvard and he was raised in Tibet by Buddhist monks and he pitches with one foot bare and one foot in a boot. And guess what?
You're going to be him.'" [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 1, 2013 -
23 comments
Should you find yourself wandering around the city of Leiden, the Netherlands sometime, you may
notice some curious markings on the city's walls.
These
Muurgedichten ("Wall Poems") adorn many of the town's streets
(clickable map), and many English-language poets are represented:
one John Keats, for instance, inside a bookshop;
Dylan Thomas,
E. E. Cummings,
W.B. Yeats, some guy
called William Shakespeare, or this
ode to Charlie Parker by American
William Waring Cuney.
[more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Apr 5, 2009 -
15 comments
Made most popular to many Americans as the closing song for the Grand Ole Opry programs, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was written in 1907 by Ada Habershon, an intensely religious young woman and acquaintance of
Dwight Moody and
Ira David Sankey. The music was "composed" by
Charles Gabriel, a popular songwriter and composer of the era who is often solely credited with the song, but while he may have put the notes down on paper, the tune itself already existed as the African-American spiritual Glory Glory / Since I Laid My Burden Down. [lots more inside]
posted by luriete
on May 26, 2006 -
18 comments
""We only have to recall the colour of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans." - Former President Jimmy Carter.
Coretta Scott King was
laid to rest Tuesday after a six-hour service attended by four presidents and 10,000 ordinary people who came to pay tribute to the first lady of the civil rights movement - and one of its last icons. But at an event designed to remember the lady who was as memorable as her late husband in fighting for civil rights, politics entered the fray with both former President Jimmy Carter and Rev Joseph Lowery taking
swipes at the Bush Administration. They say that there's a time and a place, and while this was clearly not the place, with
thousands of Katrina victims (mostly African-American) about to be evicted because of
budget cuts by the Bush administration, was it the
time?
posted by Effigy2000
on Feb 8, 2006 -
149 comments
Jimmy Carter made history today being the first U.S. President [in or out of office] to visit Cuba since
1959. At the initial press conference Mr. Carter switched from English to Spanish, in reverence to his
host [his Spanish was actually pretty good]. What can Mr. Carter
hope to achieve this week and how does his action [albeit as a private citizen] affect the current administration?
posted by plemeljr
on May 12, 2002 -
11 comments
