“And in the end,” said Jack, “I still had the succulent strawberry, but. . .” The boy sighed. “You’re allergic to strawberries.”
He waited for her to yawn.
“So the guard ate it,” he concluded.    
The princes laughed and clapped her hands in delight.
“A story!” she exclaimed. “And an adventure story at that! What a fine gift.”
                                   from: Clever Jack Takes the Cake
                                   by: Candace Fleming
                                   illustrated by: G. Brian Karas
                                   Schwartz & Wade Books, 2010
    Today would have been my father’s 99th birthday. Here are some things he loved, in no particular order:

• His family (family always came first)
• His home
• Chocolate anything, especially
  • chocolate covered raisins
  • Hostess cupcakes
• Coffee, strong with one spoon of sugar and just a very, very, tiny bit of milk
  • Once I used an eyedropper to get it right.
• Well-done hamburgers
• Collecting stamps
  • and pennies
• A good joke or even a not-so-good one, even when it was on him
  • Once, on his birthday, our good neighbor and good friend “Uncle” Frank brought over a birthday cake, complete with candles. Daddy blew out the candles and began to saw into the cake (chocolate, he presumed). Even the sharp replacement knife didn’t work on the Styrofoam cake that “Aunt” Daisy decorated so beautifully. Daddy laughed about that cake for years. It would have been decades if he had lived that long.
• John Kennedy
• Portulaca 
• A green lawn with no weeds, neatly edged at the driveway and sidewalk
• Brown
• Red Skelton
• Ed Sullivan
• Fedoras (until President Kennedy whooshed them out of fashion)
• Good manners
• Bing Crosby
• Spam
• The Smothers Brothers
• Camel cigarettes, no filters
• Predictability

    Daddy valued honesty and an honest day’s work. He wore a shirt and tie with his suit coat. His shirts were always short-sleeved, though. He didn’t like to be hot.    
He came home right after work the same time every day. 
    My dad was great at spelling and great at math. I remember my brother racing him with columns of addition. Dad won. When my mother told me to look up a difficult word in the dictionary, I just asked my dad how to spell it. He was always right.
    He taught all three of us kids how to play chess and tap out Morse Code. 
    Daddy could recite anyone’s phone number by heart. My sister and brother and I all shared that talent until cell phones and caller ID made it irrelevant.
    He had a great sense of humor and a great temper. He was fun-loving and disciplined. He was meticulous in his work and neat in his habits.
    He expected us kids to be polite, well-groomed and hard-workers. I think we three did just fine making him proud.
    Daddy may not have been the best, but he tried his best. He may not have been able to give us everything he wanted to, but we never lacked for any material thing. I’m sure he loved us all, even when we disappointed him. 
My dad loved to laugh. I hope he was happy.
    Happy Birthday, Daddy. 
    *Happy Father’s Day, Dady!*
            --stay curious! (and take good care of your memories)

 . .Why can’t we unwind the cocoons after the moths come out?
                                       . . .
    The moth gets out by making a hole in the cocoon, right? To make a hole . . .it spits out this chemical that dissolves the silk and makes a hole. And the hole goes through all the layers of silk, see? So instead of one nice long thread, you’d end up with a million tiny short pieces that you couldn’t sew with. Silk farmers never let the moths come out—that would ruin everything. Get it?
                                          from The Mulberry Project
                                                      by Linda Sue Park
                                                    Clarion Books, 2005
    In ancient days, from around 200 BCE until the sixteenth century CE, travelers and merchants carried goods and ideas (and even some good ideas!) from Shanghai across northern China to the Middle East and eastern Europe. They brought luxury items, most notably silk, and spices and took home wool, gold and silver. They traveled in caravans, rarely going the whole distance, but finding trading partners along the way. 
    In 2013, President Xi Jinping announced that the Silk Road would be reborn as the Belt and Road Initiative. In what some see as a massive move to gain world trade dominance in goods ranging from cotton to petroleum products, China is planning to invest something in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars. So far, sixty-eight countries have signed on. Since 2013, China has loaned about forty billion dollars a year to developing countries. *According to an article in Reuters (6/13/21), the number of countries signed on to the initiative is now over 100.*
    “The deals are construction contracts, typically for large-scale infrastructure projects, such as air and sea ports, road networks, energy and petrochemical development, power plants, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and real estate, and even a digital silk road with fiber optic cables and telecommunication facilities, and satellite links.” https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/trumps-principled-realism-versus-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative#gs.QcfnwPc 
    But Pakistan, Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan all owe vast amounts of money to China to repay their loans. If a debtor country cannot make timely payment of principal and interest, China will take over ownership of the project.. 
    Whether a new railroad project through Vietnam, a nuclear power plant in Egypt, or pipe-line projects in Malaysia, country after country is building up debt to China. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/why-the-civil-nuclear-trap-is-part-and-parcel-of-the-belt-and-road-strategy/ 
    So, how does all of this affect us? China and the United States have a long history of trade partnership. “Made in China” is stamped or sewn onto everything from dog food to dishes to doll clothes. 
    The Trans Pacific Partnership was a regional trade agreement involving the U.S. and 11 other Asian-Pacific countries. Together they comprised 40 percent of the world's economic output. The TPP’s purpose was to update and expand rules for trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific. Our previous administration (Obama/Biden) made sure the US would be at the center of regional rules development. It would have supported the economic development of our allies and reaffirmed our commitment to the area. Now the TPP continues without the United States.
    According to the Brookings Institution, the decision by the current administration (Trump/Pence) to recognize the Belt and Road Initiative in the new US-China trade agreement compounds uncertainty in Asia and raises further questions about US economic and strategic goals for the region. https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-one-belt-one-road-initiative-a-view-from-the-united-states/ 
    And now we’re in a trade war with China. Our administration has imposed tariff after tariff on goods received from China. Solar panels and airplane parts are more expensive for manufacturers. The price of washing machines and flat-panel TVs have gone up for the rest of us.
    Like it or not, our world is made of sovereign nations, each looking out for themselves. We owe it to our grandchildren to be good neighbors, looking out for each other, too. 
    Please vote your conscience on November 6. 
                                         —-stay curious! (and informed)    

Just
smile
at me
one
time
on your way past my desk.
                                          from: “Dear Ms. Back Row:”
                                                        in Love Letters
                                              written by Arnold Adoff
                                             illustrated by Lisa Desimini
                                                         Scholastic, 1997
                                                         accessed online: 
                No Water River spotlight on Arnold Adoff (6/8/21)

It was the
best soup ever…
and we can 
grow it again
next year
                                      from: Growing Vegetable Soup
                               written and illustrated by Lois Ehlert
                                   Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987

“Do you want to be my friend?”
“Yes!” said a mouse 
with a small gray 
tail. “I will be your friend.”
And the two ran off to a big tree,
and just in time.
                                      from: Will You Be My Friend?
                               written and illustrated by Eric Carle
                                                           Crowell, 1971

    I don’t remember the time before I could read. I don’t remember learning how to read, either. I have other memories from when I was very young: the time a fly slipped down my throat when I was riding my tricycle; the times my sister and I dressed up our baby brother and took him for walks in our toy baby buggy; the times my gram sat me on her lap on the bouncy, green metal porch chair and sang to me. She did not have a good singing voice, but it didn’t matter. She might have only known one English song, “When It’s Springtime in the Rockies.” I didn’t know what the Rockies were, but that didn’t matter either.
    I grew up in a house with lots of books. Magazines, too. The newspaper came every afternoon. But I don’t remember being read to. I must have figured out how to do it along the way to Kindergarten. What I mean is I don’t think I lost that memory of learning to read. The process must have been more organic than methodic.
    My parents had a small library that included Cheaper by the Dozen, Around the World in Eighty Days, Gulliver’s Travels and lots of volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. 
    Mom took me to our public library. Most of the time, I checked out books from the Children’s Fiction section. I read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic, Charlotte’s Web, Curious George Rides a Bike. Lots of what would become classics.
    But I don’t remember a favorite author. I didn’t go out of my way to find another book by someone whose work I liked. I don’t know why I didn’t pay attention to the authors’ names until I was much older. 
    I have favorite authors now. My girls have favorites, and so do my grandkids. 
    As a children’s librarian I studied picture book authors and illustrators and those who are talented enough to create the words and the art. Some authors and illustrators stand out for their style or their prolific body of work or their wisdom, humor, and ability to speak to young children where they are. The best combine many of those elements.
    The world of children’s literature lost four giants last month (May, 2021). They were all geniuses in their field.
    Arnold Adoff (7/16/35 - 5/7/21) crossed the color line when he taught seventh grade social studies in a classroom full of kids with diverse backgrounds. He realized their textbooks reflected racist views and they didn’t have access to books and magazines that accurately described their environment. In an article for Something About the Author Adoff explained, “I began writing for kids because I wanted to effect a change in American society.” He continued, “I write for children because the child in me is still very much alive.” He is best known for his picture book Black is Brown is Tan and an anthology he edited, I Am the Darker Brother: An Anthology of Modern Poems by Negro Americans, published by Macmillan in 1968. In 1988 he received the National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, in recognition of his body of work. Since 2016, Kent State University has awarded The Arnold Adoff Poetry Award “to highlight the power of poetry, encourage publishers to publish works of poetry from a variety of perspectives, commend poets for various student populations, and encourage the reading of poetry.” KSU Arnold Adoff Poetry Award  
    Lois Ehlert (11/9/34 - 5/25/21) is known for the bright colors she used in her paper collages. She created the art for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Here’s a list of Lois Ehlert's books. She wrote and illustrated Color Zoo which won her a Caldecott Honor and my favorite, Feathers for Lunch. The kids loved Growing a Rainbow and Growing Vegetable Soup when I used them in Storytime.
    Eric Carle (6/25/29 - 5/23/21) published The Very Hungry Caterpillar in 1969. It’s been translated into 66 languages and has sold over 50 million copies. He illustrated over 70 books. Most have become best selling classics. He wrote most of them, but only illustrated Brown Bear, Brown BearWhat Do You See? That came from a collaboration with Bill Martin, Jr. On his website Eric Carle says, “I believe that children are naturally creative and eager to learn. I want to show them that learning is really both fascinating and fun.”
    Carole Calladine (? - 5/9/21) passed away this past Mother’s Day. She was a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. I learned everything I know that is useful about the craft of writing from Carole. She was my friend, mentor, and source of inspiration. She left behind many fiction and nonfiction picture book manuscripts and manuscripts of two young adult novels. She will always be my role model.
    A couple of months ago, I decided to give myself a blog vacation. As this is my sixth blog-aversary, I thought it an auspicious time. I will continue my blog each Tuesday morning with re-posts of my favorite pieces. I’ll pop back live if something piques my curiosity and interest enough that it jumps off my perpetual list and on to these pages.
                                         -—stay curious! (and stay tuned!)

…We circle the fresh dirt mounds, with sweet-smelling petals of rose, lilac, and jasmine swirling to the ground. Thousands of hands sprinkle thousands of spring blossoms. The graves become a bed of petals and tears.
                                          from: A Day for Remerberin’
                                             written by Leah Henderson
                                             illustrated by Floyd Cooper
                             Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021
    This past weekend marked the 100th anniversary of my town’s first Memorial Day Celebration. We were not the first town to mark the occasion. Besides Charleston, South Carolina, over 20 different cities claim that distinction.
    I always thought (was this part of my formal education!?) that Memorial Day commemorates the soldiers who died in Flanders Field amongst the poppies. The field is in the medieval County of Flanders spanning southern Belgium and north-west France and served as a major battlefield on the Western Front during WWI. Memorial Day gradually expanded to include the dead of all American wars, I always thought.
    In my own town, veterans distribute red, silk poppies as a remembrance to those who gave their lives to protect our freedom during that war. Click the link and scroll down to see a couple of beautiful photos of Belgian poppies. 
    But long before the end of WWI on November 11, 1918, the club house of a racecourse in Charleston, SC was converted into a prison for captured Union soldiers during the Civil War. Less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865, twenty-eight newly freed men living in Charleston, were joined by regiments from Massachusetts and a few white Charlestonians. They spent ten days digging fresh graves and reburying the “Martyrs of the Race Course” who died during their captivity. To give them a respectful resting place, each fallen Union soldier was placed in an individual plot and marked with a headstone. (info from Leah Henderson’s book, quoted above)
    When the burying was finished, the people sang hymns, delivered and listened to speeches, and decorated the new graves with flowers.
    In May, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a decree that May 30 should become a day set aside to commemorate the over 650,000 lives lost in the Civil War. He chose May 30 because “it was a rare day that didn’t fall on the anniversary of a Civil War battle.” Also, flowers across the country would be in bloom. https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-memorial-day 
    It was two years earlier, though, on May 5, 1866, tiny Waterloo, New York closed every store, shop, and place of business and held a ceremony for those who had fought in the Civil War. Year after year the people in Waterloo remembered their heroes. One hundred years later, President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, NY to be the Birthplace of Memorial Day. 
    The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 moved most National holidays to Mondays, and in 1971, Decoration Day’s name was changed to Memorial Day, and it also was moved to a Monday, the last Monday in May.
    The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, when General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate troops to the Union's Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Although we had skirmishes with Mexico and other Latin American countries after the Civil War ended, the United States did not engage in major warfare until 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. 
    During the second year of WWI, soldiers started noticing the blazing red fields of poppies and began writing home about them. 
    The day after his friend was killed in battle, a Canadian doctor, John McCrae, wrote his famous poem “In Flanders Fields” to describe the field of makeshift graves blooming with wild poppies.
    Here’s the first stanza of Flanders Fields
             In Flanders fields the poppies blow
            Between the crosses, row on row,
                    That mark our place; and in the sky
                    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
            Scarce heard amid the guns below.
    Sadly, the United States has fought many wars since the War to End All Wars. Under President Joe Biden’s direction, we are slowly untangling ourselves from our longest war. Many young adults today can’t even remember when we were not at war. 
    On a field trip to Washington DC in May, 1996, a group of school children was asked why they think there is a holiday on Memorial Day. “It’s the day the pools open!” they responded. That same month a Gallup poll discovered that only 28% of Americans knew the meaning of Memorial Day.
    Clearly, this was a problem. 
    The idea for a National Moment of Remembrance was born of the concern and sorrow of many people coming together. On December 28, 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act. It is an informal, voluntary, annual event held each Memorial Day at precisely 3:00 pm local time. Its purpose is to allow everyone 60 seconds of silence to remember, honor, and celebrate those brave men and women who died to protect our freedoms. 
                              -—stay curious! (and hug your memories)

Martha [the pet dog] loved letters. She loved words.
At last! Now I can say:
I’m hungry.
Let’s eat.
Make mine steak.
and
Let me OUT!
Let me IN!
Let me OUT!
Let me in…
                                               from Martha Blah Blah
                                                   by Susan Meddaugh
                                                 Houghton Mifflin, 1996
                                       accessed on YouTube 5/23/21
    Who doesn’t remember January 6, 2021, 137 days ago? According to cbsnews.com as of May 6, 2021, 440 people have been arrested for the attack on our Capitol. Federal prosecutors expect to charge over 100 more. At least 47 are current or former military members. At least 10 of those arrested were either former or current law enforcement officers at the time of the violence. Most have of them have been fired.
    These individuals are charged with a variety of crimes. The Department of Justice is also investigating group activity that may have occurred before and during the attack. At least 59 alleged insurrectionists are affiliated with extremist groups.
    Over 900 search warrants have been issued, more than 80,000 reports have been reviewed, and over 15,000 hours of surveillance and body camera footage has been examined.
    This case is probably the most complex investigation the Department of Justice has ever prosecuted.
    We all watched live footage, open-mouthed. In the end, five people died including a Capitol Police officer. One hundred and forty police officers were injured. Our elected officials were traumatized. Our Capitol building itself sustained over $30 million in damages.
    On May 13, 2021, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Georgia) said “Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures[.] If you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” cnn.com/2021/05/13 He was not called out by his fellow Republicans. Can any sane, thinking person really believe what he said was true?
    A bill was introduced and passed in the House of Representatives on May 19, 2021, to establish a bi-partisan commission to determine the causes for the insurrection. Because, yes, it really did happen. As early as this week, the bill could be up for debate in the Senate.    
    Once a bill gets to the floor, it only needs a simple majority, 51 votes, to pass, after the debate is over. And that’s the rub. The debate could go on ad infinitum. That’s the filibuster. It takes 60 votes, a super-majority, to prevent the debate (filibuster) from occurring at all. So to prevent the lengthy, exhausting, boring, needless, and irrelevant debate, some in Congress and the general public are saying a possible debate should be nipped in the bud. But 60 is a big number in our 117th Congress.
    The United States Senate in its glossary defines filibuster “[as an i]nformal term for any attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.” Senate Glossary 
    A filibuster allows a senator to block legislation, and both parties do it for their own political advantage.
    Let’s take a short look at the history of the filibuster. As early as the first session of the Senate, Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay wrote in his diary that the “design of the Virginians . . . was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.” senate.gov 
    Filibusters became more common around the turn of the 20th century. This led to its own debate about changing the rules to restrict the practice. In 1917, the Senate adopted a rule, cloture, that allowed a two-thirds majority to end a filibuster. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required from two-thirds (67) of the senators of the 100-member Senate to three-fifths (60).
    In the normal course of events, debate is good. Both sides present their best arguments and a sane and rational vote takes place among people who have the best interest of our country at heart. And they vote the will of their constituents. 
    But under his recent change of heart, Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, has practically ensured a filibuster surrounding the case for the establishment of a bi-partisan commission. He has apparently changed the minds of several members of his caucus, too. And, 60 is a big number for our 117th Congress.
    Why would the US Senate balk at a bi-partisan commission whose purpose is to get to the bottom of the reasons for the January 6 insurrection? 
    The only answers I can think of are disturbing, frightening, and worrisome.
                                    -—stay curious! (and stay tuned) 
*Lyrics from The Music Man. Meredith Willson.        

    “These are all good ideas. … We can each do our part. All it takes is one person to make a difference,” [said Mr. Todd]
    One person! If all it took was one person, the she, Judy Moody, could save the world!
    She knew just where to start. With a banana peel.
                                  from Judy Moody Saves the World
                                           written by Megan McDonald
                                       illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
                                                        Candlewick, 2010
    In 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his first term as President, the country was flailing in the wake of the economic devastation Great Depression. The people were hungry, poor, and dispirited. The New Deal, Roosevelt’s US road to recovery, included many parts and addressed many facets of our society needing attention. Government jobs gave workers a (small) wage, a sense of purpose, and moved our country forward.    
    President Roosevelt presented the New Deal in his first 100 days of his first term as President of the United States. The New Deal came from several initiatives.
    A  important part of the New Deal, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), began in the spring of 1933 and lasted until WWII captured the attention and patriotism of the very same young men that the CCC had employed. They built trails, shelters, footbridges, picnic areas, and campgrounds. Now many of the recently unemployed had jobs. The projects encouraged Americans to get outdoors and enjoy nature. Local, state, and national parks across the country benefited, too.     
    The corps built roads and put up telephone lines. They fought fires, and prevented new fires by clearing brush. They also planted trees and built wildlife refuges. They reseeded grazing lands and implemented erosion controls.
    Government Relief was provided to fine artists, graphic artists, and sculptors, too. They were hired to create murals decorating Federal buildings and to create posters publicizing exhibits, activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in various state and local communities. Over 900 posters are housed in the Library of Congress. Take a look: Prints & Photographs Online Catalog 
    In all, the CCC hired hundreds of thousands of young (mostly white) men and provided “relief to the millions of poor and unemployed. [It reformed] aspects of the economy that Roosevelt believed had caused the collapse.” 
    Building and repairing roads and bridges, creating informative and beautiful art, cleaning up the parks, and protecting the environment all helped individuals, towns, cities, and rural areas recover as it helped our greater society heal.
    We are facing a similar, dispiriting time. Our economy is in shambles due to the measures taken to contain COVID-19. People are out of work, out of money, and out of options.
    Government stimulus checks have been spent, businesses are reopening, people are beginning to regather.
    Just like 1933, our economy and our environment are interconnected.
    President Biden is suggesting a new CCC, Civilian Climate Corps, in the vein of FDR’s original. Jumpstarting our economy by putting people to work will help the environment while it helps individuals, cities, towns and rural areas. 
    Biden’s definition of infrastructure includes roads, and bridges. Also, wireless connections, internet access, and cyber security. Biden’s definition must be broader than anything Roosevelt could imagine.
    And, like Roosevelt’s plan, the health of our environment is once again of prime importance. President Biden has re-launched the government’s webpage dedicated to Climate Change. It was shuttered during the last administration. This past March, Michael Regan, new head of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), announced on the new page, “Combating climate change, it’s not optional, it’s essential at EPA.” Here’s a link to the new webpage on the EPA site: epa.gov/climate-change 
    Part of Biden’s definition of infrastructure also includes building networks of renewable energy. Factories to build solar panels in the US is a good place to begin. Staffing those factories with American workers naturally will follow. Installing those panels is important work, too. Charging stations for electric vehicles is a component of infrastructure. 
    Wind farms need to be built.
    Protection of our wild, natural places is crucial. Biodiversity depends on the health of our so many interconnected ecosystems. Identifying and eradicating invasive species, both plants and animals, is important for biodiversity to thrive. There is room in our workforce for lots people to do these important jobs. And the government seems to want to be at the forefront of creating them.
    How will people who need to work take care of their children? Biden’s answer is to make quality childcare an important piece of our recovery and a piece of his infrastructure plan.
    As we take off our masks, hug our grandchildren and grandparents, re-engage in our world full of beautiful possibilities, we all deserve the ability to take a deep breath of fresh air.
    Biden’s plan would hire American men and women of all colors and heritages. They would earn a living wage and live near where they work.
    It is true that much needs to be done, but we are (finally) on the right track again and moving in the right direction.                                     
New Yorker  (3/7/21) 
history.com 
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franklin-D-Roosevelt/The-first-term#ref387761 
                                      -—stay curious! (and work hard)​

Taking the week off to recuperate from a wonderful weekend filled with grandchildren and pride in their accomplishments.
Thanks for visiting!
See you here next week!
​Shari

    The year 1933 was different. [Muriel’s] father, like so many others, had lost his job.
                                   .   .   .
    It would be impossible to buy all the food needed for their Passover Seder.
                                   .   .   .
Muriel started walking quicker than she had before. She ignored the Washington Monument leaning in the fading sunlight. She rushed past the White House without a second glance. Gradually the stately buildings began to recede.
    When she got to her neighborhood, her stomach grumbled as she smelled the delicious food from all the other Seders.
                                             from The Passover Guest
                                                           by Susan Kusel
                                                illustrated by Sean Rubin
  (adapted from the story “Kunstn-makher” by Isaac Leib Peretz)
                                                      Holiday House, 2021

    Alaska and Hawaii both achieved statehood in 1959. Alaska on January 3, and Hawaii on August 21. In preparation for their admittance to the Union, a high school teacher in Lancaster, Ohio, gave his students an assignment: Design an American flag to accommodate 50 states. It was a math problem for Bob Heft. He successfully arranged the 50 stars in nine horizontal rows alternating six and five stars in each row. He kept the 13 stripes and earned a B- due to “lack of originality.” Bob wrote to his congressman who convinced the government to adopt the design from over 1,000 that were submitted. His teacher changed Bob’s grade to A and Bob Heft’s 50-star flag went into production on July 4, 1960.
    At the time of his death in 2009, Bob is thought to have designed a 51-star flag, too. Let’s hear it for Puerto Rico! and Guam!
    That’s what I wrote in a post I called “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” It appeared on July 2, 2019. What was I thinking? I forgot to include Washington DC. 
    The controversy for or against DC statehood is long and heated.
    statehood.dc.gov  is admittedly pro-statehood, but the information is accurate. Here’s what I found under the “Why Statehood” tab.
    “Like [people] in all 50 states, DC residents pay federal taxes, serve in the military and on juries, start businesses and families, and contribute to our national economy. In fact, Washington’s residents pay more taxes than residents in 22 states and pay more per capita to the federal government than any state—yet they have no votes in Congress.
    “DC elects a non-voting Delegate to the US House of Representatives who can draft legislation but cannot vote [in a meaningful way]. The current Delegate for DC is Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton [who has served since January, 1991]. 
    “DC has 712,000 residents, more than Vermont and Wyoming and comparable” with some others including Delaware and Alaska.
    Size is not an issue. The Constitution (Article 1. Section 8) provides an area not to exceed 10 square miles to accommodate the Federal District as the “Seat of the Government of the United States.” The proposed National Capital Service Area would be two square miles and include federal buildings, such as the White House, Capitol, Supreme Court, and the National Mall. Precedent was set in 1846, when an area west of the Potomac River was returned to Virginia. The rest of what now is Washington, District of Columbia would become Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. 
    By becoming a state, DC would lose its mayor but gain a governor. Two Senators would watch out for their constituents’ needs and wants, and the population would have at least one Representative. These would all be voting members of the US Congress, unlike Delegate Norton, who can vote on the House floor, but not if her vote would be decisive. 
    Since the Twenty-Third Amendment was ratified on March 29, 1961, residents of Washington DC have been allowed to vote for President and Vice President. The sticky wicket here is a provision in the Amendment. Electors to the Electoral College are chosen from the District. One solution: Congress repeals the Twenty-Third Amendment. Then Electors would be chosen from the new State and no Electors would be chosen from DC. 
    Another is to admit the new state with a Constitutional Amendment of its own, a cumbersome and lengthy process which many Republicans favor. Congress has the authority to admit states into the Union. None of the 37 states since the original Thirteen Colonies has been admitted by a Constitutional Amendment.
    Here’s just a little more. In 2016, a referendum held in the District to make DC the 51st state was approved by 78% of the voters. 
    Delegate Holmes introduced H.R.51 - Washington, D.C. Admission Act last year. It passed (232-180) in the House of Representatives, was placed on the Senate’s calendar, but not voted on. This year she introduced H.R.51 - Washington, D.C. Admission Act again. This time it passed (216-208) in the House, on April 22, 2021. Its fate rests with the Senators, who now hold the slimmest possible Democratic margin. The Senate may or may not bring it up for discussion and vote. 
    Here’s the rest of the story. DC is historically overwhelmingly a Democratic stronghold. Why would any Republican worth his/her/their salt agree to add a Representative to the House, and two, count them, two Senators? All most probably would be Democrats. 
    In the Senate, Tom Carper (D-DE) has introduced a similar bill encouraging statehood. He has 44 co-sponsors, the most ever, but still short of the 51 needed for a simple majority. 
    So it comes to Party Politics, as usual. The residents of DC are disenfranchised. Granting statehood would most assuredly skew the Senate toward the Democratic Party.
    I looked hard for arguments against statehood and could only find Republicans stating the obvious. https://congressionaldigest.com/pros-cons-of-d-c-statehood/ 
    In 2020, when the Admission Act passed out of the House, Mitch McConnell said he would not take up the measure in the Senate. This year, 2021, he’s not in charge.
                                          -—stay curious! (and speak up) 

    “My name is Starr. I’m the one who saw what happened to Khalil,” I say into the bullhorn. “And it wasn’t right.”
                                    .   .   .
    “Everybody wants to talk about how Khalil died,” I say. “But this isn’t about how Khalil died. It’s about the fact that he lived. His life mattered…”
                                                   from The Hate U Give
                                                         by Angie Thomas
                                                     Balzer + Bray, 2017
    I found four different definitions of immunity in my on-line American Heritage Dictionary.

1. [An] inherited, acquired, or induced resistance to infection by a specific pathogen. We all know about the COVID-19 vaccines.
2. Exemption from certain requirements of law granted to special groups to facilitate their public functions. Think diplomatic immunity and judicial immunity.
3. Exemption from prosecution granted to a witness to compel that witness to give potentially self-incriminating testimony. Here’s where the Fifth Amendment is applied. 
4. A condition conferred upon a contestant that prevents that contestant from being eliminated from a competition for a certain time period.

    But none of those describes qualified immunity. The term has come up so often recently that I decided to look a little more closely. Here’s my take.
    According to the American Bar Association’s blog, December 17, 2020, “[q]ualified immunity is a judicial doctrine created by the Supreme Court that shields state actors from liability for their misconduct, even when they break the law.”
    In cases of qualified immunity, a court must decide two things: 
        a constitutional right has been violated AND     
        that right was clearly established at the time of the conduct.
    Qualified immunity is a balancing act. On one side is the need to hold public officials accountable for their actions, especially if their power is wielded irresponsibly. On the other hand, those same public officials deserve to be protected from unnecessary or excessive harassment and distraction from an individual or the public when their duties are carried out responsibly.
    Shortly after the Civil War, Congress gave Americans the right to sue public officials who violated their civil rights. The language Congress used in the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was very clear: “Every” state official who causes a “deprivation of any rights” guaranteed by the Constitution and laws “shall be liable to the party injured.” The Act was also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. It was a protection especially provided to Blacks who were still targeted in the South.  
    But ironically, during the Civil Rights movement I remember, 1967 saw the Supreme Court put parameters around those state officials by inventing qualified immunity. The Court described their change as a moderate exception of the 1871 Act for officials who, acting in “good faith,” accidentally injured (physically or otherwise) someone. In other words, those officials (most usually police officers), were immune from prosecution if they believed they were acting legally.
    But, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove intent.
    Fifteen years later, the law was reinterpreted again. Now, even an officer who knowingly violates someone’s civil rights, (unless the victim can provide a prior judicial opinion in a previously decided case involving the same “specific context” and “particular conduct,”) the officer is immune from prosecution. In other words, unless the target of the police action can point to a judicial decision that proved an officer guilty of the same conduct in the same place, the officer will be shielded from liability. 
    And that’s where we are today. An officer doesn’t have to prove s/he was acting legally. It is presumed that the officer knows the law, and if a person’s rights are trampled in upholding that law, it’s up to the trampled person to prove the officer was wrong. Whether using excessive force, conducting an unwarranted search, or controlling a crowd, officers hold enormous power. And they are protected from their actions by qualified immunity when they exert that power. 
    The National Police Support Fund claims that qualified immunity benefits the public because it creates trust. I’m not so sure. How can a police force ensure that, because s/he has qualified immunity, “a police officer will take the best actions needed to maintain law and order and keep communities safe”? https://nationalpolicesupportfund.com/qualified-immunity-pros-and-cons/ 
    Again from the ABA’s blog (12/17/2020) “Police officers rarely face meaningful consequences for their misconduct, and the public’s accurate perception of this fact has contributed to what can best be described as a crisis of confidence in our nation’s law enforcement.” https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/publications/insights-on-law-and-society/volume-21/issue-1/qualified-immunity/ 
    Many police departments are looking hard at themselves. They are evaluating their training procedures and policies. Some even seem to understand that the best course of action may be to call for help from a different agency, one that does not shoot guns. 
    According to a Forbes article published March 4, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2021/03/04/house-passes-new-bill-to-abolish-qualified-immunity-for-police/?sh=23565f572daf the House of Representatives has just approved the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (H.R. 1280). It is a massive overhaul of American policing that includes the elimination of qualified immunity for all local, state, and federal law enforcement officers. The bill has been endorsed by the Biden administration. There may even be some bi-partisan support. 
    The bill is not perfect; it is not finished. But people are talking about it. Politicians, and regular people, too.
    The wheels of change turn slowly.
                                             -—stay curious! (and patient)    

And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks with the one word…
“UNLESS”
Whatever that meant, well, I just couldn’t guess.
                    .    .    .
“But now,” said the Once-ler,
“Now that you’re here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not…”
                                                        from The Lorax
                                                             by Dr. Seuss
                                                      Random House, 1971
                                    accessed on YouTube April 19, 2021
    I like to believe that no one is as mean and as greedy as the Once-ler who only wanted to make more and more Thneeds, a clothing item that nobody really needed. He used up a resource until it was gone, then packed himself up and let his factory go to rack and ruin while the nearby forest, pond, and the very air suffered mightily.
    I like to believe that, but I know it’s not true. There’s plenty of greed fed by over-consumption, thoughtless disregard for natural resources, and careless disposal of trash. Who knew that cigarette butts are the largest source of plastic pollution? According to EARTHDAY.ORG, as of August 28, 2020, 4.5 trillion butts are littering the world. It takes 10 years for the plastic in the filters to completely degrade. The toxic chemicals stay in the ground much longer.
    I’ll stop myself before a rant begins about the deplorable state of the world and the humans who inhabit it. Look around. Lots of good is going on.
    In two days it will be April 22, the day the whole world celebrates Earth Day.
    Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin who served from 1962 to 1980, decided to pivot the energy college students displayed in their anti-Viet Nam War protests, civil rights protests, and women’s rights protests to the growing environmental movement. 
    He was concerned about the spewing smokestacks, overflowing garbage dumps, and oil spills. In January, 1969, he witnessed a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California and the destruction that followed. Nelson and a fellow Congressman recruited Denis Hayes, an activist, to lead teach-ins on college campuses. April 22, a date half-way between Spring Break and finals seemed a likely time to reach lots of students. 
    The name Earth Day caught the ear of national media who shared the story far and wide. On April 22, 1970, over 20,000 people attended the first Earth Day celebrations across the US, over 10% of our entire population. Earth Day grew and continues to grow.
    Earth Day went global in 1990. Recycling efforts worldwide got a huge boost and countries began to mobilize for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
    President Bill Clinton awarded Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, for his role as Earth Day founder.
    Thirty years after the first Earth Day, the millennium year saw citizens around the world sending a clear message to their leaders to take “quick and decisive action on global warming and clean energy.”
    Today EARTHDAY.ORG provides volunteer opportunities and outlets for civil engagement to over one billion people in 193 countries. Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world.
    According to their website, “The social and cultural environments we saw in 1970 are rising up again today — a fresh and frustrated generation of young people are refusing to settle for platitudes, instead taking to the streets by the millions to demand a new way forward.”
    Digital and social media are bringing people together as never before, “catalyzing generations to join together to take on the greatest challenge that humankind has faced.” 
    This year’s world-wide celebration begins at noon eastern time on April 22, 2021, and can be accessed here: https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2021/ 
    Scroll down to find the Global Youth Summit beginning today (April 20, 2021) at 2:30 ET. Continue your scroll to find the rest of the three-day-long activities.
    Further down the page you’ll come to the Five Pillars of Restore Our EarthTM where you’ll find hundreds of ways to be informed and involved. 
    Since 2010, the Canopy Project has planted millions of trees all over the world in communities most at-risk from Climate Change and in communities cleaning up after natural and human-caused disasters.
    During The Great Global Cleanup you can register your group or yourself to clean up a lot or a little and get a pin on the world map. Their slogan is “Sign Up, Show Up, Clean Up.”
    The Global Earth Challenge is a citizen science initiative to explore current issues like plastic pollution, changes in insect populations, and how air quality differs in different locations.
    And EARTHDAY.ORG is not the only organization working hard. Here’s a list (in alphabetical order) of organizations whose missions make our Earth their priority. 
    The Arbor Day Foundation https://www.arborday.org 
    Audubon Society https://www.audubon.org 
    Environmental Defense Fund https://www.edf.org  
    Greenpeace https://www.greenpeace.org/international/ 
    NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) https://www.nrdc.org 
    Sierra Club https://www.sierraclub.org 
    The Wilderness Society https://www.wilderness.org 
    World Wildlife Fund https://www.worldwildlife.org 
A very handy source to find information about your favorite nonprofits and charities is The Charity Navigator. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3671 Type in the organization’s name and discover their mission, their history, their staff, how much of their donations go to programming, salaries, and how much it costs them to earn each dollar.
    Celebrate our Earth on Thursday (and every day.)
                                -—stay curious (and hug a tree, or two!)