December 25, 2014 by suzannesmom
Do you know “The Story of the Other Wise Man,” by Henry Van Dyke? It’s about a fourth wise man who sets out with treasures to give the baby born in Bethlehem.
He never makes it, because along the way he has to spend the treasures one by one to help someone in need. At the end of his life, he feels he has failed. Then he hears a voice saying, “Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me.”
Background on the tale is at wikipedia, here. You can get the whole story at Amazon. Better yet, how about your local library?
Sleep tight, Everyone.
Art: Hans Memling
Adoration of the Magi. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Adoration of the Magi, christmas, hans memling, henry van dyke, magi, postaday, the other wiseman, treasures | 2 Comments »
December 24, 2014 by suzannesmom
After my older grandson (4-1/2) and older granddaughter (nearly 2) let me play too as they decorated their gingerbread cookies, I went home and pulled out the sugar-cookie recipe from the nursery school cookbook John made in 1975. It’s still the best.
Observation on cookie cutters: Swedes know their moose. I have several moose/reindeer cookie cutters, but the only one that works well is the one from Erik’s mother. It has plump legs and antlers. Why is that important? Because skinny legs and antlers invariably break off.
The grandson, granddaughter, and I have the same abstract aesthetic when it comes to decorating.
The Little Mermaid window ornament is from Erik’s sister, who lives in Denmark.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged christmas, cookies, denmark, little mermaid, moose, nursery school, postaday, swede | Leave a Comment »
December 23, 2014 by suzannesmom
When the town of Ferguson was turned upside down and the schools had to close, the library stayed open and provided children with learning activities and comfort.
People around the world felt the urge to “do something” for Ferguson, and I began seeing tweets about donating to the Ferguson Library. To have an objective like that was a relief to the feelings, but I had no idea what a special library it turned out to be, how many kinds of help would coalesce around it, and how much I would learn about libraries in general from following @FergusonLibrary on twitter and Facebook.
The Ferguson Library has been sharing the work of other libraries and exhibiting great insight about using this moment of fame to benefit the community and the important work of libraries in our society.
One of the many nice things that have happened is that a children’s book author has organized donations from other authors, and they are coming in from near and far. It all makes one want to spend a lot more time in the library.
Gingerbread house at Concord Library
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ferguson, library, postaday | 2 Comments »
December 22, 2014 by suzannesmom
This is the tree in my warm and cozy house. The tree in the picture below, a picture you may think is entirely black, is actually sitting all by itself on a river bank that floods in spring.
It makes me think of the carol about King Wenceslas, who “on the Feast of Stephen” (December 26) spied a poor man out in a blizzard and went with his page to take care of him. “Bring me flesh, and bring me wine; bring me pine logs hither: Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.”
The story goes that “heat was in the very sod that the saint had printed.”
Not being able to heat the sod underneath our feet (or command a page, for that matter), many of us consider sending a check to a food bank at this time of year. Still too many hungry people.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged christmas, hungry, king wenceslas, page, poor, postaday, tree | 3 Comments »
December 21, 2014 by suzannesmom
Rainy days at the shore and holidays are for many families today the only time they play board games.
But for folks in Omaha, Nebraska, an unusual coffee shop provides frequent opportunities to play games — including some that, guaranteed, you never heard of.
Robyn Murray reported the story at the radio show Only a Game.
“Remember playing Monopoly and Scrabble around the dinner table? Arguing with your siblings about who gets to be the car or the Scottish Terrier? Or whether Z-A-Q could ever be a real word? Well those days are coming back — with just one variation: The arguments are getting weird. Did you feed your monster properly? Can you trust her to save the world with you? And what’s the best way to ensure your family doesn’t have to go begging — selling bread or planting beans?
“Welcome to the revamped world of board games.
“At Spielbound in Omaha, Neb. — a newly opened coffee shop and board game library with what’s believed to be the largest collection of board games in the country — the Short family recently played Takenoko, a Japanese board game.
“ ‘We are trying to please the emperor by taking care of his panda and growing a most excellent garden that feeds his panda,’ Justin Short explained.
“There’s a comfortable feeling about Spielbound. The tables are wooden and the booths leather. There are no television screens, just a cozy bar that serves beer and coffees with names like ‘Taste of Sweet Victory’ and ‘Dice Delight.’ Downstairs, four foot shelves are stocked with board games. Each box is a little work of art, with titles like ‘Arkham Horror’ and ‘The Road to Canterbury,’ with pictures of ships, dragons and submarines.
“The Shorts come here a lot on their monthly family pass. Short has a collection of 200 board games at home. But that’s nothing compared to the 1,200 available at Spielbound, at least according to the Shorts’ children:
“ ‘It’s just fun to play as a family whenever we get down here,’ Isabelle said.
“ ‘I like pretending to be something else and do something else,’ Sabrina said.
“ ‘I like beating people,’ Cameron said, laughing.”
More here.
Photo: Robyn Murray/Only A Game
Spielbound, a coffee shop and board game library in Omaha, Neb., holds what’s believed to be the largest collection of board games in the U.S. with over 1,200 games available for patrons. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged board game, coffee shop, game, nebraska, Omaha, only a game, postaday, robyn murray, spielbound, Takenoko | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2014 by suzannesmom
When John was 3, I made a 16 mm movie for a class. It was abstract. It involved giant road signs saying, “You Slow Down!” and my 3-year-old doing one of his favorite activities — dragging all the yard tools onto the top of my car.
My teacher didn’t give me a good grade because (a) there was no logic to it (so?) and (b) there were too many jump cuts (point taken). But who can see a sign like that and not want to take a picture of it? “You Slow Down!”
Wherever I drove today, there were too many crowds and too few parking spaces. An anxious vibe was abroad in the land.
Fortunately, there are activities that invariably slow me down: an hour at tai chi, with lots of ocean breathing; a couple hours playing with grandchildren and singing with them to John’s guitar; an amble among the hurried shoppers; doing my exercises; drinking hot cider; writing about it all. I can’t do any of that fast.
Now I have a question. Does ambling among hurried shoppers just make them irritated or help to calm them, too?
The photo below shows my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss moderating the tempo at work yesterday.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breathing, calm down, hot cider, postaday, rush, tai chi | 3 Comments »
December 19, 2014 by suzannesmom
We’ve been speaking of public transit and well-planned cities of late. Here’s a story from the radio show Living on Earth about a Boston neighborhood that is fed up with streets built to keep cars and trucks happy and is demanding a more human focus.
“JAKE LUCAS: On a bright Tuesday morning, in Boston’s western neighborhood of Allston, a small group of locals with picket signs crowds onto a little wedge of concrete. They’re standing on Cambridge Street, right where a highway on-ramp splits off from the fiercely busy six-lane road that has been a sore point for years.
“HARRY MATTISON: Cambridge Street is a street that’s a crucial link in our neighborhood, and it’s also an incredibly unsafe, dangerous street.
“LUCAS: That’s Harry Mattison, a 31-year-old software developer who’s a longtime advocate for pedestrian and cyclist rights in the area. Since Cambridge Street was last redesigned 50 years ago, it’s been high on the list of residents’ complaints, and with good reason.
“Two pedestrians were killed here in the last two years. And one of those accidents happened just a few weeks before this rally, when a car hit a man as he tried to cross from the on-ramp to where the protesters are standing now.
“They’re holding signs with messages like ‘My kids walk here,’ and they’re demanding a safer Cambridge Street. Mattison has three kids, and laments not feeling safe on a street that cuts through the heart of his own neighborhood. …
“The city is already working on a short-term fix to make Cambridge Street safer. But in the long term, the transportation department has bigger plans. It’s going to bring the street into the modern day and transform it using the principles of what’s called a ‘complete street.’ Complete streets look different in different places, but the idea’s simple – make transportation systems about people, so there’s equal access for all forms of travel and all people.
“Boston’s Transportation Department has its own complete street guidelines. The head of policy and planning, Vineet Gupta, says that in Boston, every street redesign will include a handful of features from a menu of possibilities.
“GUPTA: Any street that’s going through a redesign process will have some elements of complete streets in it based on its size, based on what the community wants and based on where it’s located.
“LUCAS: In some places that’s as simple as narrowing the road by adding a bike lane. Projects with more room and better funding, like Cambridge Street, might also allow for things like new bike sharing stations, more trees along the street or smart parking meters that direct drivers to open spaces. The final design will be tailored toward the wants and needs of the people who use it.” More here.
Photo: Jake Lucas
Harry Mattison and residents of Boston’s Allston neighborhood march at the Rally for a Safer Cambridge Street on July 28, 2014.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged allston, bicyclist, bike lanes, bike sharing, boston, complete street, harry mattison, jake lucas, living on earth, loe, neighborhood, pedestrian, postaday, safe streets, Vineet Gupta | 2 Comments »
December 18, 2014 by suzannesmom
Lately, there have been so many stories about kindhearted people tucked in among the opposite kind of headline that, at this rate, if I wait another week there will be too many for one blog post. A good problem to have, of course, but I think I’ll just go ahead and give you what I’ve collected so far.
First there was the woman who went to the Toys R Us in Bellingham and paid off all the layaway plans. Then there was the woman who did the same thing in another Massachusetts town.
Next was the widow who put her engagement ring and wedding ring in a red Salvation Army bucket hoping that, if someone bought them, the charity would receive $20,000. Another widow did just that. She also put out the word that she would like to give the rings back to the first widow.
On Cape Cod, a man believed to be an emissary of a grateful resident has been showing up in fast-food restaurants, asking the manager how many people work there, and dolling out that number of $100 bills. All those generous souls are anonymous.
If you’re not full to bursting yet, how about the homeless man in Preston, UK, who gave a student his last $3 to get a taxi after she lost her money? And how about the student herself, who then organized her friends for on overnight on the streets and raised over £20,000? Now the homeless man is getting an apartment and advising on ways to help the nonprofits that had helped him.
Sam Rkaina at the Mirror writes, “A campaign to raise money for a homeless man has raised an incredible £21,000 after it went viral. Dominique Harrison-Bentzen set up the appeal for an ‘incredibly kind’ homeless man called Robbie who offered her £3 for a taxi home when she lost her bank card on a night out.
“She set up a fundraising page to pay for a deposit on a flat for him and yesterday took part in a 24 hour sleep-out on the streets of Preston. The 22-year-old says she has been overwhelmed by the support from the public after the fundraising target was completely smashed.” More on that story here.
Photo: The Mirror
Dominique, second from left, and friends experiencing a night of homelessness to raise funds.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged $100, bellingham, Dominique Harrison-Bentzen, fast food, homeless, human, kindness, mirror, postaday, salvation army, sam rkaina, toys r us, wedding ring | 2 Comments »
December 17, 2014 by suzannesmom
I commute to work, first by commuter rail, then by subway. It should take 1 hour each way but usually takes 1 hour 15 minutes — and it can take much longer as there are often signal problems, equipment breakdowns, lack of a crew, etc.
Still, I always say that it’s better than sitting in traffic. All the train commuters I know complain abut public transit and yet prefer to take it. We can sit and read the news or a book. We can chat with friends and strangers.
Now I see from a tweet linking to CNN that lots more people are getting on board.
Thom Patterson at CNN Travel offers his five reasons for believing that Americans are falling in love with public transit.
1. “Ridership is experiencing a winning streak. The nation is on track to top 2013’s annual ridership, which was the highest since 1956. …
2. “Americans are breaking up with their cars. Since 2007, Americans have been driving less, breaking a trend that had been rising for more than two decades. … The public transportation industry says commuters could gain an average annual savings of $9,635 by taking public transit instead of driving.”
3. Cities seem to like streetcars and trolleys. “In Oregon, Portland’s success with its streetcars in the early 2000s helped spur similar projects around the nation. New streetcar projects are in service, under construction or being planned in Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Cincinnati; Dallas; Detroit; Kansas City, Missouri; Salt Lake City; Tucson, Arizona; and Washington. …
4. “Several city planners are pinning their hopes on spectacular new transportation facilities that combine transportation with other activities such as shopping and eating. …
5. “These days, jobs are where you find them, not necessarily where you live. Supporters say the need for faster, affordable mass transit between nearby cities has never been greater. Utah Transit Authority’s light-rail line called TRAX has connected communities within the sprawling Salt Lake County for 15 years. … Now, commuter rail lines have been proposed connecting other regional cities — such as Chicago with St. Louis, Dallas with Houston and Orlando’s airport with downtown Miami.” More here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cnn, postaday, public transit, thom patterson | 2 Comments »
December 16, 2014 by suzannesmom
At the radio show Living on Earth, host Steve Curwood recently interviewed the former mayor of a planned city that has a strong emphasis on public transit and quality of life.
From the transcript …
“CURWOOD: Some say the best-planned city in the world is Curitiba, the eighth largest metropolis in Brazil and the capital of the state of Paraná. And much of the credit goes to the the charismatic architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner, who was mayor of Curitiba three times and twice the governor of Paraná. The path to sustainable success he says is often found in doing simple things quickly that enhance the life of a city. Now in his eighth decade and retired from politics, Jaime Lerner has traveled the world and documented some ways various cities create pleasant and sustainable atmospheres in a book called Urban Acupuncture. …
“CURWOOD: Your book isn’t so much a manual about how to make your city sustainable, more sustainable. It’s more an ode to those little things that make a city vibrant — pinpricks you call them. So why did you choose to write a book that focuses on these tiny, little details?
“LERNER: I didn’t want to write a manual, because I wanted to provide the people the sense of what makes a city. … People, they have so many ideas and there’s so many things that can make people happier. I give an example. In my city we had a dentist. At the end of the week, Friday afternoon, he went to his window. He was good clarinet player, and he played a concert.
“And people, they knew that every Friday afternoon this guy is giving a concert of clarinet. It’s not about works; it’s about feelings, feeling a city.
“Sometimes to make a change in a city takes time. The process of planning takes a lot of time. Sometimes it has to take time, but you can through local interventions, pinpricks, you can start to give a new energy to a city…
“A city has to give opportunity to everything, music, poetry. In my state it’s 399 municipalities. We didn’t have money, for instance, for a small city of 4,000 people to have a theater. So what we did, we organized a cultural convoy with 10 buses, recycled buses. One bus was recycled for theater, the other for dance, the other for music, the other for opera, and they travelled all around the state during 5 years. We had an average of 1,500 spectators every night.”
More at Living on Earth.
Photo: Thomas Hobbs; Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
Curitiba couldn’t afford a subway and decided to focus on buses. The stations look like little subway stations. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged curitiba, environment, jaime lerner, living on earth, Paraná, pinpricks, planned city, postaday, public transit, thomas hobbs, Urban Acupuncture | Leave a Comment »
December 15, 2014 by suzannesmom
Research highlighted at Pacific Standard sometimes strikes me as a little lightweight, but I am happy to endorse a study that Tom Jacobs covered recently, because I have some personal experience. It’s about the benefits of both cultural activities and Internet usage for older people.
Jacobs writes, “A new British study of people age 50 and older finds a link between health literacy — defined as ‘the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information’ — and two specific behaviors: Regular use of the Internet, and participation in cultural activities.
“ ‘Loss of health literacy skills during aging is not inevitable, a research team led by Lindsay Kobayashi of University College London writes in the Journal of Epidemiology and Health. ‘Internet use and engagement in various social activities, in particular cultural activities, appear to help older adults maintain the literary skills required to self-manage health.’
“The study used data on 4,368 men and women age 50 or older who participated in the English Longitudinal Study on Aging. Their health literacy was measured two years after they joined the project, and again five years later, by having them read a fictitious medicine-bottle label and then answer four reading-comprehension questions.”
I am over 50, enjoy cultural events and the Internet, and understand most medicine bottle labels. So there you go. It’s all true.
Get the key details at Pacific Standard.
Photo: Popova Valeriya/Shutterstock 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged arts, culture, elderly, health, internet, Journal of Epidemiology and Health, Lindsay Kobayashi, literacy, pacific standard, Popova Valeriya, postaday, seniors, tom jacobs, University College London | Leave a Comment »
December 14, 2014 by suzannesmom
I like walking around town at this season, dodging intent holiday shoppers but without any important agenda of my own. No urgent missions, just fun ones like yesterday’s to choose a pair of socks. I never realized how many local stores carry socks.
Then today, who should pop up outside Barefoot Books but the Acton-Boxborough High School Madrigal Singers, regaling passersby with seasonal favorites. And hand motions.
There was also a poetry reading at the library, part of an ongoing series. Today we had poet Sandra Lim, who read from her collection The Wilderness. The poems tended to start out straightforward and end up obscure. I need to read and think about them. I liked the title of one section of the nine-part poem “Homage to Anne Bradstreet” (a Puritan poet that Lim likes because of the crazy contrasts between controlled and wild), but I’m afraid my train of thought had nothing to do with the subject at hand.
The section of the Bradstreet homage was called “Black Painting,” and it reminded me of a friend who so detested the level of conversation at her husband’s management-consultant social events that she would invariably announce in the middle of the party, “I’m going home now and make a black painting.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged acotn-boxborough madrigals, anne bradstreet, barefoot books, library, poet, poetry, postaday, sandra lim, wilderness | Leave a Comment »
December 13, 2014 by suzannesmom
Suzanne’s friend Sara Van Note is heading off to Central America to research a story, but before leaving, she filed this report on a wasp that is being used to fight the emerald ash borer.
“A swampy forest in the floodplain of the Merrimack River is one of the first places in New Hampshire where the dreaded emerald ash borer was discovered. These days, Molly Heuss of the New Hampshire Division of Forestry and Lands knows just how to find the tree-munching beetles lurking in green and black ash. …
“In recent years, the emerald ash borer has chewed its way through tens of millions of ashes across 24 states and two Canadian provinces, and counting.”
So scientists have decided to use a parasitic wasp to combat the menace.
“The parasites are descendants of wasps brought to the US from China, where the borer is also from. And they are very tiny. ‘About the size of a pin,’ says entomologist Juli Gould, of the US Department of Agriculture in Massachusetts. …
“The borers themselves were discovered in North America in 2002. They probably got here by stowing away in shipping crates. Scientists here knew nothing about them at the time, so Gould says they began working with colleagues in China to find a way to control the bugs.” More here.
Using the parasitic wasp is a last-ditch effort, and other scientists worry that the wasp could end up doing other things that are less desirable. That’s always a possibility, as Erik pointed out the other day when I showed him an article in the Providence Journal about a local effort to beat back a winter moth infestation. The article said that the parasitic fly Cyzenis albicans dines only on winter moths, so no worries. But Erik was skeptical. The best laid plans of mice and men …
Photo: John Cameron
Mountain Ash in New Hampshire
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged china, Cyzenis albicans, ecology, emerald ash borer, environment, john cameron, juli gould, Merrimack, molly heuss, mountain ash, nature, new hampshire, parasitic, postaday, sara van note, wasp | 2 Comments »
December 12, 2014 by suzannesmom
I thought you would like this story from the National Deseret News about refugees making a new life for themselves in Arizona.
Lourdes Medrano writes, “In a small field on the outskirts of [a] desert town near the Mexican border, close to 30 women and men stoop over rows of pumpkins, carefully picking the pulpy autumn fruit along with its flowers, stems and leaves.
“The volunteers are part of an innovative program that helps refugees from war-torn countries find work and food. Called the Iskashitaa Refugee Network, the Arizona-based organization consists of a diverse group that harvests donated crops from local farms and people’s backyards to feed displaced populations from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
“On this recent fall afternoon, Adam Abubakar, a refugee in his early 30s who came to Arizona two years ago from the conflicted Darfur region of Sudan, quickly clips pumpkin leaves and drops them in a tote bag for later distribution to newcomers who eat them. For Abubakar, picking fruits and vegetables comes second nature. Back in his homeland, he grew most of the food his family consumed …
“The government provides refugees limited resettlement assistance and organizations such as Iskashitaa work to help the newcomers become self-sufficient as they adapt to American society. Refugees working in the pumpkin field not only harvest the fruits and vegetables they eat, but they also distribute crops to fellow newcomers, learn about urban gardening, market what they grow, and participate in cross-cultural food exchanges. …
“The number of incoming refugees has fluctuated over time and reflects shifting world conflicts and heightened security concerns. In 1980, for instance, 207,000 refugees — including many displaced by the Vietnam War — resettled within the country.
“Iskashitaa was founded in 2003 by Barbara Eiswerth, an environmental scientist, with help from Somali Bantu refugee students who began harvesting crops no one was picking to boost their diet. The refugees inspired the name of the fledgling group: ‘working cooperatively together.’ …
“By tapping into the agricultural roots of refugees, Iskashitaa aims not just to provide food, but also to empower those they’re helping.”
More here.
Photo: Lourdes Medrano/National Deseret News
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Adam Abubakar, agriculture, arizona, bantu, Barbara Eiswerth, darfur, deseret news, farming, Iskashitaa Refugee Network, new life, postaday, refugee, somali | Leave a Comment »
December 11, 2014 by suzannesmom
I’ve been following David Guttenfelder on twitter and Instagram for about a year, initially because of a stunning photo of North Korea that appeared in the NY Times. Guttenfelder has made a specialty of North Korea, although he now works for National Geographic and travels extensively. He has recently been promoting a group of instagrammers who spend time in North Korea.
Writing for Time magazine’s Lightbox column, Olivier Laurant quotes Guttenfelder: “ ‘My motive has always been to open a window on North Korea,’ says David Guttenfelder. ‘There are so few images coming out of there, and yet there’s so much interest.’
“A former chief photographer at Associated Press, Guttenfelder helped open the agency’s first bureau in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in January 2012. Now, after he resigned from AP to continue his career as a freelance photographer and one of National Geographic’s Photography Fellows, he’s not turning his back on the reclusive country. In September 2014, he quietly launched the Everyday DPRK Instagram account, which features pictures by North Korean residents and photographers. …
“Six photographers, including Guttenfelder, are currently posting on the Everyday DPRK account — @drewkelly, @sunbimari, @andrea_uri, @simonkoryo, @soominee. …
“Kelly first visited Pyongyang in June 2012, and he usually spends three to four months a year in the country. ‘I had come right out of graduate school and learned of an opportunity to teach at a university here in the capital,’ he says. ‘I wanted to do something different, not sit around in the U.S. hoping the”right” job would come along.’
“When he’s not teaching English, Kelly is using Instagram to offer an ‘expat point-of-view’ on North Korea and to show that ‘there are real people living, working and striving for a better life with the cards dealt to them,’ he says.” More here, at Lightbox.
Guttenfelder comments at Instagram, “We are a small group of photographers who have, with different routes, unique access to North Korea. @andrea_uri started a tour company for example. @drewkelly is a teacher at a nkorean university. @dguttenfelder is a photojournalist. @sunbimari is a translator and working on major cultural exchange programs. @simonkoryo is a British nations with more trips inside nkorea than any other foreigner that I know of, more than 150. @soominee works on a farm in Rason.”
Photo: @drewkelly
North Korean kindergarten students stand outside a school at a collective farm near Wonsan, North Korea.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged @drewkelly, everyday north korea, guttenfelder, instagram, lightbox, north korea, olivier laurant, photography, postaday, wonsan | Leave a Comment »
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