One of the four primary holidays in the Celtic calendar, celebrating the end of the harvest with bonfires and festivals.
Generally believed to be a time when the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead is thin; a time of migration between this world and the other.
After this, then winter.
October 31, 2009, 5:19pm
Anybody want to guess what it was about this magazine spread from the October issue of Family Fun that inspired me to write a Letter To The Editor?
Anyone?
Here’s my letter:
To Whom It May Concern,
In the October issue of the “Family Fun” magazine there is a two page spread of Halloween costumes, featuring a male African American child with a “target” design on his chest. This costume and photograph is also featured on your website here: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=12268
When I saw the photo spread in the issue my first response was one of amazement and disgust. The level of editorial insensitivity and stupidity represented in this photo is astounding.
The situation for many African American youth today is fraught with violence — both in stereotypical media cliche as well as in the reality many face due to poverty, inner city crime, and racial discrimination.
Given this, representing an African American young man as a human target is in supremely bad taste, to say the least.
In addition, this country elected an African American president last November, and he has received an unprecedented level of death threats due to his race and cultural background.
I cannot help but wonder if anyone involved in the production of your magazine even considered either of these issues when preparing, photographing, laying out, or proofing the feature. You certainly had ample opportunity to do so.
Regardless as to whether it was ignorance, insensitivity, or oversight, I remain amazed and disgusted.
The October issue came with a note reminding me that it was my last issue. You can be certain that I have no plans to renew.
T.M. Camp
September 28, 2009, 10:26am
“In solitude I used to wander about the garden, alternately collecting birds’ eggs and meditating on the flight of time. If I may judge by my own recollections, the important and formative impressions of childhood rise to consciousness only in fugitive moments in the midst of childish occupations, and are never mentioned to adults. I think periods of browsing during which no occupation is imposed from without are important in youth because they give time for the formation of these apparently fugitive but really vital impressions.”
August 03, 2009, 11:14am
“To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise…Let him take a course of chymistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.”
July 21, 2009, 11:53am
“We enjoy warmth because we have been cold.
We appreciate light because we have been in darkness.
By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sorrow.”
— David L. Weatherford (via brokenmachine)
July 21, 2009, 9:22am
“Once you have established a belief, the phenomenon adjusts its manifestations to support that belief and thereby escalate it.”
July 08, 2009, 10:57am
About $430 buck, actually — which seems to be much lower than the average. I will say this, I did rack up at least one or two of the big ticket items. I’m not bragging, just saying.
What’s all this about, you ask? Check here for the rules.
June 17, 2009, 8:33am
“When the Lord finished the world, he pronounced it good. That is what I said about my first work, too. But Time, I tell you, Time takes the confidence out of these incautious opinions. It is more than likely that He thinks about the world, now, pretty much as I think about the Innocents Abroad. The fact is, there is a trifle too much water in both.”
June 08, 2009, 3:50pm
“Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.”
June 03, 2009, 10:20am
“If a street is named for a tree,
it is right that flowers
bloom purple and feel like cats,
that people are leaves drifting
downhill in morning fog.Everyone came outside to see
the moon setting like a perfect
orange mouth tipped up to heaven.Now the cars sleep against curbs.
If I write a letter,
how will I make it long enough?There is a place to stand
”
where you can see so many lights
you forget you are one of them.
May 20, 2009, 10:01am
