Happy Birthday To . . . Dietrich & Rosa
February 4, 1906 Dietrich Bonhoeffer "If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction." February 4, 1913 Rosa Parks "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be...
Happy Birthday To . . Simone & Henning
February 3, 1909 Simone Weil "Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand." February...
Happy Birthday To . . . Judith & Tommy
February 2, 1932 Judith Viorst "Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands—and then eat just one of the pieces." February 2, 1937 Tom Smothers "Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important unless...
Happy Birthday To . . Yevgeny & Leymah
February 1, 1884 Yevgeny Zamyatin "Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought." February 1, 1972 Leymah Gbowee "Anger is like liquid. It's fluid, it's like water. You put it in a container and it takes the shape of that container. So many...
News: “A Wish For Peace”
From the San Antonio Express-News, January 31, 2023 Peace laureate Rosalyn Falcon Collier speaks during the 18th annual Blessing of the Peacemakers on Sunday afternoon at the Palmetto Center for the Arts Theater at Northwest Vista College. The Blessing of the...
Happy Birthday To . . . Thomas & Jackie
January 31, 1915 Thomas Merton "The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another." January 31, 1919 Jackie Robinson "The most luxurious...
Happy Birthday To . . . Saul & Barbara
January 30, 1909 Saul Alinsky "As an organizer, I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be - it is necessary to begin...
Happy Birthday To . . . Edward & Germaine
January 29, 1927 Edward Abbey "Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top." January 29, 1939 Germaine Greer "One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night."
Happy Birthday To . . . José & Pop
January 28, 1853 José Martí "We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political...
Poem: “Epitaph,” by Merrit Malloy
When I die Give what’s left of me away To children And old men that wait to die. And if you need to cry, Cry for your brother Walking the street beside you. And when you need me, Put your arms Around anyone And give them What you need to give to me. I want to leave...
Happy Birthday To . . . Frederico & Clarissa
January 27, 1934 Federico Mayor Zaragoza "We must construct a new set of values and attitudes to replace the culture of war which, for centuries, has been influencing the course of civilization. Winning peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish, on a...
NEWS: Ayala: San Antonio will gift a compassion ‘how-to’ for use by nation’s cities
San Antonio Express-News, 27 January, 2023 SAN ANTONIO — Mayor Ron Nirenberg went to the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., last week with a gift — or at least the promise of a gift — from San Antonio to its fellow cities. Though he’ll deliver the...
Happy Birthday To . . . Paul & Angela
January 26, 1925 Paul Newman "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." January 26, 1944 Angela Davis "Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'"
Happy Birthday To . . . Virginia & Corazon
January 25, 1882 Virginia Woolf "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." January 25, 1933 Corazon Aquino "It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a...
Happy Birthday To . . . Will & Edith
January 24, 1670 William Congreve "Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." January 24, 1862 Edith Wharton "There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
Happy Birthday To . . Francis & George
January 22, 1561 Francis Bacon "Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out." January 22, 1788 George Gordon, Lord Byron "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who...
Poem: “Poem Beginning with a Retweet,” by Maggie Smith
If you drive past horses and don’t say horses you’re a psychopath. If you see an airplane but don’t point it out. A rainbow, a cardinal, a butterfly. If you don’t whisper-shout albino squirrel! Deer! Red fox! If you hear a woodpecker and don’t shush everyone around...
Happy Birthday To . . . Buzz & Rainn
January 20, 1930 Buzz Aldrin "If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger." January 20, 1966 Rainn Wilson "Some of the most morally conscious, kindest, most compassionate people are in the entertainment industry, people who want to affect the world and...
Poem: “Everything is waiting for you,” by David Whyte
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the...
Happy Birthday To . . . Janis & Dolly
January 19, 1943 Janis Joplin "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." January 19, 1946 Dolly Parton "Storms make trees take deeper roots."
Poem: “This is what I have to say to you,” by Danna Faulds
This is what I have to say to you . . . Live as if the earth exhales blessings in your direction, As if trees speak their deepest secrets In your ear, As if bird songs can lift you outside your Ordinary state of mind and bring you into truth. Be the creative juice...
Happy Birthday To . . . Montesquieu & Binyavanga
January 18, 1689 Montesquieu "To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them. January 18, 1971 Binyavanga Wainaina "All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit."
Poem: “What Kind of Times Are These,” by Adrienne Rich
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of...
Happy Birthday To . . . Catherine & David
January 17, 1829 Catherine Booth "If we are to better the future we must disturb the present." January 17, 1863 David Lloyd George "Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."