Four Corners Revisited: My People

I am cheating a little and using the Four Corners concept to quickly introduce to you people and ideas so that future articles on Portugal make a lot more sense.

Introducing Mr P — who does not really wish to be on the internet at all. Ironically, I met Mr P online playing a rather silly game called Tribal Wars. Mr P was born in Morocco of French parents and has been living in Portugal for most of his life. He has a degree in Biology from Pau University. He speaks French, Portuguese and English extremely well and has knowledge of Spanish, Italian and German as well. He has a strong sense of history and of culture. The mix of our cultures and our language brings a lot of humour to our lives. We love to travel — not just in the broadest sense — but in the everyday sense of exploration; not only of ourselves and our lives but in the beauty found all around us. We have adventures everywhere! This picture was taken at our handfasting where we took our vows in front of friends and family.

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Testing the Punisher

The best way to make your way through a four-year university system is to take every single Summer Session course you can.  You speed through the work.  The instructors are much more malleable and welcoming.  You are able to learn at a much quicker pace over a three-week session instead of a 15-week semester.  However, there was one summer class I took at a local Midwestern, land-grant university that I will never forget because it was so awful and because I was so clearly, but unwittingly, branded by the instructor, as a Student Who Could Do No Right.  That instructor was wrong, but he was the unrighteous one wielding a grading curve like a cudgel.

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The Winston Clay Soap Bar

When I was, perhaps, nine-years-old or so, I was required to sculpt an art project out of clay.  Others in my class created the clay expected:  Animals, their Initials, flowers, and cars.  I, for some reason, decided to create a life-sized Winston cigarette pack — flush with a few cigs sticking up out of the top.

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Oedipus Resurrecting: A Mother Stealing a Dead Son's Sperm

While we are alive, we are free to do what we choose and live with the consequences of our actions. After we have passed away, we would hope that it would not be possible to have choices about our future life made for us. This is precisely why it always bothers me when books are published after the passing of authors — particularly when the author requests that his notebooks be burned after his passing.

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Romanian Distress Call from Kew Gardens

A little over two years ago, I wrote an article about mobile phone usage in public called Banning Cell Phones in Public Places. I was, and still am, of the opinion that most public spaces are not the place to whip out your mobile phone and start loudly talking about your personal life, to the detriment of the people around you — particularly when the people can do nothing to get away from you, such as on a bus. Last night, I discovered in horror how easy it is to become that person on the phone.

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Saluting the Muslim American Solider

Colin Powell appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and he made an eloquent defense for Barack Obama as president while resoundingly defeating the cruel, and unfounded, attacks by the radical right wing that Obama is as Muslim when he is not; but, Powell argued, what if Obama were a Muslim?  What difference would it make?  What difference should it make?  Then General Powell mentioned an arresting image he saw in the New Yorker showing Elsheba Khan resting her head on the grave of her dead Muslim American son, Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. Powell told us Special Khan fought for America and his sacrifice was no less than that of any Christian.

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Why Christie Brinkley is a Bad Mother

We were disgusted by the circus that was Christie Brinkley’s divorce.  She set that brutality in the center of the public square for our stoning and scrutiny.  We believe Ms. Brinkley is a bad mother because no good mother would ever purposefully exploit the welfare of her children by mocking and embarrassing their father on television and in reams of newsprint.

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A Good Mother

A good friend of mine is disappearing for a few months while she attends to her maternity leave. My friend is special and smart and kind and beautiful and wondrous in many significant ways. She will make a fine and loving mother and that unborn child thriving in her belly is lucky to have her. It’s strange how news and events can bend time and propel you back to moments of your childhood and make them real again with temperatures and smells and tactile responses.

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Mothers Never Forget

by Joyce Kohl

Contrary to what their children may believe and though little has been written on this phenomena, mothers never forget the days their children arrived. Neither do they forget very much of the every day ho-hum tasks of rearing them. They do tend to forget the negative and concentrate on the positive. However, mothers may get mixed up as to which child did what if the number of her children exceeds the average 2.5 per household.

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