“…the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
~~~ US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1938
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Why are there no medical specialists in connective tissue when it is what holds us together?
This burning question for EDS/HSD Awareness Month brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/05/21/one-liner-wednesday-600/
The yet-to-be-revealed dessert choice that B made for Mother’s Day was carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
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Our new yard sign to send the message to preserve our health programs in the United States.
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I like to sing.
I have been singing for as long as I can remember. When I started school, we had a music teacher who came once a week to lead music class. Our classroom teacher also played the piano and would sometimes have us sing in the classroom which was combined first through fourth grade. She had been trained at a normal school before there were education colleges in our area and I think that grammar school teachers for young children had to learn piano as part of their program.
When I was in sixth grade, I was old enough to sing in the choir at church. Because it was a small church, the choir only sang at Christmas and for Holy Week. I sang with them until my sophomore year in high school when I became the organist. Then, I was always singing as I played the hymns. It helps your playing because you are more observant of reflecting when breaths should be taken.
In high school in a city about twenty miles from our little town, I got to sing every day! I sang with the mixed chorus and later also with a small girls’ ensemble. I learned to smile, sing, and do a bit of choreography at the same time, a skill that doesn’t seem all that useful but actually is. It makes it easier to convey the emotion of what you are singing to your audience.
When I was at Smith College, singing was a big part of my life. I worked my way through the extensive choral program at the time, starting with Choir Alpha as a first year, College Choir the next year, and my final two years in Glee Club. I also accompanied for two years for Choir Alpha. As an organist who was Catholic, I also frequently played for mass at Helen Hills Hills Chapel. I got married there the month after I graduated.
When we moved to Broome County, NY, I began to sing with the (Binghamton) University Chorus. (Actually, B had already moved and was working out here when we married, so I guess I should have said when I moved.) I sang with them until they unceremoniously disappeared, just prior to the pandemic. I still miss that group, which was a town/gown group, meaning that we had singers both from the university (students/faculty/staff) and from the broader community.
Until 2005, I also did some singing at my church with our Resurrection Choir, which ministered at funerals. It was sometimes difficult but was so important for the family to have us there to represent the parish in their time of grief.
I had thought when University Chorus ended that I would never have another choir gig but, after the pandemic shutdown, I attended a concert with the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton and found out they had openings for sopranos. This was a bit of a shock as choirs usually have more sopranos than they know what to do with but some people had moved away during the pandemic so they had lost some singers. I knew the director because I had sung with him when he directed University Chorus for 25 or so years before he retired and was very happy when he accepted me into Madrigal Choir.
Despite my current health issues, I’ve been continuing to sing with them and hope to as long as I’m able and my voice holds out. I’m lucky that I don’t have a big natural vibrato, which helps my voice to not get as much shake or wobble as some older singers get.
I hope.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “sing.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/05/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-3-2025/
When a people agree to form themselves into a republic … it is understood that they mutually resolve and pledge themselves to each other, rich and poor alike, to support this rule of equal justice among them … (and) they renounce as detestable, the power of exercising, at any future time any species of despotism over each other, or of doing a thing not right in itself, because a majority of them may have the strength of numbers sufficient to accomplish it.
Thomas Paine (1776), giving us a timely reminder on the eve of Law Day in the United States
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! More info here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/30/one-liner-wednesday-all-in/. My apologies to my email subscribers who probably received this post yesterday when I mistakenly published it on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Brain fog is a thing…
On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas!
From Pope Francis’s Easter message, April 20, 2025, which was proclaimed on his final full day of life
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Vote for Democracy #38
No Kings! is the theme for today’s rallies against the Trump administration’s actions. It is being coordinated by the group 50501, which early on started with organizing rallies in all 50 state capitals on one day.
April 19 is a fitting day for No Kings! rallies because this is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which was the first battle of what became the Revolutionary War in the United States, eventually winning our freedom from the British Empire and its king – or occasional queen regent.
For those who may not know, Lexington and Concord are near Boston, Massachusetts. (I grew up in Massachusetts, although in the far western section near the Vermont border; still we learned with pride our early history and visited historic sites in and around Boston as children.) Longfellow’s poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” was written about the night before the battle, when Revere and several others took off on horseback to warn the militias in those towns to be ready for a battle with the British army.
The Old North Church in Boston is central to the story. It let Revere and the other riders know how the British were approaching by using signal lanterns in its steeple, “one if by land and two if by sea.” There were two lanterns placed when the Bostonians realized that the British were coming in from the river, so the riders knew where they had to go and who they had to warn that night.
In preparation for today’s rallies, the Old North Church, which still stands in Boston, hosted a different kind of light show, with messages projected onto it during the night.
The rallies today will continue to proclaim that the American people value our democracy and protest against Donald Trump and his adminstration’s action. When DT says things like “I am the law,” he is proclaiming himself a king with the power to decide what the law is and who should be punished. We are seeing this play out in front of us in myriad ways, but, right now, most prominently in the arrest/kidnapping of people and imprisoning them in the United States or even another country without charges or trial.
Those are some of the grievances lodged against George III 250 years ago.
No!
No then and no now!
No Kings!
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to begin with an exclamation. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-19-2025/
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
~~~Abraham Lincoln, first Republican president of the United States
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Sign that a friend made for the Hands Off! gatherings on Saturday, April 5, 2025 with a quote from Cory Booker‘s record-breaking speech in the United States Senate: “This is a moral moment.”
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/09/one-liner-wednesday-good-call/
Joanne Corey 