Daisies from GG

A bouquet of daisies, a summer offering to our readers. We wish we could hand-deliver them. If you are a non-commercial site, you should check out D Sharon Pruitt's Creative Commons flickr set. She's so generous. GG's Tootsie-Frootsie birthday ice cream cone is from there, too. Here is what Sharon says on her site:

"My photos that have a creative commons license and are free for everyone to download, edit, alter and use as long as you give me, "D Sharon Pruitt" credit as the original owner of the photo. Have fun and enjoy!"

We are enjoying & hope you do, too.

(Pssst...don't forget to visit at least one of the human rights organizations here. GG's a bit impatient about this issue. Please, for our sake, please. You've no idea--or do you?--what it's like to be at the mercy of a redheaded cat in a snit.)

ciao-meow/the mgmt

Happy Birthday to the Cleverest of Pups - Week's End

A brief break in zee hiatus to wish The Clever Pup's author a lovely birthday tomorrow, Friday, 26 June. We are so keen that you visit her that we're giving you the hint a day early. Go forth & learn to be clever (& give her your best wishes). Now. (GG is bossy, what can we say?)

a ciao-cheeky-happy-birthday-meow to Mme. Pup!

[Study of a girl with ringlets teaching her dog to sit up, 1930s / by Sam Hood/State Library of New South Wales archives]

Mediterranean Palms - Week's End

A day early. GG Central will be off-line for some much-needed downtime. We will check our e-mail as much as possible, but no comments here. Unfortunately, we will not be near the Mediterranean; however, there's no harm in looking at this photograph by Robert in Toronto & saying "maybe next year." Bella! Please visit the links on this page. Enjoy. [Courtyard with palms taken in Antibes, France, here for original format. Used with permission.]

ciao-meow from GG & her editor!

The Colorful African Basket

Pigments are weighed at market & purchased. A few more steps & then the women's collective of basket weavers organized by Darfur Peace & Development Organization begins to make a new shipment of beautiful, strong, & colorful baskets. (see other posts on this subject).

Darfuris use these baskets mostly to hold food. Think of taking a casserole to a potluck & using a carrying basket or cover (which many of us do). The women have adapted their design to make different sizes, so that they can be used in a variety of ways by others. These lovely photographs are by Susan Burgess-Lent/DPDO/all rights reserved & used by permission.

Information about the program. Baskets can be purchased from The Amber Chand Collection or by calling 1-800-979-0108. Thank you.

Details, details, South of France

Mostly photographs this week, less pleading. This beauty is by generous (& all-round interesting person) Robert in Toronto (taken in Antibes, France, please go to this link to see the photograph properly--in all it's glorious detail.). While you attend to the details, details in your life, perhaps you could still take a look at the Darfur, Congo, Burma, & related links. And maybe take on one more detail. Not that difficult. Really. So we plead anyway.

c-m/gg/mgmt

Darfuri flora & fauna

Two camels, a baby camel, & a baby goat...they need water, too. An everyday scene; those babies are cute. And camels are fine, if you get to know them. Their long pretty eyelashes can make up for their displays of crankiness. One time, GG's editor was run right into a thorny bramble in North Africa by a camel. There was a bit of a conversation; the camel didn't do it again. [photograph by Susan Burgess-Lent/DPDO/all rights reserved]

If you missed our update on Friday's Anne Frank post: for the abstract future, comments cannot be left for this site. Too much hate e-mail & comments. It's too stressful; things are bad enough. Enjoy the blogs & links on the page.

ciao-meow/GG's editor

Anne Frank's 80th Birthday - Week's End

UPDATE - Sunday, 14 June 2009. Until further notice, no comments can be accepted on this blog. Please do something to counteract hatred in your part of the world--non-violently. Thank you.

We so wish that Anne were alive & celebrating with Margot on a summer's beach holiday. Please visit the Anne Frank Museum Amsterdam official website. There is much to interest people of all ages. Please educate yourselves, as well, about the uptick in activity & membership in hate groups.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is renowned for tracking hate groups & individual haters (& bringing successful suit against them when legally possible); you can visit them here. They are a dedicated & inspiring group of people. And, of course, please visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (lower-right sidebar); the staff needs your support, moral & otherwise, especially this week.

"One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did, but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way: if we were capable of taking in the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live."
Primo Levi

[Anne Frank at desk photo credit; Anne & Margot at the beach; these credits will be updated as soon as possible as blogs & periodicals are not original sources of any Anne Frank images, as far as we know.]

Terrible News from Washington, DC

...in more ways than one. Please visit the U.S. Holocaust Museum & send your condolences to the family & colleagues of Mr. Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security guard murdered this afternoon at the museum. He worked at the museum for 6 years & was a wonderful man. He saved many lives. What you do matters.

UPDATE: There will be no post today (Thursday, 11 June 2009).

[photograph by generous George Brett, Washington, DC-area photographer.]

L'acqua per il Darfur

Ciao. [photographs all rights reserved]

L'eau pour Darfour...

So if we write it in French, will that be more stylish? Italian? That's tomorrow. Yes, we're feeling defeated. Over a year of mostly chipper, we-can-do-it cheer-leading isn't working. Reporters, except for Nick Kristof & a few others, no longer bother. to mention Darfur. If Angie or George C. show up, maybe. Even then...

The first photograph is a Darfur Peace & Development Schools of Peace; the second is its water system. No kidding. You should see how gets there (if it does). People, people, people. For one moment, would you please stop "hearting" & squealing over the latest thing you want & think about being thirsty? And there's not a drop to be had...or it's filthy dirty. Do you think these folks are just going to have to get used to this? Why should they? That was not the reality before 2003 for most of them. They had water just like you--what if someone took away your water tomorrow? You want to know the basic difference between your situation & theirs? Luck. Fate. You were born elsewhere. That's it. You didn't do anything to deserve better; they didn't do anything to deserve worse.

Sigh. Please go here to read about Clean Water Project & maybe you can give $5.00. We don't have a job & we just did. A little challenge.

[Photos by Susan Burgess-Lent/DPDO/all rights reserved; if by some miracle you want to use any SBL pix for a fundraiser, pls contact GG's editor]

The Piano Teacher

A little fun for a Monday morning. Anyone who took (or is taking) piano lessons can relate to this photograph by Dmitri Kessel [LIFE archives] "You haven't practiced this week, have you? Um, yes, sort of. What, pray tell, is this 'sort of' of which you speak?'"

The Clever Pup (you should visit her, she's done some painting over the week-end) sent us a video that we could actually download & watch on RealPlayer (dial-up, you know). GG loved it. She wants a piano now, too. Probably the whole world has seen Nora, the Piano Tuner...but in case you haven't, she's all over the Internety-Tweetiebird-YouTubes (as our favorite late-night nut would say). So Google that & watch Nora; Googley-Feedburner will 'yell' at us if we put in a corrupted.wmv file here (& we can't tell the difference until it has caused a heap o' trouble.)

[UPDATE: The Clever Pup has posted the info for Nora, The Piano Cat & her website. Go here to see. Thanks, Pup.]

Rumor is that the Nora's sequel not only equals, but may surpass, the original video. How often does that happen in the world of entertainment? Huh? It would make a cat laugh.

a cheery-cheeky-ciao/GG & mgmt.

June 6, 1945 - Only the beginning

A few rather non-related images for this post; it was not exactly a coherent moment in time, anyway. There are so many wonderful sites, both news & blogs, that will be covering today's very important 65th anniversary. (And we just realized that we're supposed to be at the WWII Memorial on Saturday. Here is the link to the excellent National WWII Memorial website here in Washington, DC.)

The black & white photographs are courtesy of the Google-hosted LIFE archives. The terrific Yannick Vigouroux shot of the beach at Luc-sur-Mer was taken 1 June 2009. The series of photographs starts with Yannick's beach & goes back in time. GIs playing with children & talking to French citizens that day & the day after the invasion. The last photograph is servicemen playing poker on a dock in England, waiting to leave for Normandy. It is simply too much to comprehend how terrified they must have been & to wonder how many in that photograph survived the first hour, or moments, of the invasion.

Remember that WWII veterans are passing away at the rate of approximately 1,000 a day (in America). Time is running out to hear their stories, to pay your respects, & to say thank you while they're still able to hear it. Also, as great & successful as this largest invasion in history was, the knowledge of what was to come is sobering.

[Click on Yannick's panoramic shot of Luc-sur-mer to see a larger print or click on his name above to the full-size. The colors & pan shot are superb. Update: Tuesday, 30 June 2009. Time's up for clicking here. Please go to Yannick's flickr set. Thanks!]

Flowery window in Strasbourg - Week's End

We're sure we'd feel so much better here at GG Central if we had our empty flower box filled with these geraniums (or coral ones, perhaps). Busy working on D-Day material, so we'll see you Saturday. Of course, Strasbourg was right in the thick of it during the battle to liberate France, as the Allies moved eastward. GG's editor lived but a few hundred meters from Nazi bunkers; her bedroom, & indeed the entire building, had been occupied by the Germans 30 years before. We swear there were ghosts. France is much on our mind this week, this summer. [photograph used by permission from the lovely & talented Pipernille in Helsinki, see here for her photograph sets.]

ciao-bonjour-meow/GG/mgmt

A Parisian Café Cat

We're busy & photographer Patrice Panfili saves the day with laugh-out-loud pix. Most of his shots are people, streetscape. GG is in love. What a puss on this puss. Patrice calls him (in French) "king of the town." [Notice how proud the cat's guardian is ..he ees so chic, non? Oui. [from the archives as brief relief. The photographs are larger & better quality than original downloads.]

bisou
GG Central

Draw back the drapes

We're reading The Same Sea by Amos Oz & trying to figure out, as he tries, who cares? Because outside of the same few people, we're not hearing it. Little breaks of relief are one thing; willful ignorance & apathy are quite another. (two points of view by Giampaolo Macorig).

A subdued, slow-burn from Washington, DC.

Neapolitan Impressionism

...or expressionism or..you decide. Anyway, it's a colorful wall in Naples by Robert in Toronto, via flickr & we love it. He has quite an eye for color & composition & is very generous with his work. [Please see here for large format; it makes a difference.]

We leave you this wall & the thought that you will now have time to visit humanitarian organization sites, play with the goldfish in the right sidebar, visit an online museum in Paris, look at the Eiffel Tower web-cam, & read about Tianamen Square in yesterday's post.

The Management

Do You Remember Tiananmen?

Do You Remember Tiananmen?

On a trip to Atlanta in July 2000, GG's editor met a woman who served several years hard labor in a Chinese prison for being near the square during the massacre of students & sympathizers that began on June 3 & continued into the 4th. (She was released about 28 months before we met her at a private dinner party; it had nothing to do with her being Chinese.) Her parents were also arrested; cruelly, they were kept in prison for nearly 3 more years than their daughter. The very week we met, her parents were released & moved to Australia. We asked her if Amnesty International made any difference to prisoners in China. We were wondering if we could tell anyone, from someone who would know, that it really did help--those letters, the campaigns on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Was it worth it? Did it only make those of us on the outside feel better? Did the prisoners know that people were trying to help them?

Her immediate answer: yes yes yes! (She actually said, "with an exclamation point.") She did not receive a letter or card, but she knew those who did. Those notes that slipped in--via sympathetic prison guards--were passed from person to person as a valuable commodity, not a tattered piece of paper. Many came from Amnesty members & groups & say You Are Not Alone. Currently GG's editor's local group is working on a Chinese prisoner case & two prisoners of conscience in Indonesia, as well as sponsoring the Human Rights Painting Project. One of our members is painter Tom Block & it is his project. More on that soon, but please do visit.

When we feel like we cannot stand one more minute of any of this, we remember this courageous & lovely woman who somehow survived--certainly with physical & emotional scars--moved to America, & had already completed an MBA (& had a baby!) by the time we met her. We hope she & her darling little girl, who would be 11-1/2 years old now, are very well & happy.

Here is a fantastic link to FRONTLINE: Do You Remember Tiananmen? It has a time-line, photographs, analysis, videos (which, alas, we cannot watch due to dial-up), & addresses the iconic photograph of the end of that spring in Tiananmen. What became of The Tank Man?

In a packed week that includes a crucial public speech by President Obama in Cairo & the 65th anniversary of D-Day, we cannot look away. China is involved in everything we work on; infuriatingly, the government interferes with people outside its borders, too. As the Chinese government has a problem with so many of us, please understand that sites even as innocent as this one get spammed mightily at times. Therefore, we are publishing this on Monday & not the 4th, which has become the traditional date of memorial. The timeline in the link makes clear that everything certainly did not happen on the 4th of June--but the worst did. Memory refreshment is always a good thing & we certainly forgot quite a bit. We encourage you to visit the site & to visit Amnesty International to see what you might do in a few moments to make a difference.

SPECIAL REQUEST: Please do not forget Aung San Suu Kyi. Her situation becomes more bizarre by the hour & we're terrified that she will be sentenced to serve not only more years, but inside the prison. She has fallen ill & how she can survive that, we don't know. We don't think she can. More on that soon. But if you've a moment, please visit the US Campaign for Burma in the right sidebar. Thanks.

Re: the photographs in the collage: LIFE archives, Mark Avery. These are the most violent images on Giulia Geranium. We are sorry but it is necessary. The 1946 shot of Tianamen Square, in what was then called 'Peking', is by Dmitri Kessel & is also from the LIFE archives.