The Flowers of Darfur

Here are some...look at the color! These flowers are busy weaving the most gorgeous baskets; they are members of a women's collective organized by Darfur Peace & Development Organization (DPDO). A shipment of baskets arrives in the States about every three months. They are gorgeous, colorful, & resilient, just like the artisans. GG's editor can personally attest to this (as if you wouldn't believe it anyway!). We'd love it if you visited the site & saw how to order one. Or even just read about these lovely women & how they are getting on. We await a field report but have received new photos from Khartoum (where many Darfuris are living). These are from last May, by Susan Burgess-Lent (all rights reserved), Program Director of DPDO. We'll be publishing new photos soon....Have a colorful evening. ciao-salaam-meow/GG/mgmt

Azalea in Fuschia & White

Lovely shots of wet azaleas by terrific George Brett, Falls Church, VA (George & his family live with adorable cats & they shall be featured soon). By the time this publishes, it may indeed be a soggy morn. One thing is for sure: it's azalea time in the DC-area. In fact, our close neighbor Takoma Park, MD is known as Azalea City. It's really a sweet small town here on the edge of the city. We love Takoma Park & all our friends & future friends who live there.

We hope to see you later today.

a ciao-ache-meow/GG/mgmt

Tess the Police Dog

GG's editor is running behind, more than usual. All sorts of intrigue is about & so we leave (for much of today), in all confidence, everything in the ever-so-capable paws of Tess the Police Dog. We're sure she'd want you to visit some of the links on this site, especially Darfur Peace & Development Organization (DPDO). Hey, the space-time continuum--we don't know it all! (by the great Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, Australia)

ciao-woof-meow/GG/mgmt

Santorini Cliffside

While we search for good Santorini shots of our own (far too many flickr members feel that their shots are money-making & should save them -- we have news for them...), here is a daylight shot, of a Santorini cliffside, again courtesy of professional Dave Berezanzky of worldislandphoto. Under-the-weather here but will rally!

Whether you dream of a first trip to Santorini (or other Greek island or the mainland) or your second or third...it takes just a sec to check in with Darfur Peace & Development Organization (DPDO) & see how they're doing. GG's editor has often thought we could help by sitting on a Santorini terrace, this time with a laptop, & doing our thing from there.

Moon over Santorini

Lovely calm shot courtesy of David Berezansky/worldislandphoto. Hidden in France has unleashed suppressed Santorini-fever. GG the cat is ready to go (she would be welcome there, for sure). Visit the wonderful blog, Oia Santorini...a notebook about life in Oia. Bella!

Buona notte, amici. GGCM

Some people who give a damn...

...and those who portray them in film.

GG Central is over 100 degrees (F) & the editor will tell anyone who cares (or not). Semi-regulars to this mostly-photos-due-to-computer crisis blog are aware of our friends abroad. We don't deny we worry. But we've been there & back & little is accomplished by worry. One stays alive by one's finely-honed sense of danger & anxiety. It's a razor-sharp line, how deep the cuts cannot be predicted. Why try? This may be more random than usual but fever-induced heat gets us off the hook for today & tomorrow. Maybe?

[Darfur photographs are by Susan Burgess-Lent/DPDO & used with permission/all rights reserved; contact us if you would like to use one; CG film credits (Focus Features) here; Yvette Pierpaoli, here; Ashis Brahma in Oure Cassoni/Darfur, permission by AB; Casablanca credit; Hotel Rwanda & Paul Rusesabagina credit. We'll be back with specific photographer's names. These are not easy to track down, inexplicably. Must go to the source.]

a cheeky-stinkin'-hot-in-DC-meow/GG/mgmt

Darfuri Days

While our friend Susan Burgess-Lent is in Sudan, travelling to Darfur Peace & Development Organization (DPDO) schools & women's centers, here are some photographs she took last May. (These were given to us for use by Susan. If you would like to use any that we will be posting in the month ahead -- or from last year, please contact GG's editor until Susan returns. Thank you.) It would be lovely if you would visit DPDO's site & donate some loose change (really, that's perfectly fine. Whatever you have at the bottom of your pockets, purse, or on your dresser) to help pay the teachers. They need to pay their bills & buy food for their families, too. Just like any teacher, anywhere in the world. [photographs by Susan Burgess-Lent/DPDO/all rights reserved]

ciao-meow/GG

Stars in the Maghreb - Week's End

A celestial wall carving with dome (qubba) in Marrakesh, by only alice. Gorgeous colors. It's been a long, long week. We hope you have a great weekend & maybe will take a little time to check in with the organizations in the right side-bar. Thanks!

ciao-salaam-meow/GG/mgmt

Moroccan aqua

We need to meditate on this for a while. Don't mind us, please visit the humanitarian sites on this page...especially Darfur Peace & Development Organization. It's the only Darfuri-led, U.S.-based NGO left in Sudan. They need your help. Thanks! (Marrakesh photo by the beautiful only alice)

Greek Wildflowers for Earth Day

A quick collage for our readers. Still under storm threats & therefore computer meltdown. These are from Santorini & Crete; the basilica in the center is in Oia, Santorini. We didn't have the advantages of digital cameras & fancy stuff...so decidedly amateurish. But that can be charming (we tell ourselves...)

a ciao-green-meow/GGCM

On the horizon...

...there are storm clouds headed straight for GG Central. We'll be back when we can. This gorgeous Giampaolo Macorig photo was taken in Calabria, Italy; it gives some idea of what's on the way here. (But sadly, we report, we are not near Italy at all...) Uh, oh. Kaboom. GG just ran into the closet. Why not visit some of the humanitarian sites here while we're out? Especially Darfur Peace & Development Organization. The gorgeous blue in the photo reminds us of the lovely blue in their logo....

ciao-meow!

Never Again: What You Do Matters

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
— Elie Wiesel

The Days of Remembrance this year are 19-26 April. Holocaust Remembrance Day, this year is tomorrow, Tuesday, 21 April 2009. (See here for explanation of date system & for 5 Things You Don't Know about Anne Frank.) See here for this year's theme (Never Again: What You Do Matters), activities, & reading from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. President Obama will give the annual memorial speech in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, 23 April. We will listen closely for his thoughts about Darfur. There is a fascinating exhibit at the USHMM on Nazi Propaganda; you can make a virtual visit if you're not planning to be in DC anytime soon. (photo credit)

Note: Unfortunately we cannot allow comments or back-links to/on this post. We are very sorry but cannot risk the possibility of a recurrence of what happened with the Rwanda post.

Sundown in Santorini

Pardon us while we are so busy. Visit Hidden in France who posts about Santorini, one of our three most favorite places on the face of the earth. Is that nuanced enough? HIF visits a family who have settled in Oia, a gorgeous town on Santorini, & have a blog about it. We've not visited yet. Dial-up, you know. But there are some lovely photos & information on HIF. And we'll pay a virtual visit very soon. (The photos on HIF are so much better than ours, but we remember...)

Also to our friends on Santorini, elsewhere in Greece, & all around the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, & Russia, oh heck all of you. Happy Orthodox Easter. Slightly belatedly. GG & her editor received some lovely treats from Ethiopian neighbors, who are also Eastern Orthodox. Yum!

ciao-meow/GG

Determined in Darfur - Week's End

Determined to survive & thrive. Please visit our dear friends at Darfur Peace & Development Organization. Our friend Susan Burgess-Lent is leaving tonight for Sudan. DPDO is the only Darfuri-led US-based NGO still working in Sudan. They do a stellar job & are the nicest of people. They run schools & a women's center, among many things. More to follow. (women along the road by Susan Burgess-Lent/used with permission/all rights reserved)

a determined ciao-meow! GG/mgmt

Thomasina in Marrakesh

Cats, orange cats, everywhere we look. We're already running late & like the idea of tossing the errand list & ambling around with this cat, through & past patterned tiled walls. Back later! ciao-salaam-meow/GGCM (photographs by the terrific only alice)

G'day, Thomasina

An Australian Thomasina in the 1930s...looking pensive (or peevish, your choice), with poppies in the foreground. By Australian photojournalist Sam Hood, from the Library of New South Wales archives. Wonderful images from the 1930s & 1940s. (Cat on a radio is also a favorite.)

ciao-meow/GG

Tables for Ladies

Detail of Edward Hopper's Table for Ladies, oil on canvas, 1930, Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Via scan from our 2007 Metropolitan Museum of Art agenda, New York, New York)

The text for this agenda page, by Carolyn Vaughan: Hopper understood the seeming contradiction that a person can feel completely alone in the middle of the nation's most crowded city, and his paintings often convey a feeling of urban melancholy. Here the cashier and the waitress seem to inhabit separate worlds, preoccupied as they are with their thoughts and tasks. We feel we know far more about the chops, the lettuce, and the pineapple in the display than we do about these two women.

Now, off to do the taxes; GG can't do them as her secret opposable thumbs remain retracted. Funny how that happens when help is most needed.

ciao-cheeky-meow/GG's editor

Pasquetta in Italia

It's Pasquetta in Italy. Easter Monday is lots of fun. It's traditional to have a picnic or otherwise run around al fresco. People often say: "Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi." or "Christmas with your family, Easter with the family and friends of your choice." Yay! Sadly, we are not in Italy today. But GG & her editor count as Pasquetta pals. Hope you had fun yesterday. Read Bleeding Espresso's Still Celebrating (Pasquetta) from last year. We were going to include a good recipe for pastiera but can't find the one we used in years past & those popping up in a search are just plain weird. There aren't people around this year to dig in, so we'll not make it. It's full of flavors , such as orange-blossom water, that remind us of Greece & the eastern Mediterranean, reflecting the region's heritage. GG's editor has photographs of still-standing date palm gardens, intarsia boxes, & other mementos that remind us of the area's ever-present history. Now, ciao-meow, because we have eggs to dye. xoxo

(via scan/ Gourmet magazine/April 2006/by John Kernick)

Easter Flowers

Greek Easter Eggs - Week's End

Even though Orthodox Easter isn't until 19 April, we could not resist showing these photos today. Here is the link for information & photographers credits. (They entered a contest!) If you don't know about Greek (& to be fair, one entrant is from Bulgaria) egg dyes... natural materials play a big part, especially red onion skins. We did this last year & it was fun...but we've no camera & these look better than ours, for sure.

ciao-eggy-meow/GG/mgmt

Royal Easter Show, 1935

...in New South Wales, Australia. Love this photograph of the lady & her big cat. What were they doing, we wonder? A cat exhibit? Flower show? An Easter stroll? Don't know yet. We just like it. (photograph by Sam Hood, NSW archives.) GG wants a cat-hat (it would seem) because she's sitting underneath a big straw hat , her long legs are sticking out. Never a dull moment. xo

The moon over Sicily

Happy first night of Passover to our Jewish friends everywhere. Shalom! (The Moon... in the distance by Giampaolo Macorig)

GG dans les Tuileries

Another Mainzer vintage cat postcard. It reminds us of les Tuileries afternoon action. (Or any lovely park, for that matter...but GG has her Paris fantasies & the last time we indulged in a GG in the Tuileries post, it was October 2008). Trying to talk her into a Greek fantasy, as that's one of many things/places in mind during this Easter week. Greeks have wonderful holiday traditions that put the Easter Bunny to shame, no offense to EB. (We still love you EB! Don't forget GG's basket). The Italians, especially Rome & points south, have wonderful traditions, too. See Bleeding Espresso's Easter in Calabria. So a trip to Italy first, then Greek Easter a week later would be ideal. Now, how to finance this? Hmmm. These vintage cat postcards, while darling, won't get us far. (via scan from personal collection)

ciao-chocolate-meow!

If you think about it...

...there's a lot you can do. Please visit humanitarian links on this site...photograph by the lovely Giampaolo Macorig in Rome. xo/gg

Abruzzo, L'Aquila

Things are quite frantic, of course, since early a.m. in L'Aquila & surrounding areas. These are a few of the less-graphic photographs. Italian bloggers on behalf of Darfur have been hugely active. We can only hope that others return their thoughts & prayers to the good people of this beautiful area. (photos collected by La Corriere della Sera by various agencies)

Espresso expression

It wouldn't be so bad (Monday) if we had this cup of caffeine, uh, coffee. (photograph credit)

ciao-whine-meow,
GG's editor

Million Voices: Rwanda, Rwanda

It is the 15th anniversary of the beginning of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Here is Wyclef Jean singing, with an African children's chorus, his Million Voices, from the Hotel Rwanda soundtrack. (The cookie is disabled unless you click on the video, which we urge you to do.) It's also Palm Sunday; whatever you celebrate (Passover, Easter, happy spring), it would be terrific if you would take a tiny break from celebratory preparations to click on a Darfur, Congo, Zimbabwe humanitarian help link. Rwanda is still in need as well. So are the people down the street (or across town) from you. a subdued ciao-meow...

Update, 6 April 2009: Sadly, it has become obvious that I cannot accept back-links to this or any other post concerning human-oriented material. Nor anonymous comments. If you would like to comment & need to be anonymous, then write to me in English (or Italian, French, Arabic, or Hebrew) -- even an inadequate translation -- & I will do my best to accommodate you. To those who left hateful comments, threats, & sent email to this site about Rwanda, Darfur, Burma, & other countries, I would like to say that you are more to be pitied than scorned, except that I do scorn those who wish death & torture on others. You are not welcome here.

Cherry blossoms, part 2

These were taken by the hearty George Brett on a 5am foray to the Tidal Basin There will be some soon on the bricolage (bricoleuse to some of you) blog as well. Pretty brides, grooms, photographers taking pictures of photogs taking pictures of...you get the idea. It's called SNAP. GG loves to go outside (in her bag), but it's too cold & windy for her today. (Not to mention her editor). Therefore, many thanks to George for making his lovely photographs available. The National Cherry Blossom Festival runs through April 12 & here's the website; have a look even if you can't be here. Wish you were!

We hope to publish something more than photographs this coming week, depending on the whims of the ever-irritable computer. xoxo

Roman view - Week's End

Please visit humanitarian sites here or elsewhere. That scream you hear is GG's editor tossing the computer out a window! (photo by the incomparable, surreal Giampaolo Macorig, grazie, signore)

ciao-meow/GG/mgmt

Underwater-colors

GG has lobbied for fish pictures. So here are three pretty underwater scenes by Gertrud K. in Berlin (see here for her links).

Cherry blossoms

No time to be at all clever (don't say it!)...here are two lovely shots taken on Saturday, 28 March by photographer George Brett. He lives in the Washington, DC-area & has some wonderful sets on a variety of subjects. Give him a visit. We're off to see the blossoms for the first time in some years. Well, on purpose. As in purposefully walking towards them. GG wants to go very much; at this writing, a decision had yet to be made. We'll post blossoms at their peak throughout the festival...

ciao-cherry-meow (ow!)
GG's editor