All firefighters do is put out fires and save lives.
(posted earlier) 12/8: “Carpinteria, California -- Wildfires continued to ravage Southern California for a fifth day Friday, with growing blazes and new fires sending rivers of flames through communities and injuring several people. “The largest of the fires spread across more than 200 square miles by Friday morning and crept toward the college town of Santa Barbara, while a new blaze in San Diego County grew quickly and dangerously, forcing a new round of evacuations. “These dangers came as firefighters confronted a half-dozen blazes across the region, fires that imperiled communities and homes, burned through streets and roared over mountains, forcing many to flee and leaving them with no idea when they could return home or if they would have anything to return to. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed and thousands more remained in danger, officials said.” - Washington Post/ Scott Wilson, Mark Berman, & Eli Rosenberg 12/6: “To make sure that the @LAFD has what it needs to keep you safe at times like these and throughout the year, please consider making a contribution at http://supportlafd.org/donate/” 12/6: United Way: “@vcunitedway's #ThomasFire Relief Fund will support those impacted. Here are three ways to give: Text UWVC to 41444”/ “Visit http://vcunitedway.org”/ “805-485-6288.” 12/5: The Humane Society of Ventura County “@HSVC Ojai”/ “http://fb.me/B9XYFQ6G” - Mashable/ Rebecca Ruiz Please give to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation: P.O. Drawer 498/ Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727/ 301-447-1365
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A version of this blog was posted on Carbuncle Moon: 12/9/15
150 years ago... "Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States." * “On December 18, the 13th Amendment was officially adopted into the Constitution–246 years after the first shipload of captive Africans landed at Jamestown, Virginia, and were bought as slaves.” ** An excerpt from: The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro: a speech by Frederick Douglass, given by Douglass in Rochester New York, 1852. *** "Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just." Sources: * The Peoples' Vote/ ** History.com/ *** History is a Weapon Frederick Douglass was an ex-slave, an orator and writer of uncommon courage. Please support the NAACP/ 4805 Mt. Hope Drive/ Baltimore, Maryland, 21215/ 410-580-5777 Today is Pearl Harbor Day:
Please see the Carbuncle Moon post of 12/7/16 Please give to the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association: 4105 Naomi Drive/ Louisville, Kentucky 40219/ pearlharborsurivorsonline.org "I have a tattoo of a bassoon -- not a buffoon or a baboon -- which is a woodwind instrument -- the bassoon not the buffoon or baboon -- on my right bicep; and on my left this motto: Recycle. 'One fist is iron, the other is stee-ell, if the right one don’t a-get ya, the leff one wee-elll' -- though Merle Travis probably didn’t mean that a tough guy could be kayoed by a woodwind instrument or responsible recycling intentions." (edited on 12/11: Merle Travis wrote "One fist is iron...," which is a part of his song, "16 Tons" -- "I owe my soul to the company store" )
December 1st was World Aid's Day. Please see Carbuncle Moon post: 12/1/16 Please give to Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AID's Foundation: 1140 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 200/ Washington DC 20036/ 202-296-9165 Re-posted from: 9/22/16
"1 in 8 Americans face hunger." - U.S. Hunger Relief Charity "1 in 6 people in America face hunger." "In 2011, households with children reported a significantly higher food insecurity than households without children: 20.6% vs. 12.2%" - DoSomething.org "In 2014, there were 46.7 million people in poverty" in the U.S. - worldhunger.org/ Hunger Notes "The 2014 poverty rate for Blacks was 26.2 percent, for Hispanics 23.6 percent, for Asians 12 percent, for non-Hispanic whites 10.1 percent." "(The poverty rate was at 22.4 percent in 1959, the first year for poverty estimates.)" - Devavas-Walt 2015/ worldhunger.org/ Hunger Notes 9/24: The U.S. poverty rate was 13.5% in 2015. - U.S. Census Bureau/ census.gov "Poverty can be both the inspiration and ruination of dreams but the tipping point is at the heart of a nation." Poverty by K. O'Kendley Please give to Feeding America: 35 East Whacker Drive, Suite 2000/ Chicago, Illinois, 60601/ 800-771-2303 re-posted from 5/16/16:
Four banks control 51.2% (2014) of all banking assets in the U.S.: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank. - Real Clear Markets, Martin Neil Baily, Sarah Holmes (or) Five banks control 44% (6.8 trillion) of total banking assets (or app. 15 trillion) (2014); the fifth bank being, US Bancorp. - Forbes, Steve Schaeffer (or) Five banks control 44.61% (2015) of all U.S. bank assets. - CNBC re-posted from 5/19/16: "One in four local banks has vanished since 2008." - Banking Please give to Nor-Cal Inland Chapter of Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF): 950 Fulton Avenue, Suite 150/ Sacramento, California 95825/ 916-920-0790 |
A carbuncle is a roiled mass of skin or a beautiful gem. The incredible gem is pictured in the logo below and at the bottom of the short story section...
Kevin O'Kendley is the owner of Carbuncle Moon, and the author of all original material -- cartoons, blogs, shorts, essays, articles -- on the website (there has been a very limited editorial input in some of my work). All quoted sources are noted. I am responsible for all posts. The only blogs not time-dated are those advertising nonprofits. All nonprofits are vetted, investigated, though after the summer of 2018 my vetting has lapsed: (6/1/21).
Kevin O'Kendley: P.O. Box 172, Winterport, Maine, 04496, and 200 P Street, A-32, Sacramento, California, 95814, ksokendley@outlook.com. Technical help is provided by an evolving computer genius, my son, Conor O'Kendley: A good kid with a great heart who can be reached at P.O. Box 172, Winterport, Maine, 04496. (Conor is in the Navy now, a swabby) Photography provided by a visual artist, my daughter, Caitlin O'Kendley: a young woman with a beautiful soul. (Caitlin is in college now, a media-journalism student) If your nonprofit is advertised on this site and you wish to have it removed please contact me at the above listed snail-mail or email address or use the contact form on the website. If you download a blog, cartoon, a short story -- or for any other reason -- and wish to donate $ to this site, its author and technical support personnel, please send donations to above listed addresses payable to Kevin O'Kendley. My family and I could use the dinero. All cartoons, blogs, and short stories are for sale. Categories |