Happy Keltik New Year! :)

Dear Members, Alumni, & Friends of the James Scholar Advisory & Leadership Team:

The autumn chill is definitely upon us now, and in the next few weeks, all kinds of things will be happening, such as Halloween (the Keltik New Year’s Eve) on October 31^st; the return of Central Standard Time on November 1^st; Veterans’ Day on November 11^th. WOW – so many things to celebrate as autumn turns into winter and the holiday season rapidly approaches! Here is a collection of poems for you to enjoy as the calendar keeps rolling along…

Little Orphant Annie (1885)

By James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,

An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,

An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;

An' all us other children, when the supper-things is done,

We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun

A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,

An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--

An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,

His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,

An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!

An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,

An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;

But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--

An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,

An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;

An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,

She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!

An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,

They wuz two great big [Shadows] a-standin' by her side,

An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!

An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,

An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!

An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,

An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--

You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,

An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,

An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,

Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

“Autumn” (1845)

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarkand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red Harvest Moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven’s o’er-hanging eaves;
Thy steps are by the farmer’s prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!

“A Lyric of Autumn” (1904)

By William Stanley Braithwaite (1878-1962)

There is music in the meadows, in the air --

Autumn is here;

Skies are gray, but hearts are mellow,

Leaves are crimson, brown, and yellow;

Pines are soughing, birches stir,

And the Gypsy trail is fresh beneath the fir.

There is rhythm in the woods, and in the fields,

Nature yields:

And the harvest voices crying,

Blend with Autumn zephyrs sighing;

Tone and color, frost and fire,

Wings the nocturne Nature plays upon her lyre.

“A Song of Suns and Seasons”

By George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Excerpted from At the Back of the North Wind (1871) – Chapter 37

The Sun is gone down,

And the Moon’s in the sky;

But the Sun will come up,

And the Moon be laid by.

The flower is asleep

But it is not dead;

When the morning shines,

It will lift its head.

When winter comes,

It will die – no, no;

It will only hide

From the frost and the snow.

Sure is the summer,

Sure is the Sun;

The night and the winter

Are shadows that run.

Happy Keltik New Year to one and all!

Rob

Happy 70th Birthday, United Nations! :)

Happy 70^th Birthday to the United Nations! :)

Here’s a potpourri of items for you to enjoy in honor of the U.N.’s 70^th birthday!

Tomorrow (October 24^th) marks the 70^th birthday of the United Nations, which was chartered at San Francisco in 1945. In honor of this occasion, I’d like to present the lyrics to a very clever edutaining song from the ANIMANIACS – the best cartoon show of the 1990s! I encourage you to learn more about this excellent program, which combined edutainment with outstanding animation and great humor.

YAKKO'S WORLD (Episode 2)
Music traditional (Mexican Hat Dance). Lyrics by Randy Rogel.

Transcribed by Paul Hendry

Source @ http://www2.cruzio.com/~keeper/AMLF.html

Announcer:

And now the nations of the world, brought to you by Yakko Warner!

Yakko:

United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama

Haiti, Jamaica, Peru,

Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean

Greenland, El Salvador too.

Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela

Honduras, Guyana, and still,

Guatemala, Bolivia, then Argentina

And Ecuador, Chile, Brazil.

Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, Bermuda

Bahamas, Tobago, San Juan,

Paraguay, Uruguay, Surinam

And French Guiana, Barbados, and Guam.

Norway, and Sweden, and Iceland, and Finland

And Germany now one piece,

Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia

Italy, Turkey, and Greece.

Poland, Romania, Scotland, Albania

Ireland, Russia, Oman,

Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia

Hungary, Cyprus, Iraq, and Iran.

There's Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan

Both Yemens, Kuwait, and Bahrain,

The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Portugal

France, England, Denmark, and Spain.

India, Pakistan, Burma, Afghanistan

Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan,

Kampuchea, Malaysia, then Bangladesh (Asia)

And China, Korea, Japan.

Mongolia, Laos, and Tibet, Indonesia

The Philippine Islands, Taiwan,

Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Sumatra, New Zealand

Then Borneo, and Vietnam.

Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, Angola

Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Botswana,

Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Gambia

Guinea, Algeria, Ghana.

Burundi, Lesotho, and Malawi, Togo

The Spanish Sahara is gone,

Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Liberia

Egypt, Benin, and Gabon.

Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya, and Mali

Sierra Leone, and Algiers,

Dahomey, Namibia, Senegal, Libya

Cameroon, Congo, Zaire.

Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar

Rwanda, Mahore, and Cayman,

Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Yugoslavia...

Crete, Mauritania

Then Transylvania,

Monaco, Liechtenstein

Malta, and Palestine,

Fiji, Australia, Sudan.

Preamble to the United Nations Charter

Adopted in San Francisco, California (1945)

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

• to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and
• to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
• to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
• to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

Some Poetical Wisdom from Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

From “Locksley Hall”:

For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.

From “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After”:

Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue,

I have seen her far away--for is not Earth as yet so young?--

Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion killed,

Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert tilled,

Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles,

Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles.

Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by,

Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye,

Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro' the human soul;

Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless outward, in the Whole.

Follow you the Star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine.

Forward, till you see the highest Human Nature is divine.

Follow Light, and do the Right--for Man can half-control his doom--

Till you find the deathless Angel seated in the vacant tomb.

Forward, let the stormy moment fly and mingle with the Past.

I that loathed, have come to love him. Love will conquer at the last.

Until next time –

Rob :)

October's Bright Blue Weather & More

Dear Members, Alumni, & Friends of the James Scholar Advisory & Leadership Team:

This special edition of Quotemail celebrates the beautiful October weather we’ve been enjoying lately, all the exciting discoveries from NASA space probes thus far this year, and the great American pastime of baseball, which is now entering the home stretch of postseason play leading up to the World Series! J

“October's Bright Blue Weather”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather!

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant.

When Gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning.

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining.

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing.

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting.

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together;
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather!

“Wanderers”

By Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

Wide are the meadows of night,
And daisies are shining there,
Tossing their lovely dews,
Lustrous and fair;

And through these sweet fields go,
Wanderers amid the stars --
Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.

‘Tired in their silver, they move,
And circling, whisper and say,
“Fair are the blossoming meads of delight
Through which we stray.”

“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (1908)

By Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer

(Editor’s Note: A “sou” [a loan word from French] was an early 20^th-century nickname for a penny.)

1. Katie Casey was baseball mad,

Had the fever and had it bad.

Just to root for the home town crew,

Every sou Katie blew.

On a Saturday her young beau

Called to see if she'd like to go

To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No,

I'll tell you what you can do:"

Chorus:

Take me out to the ball game,

Take me out with the crowd;

Just buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,

I don't care if I never get back.

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don't win, it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,

At the old ball game.

2. Katie Casey saw all the games,

Knew the players by their first names.

Told the umpire he was wrong,

All along, good and strong.

When the score was just two to two,

Katie Casey knew what to do,

Just to cheer up the boys she knew,

She made the gang sing this song:

(Chorus)

GO CUBS! :)

Rob