The Purple Mango Post
Photographs, dispatches and writing by freelance journalist Corinne Purtill
Photographs, dispatches and writing by freelance journalist Corinne Purtill
One of my favorite things to do with my new camera is to take pictures of people with their dogs. I've never had a pet of my own, so the bond between animal and owner fascinates me. In the city, where relationships between people can be fraught with stress and suspicion, dogs seem to offer their owners a type of acceptance hard to find elsewhere. And they're so good on the subway.
A Note
by Wislawa Szymborska
Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain
from everything it's not;
to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.
An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;
and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,
mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.
Addo, South Africa.
"Having welcomed Tea Party rage into their home, and vowing repeal, the Republicans have made a dangerous bargain. First, they are tying their fate to a fringe, one that includes a small faction of overt racists and unstable people. The Quinnipiac poll this week found only 13 percent of Americans say they are part of the Tea Party movement.
But consider the policy positions. Do Republicans really want to campaign in favor of insurance companies’ right to drop people when they get sick? Do they really want to knock the 25-year-old graduate student, living on Top Ramen and hope, off his parents’ health care? Are they going to deny tax credits for small businesses?
It was the ancient Greeks who gave us a sense of what Republicans will be living with under this pact with rage. Many people are afraid of the dark, the saying goes. But the real tragedy is those who are afraid of the light."
Photo: Cheryl Evans, copyright The Arizona Republic
I first heard of Stephanie Nielson and her blog, the NieNie Dialogues, when I was living in Tempe, Arizona, not far from where she lived with her husband and four children. (This woman had four children by the time she was 28 and still dresses cute - that alone blows my mind.) I started reading her blog regularly last fall after she was the subject of a beautifully-written profile by the Arizona Republic's Jaimee Rose.
