Ope...a Life
#love
#love
Former Ann Arbor resident reflects on saving man from beating at KKK rally
Some moments have a way of defining us, Keshia Thomas said, whether we're ready for them or not. Thomas' moment came under unexpected circumstances - crouched over a white supremacist sympathizer, providing a human shield from anti-Ku Klux Klan protesters who began attacking him at a rally 20 years ago.
The image of Thomas, then an 18-year-old black teenager living in Ann Arbor, protecting the man decked in a confederate flag shirt and sporting an SS tattoo, has become an iconic symbol of peace and altruistic virtue for many over the past two decades.
"We all have a conscience and it was my responsibility to do what I felt was right," Thomas said in a phone interview on June 23, the day after the 20-year anniversary of the incident.
Thomas, who now resides in Houston, learned McKeel Jr. died a couple of months ago when McKeel's son called to inform her, putting his 12-year-old sister on the line to tell her she might not be alive if it hadn't been for Thomas' actions that day. "When I heard that, I thought this was the future and the past of what peace has created," Thomas said. "The real accomplishment of all this to me is to know that his son and daughter don't share the same views. History didn't repeat itself. That's what gives me hope that the world can get better from generation to generation."
"I think of my actions the same way I felt about them 20 years ago," she said. "You don't want to grow older and be bitter and more cynical. You want to keep those child-like ideals of innocence and justice. I still maintain those same views and I'm not jaded by the way things are now."
#love
Two widowed penguins comfort one another in Australia.
St Kilda Pier in Melbourne has a colony of around 1,400 fairy penguins, the smallest penguin species with an average height of just 33cm (13 inches). The colony is monitored by volunteers.
"A volunteer approached me and told me that the white one was an elderly lady who had lost her partner and apparently so did the younger male to the left," Mr Baumgaertner wrote on Instagram.
"Since then they meet regularly, comforting each other and standing together for hours watching the dancing lights of the nearby city."
#love
Micro communities for the homeless sprout in US cities eager for small, quick and cheap solutions
The program represents an about-face from policies that for years focused on short-term group shelters and the ceaseless shuffle of encampments from one city block to the next. That system made it difficult to keep people who were scattered through the city connected to services and on the path to permanent housing.
Those services in Denver’s and Atlanta’s micro communities are largely centralized. They offer residents case management, counseling, mental health and substance abuse therapy, housing guidance and assistance obtaining anything from vocational skills training to a new pair of dentures.
“We’re able to meet every level of the hierarchy of needs — from security and shelter, all the way up to self-actualization and the sense of community,” said Peter Cumiskey, the Atlanta site clinician.
#love
As per Francis' wishes, there will be no funeral nor memorial service. He simply asked that you be kind to each other as you travel the road of life together.
#love
And Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.- Theme song, from The Love Boat
(Also, I am tickled by the fact that Abe Vigoda was on The Love Boat.)
#love
Yes I do know how I survive
Yes I do know why I'm alive
To love and be with you
Day by day by day by day- Moodswings featuring Chrissie Hynde, Spiritual High
#love
I think it's about the way we love each other today.
- Sweet the Banana, Sweet N' Juicy, Funk in the Forest 2023
#love
We need to start loving.
- Elizabeth Thomas, Alabama Is Generating Billions by Trapping People in Prison
caveat lector