stop and smell the roses
To become calm and reflect upon the finer or more enjoyable aspects of life, especially when one has become overworked or overly stressed.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and days of auld lang syne?
~~Remembering Those We Lost in 2016~~
~~Published on Dec 29, 2016~~
At the end of this crazy year I wanted to do something special to celebrate the lives of those we’ve lost.
I wasn’t able to include everyone, of course, but I tried my best to include those who meant something to me.
“That big bad dude was a father, that big bad dude was a son, that big bad dude was enrolled at Tulsa Community College just wanting to make us all proud, that big bad dude loved God, that big bad dude was in church singing with all of his flaws every week.”
That big bad dude was 40-year-old Terence Crutcher – a man who raised his hands high above his head in submission before he was shot to death Friday by police in Oklahoma – and those are the words of his twin sister Tiffany, who is now left to plan his funeral service.
In all, a total of four officers and a helicopter responded to reports of an abandoned vehicle blocking the road. One of them pointed a Taser at Crutcher, but it was Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby, the first to arrive on the scene, who fired the single shot.
She pulled the trigger mere seconds after a second squad car arrived, killing the father of four.
For her part, Shelby claimed the victim was reaching into a passenger-side window of her car and that she, an armed officer of the law surrounded by three others and backed up by a police chopper, felt threatened.
The 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, the junior United States Senator and former Congressman from Vermont, began with a formal announcement by Sanders on May 26, 2015, in Burlington, Vermont, which followed an informal announcement on April 30.
Sanders had been considered a potential candidate for President of the United States since at least September 2014.
Although Sanders is an independent, he caucuses with the Democratic Party in the Senate, as many of his views align with those of Democrats, and he has confirmed that he is running as a Democrat.
Born in 1941 in Brooklyn, Bernie was the younger of two sons in a modest-income family. After graduation from the University of Chicago in 1964, he moved to Vermont. Early in his career, Sanders was director of the American People’s Historical Society. Elected Mayor of Burlington by 10 votes in 1981, he served four terms.
Before his 1990 election as Vermont’s at-large member in Congress, Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Someare serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”
“Unforgotten” Exhibit Brings Faceless Victims of Chicago Gun Violence to Life
The traveling art exhibit was commissioned by the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.
Blair Holt, a 16-year-old honor student, was killed by a teenage gunman in 2007 when Holt was riding to his grandparents’ store after school.
Now in 2015, a life-like sculpture of Holt — without a face — stands in a plaza at the corner of Huron and Rush Streets as a reminder of the toll gun violence has taken on the Chicago area.
The sculpture is part of a public art exhibit called “Unforgotten” headed by the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. Holt is one of eight victims of gun violence memorialized in the exhibit.
Among the others represented are 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, an honor student killed while sitting in a park after school days after attending President Obama’s second inauguration; 19-year-old Ryanne Mace, who was killed by a suicidal gunman in a classroom at Northern Illinois University; and 18-year-old Terrell Bosley, who was killed in a church parking lot before the start of choir practice.
Sculptures of Jitka Vesell, Hadiya Pendleton and Blair Holt stand in the plaza at the intersection Rush and Huron Streets as part of the public art exhibit “Unforgotten.”
~~GALLERY~~
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The sculptures, which are made out of plaster and wire mesh, are dressed in the victims’ real clothes, and the dimensions of the sculptures mirror their actual height and weight.
From behind, it appears they are real people. A view from the front, however, shows a faceless person with a hood partially concealing the empty space where his or her face would be.
The purpose of the art exhibit is to raise awareness of gun violence in Chicago as well as throughout the state of Illinois. The sculptures currently reside in the plaza at Huron and Rush, but they will travel across the state in the coming weeks.
Unforgotten is a traveling exhibit that features arresting memorial statues that represent actual victims of gun violence. Working with victim families, we created lifelike statues of the victims in their actual clothing.
Shocking? Yes.
But each statue is an emotional and powerful reminder of the senseless loss of life due to gun violence. This documentary video shares the personal stories behind the victims and the emotional reactions of those who experienced this first exhibit.
Close your eyes and spread your wings. Make a wish and dream good dreams. Don’t ever say, you’ll never tell. Cause life is short and very frail. Just be still and take a look.
Before you know it, you’ll be hooked. Then once in a blink of an eye you’ll soon realize it was all a lie. Up you look and there they’re gone.
Why two days feel so long? What was once there has disappeared. Now, love is the one thing to fear. Why say go when it was no? You open your eyes only to find, what lied there was your sign.
So close your eyes and spread your wings. Make a good wish and LIVE your dreams!
It Is What It Is 