English Emma Blooms

things I learned today, of no particular interest or value. 1. Another name for Brittania is Albion , meaning white country. This name was popular during the 1500s and very early 1600s 2. The word stroke when applied to physical ailment comes from plague times when clerics believed that people who contracted the plague were "struck" by an angel of God as a punishment for their evil. 3. The Barker family printed the first editions of the King James Bible! Robert Barker was 'Printer to the King's Most Excellent Maiestie' 4. I like to educate Americans about the relative unimportance of the War of Independence (or as I call it the British Civil War fought on foreign soil ) to the British as compared to its importance to the US. The British were busy fighting more significant battles. Well, I just learned about the lack of importance of the Puritans settling North America with white people: "Puritan America has its origin in a small and unimportant...

Linton Kwesi Johnson, Sonny's lettah (anti-sus poem) lyrics From Brixton Prison, Jebb Avenue London S.W. 2 Inglan Dear mama good day I hope that when these few lines reach you they may find you in the best of health I doun know how to tell ya dis for I did mek a solemn promise to tek care a lickle Jim an try mi bes fi look out fi him mama, I really did try mi bes but none a di less sorry fi tell ya seh, poor lickle Jim get arres it was de miggle a di rush hour hevrybody jus a hustle and a bustle to go home fi dem evenin shower mi an Jim stan up waitin pon a bus not causin no fuss when all of a sudden a police van pull up out jump tree policemen de whole a dem carryin baton dem walk straight up to me and Jim one a dem hold on to Jim seh dem tekin him in Jim tell him fi leggo a him for him nah do nutt'n and 'im nah t'ief, not even a but'n Jim start to wriggle de police start to giggle mama, mek I tell you wa dem do to Jim? mek I tell you wa dem do to 'im? Dem th...

An Argument by Thomas Moore I've oft been told by learned friars, That wishing and the crime are one, And Heaven punishes desires As much as if the deed were done. If wishing damns us, you and I Are damned to all our heart's content; Come, then, at least we may enjoy Some pleasure for our punishment!

"By and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else." Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Debbie and Clarissa are looking at how I make a blog.