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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From The Will to Win:

Good Poems
Hardcover
Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor


Quote:
More versatile Keillor.

More of Keillor's excellent poetry collections.

More of this book.




Quote:
Dog's Death

John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

(From Part 10, Beasts, p. 247)


Quote:
3 doz. poems
Audio CD
Selected and narrated beautifully by Keillor




Years of radio have perfected the clarion Keillor delivery! A joy!


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Impossible Odds:

Quote:
'If you are wondering what happened to us all, you might consult the poems of Irving Layton.' -- Leonard Cohen (From the front page of Globe Review in the Globe and Mail Jan. 5/06)


Selected Poems
Paperback
By Irving Layton
Preface by Wynne Francis


Quote:
More of Irving and his fine Hoser send-off.





Quote:
On Being Bitten by a Dog

A doctor for mere lucre
performed an unnecessary operation
making my nose nearly
as crooked as himself

Another for a similar reason
almost blinded me

A poet famous
for his lyrics of love
and renunciation
toils at the seduction of my wife

And the humans who would like to kill me
are legion

Only once have I been bitten by a dog.

(--p. 54)


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Full Moon
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse




Quote:
'Not Peterson's Pup Food?'

'That's the name.'

'My God!' cried Freddie, dropping his monocle in his emotion. 'Is everybody over here nuts?' This is the fifth case of Peterson's Pup Food I've come across in the last two weeks. And they call England a dog-loving nation. Do you want those hounds of yours to get rickets, rheumatism, sciatica, anaemia, and stomach trouble? Well, they jolly well will if you continue to poison them with a product lacking, I happen to know, in several of the most important vitamins. Peterson's Pup Food, forsooth! What they need, to make them the well-muscled, vital, one-hundred-per-cent-he-dogs they ought to be, is Donaldson's Dog-Joy. Donaldson's Dog-Joy is God's gift to the kennel, whether it be in the gilded palace of the rich or the humble hovel of the poor. Dogs raised on Donaldson's Dog-Joy become fine, strong, upstanding dogs who go about with their chins up and both feet on the ground and look the world in the eye. Get your dog thinking the Donaldson way! Let Donaldson make your spaniel a super-spaniel! Place your Irish setter's paws on the broad Donaldson highroad and watch him scamper away to health, happiness, the clear eye, the cold nose, and the ever-wagging tail! Donaldson's Dog-Joy, which may be had in the five-shilling packet, the half-crown packet, and the ----'

'Freddie!'

'Hullo?'

'Stop!'

'Stop?' said Freddie who had only just begun.

Prudence Garland was exhibiting symptoms of being overcome.

'Yes, stop. Desist. Put a sock in it. Gosh, it's like a tidal wave. I'm beginning to believe you about those conferences. You must be the life and soul of them.'

Freddie straightened his tie.

'The boys generally seem to wish to hear my views,' he admitted modestly.

'And I'll bet they get their wish if you're within a mile of them.' (-- pgs 26-27)


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Impossible Odds:

Full Moon
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse


Quote:
More of the wide and wonderful Empress of Blandings.





Quote:
'Pigs," said Lord Emsworth, raising his voice a little and enunciating the word more distinctly.

Plimsoll explained that what he had been intending to convey was that his name was Plimsoll.

'Oh, is it?' said Lord Emsworth, and paused awhile in thought. He had a vague recollection that someone had once told him to do something - what, he could not at the moment recall - about someone of that name. 'Well, as I was about to say, I am just going down to the sty to listen to my pig.'

'Oh, yes?'

'Her name is Plimsoll.'

'Is that so?' said Tipton, surprised at this coincidence.

'I mean Empress of Blandings. She has won the silver medal in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show twice -- '

'Gee!'

'-- in successive years.'

'Gosh!'

'A thing no pig has ever done before.

'Well, I'll be darned.'

'Yes, it was an astounding feat. She is very fat.'

'She must be fat.'

'She is. Extraordinarily fat.'

'Yessir, I'll bet she's fat,' said Tipton, groaning in spirit. No lover, who has come out to walk in the moonlight and dream of the girl he adores, likes to find himself sidetracked on to the subject of pigs, however obese. 'Well, I mustn't keep you. You want to see your pig.'

'I thought you would,' said Lord Emsworth. 'We go down this path.' (-- pgs 82-83)


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Everything Arrives at the Light
Paperback
By Frostback Lorna Crozier




Quote:
I've been crying a week
over the cat. There are some
I can say this to and others
I cannot. He's only a cat,
many reply. I now divide
people into these two camps.
It's one way of knowing the world.

...

When I start crying on the phone my mother tries to comfort me
in that strange way she has.
Animals have it lucky,
you can always put them under,
stop the suffering
. I know
she's thinking of my father,
those last months in the hospital.
Never one for understatement
he begged the doctor -
Why don't you just cut my throat?

At seventy-five
she's also trying to tell me
something about herself,
but what can I do?

Right now it's the cat
I'm sad about. He's not
my mother or father,
he's not my husband,
brother, mother-in-law,
or the child I never had.

He's only a cat,
and so I write
this poem for him
with my whole family in it
to bring him home.

(-- pgs. 10-11)


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Town & Country
Dog-walking is better than the gym
March 6/08


Quote:
Yes, and then there's Dog Seven Ways. (Black ones are best).





Quote:
It's official - walking the dog is better for you than going to the gym, according to a new study commissioned by Butcher's dog food. It revealed that the average owner will walk the equivalent distance of from London to Bangkok during their dog's lifetime. And they will clock up 676 miles a year - the same as 26 marathons - 208 more than the average member of a gym. Walking a dog lowers blood pressure, slows heart rates and enables quicker recovery after strenuous exercise. Psychologist Dr David Lewis, who studied the exercise habits of two groups of middle-aged people, says: 'Given the cost of gym membership, Fido wins hands down as your personal trainer. Walking a dog means that you have to go out at least once a day, and you become less stressed.'

If you want to 'power walk', the study recommends you get a border collie, dalmation, springer spaniel, setter or weimaraner, or if you merely want to walk briskly, take out a boxer, doberman, German shepherd, Jack Russell or retriever. The best dogs for strollers are bassets, whippets, shih-tzus, dachshunds and corgis. (-- p. 72)


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Impossible Odds:

Chuck Amuck
The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist
Paperback
By Chuck Jones




Quote:
With my fascinated nose waffled against the rust-brown screen of our second-floor sleeping porch, I watched him tiptoe through the dune grass and yellow oyster daisies to the foot of our back porch, then look appraisingly up at me and utter a single laconic "Mckgnaow."* (From James Joyce's Ulysses, but Johnson said it first).

He moved into our house that morning, bag and baggage. The bag was that cat bag all cats live in, one of the few characteristics he shared with other cats. He sat fat and walked thin like other cats, but the resemblance to other cats stopped there.

His baggage was what appeared to be a very old, very used tongue depressor, fastened securely about his neck with a bit of tarry string, bearing in violet indelible ink the crude inscription: JOHNSON. Whether this was his name, that of his former proprietors, or his blood type we unable to determine, since he discussed his past not at all and responded to the name Johnson as well as any other, which was not at all...

... Mark Twain said that if you carried a cat home by the tail you would get information that would be valuable to you all your life. Such information could more conveniently be obtained by meddling with Johnson's tongue depressor.

Whatever else it represented, that bit of tongue depressor was Johnson's sole possession: his entire estate, his chattel, his treasure. It was all he had to leave to his eldest son, and he treated it as a sacred object. Any attempt to remove it resulted in what can only be described as a physical threat of the most nerve-racking implications. Touch his treasure and Johnson simply went into a lightning somersault, coupled with a full-bodied, four-footed karate chop, in which the meddler suddenly found his hand caught in an inverted cat vise of sixteen needle-pointed claws, the offending hand flat against Johnson's stomach, his eyes cobra-like, scythe-like slits of pure malevolence - one of Johnson's feline canines caught on his lower lip, its amethyst point devoid of dentine, sharp as a scalpel, blue as a diamond. At this point the disturber of the sacred tongue depressors was unharmed, but the slightest move elicited a corresponding slight extension of those sixteen curved stilettos. It was not unlike having one's hand in a boxing glove full of fishhooks. If one wanted to get out - and one did - it would require the minimal help of four fearless human assistants of fantastic manual desterity. It was possible to escape only if these assistants moved with split-second, simultaneous accuracy to pull Johnson's paws apart. This method allowed one to escape with only minor wounds, but the safest yet most unnerving way was to wait it out until Johnson had made up his mind that you were only kidding. This might take from five minutes to a half hour and few people had that kind of courage or were that free of panic or hysteria. So most unfortunates tried to snatch the hand free immediately upon being trapped, with results too bloodily ineffectual to be described. Only a half grapefruit gently dropped over his face like an ether cone would relax Johnson enough so his claws, like spines of a cactus, could be individually picked from the threatened extremity.

While half a grapefruit would anethetize Johnson, the most interesting way of serving Johnson his passion fruit was to present it to him in its glorious entirety: a whole unsullied, uncut, large grapefruit. ... (-- pgs. 14-19)


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pigs Have Wings
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse


Quote:
More of the book.

More of the celebrated Empress of Blandings.

More of that scurrilous wag, Parsloe.





Quote:
... 'Well, if that's not what's worrying you, what is? Why are you looking like a bereaved tapeworm?'

Lord Emsworth was only too glad to explain to a sympathetic ear what had caused the resemblance.

'That girl Simmons upset me, Galahad. You will scarcely credit it, but she called the Empress a piggy-wiggy.'

'She did?'

'I assure you. "Hullo, Lord Emsworth," she said. "Have you come to see the piggy-wiggy?"'

Gally frowned.

'Bad,' he agreed. 'The wrong tone. If this is true, it seems to show that the child is much too frivolous in her outlook to hold the responsible position she does. I may mention that this is the view which Beach takes. He has put a considerable slice of his savings on the Empress's nose to cop at the forthcoming Agricultural Show, and he is uneasy. He asks himself apprehensively is La Simmons fitted for her sacred task? And I don't blame him. For mark this, Clarence, and mark it well. The girl who carelessly dismisses Empress of Blandings as a piggy-wiggy today is a girl who may quite easily forget to give her lunch tomorrow. Whatever induced you, my dear fellow, to entrust a job that calls for the executive qualities of Pierpont Morgan to the pop-eyed daughter of a rural vicar?'

Lord Emsworth did not actually wring his hands, but he came very near to it. (-- pgs. 17-18)


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Impossible Odds:

Vanity Fair
Magazine Subscription
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit
By snatching his seven-year-old daughter from her mother’s custody, after a bitter divorce, the man calling himself Clark Rockefeller blew the lid off a lifelong con game which had culminated with his posing as a scion of the famous dynasty. The 47-year-old impostor charmed his way into exclusive communities, clubs, and financial institutions—marrying a Harvard M.B.A.; working at Kidder, Peabody; and showing off an extraordinary art collection—until his arrest brought him face-to-face with his past and with questions regarding skeletal remains dug up in a California backyard..
January, 2009


Quote:
More of this Famous Four-Flusher.





Quote:
Their apartment, at 55th Street and Sixth Avenue, was a showcase for their art. Furnishings were minimal, and Clark’s dog was given free rein. “We celebrated our first art purchase, a large painting by Rothko, on a cold, wet New York afternoon,” Sandra wrote in Artnews. “Our dealer and a Rothko expert had just arrived at our apartment when Yates, our 85-pound Gordon setter, returned from his walk, jumped on his usual spot on the sofa, and shook his head. A four-inch-long swath of saliva emerged from his mouth.” Naturally, it landed on the Rothko, and the art expert carefully wiped it off with a paper towel. Sandra wrote that the incident was evidence of her husband’s insistence that fine art and purebred dogs could live together harmoniously, despite their “slight incompatibilities.”

As her position with McKinsey grew, Sandra was away from her husband more and more, which left him with plenty of time to walk Yates in Central Park, where he would later say, “my dog was very much in love with Amelia, Henry Kissinger’s dog.” Broadway producer Jeffrey Richards crossed paths with Rockefeller while walking his dog through the park one day. …

Sharlene Spingler, a writer and P.R. executive, met Rockefeller while walking her Shar-Pei and English setter in Tudor City, and soon they began walking their dogs together. … She introduced him to her friends and took him to the private clubs to which she belonged, and to which he would soon belong as well. …

“You’re walking your dog with a Rockefeller? Wow!” the noted New York-based artist William Quigley, whose work is collected by politicians, entertainers …., asked a friend one day. Not only is he a Rockefeller, the friend replied, but he loves your work. …

… neither Rockefeller nor the Whitney Museum ever bought a Quigley painting from Gagosian. Rockefeller did acquire three Quigley works, though: he bought one from the artist, got one as a gift, and picked up a third at an estate sale for a nominal sum.

None of Rockefellers new friends, who included a respected Park Avenue physician and a top Japanese female executive at Moody’s Investors Service, probed too deeply into the stories he told them. They were all too content to bask in his glow. … (-- pgs. 129-130)


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Fire Dogs and Fine Art
The moving story of the London fireman's dog Chance is a delightful addition ot the London Original Print Fair, where a range of work is being launched
April 17/08




Quote:
Chance, who was born in Shoreditch and the mid 1820s, was a remarkably lucky animal. He narrowly escaped bing drowned at birth along with his siblings, and then, in 1828, he survived a house fire in which his mother died, although he was removed from her side only with great difficulty. He then attached himself to the London Fire Brigade moving from one station to another and following the engines to every fire, even when he was almost blind with old age. He was skilled in crowd control, sniffing out survivors in the rubble and retrieving objects from burning buildings.

All the firemen of London contributed to the cost of his brass collar, on which was inscribed 'Stop me not, but onward let me jog, for I am Chance, the London Firemen's dog.' His portrait was painted several times, and he was the subject of newspaper obituaries. Even after his death in December 1835, his adventures were not over. The firemen sent him to be stuffed as a memorial, but the taxidermist sold him to a fairground showman, who exhibited him at a penny a peep. However, a firefighter happened to visit the fair, and brought the entire department to the rescue. Thereafter, Chance was displayed proudly in a case in the Central Fire Station. The tradition of station dogs that he inspired continues, as often as not with Dalmatians. ... (-- p. 120)


More on Chance:

The Firefighter's Best Friend
Lives and Legends of Chicago
Hardcover
By Drew Orsinger





Quote:
Chance made quite an impact on the London Fire Brigade firefighters. While his breed was undetermined, Chance was known for following the crew to every fire and rescuing several people. He rotated throughout the firehouses in London, spending a few days at each house. As a result, every firefighter in London knew him. A collection was taken by firefighters to purchase a brass collar with an inscription that read, "Stop me not, but onward let me jog, for I am Chance, the London Firemen's dog." Chance also had his portrait painted by several artists. William Heath completed one of these paintings in 1834, depicting Chance against the background of a burning House of Parliament, pawing at a flowing hydrant while a fireman watched over him.

Upon his death, many London newspapers ran obituaries of the dog. One paper reported that while on his deathbed, Chance tried unsuccessfully to rise up and follow the men one last time as they rushed to a fire. When Chance passed away, his favorite house at the Central Station of the London Fire Brigade paid a taxidermist to stuff him and place him in a glass case. After the taxidermist completed his work, he decided to instead sell the famous dog to a showman on the other side of town, who let visitors glimpse the dog for a penny. The showman unknowingly allowed a fireman in for a viewing. Several hours later, the entire squad returned to retrieve their dog. The firefighters mounted the case on a wall with a plaque behind the case that read: Chance, well known as the firemen's dog. Died October 10, 1835. This is humbly inscribed by the Committee of London Fire Establishment and their obedient servants.

The grandfather of the modern-day firedog, Chance proved to be the benchmark in a longstanding institution. (From Chapter 1, p. 4)


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Slots:

The New York Times Magazine
Magazine Subscription
Vending Machine for Crows
8th Annual Year in Ideas
By Claire Trageser
Dec. 14/08




Quote:
In June, Josh Klein revealed his master’s-thesis project to a flock of crows at the Binghamton Zoo in south-central New York State. The New York University graduate student offered the birds coins and peanuts from a dish attached to a vending machine he’d created, then took the peanuts away. Klein designed the machine so that when the crows searched for the missing peanuts, they pushed the coins out of a dish into a slot, causing more peanuts to be released into the dish. The Binghamton crows quickly learned that dropping nickels and dimes into the slot produced peanuts, and the most resourceful members of the flock began looking for more coins. Within a month, Klein had a flock of crows scouring the ground for loose change.

Now Klein is working with graduate students at Cornell University and Binghamton University to study how wild crows make use of his machine. Although his invention might conjure Hitchcock-worthy visions of crows stealing the loose change from pedestrians’ pockets and hands, Klein’s conception is more benign. To Klein, the machine demonstrates the value of cooperating with “synanthropes” — animals that have adapted seamlessly to human environments. “Rather than just killing off a species, why not see if they can do something useful for us, so we can all live in close proximity?” he said. To pursue his research, he founded the Synanthropy Foundation this year. Someday, he hopes, similar techniques may allow us to train rats to sort our garbage for us.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Loaded Dice:

Singing My Him Song
Hardcover
By Malachy McCourt


Quote:
Rookie reporter Geraldo Rivera broke the story.

Willowbrook kids deliberately infected with hepatitis for some sick bastard's research project.

Unbelievably, the last child did not leave until 1987.

Willowbrook Archives compiled by Dr. James Kaser updated in 2005.

More on efforts as recent as 2008 to shut down institutions in Philadelphia and replace them with affordable, barrier-free housing.





Quote:
More of Malachy's literary prowess.

More of the celebrated McCourts.


Quote:
When Diana and myself searched for the residential facilities for Nina, it was with the expectation that we would find a permanent, loving home for her. A place with the trained people in the facilities to help her acquire ordinary life skills such as feeding and dressing herself. ...

Our next stop was Willowbrook State School for the Retarded on Staten Island, another institution in a bucolic setting. From their very comfortable and spacious houses atop small hills, the director and his senior staff had splendid views of lovely sweeping greenswards on several hundred acres of wooded lands.

They told us there was a two-year waiting list, but if we consented to admit Nina through the hepatitis program, she could be placed immediately. As it was explained to us, they were testing a new vaccine, and it was nearly totally effective, except for a few small glitches. They also told us that as 100 per cent of the residents got hepatitis, it would be advisable to get this vaccine anyway. What they didn't tell us was that the program was totally experimental, and that the residents at Willowbrook were the guinea pigs. Nor did they mention that the U.S. Army was funding the program.

Yes, parents and relatives did give consent, but as the ramifications of hepatitis and the hepatitis program were not explained fully - indeed, obfuscation was the order of the day - it was not "informed" consent. Of course, nobody would believe that the noble and honorable United States government would ever use innocents in a disease-inducing project. When I asked, much later, why monkeys were not used in the experiments, I was told that monkeys were very expensive. ...

Diana and myself were invited to join the Benevolent Society for Retarded Children, Willowbrook Division, a subgroup of the National Association for the Help of Retarded Children. Both of these groups were moribund and resistant to change. Their main function seemed to be having annual lunches and dinners to honor the self-satisfied directors and commissioners of the various institutions that were quietly and systematically destroying the residents of their hell-holes.

But we looked around carefully, and slowly the full savagery and horror of Willowbrook State School began to emerge. We were surreptitiously contacted by some folk who were working at this awful place, and they put us in contact with other parents who had not been brutalized by imposed guilt or fear of retaliation against their kids. Dr. Mike Wilkins and Elizabeth Lee, a social worker, began talking to the press, though forbidden to do so by the director, Dr. Jack Hammond, a dour sourpuss of a man.

Also leading the charge was Dr. Bill Bronston, a dynamic, intense man, so suffused with passion and compassion that there were days he was so emotionally charged he could hardly speak. Bronston was tenured and could not be dismissed except for cause, but Mike Wilkins and Elizabeth Lee were in a precarious position, as they were not tenured employees and were in danger of losing their jobs.

Ira Fisher, another social worker, took us on a tour of the back wards. When he opened the thick, heavy doors, I was assaulted by smells and sights and sounds that were so awful I didn't want to believe what was in front of me. A look at Diana told me she was stunned by the desperate savagery of this pitiliess place, littered with twisted and grotesque bodies, writhing and rocking on floors gleaming with the slime of every excretion a human body can produce. Strange, high-pitched howls and low groans rent the air interspersed with dervish-like leaping and jibbering beings. The hard, spare floors and walls reverberated with a deafening, dissonant symphony. Not only were some of the residents retarded, they were driven totally mad by the conditions of their so-called state school.

These "recreational" areas held as many as 80 residents, with perhaps three attendants to administer to their needs. High in the corners of these dank dungeons, there flickered the everpresent television, showing soap operas with sleek men agonizing over imaginary lost millions and perfect females weeping over imaginary lost loves. Amidst these insane horrors, with soap operas playing out above their heads, the attendants, no less battered by the conditions than their charges, tried to shuttle and cajole the residents to the lavatory, or to lunch or to dinner, which would last all of five minutes.

... Among the co-conspirators was one of the bravest people I've ever met, one Bernard Carabello, a 20-year-old man who had been a resident of Willowbrook for 16 years. Bernard was diagnosed as mentally retarded, and it was forcefully suggested to his mother that she institutionalize him, which she did, when he was four.

As he was considered retarded, the officials spoke openly in front of him, and he fed us information about what was going on inside the facilities. If it had been known he was funneling this intelligence to us, he would have been beaten and put into one of the isolation cells, or they might have designated him a 'biter,' and, as was done with those so designated, pulled all his teeth. Without the benefit of anesthetic.

Bernard would later go on to become a prominent activist in all areas connected with the handicapped. He earns a good salary and travels extensively hither and yon, giving talks and consulting wherever he is needed. (-- pgs. 127-139)


About the Willowbrook court decisions:

Quote:
From: "Library Archives" <archives>
To: "editor" <editor>
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 7:03 AM
Subject: Re: Malachy McCourt and Willowbrook


Dear L.M. Murray,

As far as I know, the consent judgments are not available online. In some cases, they are unavailable even on Lexis-Nexis. We have print copies of anything that we've listed in our guide, and they are available through some other libraries.

Catherine Carson, Assistant Archivist
Archives & Special Collections
College of Staten Island Library


Becoming pally with legendary disability advocates, Diana and Malachy McCourt:

Quote:
From: FAMILY804@aol.com
To: Editor@bcdisabilities.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 7:12 AM
Subject: Malachy McCourt's 75th Birthday and Fundraiser


Attached please find your invitation to my 75th Birthday Party and Fundraiser. Pulitzer prize winning author Frank McCourt will be opening the show. Music will be provided by David Amran and Mary Courtney. This should be a great evening. Please invite a friend.

If you cannot open the attached invitation, please visit www.symphonyspace.com and look for the September 20th listing of this event.

Malachy McCourt


Alas, we must decline:

Quote:
From: editor
To: FAMILY804@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 3:39 PM
Subject: Re: Malachy McCourt's 75th Birthday and Fundraiser


Oh, you mad Irishman! Governor indeed.

I cannot think of anything I'd rather do than kick up my heels with the beloved McCourts of New York at Symphony Space, venue of some of the most memorable literary readings ever recorded. I know this because I have a bunch, which cost a bundle, and they will not let you purchase just one tape even when some villainous wag in a hospital pinches Jerry Stiller (the real one) reading The Anarchists' Convention, but never mind that.

I love all the brothers' books and have purchased all in their various forms, which also cost a bundle. Hied it once in a downpour over to the Chan Centre to hear Frank read from T'is a few years back. (Remember the Irish Times headline? T'isn't! What bounders!)

Unfortunately, I will have to deprive you of my charming company as crossing that border now with the Busher's banditos at the ready scares the bejabbers out of me. I will, however, mark the date on my calendar and play a Pogues CD over a pint in your honor. Quaere whether a pay per view podcast might not allow greater participation. Consider it.

In the meantime, Malachy and Diana continue to enjoy plenty of traffic at my Disability Heroes forum, where I have shamelessly scalped a large portion of of the book describing your good work on behalf of Willowbrook's foresaken inmates:
http://www.bcdisabilities.com/bcdisforum/viewtopic.php?p=285&sid=0d927b60c437dc06bf225c2fa65b25d2#285 . Those of us who are today bringing forward new cases of similar institutional abuse owe you a debt of gratitude, so thanks a tonne!

And a very, very happy 75th! Congratulations! If you guys are ever in Vancouver on the Left Coast of Canada, please look us up and we'll dine you like kings.

With much love and admiration,

L.M. Murray
Editor@bcdisabilities.com
http://www.bcdisabilities.com
Tracking disability justice initiatives worldwide.


Symphony Space
(Selected Shorts A Celebration of the Short Story, Vol. I)
Featuring Jerry Stiller reading The Anarchists' Convention by John Sayles
Audio Cassette




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