Tag Archives ⇒ decades

Quaker Abolitionist Benjamin Lay Remembered

May 8, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing has pub­lished a piece on the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of dis­owned sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry Quak­er rab­bler­ouser Ben­jamin Lay

On Sat­ur­day, April 21, 2018, Abing­ton Month­ly Meet­ing unveiled a bur­ial stone for Sarah & Ben­jamin Lay. The event which fea­tured open­ing remarks by author Mar­cus Redik­er and local res­i­dent and Quak­er Avis Wan­da McClin­ton was fol­lowed by a gath­er­ing in the meet­ing­house in the man­ner of a Friends Memo­r­i­al Meeting.

Abing­ton was the first Friends meet­ing I ever vis­it­ed and I’ve loved the sto­ry of Lay since the time I first stum­bled on it (even as a kid I was enough of a local his­to­ry nerd that I might have read of Lay’s antics before I ever met a Quak­er). I’m per­son­al­ly so hap­py to see him get this wider recog­ni­tion. The PYM piece is all-text but much of the grave mark­er cer­e­mo­ny has been post­ed to YouTube.

Nancy’s Secret Garden

May 3, 2017
· Martin Kelley

When we came here in fif­teen or so years ago, Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den was a mag­i­cal oasis tucked in the mid­dle of a block in Key West, a small for­est said to be the last unde­vel­oped acre in the city’s Old Town neigh­bor­hood. Full of wind­ing paths and trees it was the rarest of spaces: loved, care­ful­ly tend­ed, and shared with the pub­lic as a gift of beau­ty. But even then it felt besieged. In 2012 tax­es and expens­es became too much and Nan­cy sold off parcels to devel­op­ers. From an arti­cle in Key News:

The tucked-away entrance to Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den off Free School Lane in the 500 block of Simon­ton Street will be closed to the pub­lic after today, as finances and prop­er­ty tax­es have forced For­rester to sell the land parcels that have housed an artist’s cot­tage and gallery, par­rots, orchids, rare palms, mean­der­ing path­ways and a med­i­ta­tive gar­den for more than four decades.

These days the gar­den has been reduced to a small back­yard on Eliz­a­beth Street which Nan­cy uses as a res­cue par­rot refuge. In the morn­ings she gives edu­ca­tion­al lec­tures on the birds, full of facts about their bril­liant behav­ior, the destruc­tion of their native habi­tats, and gen­tle lec­tures about how we can all pro­tect native par­rot habi­tats by liv­ing more light­ly on the land (hint: no red palm oil or beef). From behind the fence came the sounds of a swim­ming pool being installed in the cut­down mid­dle of the for­mer gar­den. Nan­cy has life ten­an­cy on the ill-repaired house where she lives with the parrots. 

I don’t know the details of the real estate trans­ac­tions or For­rester’s finances but I find it incred­i­ble that Key West could­n’t ral­ly around one of its liv­ing trea­sures. I’m glad that Nan­cy remains along with her par­rots and I’m grate­ful my kids got a chance to meet her. 

Nancy's Secret Garden
Nan­cy’s Secret Garden 

We vis­it­ed with Nan­cy For­rester of Key West­’s Nan­cy’s Secret Garden.

YouTube YouTube 
Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden, Parrots, Macaws, Key West, FL
Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den, Par­rots, Macaws, Key West, FL 

The pur­pose of Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den as a Par­rot sanc­tu­ary in Key West, is to inspire and…

nan​cy​for​rester​.com

 

New Yorker New Yorker New Yorker

November 9, 2016
· Martin Kelley

Web­sites are start­ing to talk about a Don­ald Trump pres­i­den­tial cab­i­net and the names high­light a curios­i­ty of this elec­tion: many of the prin­ci­ple insid­ers come from North­east Cor­ri­dor states that vot­ed for Hillary Clin­ton. Rudolph Giu­liani and Chris Christie, are, like the whole Trump fam­i­ly, metro New York­ers and as far as I know Newt Gin­grich lives in north­ern Virginia.

I’ve lived in Chris Christie’s New Jer­sey since he was elect­ed gov­er­nor and I find it real­ly hard to believe he’s sud­den­ly going to have a strong inter­est in the Mid­west­ern red states that gave Trump the win. You can point to VP-elect Mike Pence of Indi­ana, but as far as I can tell he was only brought on for strate­gic rea­sons and is not part of the Trump circle.

What real­ly can Trump do to bring back the good pay­ing jobs that dis­ap­peared decades ago? Our econ­o­my has been shift­ing regard­less of which par­ty occu­pies the Oval Office. There’s sops and pork to be doled out, but the nation­al econ­o­my has been cen­tral­iz­ing in the big coastal cities that our new polit­i­cal lead­ers call home (the same would have been true with a Clin­ton pres­i­den­cy). What if Trump’s elec­tion is the ulti­mate prank: red states sell­ing their vote to a New York devel­op­er who will most­ly con­tin­ue to devel­op the New York-to-DC corridor?

Nostra Maxima Culpa

February 5, 2013
· Martin Kelley

Nos­tra Max­i­ma Cul­pa:

Andrew Sul­li­van, andrew​sul​li​van​.com

[Re-posted from ear­li­er today.]Alex Gibney’s new doc­u­men­tary on the child-rape epi­dem­ic in the Catholic Church that raged for decades (and maybe cen­turies), Mea Max­i­ma Cul­pa, debuted tonight on HBO. I’ve watched it twice. It is both an…

Andrew Sul­li­van on the priest abuse cover-up:
“Jesus must always be with the vic­tims. He is the vic­tim. When a priest rapes a child, Jesus is raped. When an arch­bish­op cov­ers up the crime, Jesus is raped.”