Sad day for English Club; Shelly’s off the list.
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Keilor writes:

On this day in 2001, it was a clear, crisp, sunny morning in New York
City. Students were in their second week of school. People were
getting to work in cars, buses, and trains. Alessandra Fremura had
planned on leaving for work at 8:00, but her babysitter was 20 minutes
late. Virginia DiChiara couldn't get her golden retrievers to come in
from the backyard, so she decided to have another cup of coffee.
Kenneth Merlo was supposed to go in the office, but he decided to
spend the morning helping a friend hook up her computer instead of
going to his office. Michael Lomonaco stopped in the lobby of the
World Trade Center to order some reading glasses from the one-hour
eyeglass store. Michael Jacobs was running late when he reached the
Trade Center lobby. He rushed to make the elevator, but the doors slid
shut in his face. A musician named Michelle Wiley was at home in her
apartment. She sat down at her piano in her nightgown and shower
shoes, and stared out her window at the Twin Towers before beginning
to play.

It is also my godson James’ third birthday.

My grandma, Adeline, is not doing so well. She is well into her seventies, and is currently fighting a downhill battle against a cancer of the mouth against which she is now undergoing treatment.

If you pray, please do so for my grandmother.

That was quite a convention. I didn’t watch it on TV, but having looked at transcripts from Zell’s and Dick’s speeches all I could say is wow:
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For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag.

–Zell Miller

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An interesting video from Monday outside the RNC courtesy of truthout.org

On this day in 1904 Hellen Keller graduated with honors from Radcliffe University, the first blind and deaf woman to ever graduate from college. A very remarkable gal.

She learned to comunicate by touch, and then later to actually speak (video).

My own personal victory today is that I learned that the S-Bahn tickets are also good for the buses.
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