Straight From The Hart

  THE TASTES OF SUMMER Tender green onion blades,  tipped at the end With a white marble bulb, their flavors do blend With soup or a sandwich, I do recommend For these are the tastes of summer. Cucumbers growing green, awaiting their turn For slicing with vinegar and sugar, I yearn So cool and refreshing, my praises they earn These too are the tastes of summer. Sun ripened tomatoes, So juicy and sweet A smidgeon of salt, such a heavenly treat Just thinking of them makes my heart skip a beat A favorite taste of summer. Hot corn on the cob with the tantalizing name Of peaches and cream, it’s in my hall of fame From one end to the other of the cob I exclaim That this is the true taste of summer. Green beans, new potatoes, cooked up in a pan Just simmering slowly all day is my plan Some salt, bacon drippings, there’s no better than The taste of fresh beans in the summer. Green lettuce wilted down with some crisp bacon bits Add some vinegar, and sugar, it’s always a hit I have to a...

Life started out hard for Mr. Grayson. Born in the fall of 2006 to a feral momma cat who had hung around our yard for several years, he was the the only one of her many litters ever to survive the dangers of kitten-hood and become an adult cat. She was killed on the street after he was weaned that year.   But Mr. Grayson was a survivor, and he continued to roam around the outskirts of our yard on the corner, scrapping for every morsel of food he could find. Milan would see him run to hide every time he went out to get the mail because the timid skinny cat was afraid of everything and everybody. We can only imagine how many rocks or sticks had been thrown at him to chase him away from other houses. He was mauled by the larger feral tomcats in the neighborhood, but he always survived to forage another day.   Milan has a soft heart for any living creature who is wounded and hurting, so he tried to make friends with this beautiful cat with the soft grey coat outli...

Eric DeLeon was dying of liver cancer.  He was told he would have to wait at least two years for a liver transplant.  So he flew to China and paid $110,000 for a liver transplant which he financed with a loan on his home.  He was one of a growing number of Americans who have gone to China for transplants.  However, there is an ongoing controversy about where the transplants come from - executed prisoners or even political prisoners who are still alive at the time of the removal of vital organs, and who then die on the operating table. For several decades, China has engaged in widespread and systematic harvesting of organs from prisoners,   and people of conscience whose political or religious views conflict with the ruling Chinese Communist Party. In an article published this week by the Town Hall website and written  by Jeff Jacoby, we learn that China is still killing large  numbers of imprisoned men and women by strapping them down to operatin...

There is a very fortunate 47 year old woman living somewhere today in the U.S.  She is fortunate because she is alive, although her mother wanted her dead before she was born and had taken extreme measures to kill her. Although her name and exact location are unknown, we know she was born in Texas in 1969 to a woman named Norma McCorvey, although you would know her mother best from a well-known Supreme Court case - Roe vs. Wade.  McCorvey’s attorneys filed that case in 1971 using the pseudonym of Jane Roe, plaintiff vs. Henry Wade, the District Attorney of Dallas County from 1951 to 1987.  Wade was the D.A. who enforced a Texas law that prohibited abortion (except in cases of rape or incest or to save a woman’s life). “Roe” wanted an abortion to end the life of her unborn child which she claimed at the time was the result of a rape.  She has since admitted that this was a lie. Wade’s actions to enforce the abortion law culminated in the case going all the w...

February 2017 is the 41st anniversary of the celebration of Black History month.   The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened just five months ago on September 24, 2016. Justice Clarence Thomas, the only African American currently sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, celebrated the 25th anniversary of his appointment to the Court in October 2016 as the longest sitting African American Judge on the Court. If you were “connecting the dots” in this line of thought, you would arrive at the conclusion that in this month when the entire nation honors the innumerable contributions made by the community of African Americans to our national narrative, and given the years of wisdom and integrity which Justice Thomas has brought to this court, that he would be one of the centerpieces of honor highlighted within the magnificent halls of the beautiful African American History museum. Although there are many people of color who are ...