Frozen Toothpaste

Today’s Other People’s Words was selected mostly because I’m a sucker for clever titles. It’s not that I don’t like Philip Burnham’s poem, it’s that I wouldn’t have payed attention if not for that title.
Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God
And on the ninth day, God
In His infinite playfulness
Grass green grass, sky blue […]

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, has some very interesting ideas about how the internet’s changing society and why. So on today’s “Other People’s Words,” a selection from a recent speech he gave on the topic. Video of the speech is available, as is the full transcript.
He begins by describing the role gin played […]

Since it’s been warm outside recently (at least where I live), what better time is there for a poem about snow? This fun little poem, “Snow, Aldo,” is by Kate DeCamillo.
Once, I was in New York,
in Central Park, and I saw
an old man in a black overcoat walking
a black dog. This was springtime
and the trees […]

This story seemed an apt and serendipitous follow-on to my post of yesterday, so here it is in today’s “Other People’s Words.” This is an excerpt recently shared by Slate, which they saw as a rather illustrative portrait of John McCain. It comes from from a decade-old article by Michael Lewis in the New York […]

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Inspired to find the words Robert Kennedy spoke in Indianapolis that night by Ron Klain’s account of the events, I’ve presented them below. Much of the speech is available on YouTube (if you don’t mind Italian subtitles).
I have bad news for you, […]