Sister Pearl's World

Hi. I'm Marco's sister. Those of you who don't know me can call me Pearl. When I was nineteen, I bit into a pearl in a fried oyster in some linoleum-floored crab shack on Cape Cod.

I'm a recovering graduate student, high school Spanish teacher, unrepentant history geek, and budding mystic. I've traveled to four of the seven continents. I always love to discuss politics, religion, history, and philosophy. In my other life, I'm also a wife with really poor housekeeping skills. But I can cook.

Archive

Nov
8th

Sun

20 Years Of Sundays With Liane Hansen

“Liane Hansen is celebrating her 20th year as host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Over the past two decades, she’s interviewed hundreds of newsmakers and performers and covered breaking news events from the release of Nelson Mandela to the capture of Saddam Hussein. Here, a look back at some of Hansen’s standout moments.”

Nov
7th

Sat

Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud.

— Jimmy Rabitte (via josaleigh)

When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal. But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.

—

— Victor Benjamin

My heart goes out to all of those in the Fort Hood community. We here in Binghamton know first hand the pain and trauma of such a tragedy. But PLEASE, PLEASE do not make this a reason for hate. For anyone.

Nov
5th

Thu

“Mexico has taken steps to allow the increasing number of foreigners who flood into the country each year, whether legally or illegally, to apply for citizenship.

Most of Mexico’s immigrants come from Central America, but at least one million of them arrive from United States.

Al Jazeera’s Franc Contreras reports from the central Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende, where many of the US immigrants say they appreciate a simpler kind of life.”

It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth-and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up-that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.

— Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (via justbesplendid) (via ma-salaama)

Nov
4th

Wed

You can’t easily group people who come from as far away as Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with people of Mayan, Incan and Taino descent who have mixed with Spaniards, Africans and Jews. We are about so much more than where we came from or how we look.

The essential point is that we don’t come together in a real way until we set foot on U.S. soil. That’s when our “Latino” experience begins. Latino is an American identity.

It is a word to describe Americans who are drawn to each other by this intangible cultural link, the similarity of the way we run our families, our devotion to faith, the warmth of our personalities and our connection to a history that recognizes no border to the south.

Latinos are a people who celebrate the new culture they’ve created in the United States while struggling each day with whether we need to assimilate or integrate into this new society. We ask ourselves what good things we want to preserve from our culture and what American values we want or need to adopt. And that question never goes away, not one, two or three generations beyond immigration.

— Soledad O’Brien explores Latino experience, mixed-race heritage

Nov
3rd

Tue

Dia De Los Muertos celebrations at Hollywood’s Forever cemetery.

Click through to see the entire slide show of costumes, altars, art, and celebrations.

Hiking History: England’s Ancient Ridgeway Trail

“The “road” looks like an old farm track, rutted by the odd tractor in mud, and makes for wonderful walking, as it undulates smoothly over the level ground at the top of the ridge. It’s close to silent up here. Soon the sound of traffic fades from consciousness, and we move back into a world of bleats and birdsong, and soughing wind.

“This is what I’m after,” Rory tells me. “To get away from the sounds of petrol.”

“Escape the carbon age?”

“Back to the Neolithic. Where it’s quieter.” “

I’ve foud a new hiking goal. This summer, the Camino Santiago across northern Spain. Next summer, this one?

Nov
2nd

Mon

“Sugar Skull Girl”

By Andrea Zuill

Feliz Dia De Los Muertos