Posts by pwsadmin

Hello and welcome to all! I am Anthony Collins and this is my first post on my first blog site. I am using this blog site to write and reflect upon what I know, observe, do, and seek in my daily life and more. I welcome your comments and input. I am in the process…

I admit it—I have always been in love with Joni Mitchell.  Of course, I have never met her but I know I would love her more if I ever did.  I do know that I love so many of the songs she has written and recorded, and the way she plays and tunes the acoustic…

Kabul and Afghanistan, in general, are very beautiful places to visually SEE and experience, although it is true that its aesthetic beauty is trumped by a dark reality of death and suffering. There a lot of ways to die in Afghanistan and this fact is present everywhere, all around you. With this photo of Kabul…

The short response to the question is “yes, sometimes.† When an artist is able to reflect, articulate, and contextualize their art work, then “yes, work in Art is a a form of scholarship and scholarly research.† However, wait, not so fast.  It’s not that easy.  The question is either hotly debated or flippantly dismissed. The…

A Romney-Palin ticket in ’12?  Sarah Palin for VP?  I couldn’t stop laughing, in between my gasps for air, when I read this article.  Yeah baby, bring ’em on. http://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palin-vice-president-again-205900862.html I am all for a Romney-Palin ticket because it is the best and surest possible way to ensure an Obama victory.  It would be mayhem…

Poor test results by students?  Blame the teacher!  This is an increasingly common presumption and accusation.  But, blaming the teacher for the ills and failures in student test scores is a fallacy.  To blame teachers when parents are remiss or entirely absent from the quotient is shameful. SEE: http://capoliticalnews.com/2012/01/20/lawsuit-against-lausd-could-shake-up-how-ca-evaluates-teachers/#comment-66829 I agree that student success with the…

Please consider the following website:  http://www.foreignpolicy.com/failed_states_index_2012_interactive I recall walking around the dusty villages of eastern/coastal Kenya in 1994.  I recall being in Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, and being anchored off the coast of Somalia in 1994.  Back then, I sensed a tension, an underlying layer of dissent, fear, and anger in local communities.  During my…

There are many great and near-great performances of Bartok’s Romanian Dances, usually performed on violin or viola or cello with piano, or for piano solo too.  There is an orchestral version too. I love this music and have played the viola and the violin versions myself with a lot of pleasure and some degree of…

This story oozes with potential as a dramatic feature film, Hollywood-style.  Maybe structured like the film, “Amadeus,†with Hess reminiscing and storytelling, covering the emotional, psychological, and historical gamut? http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/07/world/europe/germany-hitler-reprieve/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I will dedicate an entire section area to the category of spiders.  This is the first entry, in the category of spiders but it is not day #1 of the story.  I will write more on this topic.  I intend to write many stories about spiders and myself, the relationship of spiders with me and…