Tape & Glue

The Lonely Author

You see this broken man
life shattered me beyond
repair. Destiny kicked me.
Fate kept me down. Had my
heart broken a day after my
two year warranty ran out.

Everyone did the best they
could. Yet on certain days I
hurt so much I can barely sit.
Now I survive on a wing and
prayer because all my jigsaw
pieces no longer seem to fit.

I remember how it feels to
be in pieces. I realize that
I will never be brand new.
If you want me I could be
yours to love. If you don’t
mind all the tape and glue.

Photo taken from Google Images

View original post

Saint Andrews Church, California, Maryland

John Cowgill's Literature Site

This  is  Saint  Andrews  Church  in  California,  Maryland.

View original post

Grand hotels with deep railroad roots

PenneyVanderbilt

Hotels and railroads go way back.

The relationship worked: Travelers needed somewhere to sleep, so railroad companies built hotels.

Though the earliest railroad lodgings in the United States were primarily for railway workers, later hotels catered to the lavish lifestyles of Gilded Age travelers.

“The people who are taking long-distance railroad excursions in the 1880s, 1890s, are generally quite well-to-do people,” said Andrew Sandoval-Strausz, a professor at the University of New Mexico and author of “Hotel: An American History.”

Many of the country’s grand railroad hotels were constructed from the 1880s through the first decade of the 20th century.

It was a fine time to be rich (before U.S. income tax) and a fine time to operate a luxury hotel (before cars changed travel patterns forever).

The new hotels often also offered some less-expensive rooms to attract the rising middle class, Sandoval-Strausz said.

Though Canada has a slightly different railway-hotel…

View original post 170 more words

Comparing the 1st Transcontinental Railroad with Today’s Trains

ntbraymer

By Noel T. Braymer

Some people like to bemoan that it only took 6 years to build the first Transcontinental Railroad between Omaha and Sacramento. Many of these same people like to criticize High Speed Rail and other rail projects about how long they take to build now in this Country. People who say this either don’t know much or care about history. The first proposal for a Transcontinental Railroad was in 1830. By the 1850’s there was a great deal of discussion and debate about building a Transcontinental Railroad. At the end of 1853 the Gadsden Purchase bought much of what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico. The reason for buying this land was it on the most logical route for a Transcontinental Railroad. It was the shortest route between ports on both coasts of the 3 proposed routes. It also had the fewest problems with elevation and…

View original post 1,436 more words

Nu Qiang Ren and Shen Nu: Power Women and Leftover Woman in China

Just Turn Left

Happy Families: Images reinforcing early age marriage are everywhere in China. This poster was an ad for cooking oil on the subway.

Names have been changed in this article and dialogue has been translated into English.

A recent advert by the cosmetics company SK-II telling the story of China’s ‘sheng nu’ or ‘leftover women’ has created a viral storm. ‘Sheng nu, a phrase from State-run media in 2007, refers to woman in their late twenties who are unable to get married.

Still image from the SK-II advert (link below)

Gender imbalance and a rise in the divorce rate are but two of the reasons for this phenomenon. Since the birth of the phrase there has been an ever increasing stigma for those who are unable to tie the knot, the term ‘leftover’ conjuring images of unwanted table scraps.

In China, the family is the most important thing in anyone’s life…

View original post 1,151 more words