More cake
Dolly Parton sang about it, divorce… and whilst she’ll undoubtedly go down as a legend for her country and pop songs, that’s not why I’m going to talk about her today.
Nor am I going to talk about the fact that she has her own theme park – even Michael Jackson didn’t have that, he may have owned a theme park, but he didn’t have one themed on him.
…I’m not sure that I’d want that, my own theme park, I imagine there would be a lot of queuing to see nothing much in particular. It’d probably be free to enter but would cost you an arm and a leg to leave.
Nope, I want to bring your attention to the most impressive thing that Ms Parton does – her library.
It’s not ordinary library either, it’s an imagination library.
Actually, it’s not a library at all. It’s a charity, and a good one at that.
Dolly wanted to help people to love books and reading, and she achieves this by helping to supply children under five years old with a new, age appropriate book each month.
You can see how this has to help. Low income families might not be able to afford such a thing and there have been studies that show when children have their own collection of books they are much more likely to become life-long readers… as well as helping literacy levels in adults the theory being that teaching your children (or even being around them whilst they learn) to read can help you learn.
It’s not just throwing money at problems, it’s a practical way of improving people’s lives, and I like that. It’s a community effort managed and aided by a charity. Without the community it doesn’t work.
So, top marks, Dolly, for not doing the traditional celebrity thing and donating blindly to charity in order to ease the guilt… not that you should have any.
Philip J Schadenfreude on 
I have six of these books so far. It’s really quite encouraging. They’re real live actual books and everything.
Although on the mailing label it says David and Brian (my wife’s name is Brianne) I wonder if the mailers think we’re a cute gay couple raising a new daughter. (”I bet she looks just like her fathers!”)
Well, you’re obviously not in Tennessee.
: D I love Tennessee.
Tennessee? What happened to
Ninessee? Did he run off with Dynasty
or Heresy? I forget my history.
Wow, I didn’t actually expect to talk to someone that had first hand experience…
Just out of interest, are the books any good? I saw that they were sponsored by Penguin…
David and Brian… sounds like a cute couple.
There are some classics in there, like Tomie DePaulo’s stuff, and then some standard baby-fare. We just got one recently that was really interesting, it’s technically two different stories, the hands story starts from one end and goes to the middle, and the feet story goes from the other end (upside down) and goes to the middle. In the middle there is a two page spread with both children laying out that can be viewed from both directions. : ) They’re all full color. We got a Corduroy book, although it’s not the original (what a good story!)
This is a GREAT idea. I had no idea. Comes from not having kids I guess.
I’ve been to Dollywood, incidentally. Ridiculous place, that. I’ve always wondered how Dolly Parton actually feels about the place.
ive always wondered what on earth is actually there. fill me in? just the regular park stuff?
haha I’ve been to Dollywood, and her Dixie Stampede. Good ‘ole Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, the Kitschiest place on earth.
Although I live less than two hours from there, I’ve never been. I’d say “ain’t it always the way” but when I lived in Florida I must have gone to Disney World 9,999 times. (It’s cool when you have friends working there and you get in free at off-season times.)
Wow, really? I’ve lived in Florida all my life and I’ve only been to Disney like four times. Except Epcot, I went there like eight times for field trips. Epcot sucks.
Well, I’d say that’s quite alot technically, but yah, amongst all the parks I’ve prolly been to them around a 100 times total. For instance, we got season passes to Sea World (the polar bear and beluga whales and walrus… what a great place - and Kraken!! rahh, we rode it about 10 times every time we went - also, all the free beer you can drink!). The summer before that we had season passes to Islands of Adventure (dueling dragons, best roller coaster ever and best line for a roller coaster (inside a castle) )
But I like Epcot too, although it used to be cooler (when they had all the free international Coca-Cola you could drink! - I especially liked “Lift” which is an apple-flavored dark soda from Brazil or something, I really enjoy going around to the different “countries” too, especially since they get people who are actually from those places to work there, you meet lots of interesting people and when you’re not “doing the park” you have a chance to soak in alot of the details most people miss.
Well Sea World and Islands of Adventure aren’t Disney, though. I’ve only been to IOA once when it first opened and I’ve actually never been to Sea World.
Disney = theme parks in orlando area like:
Xerox, Kleenex, Coke, &c. no?
Sorry to disappoint you? Assuming I went to Disney World every day of my life for 27 years, I still would have only gone 9,855 times.
I have probably been to Disney World 15 times or so, and “Orlando Area Theme Parks” approximately 100 times. : )
Yeah, Disney’s not used as a catch-all term, least I’ve never heard anyone else use it that way.
My total is about the same if we’re talking all the theme parks or just Disney ones. But then I was kinda poor growing up, and theme park tickets are expensive. Plus the food in the parks is just unreasonable!
We always brought food in, and like I said, most of that was getting in free due to friends.
Can’t sneak food in anymore: they search bags now.
Epcot didn’t USED to suck. :/
Ah well, at least Disneyland itself is still mostly intact. I’m still waiting for them to change the Gluttony scene back, though. Come on now.
I’m suprised no one has suggested what a Michael Jackson themed them-park would be like… or any of the rides… probably best, really.
Definitely for the best. You remember that South Park episode?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0iZpSjMIo18&feature=related
Sometimes Dolly seems a bit caricaturistic-looking
to me, but whenever I’ve seen her on television,
she seems very warm and caring. Genuine.
I know. I sound disengaged.
What’s new?
Ignore it if you don’t like it.
Ninesee was a fine old gent who nary had a penny.
When he showed up in town that night, ’twas with a girl named Jenny.
She was the type of girl that, you know those for which men fish?
Well she ran off to Knoxville, and Ninny went to Memphis.
If I recall it wasn’t long before he found another,
This girl was Angie Plasty-O, and if he’d had his druthers,
He’d'ave married her right on the spot, but chucklin’ hail and heartily,
She burst his seam and down he went, complainin’ of his artery.
Hmm, this was a reply to Seraphine… ;;
Oh, we should have more replies in rhyme,
To make it more of a grand old time!
so its lift, but its not regular lift? like, the lemon variety you see every day? also, i am impressed by myself in that i have chosen to comment on the part of that spiel that is the least substantial/relevant.
um, that was a reply to davey from earlier on. also, you lot keep rabbitting on about theme parks, and we are severely lacking where i live. i wish i could go to a real one, a huge one! they strike me as a really american thing, though, is this just a bad stereotype?
I don’t recall, I seem to remember it being just plain old Lift - advertised as apple flavored… I never saw the can tho, it came out of a fountain. (which you could basically just stick you rhead under - probably why they removed it)
Also, they are very N.American… Coney Island being the archetype I think, hot dogs, cotton candy… but the atmosphere is similar to any fair anywhere in the world… walking around in the smaller parks is alot like Oktoberfest or such, just “prepackaged” like most of USA.
Disney was revolutionary, actually, in that when he said he wanted to make a theme park, his wife said, ‘BUt theme parks are so DIRTY’ and he said, ‘Exactly. Mine wo’n't be’ and it isn’t. There’s a trashcan every four yards, I swear to gods. XD It’s great, though. Also, fun fact: Disneyland is an Animal Sanctuary, did you know that?
Rock on. I love Dolly Parton because, like Ella Fitzgerald and Ken Page, she is OBVIOUSLY having the time of her life when she’s singing. And I like that. Now she just gets more awesome points.