I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me โ that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter โ except to show how very dull we are ...
July 04, 2014 - 12:28 p.m.
It's the Fourth of July and that pretty much dictates what I write today. When it comes down to it like Rick Blaine, I'm a patriot. But first I have to write about commuting and food and what I did yesterday. Heather had to pick up some clothes she found on Craig's list and I was a bit suspicious so I went with her. It was by Avenue J on the 
. What neighborhood is that? I'm still learning Brooklyn. I did know how to get there. Even figured out where to meet Heather, Fort Greene, she's in East Williamsburg.
My suspicions were unfounded. The woman with the clothes was a sweetheart She works in animal rescue. She's good people.
Had an annoying evening. I went to do laundry. I had one pair of clean shorts I wanted to wear when I washed the others. I can't find them. My landlady did something with them when she cleaned my room. I also can't find my copy of the the Silmarillion or my good rain poncho. I found my emergency WfUV poncho under some papers nowhere near where I had left it. I didn't have it when I got caught in the rain on Wednesday because I couldn't find it. Then I lost 20 minutes because I had to reclean things in the kitchen as my housemates simply don't know how to do dishes. They don't understand the purpose of the drying rack or how to use it. OK here's an intelligence test. Figure out which pot the lid in this this picture goes with.
I bet you figured out the lid goes with the matching blue pot that it actually fits. My housemates cannot figure that out. Even when I left the lid with the blue pots. so of course things boil or spill over all the time which leaves he burners looking like this.
How can anyone not figure out those pots? I hid the silver one so they have to use the right one. It isn't very well hidden, just put it with the spare stuff on top of the cabinets but I figured if they can't figure out the right pot that will never find it.
I ended up eating late. I had bratwurst and hash browns. It was yummy. I have one extra brat. I am going to put it on an omelet for breakfast today.
So that takes care of commuting and food And now to write about my favorite holiday that lasts only one day, Independence Day You don't even get off from school for it but I have always loved it.. There's fireworks. They show Yankee Doodle Dandy and 1776 on TV. And you know what, like I said, I'm a patriot.. Yes I agree with Thoreau in Civil Disobedience
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus,(7) etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.But that does not stop me from waving a flag and unabashedly loving America. Criticize the government all you want, I do. But the government is not the country. No country anywhere has a better founding document and every year I read the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth Read it now; Transcript of The Declaration of Independence. Finished? Then I'll continue.
Some new research has highlighted my very favorite part of the Declaration, If Only Thomas Jefferson Could Settle the Issue: A Period Is Questioned in the Declaration of Independence.
This is the passage in question;
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,It is the period after "Happiness" that is in question. Danielle Allen says it's just a stray mark, not a period. And that making it a period weakens emphasis that in the framer's view the purpose of government is to secure rights!
I have always read it that way, period or no period but other's don't. I'm a supporter and often a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, you might think I'd be a Libertarian. I am a libertarian, but not a Libertarian. Like Jefferson I recognize that government is not the only threat to rights. It isn't even the biggest threat.. Anyone with more power than you, physical, economic, or social, can threaten your rights and they often do. It's the government's job to protect you from them. Ron and Rand Paul think it's wrong for the government to force businesses to not discriminate. They think if the businesses in the South wanted to ban blacks that was there right. They only see the threat from the government not the people affected. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, et al were wiser. They cared about the sin, not who was committing it Those who think the government shouldn't protect employees or consumers make the same mistake and don't understand the meaning of the Declaration which is the meaning of America.
We certainly don't always live up to those principles. We are nation of people and people make mistakes. But the ideals are always there. It is our image of who we are and that's a powerful force. So I love America. Oh and baseball is way better than soccer.
And for music I created a playlist.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile July 04, 2014
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