in which I write about stuff
If Les Schwab sold mobile devices, I’d have walked out of the store with a phone that cost the same as a new customer and a bag of free beef.
🙂
(the other part of why I don’t have a cell phone is that the coverage at the office is appallingly bad, regardless of carrier.)
I spent the afternoon as a human chipper, stripping leaves from and cutting up aspen and apple limbs. still not entirely worked through the pile in the front yard, but enough to see the difference. I also helped transplant a juniper from the corner of the house (why do people plant junipers right up against the house like that?) out into the front yard.
I’m trying to get to a point where spending time outdoors is more of a pleasure than a source of stress. now I have a yard, and I have to do yardwork, and it’s stressful, annoying work. forests of aspen, an 80-foot crabapple, grass.
someday I want to have a garden – still hard work, but a source of joy. flowers, herbs, vegetables – things that I’ve chosen.
someday.
that burger place was a chicken place when I was in middle school, and a different burger joint in high school. (names, anyone?) it’s about a block away from my middle school, and a 10-minute walk from the house where I grew up. and today, I saw that photo on Boing Boing. damn small world.
Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it–all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war–seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered–that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope–fervently do we pray–that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
– Copyright and the Commons, Matt Haughey
– Aaron Swartz talks about going to Eldred – note esp. the bit about the Bookmobile
– Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural speech
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in[…]
I went looking for that last bit after seeing a poster that left off the “with malice toward none” (which, incidentally, strikes me as the most important bit), and wondering if I’d forgotten something.
Because there is public domain, somebody can post that speech…not just a “fair use” excerpt, but the whole damn thing…I could reprint the whole thing, if I wanted to. because there is public domain, somebody else can redo the Gettysburg address as a PowerPoint presentation, and not have to ask permission or worry about the lawyers coming to get him.
If I die on my 75th birthday, you’ll be free to reuse the above image or this text in 2117.
(fair use, I hope!) When would’ve we been permitted to freely copy Lincoln’s speeches? In 1955. (question to self: what was copyright length in 1865?) When would I be able to copy Nixon’s resignation speech, in its entirety, without asking permission from anyone? In 2064. (unless I’ve got the math wrong, in which case it might be longer. note my post below…I’ll probably die in 2064.)
I can’t begin to tell you what’s wrong with that.
– Pixel Decor – sorta gives me a hankering to redecorate my site.
– Microsoft moves office beyond Office… – he says “my new desk!”
– “The things we love flourish in the lover’s laboratory of clever ingenuities and doting stratagems.”
– Authenticity, Identity – and Secrets
– army blog
– Tsui Design, city planning (tell C!)
– Rebecca Blood’s sewing links – because the IntarWeb has everything!
– GardenWeb (suggested by Dani)
2060s, that is. according to a couple of life expentancy calculators, I should live until sometime around 2065. (longer if I manage to eat better, work out more, stress out less, and not get in any another car accident) damn that’s a long time.
– Long to Live
– Longevity Game
(randomly enough, found through a PowerPoint version of the Gettysburg Address.)
additional thought: according to Social Security, I’ll be eligible for retirement in 2039…so I’ll have something like 30 years before I croak to do…what? (note that my working career, in 2039, will have been 43-50 years, depending on whether you count the time I was in school and working.)
that’s way too much time to be thinking about now.
but I was happy to discover that in losing 13 pounds, I’ve dropped my BMI from 27.3 to 25.3. (my target weight puts me down below 24.)
