I really hate the idea of setting aside a month for one aspect of American history over the others, but let’s make the most of it. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James W. Johnson is a short piece of fiction that is still a little uncomfortable to read today, nearly a century later, but fascinating. The author later became the president of the NAACP.
Mitch Townsend
Why You Love the Internet
I still remember when I got my first adult library card, & could take out books from upstairs without my mom signing. It was an oaktag card with a little sheet metal plate bent around two slots in the card. The metal plate had my number on it. The ka-CHUNK as the machine stamped the card was musical to me. My greatest disappointment was that I could not sign out the Encyclopaedia Britannica & instead had to sit and read it in the library.
The library is much bigger now. Google, the Gutenberg Project, Wikipedia, Blogger, … Even better, if I had wanted to read a foreign newspaper, or even one from out of town, I would have had to go into the nearest big city (Hartford at the time) and use their library. Of course, I would never have known if there was something I wanted to read until I got there. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the New York Times retracted an editorial from 1920 that had said that Dr. Robert Goddard’s invention would never work in space because “there was nothng to push against.” I was such a fan of space exploration that I took a bus into Hartford just to read it myself. Now, except for the squishy brown rotten parts of the New York Times, I can read the whole thing online for free. The cost of information has plummeted.
Why do you care?
You care about this because it is going to make your life better. You will have more money. Your children will have a library card that is close to the one the angels have in their wallets.
We’re All Gonna Die!
Eventually.
The idea that all of mankind is in mortal danger, which can be averted only by repentance and radically mending our ways, is not a new one. It actually precedes Al Gore and “Earth in the Balance,” believe it or not. Do you doubt it? Here is an example from 1014 by St. Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester.
Old English:
Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste & hit nealæcð þam ende. & þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, & swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan fram dæge to dæge, ær antecristes tocyme, yfelian swyþe. & huru hit wyrð þænne egeslic & grimlic wide on worolde. Understandað eac georne þæt deofol þas þeode nu fela geara dwelode to swyþe, & þæt lytle getreowþa wæran mid mannum, þeah hy wel spræcan. & unrihta to fela ricsode on lande, & næs a fela manna þe smeade ymbe þa bote swa georne swa man scolde, ac dæghwamlice man ihte yfel æfter oðrum, & unriht rærde & unlaga manege ealles to wide gynd ealle þas þeode.
Modern English:
Beloved men, know that which is true: this world is in haste and it nears the end. And therefore things in this world go ever the longer the worse, and so it must needs be that things quickly worsen, on account of people’s sinning from day to day, before the coming of Antichrist. And indeed it will then be awful and grim widely throughout the world. Understand also well that the Devil led this nation astray for very many years, and that little loyalty has remained among men, though they spoke well. And too many crimes reigned in the land, and there were never many of men who deliberated about the remedy as eagerly as one should, but daily they piled one evil upon another, and committed injustices and many violations of law all too widely throughout this entire land.
Huh?
Take a look at these two articles. Is it just me, or is this a very strange juxtaposition?
February 14:
Annan seeks U.S. help for Darfur peacekeeping
February 17:
Annan backs UN Guantanamo demand
UPDATE: Gay Patriot has a related question.
Two Against One
I don’t believe the Koran has the same Ten Commandments as we see in Exodus and Deuteronomy, but I am given to believe that there are equivalent strictures in it. With that in mind, I would like to point out that the radical Islamofascists, in their supposed zeal and rage over one commandment, are violating at least two others. Let us suppose for the moment that the pictures of Mohammed violate the commandment against making and worshipping graven images. How are they protesting this?
By bearing false witness against their neighbors.
These protesters and their imams represent themselves as speaking authoritatively for Islam. If I were a Muslim, I could not think of a clearer case of blasphemy, and I would be far more furious with these murderous thugs than with any newspaper.