Lincoln @ MindSay 
abraham
I wanted to let everyone know that Heritage Auction is having a Manuscript, Rare Book, Sports Memoribilla October 16-18 2008. If you like history then the Manuscript auction is for you. There are so many rare items like letters from Abraham Lincoln and Lee Harvey Oswald and much more. The Rare books is the one I like most of all. There are alot of first editions of books. There are Childrens books to Philosophy and much more. Then if you like Sports there are rare signed balls, bats and jerseys.
Check it out here
Good Goddess Above! My brain is fried! I bailed on exersising again this evening and my moms immeditally got after me for that. Your going to loose your momentem...blah blah blah.........your starting to loose that water weight...blah blah blah. I kept my kewl and politly informed her that my school work at this time takes priority over any walking or eliptical machine. Then my mother who hasn't been in any form of school (I don't count continuing credits to keep her RN License) for 50 some years, said it shouldn't be that hard to do your work during the day. Mind you my mother didn't go to college college. She went to a 4 year Catholic Nursing school and only took core courses for nursing!
It took me literally all day minus 20 minutes in the morning to take the kids to school and three and half hours this evening (we had a school function to go to for the kids) to complete all but my final essay for this week. I read the main chapter for this week and after looking at next weeks assignment, I don't have to read the other two chapters she went over in our notes this week till NEXT WEEK. I took all my notes, I read everyone's postings, I posted my main posting today and responded over 4 times to other people's main posting (we only have to do 2 for the maxium to recieve a grade), I hunted down two completely different News Editorials to do my assignment. One on the US's No Child Left Behind Law and one from Jeruslum on Ramadan. I wrote, typed, and then posted both articles and my take of appeals and submitted them to the prof. I read 4 different classmates essays and picked one to make suggestions on. I posted my suggestions and printed off next week's assignments and new topic for the next paper. I also wrote down about two dozen ideas to "improve" my final draft of the Self Discriptive Essay, the Prof likes my paper but says I am not descriptive enough. I am going to work in the fact I am actually a very private person til I obtain a comfort level with others:D
I finally got all this done at 10 pm tonight! During the day and all my homework, I managed to get two loads of laundry done, discuss and be interviewed for my girl Teri for one of her papers and gave her some presidential historic information on Jimmy Carter for another paper and consented in talking to my brother for 45 minutes. In the afternoon, the kids and I did our Dollar General run (that is my new wally world:P), killd some time at the Buffalo pasture reading the Historical marker and took a few pictures of the buffalo, then we went up to the school for Family Science night! The kids really enjoyed themselves and now we have to show Randy how to implode soda cans, pull plant DNA, and explode two 2 liters of soda using menthos and life savers! The program was run by one of the NE Medical Center Genetisist out of Lincoln and I think a Highschool Biology teacher out of Omaha! I was a big kid and managed to snag a lil vile of strawberry dna that the kids (all school kids present) helped to pull tonight! I gave it to a lil girl who didn't get any though. Oh and we have to show Randy how to ease a no shell hard boiled egg into a beaker flask with out breaking it and then show him how to get it out!
I don't think I could handle two or three classes this semester for my first semester back. Not with everything I do around this house for everyone including people who don't live in my house! I am doing good if I do say so myself. And tomorrow my "date" with my girl Bree is actually going off with out a hitch! My moms is taking the kids to school for me so I can meet Bree in the morning. We will do her small errands and then Casino HERE WE COME! Randy set me a 100 buck limit and Arjan set Bree a 50 buck limit not counting lunch or any stops we make. Those killjoys know that Bree and I can sit at the casino all day if allowed! As long as we are out of the casino by 2 pm to pick up our respected kids all is good! I won't even complain about having to drive to the city tomorrow night for TKD and then kill two hours before my Leadership class AFTER our actual TKD class!
For the most part, I work nights. Being at the bottom of the totem pole means working the crappy shifts that no one else wants, thus, I work nights and weekends. This doesn't really bother me, as I am coming from the restaurant industry...so no big deal. The reason I am sharing this with you is this; the time when I have to watch tv is during the day or else the middle of the night. Primetime tv is mostly lost on me. Therefore, I watch dvds of tv shows long over. Right now, I am in the midst of "The West Wing." Truly, a fascinating show, and if you've never seen it, well, sucks for you. I own the entire series on dvd and I watch a couple episodes a day and once I finish the series, I put it away and move on to a different series.
Anyway, last night I was listening to my ipod and I was listening to Toby Keith sing "Love Me If You Can." (Apropos of nothing, but at this very moment I am listening to my beloved Bon Jovi sing "This Ain't a Love Song"). So TK is singing, and for some reason I tune in to the lyrics. I have heard the song many times before, but suddenly I start to hear what he is singing. The line that caught my interest was, "I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right. But I bring my better angels to every fight." I googled the lyrics just to make sure I was hearing them right--and I was.
What was so interesting to me was that a couple of days earlier I was watching the West Wing episode, "The Crackpots and These Women" and there is an interesting piece of dialog that goes like this.
Bartlet: "The other night, when we were playing basketball, did you mean what you said? That my demons were shouting down the better angels in my brain?"
Toby: "Yes, sir, I did."
Bartlet: "You think that's what's stopping me from greatness?"
Toby: "Yes."
Bartlet: "I suppose you're right."
Toby: "Tell you what though, sir. In a battle between a President's demons and his better angels, for the first time in a long while, I think we may just have ourselves a fair fight."
Bartlet: "Thank you, Toby. Now, go away."
If you haven't seen it, Bartlet is the President of the USA, while Toby is his communications director and chief speechwriter. I've always liked the exchange for a lot of reasons, but one is that it seems to sum up the fears we all share about politics. That the demons are winning the battle and the better angels are being shouted down.
Okay, so we have this quote and we have this song (both of which feature a man named Toby...) and I started to think it is a bit strange. I wouldn't exactly say that "better angels" is a common phrase. (See synchronicity). Obviously, I had to look it up.
When I first googled the phrase, the very first hit was, strangely, the first inaugural address by President Abraham Lincoln, dated March 4, 1861. The speech is primarily about the possible secession from the union, by the southern states. The address covers slavery, states rights, constitutional law, civil war, and ends on the note of unity. The last paragraph is this:
I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
That was enough to make me think that perhaps the writer of the West Wing perhaps borrowed from speeches of president's past. But, it didn't seem to me that it was all that likely that Lincoln invented the phrase, so I kept digging.
Since this post is already somewhat more locquacious than intended, I will spare you the travails of my search and sum it up by saying this. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives credit for the oldest know use of the phrase to one, William Shakespeare from his Sonnets, published in 1609. However, the particular sonnet that we are working with is 144, which was originally published in 1599. It goes like this:
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
So, there you have it. A virtual dissertation on the usage of the phrase better angels. Lincoln borrowed from Shakespeare, The West Wing borrowed from Lincoln, and Toby Keith, well who knows where his songwriters borrowed from? And my better angels are singing down my demons, keeping me from ending this on a sassy note. I'll let 'em win...this time.
Oh well, it's worth it. A trip in June for a weekend with 6 of my favorite people to maybe speak at a conference in CHICAGO?? Did I mention I'd be going with Val, Dan, Emily, Veronica, Bree and Symone? Did I mention that it's in Chicago, a city I've dreamed of seeing since I was in 7th grade?
I just need the prices to stay low-ish while we hear back from the conference about whether or not we can speak...
****Last night was amazing****
Lisa, Lisa's parents, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Price is Right (with an amazing man from Iowa who was a butcher/hog farmer and who spun the wheel and it went for 5 minutes...oh William), Michaela, Ryan Campis and almost Joe W., Nicole, Joey, Quinlan and a few of their friends, Mr and Mrs. V, the video of FAMOUS FOLKS (I wonder if Danny Bisakko is still that hot, because if he is, I would love to say hello to him)... wow.
Who was on 'Famous Folks' last night - Dan Lackner (Sparky!!!!), Chris J knocking the cup of water over, Mickey, LeeJay, Me, Jenna, Lee Lum WEARING A GIANT MASK OF ABE LINCOLN, Matty Cox, my 2nd and 3rd grade boyfriends, Lenny WITH glasses, Nicole, ...it is just amazing. Nicole's making me a DVD of it, and it will be superb.
Mr. Lincoln The Racist
by Al Benson Jr.
It is amazing to see how many blacks today continue to revere the memory of Abraham Lincoln as though he had actually done something for them. Of course many whites do the same thing. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry operating nowadays, consisting of people, many of whom are academics, whose entire goal in life seems to be the attempted beatification of "Saint Abraham." Most of this foolishness is due to the fact that, in our government schools, we have been taught a laughable, shoddy imitation of history. The facts must never be allowed to get in the way of the fantasy.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is a dubious document that has been widely touted as having "freed the slaves." It didn't. It was aimed at the slaves in Confederate territory where Lincoln had no legal authority. Slaves in both states and territory controlled by Mr. Lincoln's dictatorial regime remained firmly in bondage until the 13th Amendment freed them, several months after Mr. Lincoln's demise. Even Lincoln, himself, admitted the proclamation was a war measure and probably would not have passed any sort of constitutional muster. So who did it really free? No one, that's who. It was never intended to "free" anyone. It was excellent propaganda and that was it. Period!
Several years ago, columnist Joseph Sobran wrote: "When Lincoln finally did grab the slavery issue in 1854, he again followed (Henry) Clay in advocating gradual emancipation, combined with a program of colonization--resettling former slaves outside of the United States. He expressly opposed political and social equality for Negroes in this country. They should be equal all right, but not here...Lincoln's segregationist views are soft-peddled, shrugged off, explained away, or simply ignored...the Fantasy Lincoln must be maintained at all costs." And this is exactly what many establishment scholars today do. They maintain the cottage industry that promotes the "Fantasy Lincoln" while conveniently ignoring his racist views--views they seem to find abhorant in anyone else yet perfectly alright in Mr. Lincoln.
So far as Lincoln's overt racism, let us go right to the horse's mouth as it were, and find out what the great emancipator said himself. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place in 1858, while debating in Ottowa, Illinois on August 21st of that year, Mr. Lincoln stated, quite plainly, that: "I have no disposition to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together on terms of respect, social and political equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there should be a superiority somewhere, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position;"
Lest one be tempted to think that this Lincolnian sentiment was a mere abberation, a slip of the tongue on his part, let's note Lincoln's comments in his speech at Charleston, Illinois on September 18, 1858. Here, dealing again with the same question, Lincoln said: "I will say then, that I am not nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor have I ever been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people...there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man." And he repeated, again, this exact same sentiment in the debate in Quincy, Illinois on October 13th. You do have to admit that Mr. Lincoln's racism did remain constant.
When I read about all the Northern (and some Southern) liberals that so deftly condemn Southern folks for their racism, I often wonder why they seem to forget to condemn Mr. Lincoln for his racism. And why do they conveniently forget to condemn the North for its racist attitudes--because the North had them every bit as much as did the South. Why is Southern "guilt" to be pointed out and exclaimed over while Northern "guilt" for the same "crime" is simply ignored? You don't supposed there is just a teeny bit of anti-Southern bias among the liberals and their court historians do you? Naw--that could never happen--could it???
Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, in his excellent book The Real Lincoln noted that: "The Republican Party, led by Lincoln, was in favor of Southern slavery because its leaders feared the spectacle of emancipated slaves residing in their own Northern states. Lincoln's own state of Illinois had recently amended its constitution to prohibit the emigration of black people into the state, as had several other Northern states. Most Northern states had adopted Black Codes that discriminated in the most inhumane ways against freed blacks. Such discriminatory laws existed in the North decades before they were adopted in the South. There were very few blacks in the North in 1861, and most Northern voters wanted it to remain that way." Black Codes in the North for decades before the South adopted them? Wonder why your "history" book never mentioned that. I never read about that when I went to school. Maybe they sort of forgot to put it in my history book. You say it wasn't in your's either? Oh my!
So most black folks as well as the white liberal race-baiters continue to pay homage to a man that displayed all the habitual racial attitudes they claim to hate in all the rest of us--but, somehow, in the sainted Mr. Lincoln, it's all forgivable. Do you detect, ever so slightly, just a bit of a double standard here?
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