Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 6

Hearts Beat High with Joy


When I took this picture I went down quite the long journey of family history in family Bibles. One of the most important things I discovered was that I was born special.





The Bible in the picture belonged to my Grandma Bennett. My birth announcement was taped or glued to the front of her Bible. I wasn't the first grandchild born. I wasn't even close to being the first grandchild born. However, I am the only grandchild that had a birth considered worthy of having the birth announcement glued into the front of the Bible.








The Bible used for Hearts Beat High with Joy was my Grandma Bennett's Bible. The smaller Bible pictured in the last picture was my Dad's Bible. The Bible in the middle of the stack was my Grandpa Bennett's Bible.

RWPE #5 - Framing

Basic housekeeping:

This page will be moving at the end of February. Don't forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL: http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

Astute and technically savvy subscriber Angie did remind me that Blogger Dashboard is just an RSS Feed reader and anybody that follows An Artist's Notebook on Blogger Dashboard will still be able to follow it through Blogger Dashboard by simply updating the URL.

Dawn and Angie both raised concerns that they would not get email alerts when responses to their comments are left on the blog. I am currently looking into coming up with a fix for that and I will let you know when I come up with a solution.

This week's submissions for Random Weekly Photo Experiment:



Christopher D. Bennett



Dawn Krause


Shannon Bardole's Art Appreciation Picks of the Week:








Dawn Krause's Weekly Poetry Entry:

Dawn went for the "psychological concept of Framing" with her poem.

Framing

A social theory of interpretation
It helps us along in communication

Reference points making up our lives
Fitting together till every piece jives

Outline of who we believe we are
Continually makes us raise our bar

Compare our lives to what we know
Fitting our frames to friend and foe

This must have been a tougher concept to tackle as the fewest people contributed, but hopefully more people will be able to tackle this week's theme:

ADVENTURE

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of The Writer's Almanac. It is my favorite thing on the radio. I wanted to share a little tidbit from today's Writer's Almanac as it is rapidly approaching Valentine's Day. In fact, The Writer's Almanac is celebrating this week with love letters.

Poet John Keats (books by this author) lived to be just 25 years old, but in that time he wrote some of the most exquisite love letters in the English language. The letters were to Fanny Brawne to whom he became engaged.

He was 23 years old, recently back from a walking tour of Scotland, England, and Ireland (during which time he'd probably caught the tuberculosis that would soon kill him), and had moved back to a grassy area of London, where he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne. During this time, he composed a number of his great poems, including Ode to a Nightingale. And one Wednesday in the autumn, he wrote this letter, considered by many the most beautiful in the English language:

My dearest Girl,
This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my soul I can think of nothing else. The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my Life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again — my Life seems to stop there — I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving — I should exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love ... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more. I could be martyr'd for my religion — love is my religion — I could die for that. I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often "to reason against the reasons of my Love." I can do that no more — the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

The following spring, Keats wrote: "My dear Girl, I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known you the more I have lov'd. ... You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was filled with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time."

Keats and Brawne became engaged. He wanted to earn some money for them before they got married. But then he began coughing up blood. When he saw it, he said: "I know the color of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die." He wrote to tell her that she was free to break off their engagement since he would likely not survive. But she would not, and he was hugely relieved. But he died before they married.

December

Pardon and Sanctify Me


This cross stands on top of my church. It no longer looks like this because the it was painted during the tuckpointing process last year. The name comes from a classic hymn:

1. On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame;
and I love that old cross where the dearest and best
for a world of lost sinners was slain.
Refrain:
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it some day for a crown.

2. O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
has a wondrous attraction for me;
for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above
to bear it to dark Calvary.
(Refrain)

3. In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
a wondrous beauty I see,
for 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
to pardon and sanctify me.
(Refrain)

4. To that old rugged cross I will ever be true,
its shame and reproach gladly bear;
then he'll call me some day to my home far away,
where his glory forever I'll share.
(Refrain)

The "story" of this picture and its original color incarnation can be seen by clicking on the link below:

Suffrage March

Number 750

This is entry number 750 in this online journal. I'd like to take a little bit of time to archive some data. It is one of my peculiar imbecilities that I love meaningless statistics. Therefore, consider these statistics:

Every journal entry falls into at least one of sixteen categories. This is how many journal entries have fit into each one of these categories:

1. Photography - 295
2. Friends - 269
3. Life - 238
4. Family - 98
5. Religion - 63
6. ISU Football - 41
7. Jaycees - 40
8. Movies - 39
9. Blogging 33
10. Sports - 25
11. Work - 25
12. House - 24
13. Writing - 23
14. Comedy - 20
15. Politics - 17
16. History - 12

If you measure popularity by how many times a picture is viewed, these are the 10 (or so) most popular pictures in my Artistic Gallery.



#1. Outburst of the Soul (26 Views)



#2. Untitled (23 Views)



#3. Grizzly McAlpine (22 Views)



#3. Untitled (22 Views)



#5. Untitled (21 Views)



#5. Jen Smoking (21 Views)



#7. UnHingd Publicity Still (20 Views)



#8. 1900 (19 Views)



#8. Untitled - (19 Views)





#10. Campanile Self Portrait - (18 Views)



#10. US30 East of Ogden - (18 Views)


I know these numbers are somewhat controlled by the length of time a picture has been in the Artistic Gallery, but I am pleased by the number of black and white images that are high in popularity.

But it begs the question, what is the most popular subject in the Snapshot Gallery. What do people like to see from the "Daily Grind of My Existence"?



#1. Jesse and I with the World's Largest Cheeto - (25 Views)



#2. Jesse with a Bob's Dog - LeMars, Iowa (23 Views)



#3. Jesse and in backstage of the Surf Ball Room - (21 Views)



#4. Shannon reading a map on our first road trip to Backbone. (19 Views)



#4. Sumrall catching a pass against A&M. I think this picture is so popular because it was a popular picture to get spammed when I was having spamming problems with the galleries.



#6. Jesse at the Surf Ball Room - (18 Views)



#6. Jesse kissing the Blarney Stone - (18 Views)



#8. Jesse and I in Clinton on The Eastern Iowa Road Trip - (17 Views)



#8. Jen and Shannon making some kind of deal at Bonne Finken - (17 Views)



#8. Cousin Amy, Sara and Jen at Bonne Finken - (17 Views)



#8. Jesse and Jay on The Eastern Iowa Road Trip - (17 Views)



#8. Robert enjoying the view of the Mississippi River in Balltown - (17 Friends)



#8. Jesse videotaping Big Jesus - (17 Views)



#8. Jesse and I at the Sgt. Floyd Memorial - (17 Views)


I think what I have learned from this exercise is that people like to see Jesse and I having adventures. I think I'll have to look into us having a few more adventures in 2010!

I will have to check back in on this when I hit journal entry number 1,000.

The Price They Simplified

I kind of hate historical inaccuracy to a degree. I read something about an email that has been frequently forwarded about the hardships suffered by the men that signed The Declaration of Independence.

It is sad enough that most people think we "declared" our independence on the 4th of July. That happened on July 2.

It is sad enough that most people think the Declaration of Independence was signed on the 4th of July. That mostly happened on August 12, mostly.

Perhaps you have received the following email:

The Price They Paid

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.

Standing talk straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July Holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: Freedom is never free!

I hope you will show your support by please sending this to as many people as you can. It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.

The original author of this email asserts that patriotism is not a sin. I think all of you know how I feel about patriotism, but while patriotism may not be a sin, I think the jury might still be out on whether or not sending out stuff without doing your research is a sin or not.

If you get this email, you might consider attaching some researched facts to the email and sending it back to where it came from:

Origins: In the waning years of their lengthy lives, former presidents (and Founding Fathers) John Adams and Thomas Jefferson reconciled the political differences that had separated them for many years and carried on a voluminous correspondence. One of the purposes behind their exchange of letters was to set the record straight regarding the events of the American Revolution, for as author Joseph J. Ellis noted, they (particularly Adams, whom history would not treat nearly as kindly as Jefferson) were keenly aware of the "distinction between history as experienced and history as remembered":

Adams realized that the act of transforming the American Revolution into history placed a premium on selecting events and heroes that fit neatly into a dramatic formula, thereby distorting the more tangled and incoherent experience that participants actually making the history felt at the time. Jefferson's drafting of the Declaration of Independence was a perfect example of such dramatic distortions. The Revolution in this romantic rendering became one magical moment of inspiration, leading inexorably to the foregone conclusion of American independence.

Evidently Adams was right: So great is our need for simplified, dramatic events and heroes that even the real-life biographies of the fifty-six men who risked their lives to publicly declare American independence are no longer compelling enough. Through multiple versions of pieces like the one quoted above, their lives have been repeatedly embellished with layers of fanciful fiction to make for a better story. As we often do, we'll try here to strip away those accumulated layers of fiction and get down to whatever kernel of truth may lie underneath:

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

It is true that five signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured by the British during the course of the Revolutionary War. However, none of them died while a prisoner, and four of them were taken into custody not because they were considered "traitors" due to their status as signatories to that document, but because they were captured as prisoners of war while actively engaged in military operations against the British:

George Walton was captured after being wounded while commanding militia at the Battle of Savannah in December 1778, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge (three of the four Declaration of Independence signers from South Carolina) were taken prisoner at the Siege of Charleston in May in 1780. Although they endured the ill treatment typically afforded to prisoners of war during their captivity (prison conditions were quite deplorable at the time), they were not tortured, nor is there evidence that they were treated more harshly than other wartime prisoners who were not also signatories to the Declaration. Moreover, all four men were eventually exchanged or released; had they been considered traitors by the British, they would have been hanged.

Richard Stockton of New Jersey was the only signer taken prisoner specifically because of his status as a signatory to the Declaration, "dragged from his bed by night" by local Tories after he had evacuated his family from New Jersey, and imprisoned in New York City's infamous Provost Jail like a common criminal. However, Stockton was also the only one of the fifty-six signers who violated the pledge to support the Declaration of Independence and each other with "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor," securing a pardon and his release from imprisonment by recanting his signature on the Declaration and signing an oath swearing his allegiance to George III.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

It is true that a number of signers saw their homes and property occupied, ransacked, looted, and vandalized by the British (and even in some cases by the Americans). However, as we discuss in more detail below, this activity was a common (if unfortunate) part of warfare. Signers' homes were not specifically targeted for destruction — like many other Americans, their property was subject to seizure when it fell along the path of a war being waged on the North American continent.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Abraham Clark of New Jersey saw two of his sons captured by the British and incarcerated on the prison ship Jersey. John Witherspoon, also of New Jersey, saw his eldest son, James, killed in the Battle of Germantown in October 1777. If there was a second signer of the Declaration whose son was killed while serving in the Continental Army, we have yet to find him.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

This statement is quite misleading as phrased. Nine signers died during the course of the Revolutionary War, but none of them died from wounds or hardships inflicted on them by the British. (Indeed, several of the nine didn't even take part in the war.) Only one signer, Button Gwinnett of Georgia, died from wounds, and those were received not at the hands of the British, but of a fellow officer with whom he duelled in May 1777.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Before the American Revolution, Carter Braxton was possessed of a considerable fortune through inheritance and favorable marriages. While still in his teens he inherited the family estate, which included a flourishing Virginia tobacco plantation, upon the death of his father. He married a wealthy heiress who died when he was just 21, and within a few years he had remarried, this time to the daughter of the Receiver of Customs in Virginia for the King. As a delegate representing Virginia in the Continental Congress in 1776, he was one of the minority of delegates reluctant to support an American declaration of independence, a move which he viewed at the time as too dangerous:

[Independence] is in truth a delusive Bait which men inconsiderably catch at, without knowing the hook to which it is affixed ... America is too defenceless a State for the declaration, having no alliance with a naval Power nor as yet any Fleet of consequence of her own to protect that trade which is so essential to the prosecution of the War, without which I know we cannot go on much longer.

Braxton invested his wealth in commercial enterprises, particularly shipping, and he endured severe financial reversals during the Revolutionary War when many of the ships in which he held interest were either appropriated by the British government (because they were British-flagged) or were sunk or captured by the British. He was not personally targeted for ruin because he had signed the Declaration of Independence, however; he suffered grievous financial losses because most of his wealth was tied up in shipping, "that trade which is so essential to the prosecution of the War" and which was therefore a prime military target for the British. Even if he hadn't signed the Declaration of Independence, Braxton's ships would have been casualties of the war just the same.

Although Braxton did lose property during the war and had to sell off assets (primarily landholdings) to cover the debts incurred by the loss of his ships, he recouped much of that money after the war but subsequently lost it again through his own ill-advised business dealings. His fortune was considerably diminished in his later years, but he did not by any stretch of the imagination "die in rags."

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

As one biography describes Thomas McKean (not "McKeam"):

Thomas McKean might just represent an ideal study of how far political engagement can be carried by one man. One can scarcely believe the number of concurrent offices and duties this man performed during the course of his long career. He served three states and many more cities and county governments, often performing duties in two or more jurisdictions, even while engaged in federal office.

Among his many offices, McKean was a delegate to the Continental Congress (of which he later served as president), President of Delaware, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and Governor of Pennsylvania. The above-quoted statement regarding his being "hounded" by the British during the Revolutionary War is probably based upon a letter he wrote to his friend John Adams in 1777, in which he described how he had been "hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five times in three months, and at last fixed them in a little log-house on the banks of the Susquehanna, but they were soon obliged to move again on account of the incursions of the Indians."

However, it is problematic to assert that McKean's treatment was due to his being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. (His name does not appear on printed copies of that document authenticated in January 1777, so it is likely he did not affix his name to it until later.) If he was targeted by the British, it was quite possibly because he also served in a military capacity as a volunteer leader of militia. In any case, McKean did not end up in "poverty," as the estate he left behind when he died in 1817 was described as consisting of "stocks, bonds, and huge land tracts in Pennsylvania."

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

First of all, this passage has a couple of misspellings: the signers referred to are William Ellery (not "Dillery") and Edward Rutledge (not "Ruttledge"). Secondly, this sentence is misleading in that it implies a motive that was most likely not present (i.e., these men's homes were looted because they had been signers of the Declaration of Independence).

The need to forage for supplies in enemy territory has long been a part of warfare, and so it was far from uncommon for British soldiers in the field to appropriate such material from private residences during the American Revolution. (Not only were homes used as sources of food, livestock, and other necessary supplies, but larger houses were also taken over and used to quarter soldiers or to serve as headquarters for officers.) In some cases, even American forces took advantage of the local citizenry to provision themselves. Given that many more prominent American revolutionaries who were also signers of the Declaration of Independence (e.g., Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris) had homes in areas that were occupied by the British during the war, yet those homes were not looted or vandalized, it's hard to make the case that the men named above were specifically targeted for vengeance by the British rather than unfortunate victims whose property fell in the path of an armed conflict being waged on American soil.

It's also a common misconception that the signing of the Declaration of Independence was the event that triggered the Revolutionary War, so the signers were directly responsible for whatever misfortunes befell them (and their fellow Americans) as a result of that war. The war actually began more than a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence — revolutionary events involving armed conflict, such as the battles of Lexington and Concord, the seizure of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys," the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the capture of Montreal by General Richard Montgomery, all took place in 1775.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

The tale about Thomas Nelson's urging or suggesting the bombardment of his own house is one of several Revolutionary War legends whose truth may never be known. Several versions of this story exist, one of which (as referenced above) holds that Nelson encouraged George Washington to shell his Yorktown home after British Major General Charles Cornwallis had taken it over to use as his headquarters in 1781:

Cornwallis had turned the home of Thomas Nelson, who had succeeded Jefferson as governor of Virginia, into his headquarters. Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, had led three Virginia brigades, or 3,000 men, to Yorktown and, when the shelling of the town was about to begin, urged Washington to bombard his own house. And that is where Washington, with his experienced surveyor's eye, reputedly pointed the gun for the first (and singularly fatal) allied shot. Legend has it that the shell went right through a window and landed at the dinner table where some British officers, including the British commissary general, had just sat down to dine. The general was killed and several others wounded as it burst among their plates.

Other versions of the story have Nelson directing the Marquis de Lafayette to train French artillery on his home:

The story goes that the new Virginia Governor Thomas Nelson (who'd been held at Yorktown but released under a flag of truce) was with American forces that day. Lafayette invited Nelson to be present when Captain Thomas Machin's battery first opened fire, as both a compliment and knowing Nelson lived in Yorktown and would know the localities in the riverport area. "To what particular spot," Lafayette reportedly asked Nelson, "would your Excellency direct that we should point the cannon." Nelson replied, "There, to that house. It is mine, and . . . it is the best one in the town. There you will be almost certain to find Lord Cornwallis and the British headquarters."

"A simultaneous discharge of all the guns in the line," Joseph Martin wrote, was "followed [by] French troops accompanying it with 'Huzza for the Americans.'" Sounding much like the Nelson legend, Martin's account added that "the first shell sent from our batteries entered an elegant house formerly owned or occupied by the Secretary of State under the British, and burned directly over a table surrounded by a large party of British officers at dinner, killing and wounding a number of them."
Still other accounts maintain this legend is a conflation of two separate events: Thomas Nelson, acting as commander in chief of the Virginia militia, ordered a battery to open fire on his uncle's home, where Cornwallis was then ensconced. Later, Nelson supposedly made a friendly bet with French artillerists in which he challenged them to hit his home, one of the more prominent landmarks in Yorktown.

Whatever the truth, the Nelson home was certainly not "destroyed" as claimed. The house stands to this day as part of Colonial National Historical Park, and the National Park Service's description of it notes only that "the southeast face of the residence does show evidence of damage from cannon fire."

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

Francis Lewis represented New York in the Continental Congress, and shortly after he signed the Declaration of Independence his Long Island estate was raided by the British, possibily as retaliation for his having been a signatory to that document. While Lewis was in Philadelphia attending to congressional matters, his wife was taken prisoner by the British after disregarding an order for citizens to evacuate Long Island. Mrs. Lewis was held for several months before being exchanged for the wives of British officials captured by the Americans. Although her captivity was undoubtedly a hardship, she had already been in poor health for some time and died a few years (not months) later.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

John Hart's New Jersey farm was looted in the course of the Revolutionary War, and he did have to remain in hiding for a while afterwards. However, the claim that he was "driven from his [dying] wife's bedside" as his "13 children fled for his lives" is dramatic fiction. The British overran the area of New Jersey where he resided in late November of 1776, but his wife had already died on 8 October, and most of their children were adults by then. He also did not die "from exhaustion and a broken heart" a mere "few weeks" after emerging from hiding — he was twice re-elected to the Continental Congress, served as Speaker of the New Jersey assembly, and invited the American army to encamp on his New Jersey farmland in June 1778 before succumbing to kidney stones in May 1779.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Lewis Morris (not Norris) indeed saw his Westchester County, New York, home taken over in 1776 and used as a barracks for soldiers, and the horses and livestock from his farm commandeered by military personnel, but he suffered those deprivations at the hands of the Continental Army, not the British. Shortly afterwards his home was appropriated by the British, but Morris and his wife reclaimed the property and restored their home after the war.

Philip Livingston lost several properties to the British occupation of New York and sold off others to support the war effort, and he did not recover them because he died suddenly in 1778, before the end of the war.

What should we take from all of this? The signers of the Declaration of Independence did take a huge risk in daring to put their names on a document that repudiated their government, and they had every reason to believe at the time that they might well be hanged for having done so. That was a courageous act we should indeed remember and honor on the Fourth of July amidst our "beer, picnics, and baseball games." But we should also not lose sight of the fact that many men (and women) other than the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence — some famous and most not — risked and sacrificed much (including their lives) to support the revolutionary cause. The hardships and losses endured by many Americans during the struggle for independence were not visited upon the signers alone, nor were they any less ruinous for having befallen people whose names are not immortalized on a piece of parchment.

Source: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

Capital Punishment

Today is the anniversary of the publication of one of the great literary works of the 20th century. Today is the anniversary of the publication of Gone with the Wind.

But as interesting as the story of the great villain Scarlett O'Hara is, the story of how Gone with the Wind came to be published is even more interesting.

From Today's Writer's Almanac:

In 1920, Mitchell fell off a horse and suffered terrible injuries. She sort of recovered from the fall, but she kept reinjuring herself in different ways, and a few years later she had to quit her job as a reporter with The Atlanta Journal and stay in bed. Her husband, a newspaper editor, would go to the Atlanta library and bring her back piles of books to read so she could occupy herself while bedridden. One day, he came home and said, "I have brought you all of the books that I think you can handle from the library. I wish you would write one yourself."

He then went out and got a Remington typewriter. When he presented it to his wife, Margaret, he said, "Madam, I greet you on the beginning of a new career." She asked him what she should write about, and her editor-husband gave her the famous "Write what you know" line.

So she wrote about Southern belles, and she expanded upon family stories and the stories she'd heard from Civil War veterans while she was growing up in Georgia. The one-bedroom apartment that she and her husband lived in was cramped, and she called it "The Dump." She would sit and write in every nook and corner of the tiny place, working in the bedroom or the kitchen or the hallway.

She told almost no one except her husband that she was writing a novel. When friends came over to their place, which happened often, she'd hide the manuscript under the bed or the couch.

But one of her Atlanta friends, Lois Cole, had found chunks of the manuscript lying around that cramped apartment. Cole was now living in New York City and working in the publishing industry. Cole told her boss at Macmillan, Harold Latham, that her witty Southern friend "might be concealing a literary treasure."

Latham went down to Atlanta to pay Margaret Mitchell a visit and ask her about the novel. Mitchell denied its existence. He spent the day with her, following along on outings with her friends, and asked about the novel again in a car full of her girlfriends. Mitchell changed the subject. But when Latham got out of the car, all of her friends in the car kept up the questioning. One friend was adamant that Mitchell was working on a novel, and asked why she hadn't shown it to Latham. Mitchell said that it was "lousy" and that she was "ashamed of it." The friend goaded, "Well, I dare say. Really, I wouldn't take you for the type to write a successful book. You don't take your life seriously enough to be a novelist."

That did it — Margaret Mitchell was furious and galvanized. She hurried back to her cramped apartment, grabbed the assorted piles of manuscript and shoved them into a suitcase, and drove it over to the hotel where Latham was staying. When stacked up vertically in one pile, the manuscript was 5 feet high. She delivered it to him in the lobby, saying, "Take it before I change my mind."

It was published on this day in 1936, and immediately it was a sensation. Reports abound of people in Atlanta staying up all night to read Mitchell's novel that summer of 1936. It revitalized the publishing industry. The next year, Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize. Her book was made into a movie starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, and when it had its premiere in Atlanta in 1939, Margaret Mitchell was there at the Loew's Grand Theater with the movie stars.

The cramped apartment in which Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind is now the centerpiece of the Margaret Mitchell House in midtown Atlanta, which reopens this weekend after a long period of renovation. There are tours of the apartment, historical performances, and a museum devoted to her life and work.

Margaret Mitchell never wrote a sequel to Gone with the Wind. When pushed on the issue, she merely indicated that the story was over and that Rhett would never take Scarlett back.

Years later, whores and thieves, plundered her characters and wrote sequels to Gone with the Wind. Although I do not support capital punishment, I do have exceptions. I do feel compelled to believe that the ultimate penalty is justified in cases where crimes against humanity have been committed - genocide and the raping of the characters of other authors after the creator of those characters has met their maker. Not necessarily in that order.

Happy Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday. There is a good chance that if you aren't Irish or a Lit Major, that you have never heard of Bloomsday. To be frankly honest, until today I did not know about the existence of Bloomsday. But you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be on the Photography 139 2010 Calendar.

Perhaps the main reason I didn't know that Bloomsday existed, is because it is related to James Joyce. Even though he is widely considered to be a genius, I have never really dug his writing. For years I have virtually ignored the rules of punctuation and nobody has slapped the label genius on me. Well, there was that time in 5th Grade when my creative writing stories about Superfluff, the super-lepus, were all the rage, but those days are far in my rearview mirror.

I've always considered people that claim that they enjoy the writings of James Joyces to be frauds. People who were pretending to like something so that they could project an intellectual image to the world. I also feel this way about anybody that claims that Woody Allen is remotely funny.

However, I have to admit I like the very basis for Bloomsday. Not necessarily why Joyceans celebrate today, but beyond that. To the reason why this day was important to Joyce.

Today is the day on which the action in the novel Ulysses takes place. The day is named after the main character, Leopold Bloom. That is why Joyceans celebrate today.

The reason that Joyce picked this day to set Ulysses was to commemorate the first date he had with his future wife, Nora Barnacle. She was an uneducated chambermaid. He met her for a stroll around Dublin on this day. Just a few days earlier, she had stood him up for a scheduled date.

Although I do confess, the cynic in me wonders if he didn't use this day so he would never forget one of their anniversaries.

I thought I should include some of the genius of Joyce. Some of you will recognize this writing as the soliloquy of Molly Bloom. Some of you will recognize this from the Rodney Dangerfield classic Back to School.

"O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the
figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue
and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and
cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put
the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how
he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and
then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to
say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Denouement

A few pictures from Nader and I's final trip to the Varsity with Teresa.























I don't know if there is any thing else to say.

Suffrage March

Here are some pictures from the suffrage march on Saturday.















































My favorite sign is from the march is the sign about "Idiots" having the right to vote, but not women.

For some reason that sign reminds me of Buck vs. Bell. The 1927 Supreme Court where The Supreme Court concluded it was okay for the state to sterilize a woman because her mother and her daughter were "feeble-minded" and "promiscuous".*

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote the following in his decision:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.

Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

I wonder if the idiots on the sign were related to the imbeciles in the Supreme Court decision.

*Every time I discuss this case, I have to confirm to at least one person that this really happened in this country. Yes! This really happened in this country. Just more than 80 years ago.