Word: jeffersons
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...under that hall in steamy, summertime Philadelphia; an idea was proclaimed that would shake and reshape the world. Yet the entire world was hardly represented. All 56 of the signatories were white males of European descent, most of them wealthy property holders. Like some of his co-revolutionaries, Thomas Jefferson, who was primarily responsible for the soaring language of the document ("We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ."), owned black slaves. In this context, what could "equal" mean? And why were only "men" created that...
Western thought since the Renaissance has considered that the course of mankind was ascendant, up out of the shadow of evil and superstition and unreason. Thomas Jefferson, a brilliant creature of the Enlightenment, once wrote, "Barbarism has . . . been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth...
...some ways, there isn't. There's no law of nature that says only gifted speakers can be good statesmen. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, never overcame his stuttering. Ghostwriting, then, could be seen as just a way of leveling the political playing field--allowing voters to choose on the basis of issues, not speaking ability...
...500th anniversary of 1492 is approaching. Remember 1492? "In Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Two/ Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Discovery and exploration. Bolivar and Jefferson. Liberty and democracy. The last best hope...
...contemplation of anything intelligent -- it need not be writing -- helps the mind through the black hours. Mozart, for example; music like bright ice water, or, say, the memory of the serene Palladian lines of Jefferson's Monticello. These things realign the mind and teach it not to be petty. All honest thought is a form of prayer. I read Samuel Johnson ("Despair is criminal") and go back to sleep...