Jefferson and the 4th of July
June 24, 2007 by Bill
When John Kennedy was President, he gave a banquet in the White House that was without precedent. The banquet was for every living American Nobel Prize winner, with about 150 present. At the beginning of the evening, President Kennedy stood and announced he would give a toast. He said:
“Never has so much talent…and so much genius…been assembled in one room…since Thomas Jefferson dined…alone.”
The author of the Declaration of Independence that we celebrate today was a brilliant philosopher…scholar…theologian…architect…linguist…statesman…musician…horticulturist… agronomist…humanist…scientist…deist…and master of the civilized arts.
There is no question in my mind that the 4th of July is the most important holiday that we celebrate in this nation. All of the other holidays, Easter and Christmas included, pale by comparison.
On the 4th of July, 1826, America celebrated the 50th anniversary of her independence. John Adams, the 2nd President, died on that day at the age of 90. His last words were ‘Thomas Jefferson still survives.’ But on that same day….Jefferson too, died.
What we stand for
June 17, 2007 by Bill
The integrity of the United States of America, around the world, is more in question now than at any time since the Vietnam disaster. During my 82 years of life and 60 years as an adult, including two tours of duty as a Marine Corps pilot in World War Two and Korea, I have never seen the United States held in such scorn and contempt by so many civilized nations.
The question before us, loud and clear, is what do we stand for? What are the values that the stars and stripes should represent around the world.?
It has been several Marine Corps Generals who have, bluntly, departed from the White House party line and propaganda: Marine General Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for US Forces in the Middle East, made this public statement: “It is interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and those who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another way. They are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region and cause them to regret the day they ever started this operation…”
My love affair with nature
June 10, 2007 by Bill
The month is June. It is my favorite time of the year. The Summer Solstice is arriving soon. I realize that the writers and thinkers…the philosophers and mystics…who have most inspired me have been those who brought me closer to nature and the natural world. Thomas Paine wrote that “men and books lie….only Nature never lies.” And so it is. I have absorbed the thoughts of Annie Dillard ..Loren Eiseley..Lauren van der Post…Goethe on “nature”…and Joseph Wood Krutch among many other men and women who have reminded me that I am a part of the animal kingdom as Homo sapiens, but so human an animal.
I will never forget how Joseph Wood Krutch came into my life. It was in the basement of the library at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I lived in veterans student housing on the campus. We were in tornado alley, as they called it then…and still do. It was a night when we were surrounded by tornado’s. The sirens screamed and everyone went to the basement of the library. I grabed a new book on the way out of my apartment. It was “The Voice of the Desert” by Joseph Wood Krutch. When the “all clear” finally came I had read the entire book. I knew that I had discovered a most brilliant observer of the the natural world and our place in it. How well I remember to this day one chapter on the “Yucca and the Moth”. It is natures most perfect symbiotic relationship. The Yucca and the moth Pronuba yuccasella live for each other. Neither could survive without the other. As I am writing these words I look out of my study doors at the spectacular creamy white blossoms of the Yucca in my yard and I thank the moth who made all of this beauty possible. If you would like to read the insights of this man I would sugges you start with “The Twelve Seasons” A sample: “no government subsidized commission of engineers or physicists can create a worm.”
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