Retrophisch[A] wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
—George Washington, letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, 1790
A prayer for all of us.
Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden’s handpicked deputy in Iraq, had killed thousands of people in an attempt to send the world back to the sixth century. In a fitting bit of irony, two operators from SEAL Team Six had killed him with an invisible laser beam and a flying robot.
After LSU played Kentucky on Saturday at 11 a.m., a second consecutive day game at Tiger Stadium should be against SEC rules. It goes against everything LSU stands for. Or passes out for. It’s like staging a vampire festival for midday.
Knocking down the Towers is something the terrorists did to us, but leaving that hole in the ground for ten years is something we did to ourselves.
Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Selling PCs is not the business to be in, the margins are thin and the competition is abundant. Unless you are Apple there is no real way to differentiate one computer from the next and thus you must compete on price and blue LEDs.
Brother Jim was a biker who’d done time. He was in charge of Savio cabin, which meant scaring the shit out of any Magone kids who tried to pick on Savio kids. There was a rumor he had a switchblade on him.
Brother Jim loved to talk about how Jesus wasn’t a pussy.
“You see the guy crucified up there?” he yelled. “You see him? Are his hands closed? NO! Is he making a fist? NO! What does that mean to you?”
We sat there, cowering.
“It means something to me.”
More cowering.
“It means he could have just gotten down off the cross anytime he liked, and come down and WASTED all those Roman gladiator motherfuckers. But he kept his hands OPEN! He let it go! For YOU! And you sit here and look at that dead guy up there and you don’t even notice!”
Brother Jim was seriously cool.
Rob Sheffield, Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
I wonder if Brother Jim was a prototype for Mark Driscoll.