'Tis the Season for Pleasant Literary Diversions!

Books.  Without them there'd be no blog, and I, for one, would be lost.  And Christmas books!  Books so special and so fun that we only get them out for that one special and fun season of the year.



The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

     "The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world" opens one of the most touching,  honest looks at Christians, the unlovables,  Christmas and what it truly means.  I started reading it to Caleb this morning, and when I stopped, he begged me not to.  It's just that kind of story.  I read it to my classes when I was teaching, and then I would take them to see the play.  This book is one of our holiday traditions.  I did take Caleb to see the play last year with a homeschool group.  He loved it.  There is a movie version, kind of dated but if you can't see the play, a decent substitute.


A Christmas Carol
   Yes, I read Charles Dickens to my 10 year old, and even when he was younger.  Don't you? <chuckle>  This little tome always stirs  up great discussion in our household about all kinds of topics presented in the novel. It is available for free from Gutenberg.  Our movie version is Muppets, as mentioned last week, although the Patrick Stewart one I would watch.  I haven't seen a play of this but I would love to.


The Crippled Lamb
     I have never read this, out loud to children, without crying which is very hard to do.  God has a plan and purpose, even for a crippled lamb.  It's always fun to imagine what the stable was like the night Jesus was born.  This story explores that.  You can watch a cartoon version of it on Youtube.

The Polar Express
     Chris Van Allsberg has some exquisitely illustrated books.  This is no exception.  The book preceded the movie, as is the natural order of things.

The Legend of the Candy Cane
   Candy canes are not just for eating and are perfect telling God's story of love and redemption.  I picked this link because it shows a picture of a Tomie de Paola Christmas book and I love Tomie de Paola.

Our Advent book is Jotham's Journey.  Somehow, we always manage to start it late but we finish on time.  This is a perfect story for boys.

For adults, I found Jan Karon's Shepherds Abiding to be delightful but then I love all the Mitford books.


Despite the temptation to post links to two articles, one by Thomas Sowell on the approaching fiscal cliff and the other by Victor Davis Hanson, I promised not to make any more political posts this year.  I will not have any new blog posts until after the new year.  The holidays are a busy time for everyone, writers and readers included.

Merry Christmas! And I'll see you in the New Year, Mayan calendar not withstanding!

'Tis the Season for Pleasant Diversions

On Saturday, after Thanksgiving, our family continued one of our most favorite Christmas Kick-off Traditions.  We watched Christmas Vacation, a movie we will watch several more times between now and Christmas day; a movie whose lines have become oft repeated catch phrases - whenever we are surprised ("If I woke up tomorrow morning with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am right now") or unhappy ("It's Christmas and we're all in misery") or talking about a job ("He's been holding out for a management position").     We just love this movie, probably because we can identify with the Griswolds.

Since then we have watched The Santa Clause, The Santa Clause 2 and  The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.  We like trilogies, happy endings and we really like Tim Allen.

These are the movies we will be watching from now until Christmas Day:

Home Alone  and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York  

     The music in the first movie is really good.  Watching Kevin triumph over Marv and Harry is a blast.  We do not watch #3 here.  Since it is not the same characters, what is the point? 

A Christmas Story

     This is my Dear Husband's all-time favorite.  "You'll shoot your eye out" is heard often here, no matter the season.  

The Muppets Christmas Carol

     I love to sing along with this one.

The Polar Express

 Last year, we took the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad Polar Express Trip.  It was delightful! I still can't decide which was better, the smile on Caleb's face or the look on Micah's when Santa gave Caleb the bell!  Sadly, we did not get our Polar Express book autographed by Santa; maybe next time!

The Little Drummer Boy and Veggie Tales The Little Drummer Boy

  The original version always makes me cry.  And who can resist Veggie Tales anything?!

And the classics: 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas 

    While Jim Carrey is an okay Grinch, the original is far better.  "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch!"

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

   The 60s were great for turning out the Christmas Classics and Rankin/Bass did a great job with them!

Frosty the Snowman

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

The Year Without A Santa Claus 

     "I'm Mister Heat Miser, I'm Mister Sun." Enough said!

This website has a pretty extensive list of Christmas movies, some with reviews.  I know my list is missing some other non-anmiated classics but, surprisingly, I haven't watched those, yet.  My Dear Husband says we need to add Arthur Christmas to our list and maybe this year we will.

Next week, I'll be discussing some of our favorite Christmas books!

This post brought to you by The Walking Dead.

Seems a little incongruent, huh?  Zombies and feminism have nothing to do with each other and neither do zombies and Thanksgiving.  Do they?  Well, in this warped space called My Mind, there actually is a connection between them all.  The Feminism connection will have to wait until next week.

As I was walking on the treadmill this morning, I was watching an episode from Season 2 of The Walking Dead and thinking. Ideas started popping into My Mind, forcing me to pause the episode so I could shakily type in notes in my iPad, not once, but twice.  (It was quite difficult to do at a 3.5 mph speed on a 2* incline, plus, if you know me and how I can fall down in an empty field, you'd know it was actually quite dangerous for me to even try to type and walk at the same time.  Yet, I managed to not fall off the treadmill, drop my iPad or do any bodily harm to myself.)

I was thinking about how I was surrounded by violence: my book on the Civil war; Lincoln - the movie and the tragic ending of his life; the events in the Middle East; and watching this tv show.  All this was bookended by my remembering how violence was a theme of the minor Old Testament prophets I had studied.  God held their violence towards each other against the Israelites.  Then I realized it was kind of ironic that God would then use violence via the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans to punish the Israelites. I know that if we are a people of violence, which mankind has been since Cain killed Abel, God will speak our language back to us, if for no other reason than to get our attention.   I don't believe in coincidences, so I knew these thoughts in My Mind would culminate into some grand epiphany, to the point in the episode I was watching to this dialogue:

"Does God exist?"  Glenn asked Maggie.

There is no doubt in My Mind He does, in fact, exist. And I am thankful He Is.  No matter what violence in going on around me or that I am watching, He is there in it all, orchestrating it all for His Purposes, purposes I do not and cannot always fathom.

I continued watching the episode and kind of stopped thinking about the other stuff.  And then, there was this dialogue:

"Do you forgive me?" Dale asked Andrea.  (And there was a desperation in his voice, a fear, a hesitancy.)

"I'm trying," Andrea replied.

Thank you God, that You forgive me immediately, with no hesitancy and that I can ask with no fear that You will not NOT forgive me.  (And throw the things I need to ask forgiveness for, my sin, as far as the east is from the west and remember them no more.)  Grace offered freely.

The turkey may come out dry.  The rolls might burn.  The pecan pie might have salt instead of sugar. All of that is overshadowed by the thankfulness in my heart for that Grace, offered and given freely, but accepted, surprisingly, hesitantly.

The Feminist Mistake: A Review

I come to you again, Dear Reader, with my hat in my hand and apologies on my lips.  I have truly struggled with writing this particular review, hence the delay.  Reading this book, and considering feminism in general, has re-opened some old wounds and left me feeling raw, making it difficult to write.  This is not a typical writer's block where one can't think of something to write but rather the opposite - a tangly mess of jumbled up thoughts that have taken a couple of weeks to untangle and in the untangling, made me afraid of my own thoughts.

I found this book to be quite enlightening and informative, but also rather shocking in some places. the book is divided into two parts with the first divided into three stages which discuss "Naming Self," "Naming the World," and "Naming God."  The last part discusses the implications feminism has had in our religious culture and society at large.

Mary Kassian starts with a description of the First Wave of feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft's The Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792; the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments; Simone de Beauvoir's book The Second Sex; and then to Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique (reviewed here) - all of these works layering upon the others.   My WEM Book Club read Wollstonecraft.  I purchased the English language version of The Second Sex when I visited Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 1992 but I have yet to read it; at the time I was taking several feminist literature classes and the book was discussed often so I purchased it as a trophy.  The growth of secular feminism from de Beauvoir's book on nurtured and paralleled the growth of spiritual feminism, which is the subject of this book.

Chapter 3 discusses Mary Daly and her book The Church and the Second Sex.  To say it was inflamatory would be a gross understatement.  She was a professor at Boston College, and the book resulted in her firing which caused students to protest.  Sucumbing to student pressure, BC reversed it's decision, reinstated her with "promotion and tenure" for her pains (p. 42).  Daly accused the Church of oppressing women,  "teaching women's inferiority in it's doctrine, harming women through its moral teaching, [and] excluding women from church leadership roles" (p. 42).  Daly went so far as to "reject the theology that presented God as omnipotent, immutable and providential. . . . Futhermore, she viewed images of a jealous and vengeful God as projections and justifications for the role of the 'tyrant father in a patriarchal society' rather then as actual aspects of God's character" (p.47).  And so the trouble begins.  God can't be vengeful and jealous, despite the fact that in His own Word He calls Himself that, because men wrote the Bible. Not just men, but men who lived in a society and at a time where women were viewed as second class citizens and rabbis thanked God every morning they were not born a women or a dog.

The next chapter deals with women who wrote books trying to separate a woman's biology from what her life course should be - just because a woman has the biological equipment for bearing and nourishing offspring doesn't mean she should.  It is important to note that this is when Marxism enters the picture: men are the evil bourgeois who oppress the women proletariat.  One question I'd like to ask some of these women is how am I supposed to overcome my biology and my "reproductive function" (p.53)?  I think the women of NOW would say via abortions. Another woman tried to posit the fact that all men benefit from rape, a weapon the Patriarchy uses to dominate women (p 55).  Crazy talk, I tell you, but I guess when are trying to be on the cutting edge of a cultural revolution, one will say, write, and theorize almost anything.

I'm going to skip ahead to Chapter 14 which discusses how goddess worship, and therefore the worship of self, entered the picture.  Feminist theology began to include rituals which were based in "goddess worship and witchcraft" (p. 192).  Women were encouraged to pray to the ancient mythological goddesses -  Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, Isis.  Frankly this section made me think of  the only book I ever could not finish because of how uncomfortable I was within my spirit, The Mists of Avalon.  "These women concluded that they did not need a an external 'male God,' for they themselves were goddess" (p.195).  The sin of Lucifer committed again.

There were a couple of women mentioned in this book that I had known of before but had no idea they were involved in developing feminist theology.  One of them was Dr. Phyllis Chessler, who was at one time a frequent contributor at Pajamas Media.  She blogged often on honor killings and how Islam treats women.  In this book, Kassian discusses Chessler's work as a feminist psychologist who believed patriarchy was responsible for women's mental illnesses as revealed in Chessler's book Women and Madness.  I wonder what Dr. Chessler would say about that now, in light of all we have learned since the 60s on brain function and chemical imbalances in the brain.  In surfing around Dr. Chessler's website, there is a memorial to Shulamith Firestone who was the author of a book on feminist revolution which is examined in Kassian's book.  I also noted Dr. Chessler had written another book called Women's Inhumanity to Women.  I can only hope she discusses the war women wage against each other.

Another mentioned author that Christians should be aware of is Virginia Mollenkott who wrote books on biblical imagery being feminine and advocating calling God "He/She/It" (p.170).  Mollenkott was also a consultant on the NIV: her role is disputed and the NIV Translation Board has denied she had any impact.  I cannot help but wonder and the NIV is not my main version of choice.

By far the saddest chapter is "Drifting Away," which details what happened to three women who were very involved in the feminist movement and constructing a feminist theology.  The three women all walked away from God and their faith, rejecting Him.  Kassian notes: "Many Christians view feminism as an ideology that merely promotes the genuine dignity and worth of women.  If this were true, feminism would definitely be compatible with Christianity . . . . But the philosophy of feminism adds a subtle, almost indiscernible twist to the basic Biblical truth of woman's worth" (p.261).

If accepting feminism means rejecting God and my faith, I will have none of it.  As I mentioned at the beginning, this book re-opened a few wounds.  And surprisingly, there were certain things I agreed with the feminists on.  The juxtaposition of all these will be discussed next week.

The Last Political Post of the Year.

First, Dear Reader, I owe you an apologize for no post last week.  I try hard not to leave you waiting. Obviously, it doesn't always work out like I plan and Robert Burns said it best in his poem "To A Mouse," "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley . . . ."

The political season is drawing to a close, and a thankful nation will heave a sigh of relief, unless this election manages to wind up in the courts.  There are just a few ironies I'd like to point out.  

*In 1854, the Republican party was born from the anti-slavery movement.  I read this in two separate sources, the Civil War book listed in the sidebar and Caleb's history book Lincoln: A Photobiography.   If I was taught that I certainly didn't remember. Today, we are led to believe the Democrats are the party for the blacks.  According to Burton Folsom Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal, the shift came in the 1930s in part from "the Federal largesse" doled out by Roosevelt via "the FERA, the WPA, the CCC, and especially the PWA which targeted large building projects in black communities" (p. 436). To me the irony lies in the fact that Roosevelt himself "was unhelpful to Black Americans on racial issues" (p. 486).  He would not support federal anti-lynching legislation or an abolishment of poll taxes. He often ignored black spokesmen and did not "ask the White House Correspondents' Association to admit even one black reporter" (p. 496-7). Politics hasn't changed at all, presidents will do whatever appears expedient to win votes while neglecting more important principles.

*Gloria Allred, a DNC delegate, seems to think whatever testimony Mitt Romney gave at a divorce hearing a while back is going to show that Romney lied under oath which will then somehow, someway derail Romney's presidential campaign.   The disgruntled, angry tweets by Mrs. Allred's client in this article are even further proof this October surprise isn't. 
     Yet the fact that the President knew of the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi  two hours after it began, blamed it on a three-month old video no one had ever seen and lied about knowing this was a terror attack isn't going to derail his hopes for a second term are laughable.  His faux outrage at the townhall-style debate is even more heinous and egregious in the face of this revelation.    I agree with Roger Simon that the President should resign immediately.  This goes well beyond Watergate.  However, I know that isn't going to happen; there is no Alinksky rule for that.

*A CBS affliate ran a crawl showing the President winning the election, three weeks BEFORE the election.  While I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, it doesn't mean I believe them but this one made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  All four debate moderators where in the tank for the President.  MSNBC's Chris Matthews gets all tingly when the President talks and all vitriolic in his defense of the President.  So, why shouldn't it be a surprise that media outlets will do whatever they can to discourage people from voting or out-right lie about the results?  

These ironies brought to you by the letter M for Mainstream Media and the number 0 which is how many journalists really seem interested in the truth and accurate reporting.

Next week, I'll be discussing feminism, scorn and the Church.  Nothing could go "gang aft agley" with that, huh?

The party starts, and I am late. Years late. Again.

Usually, when I am reading a series of books, I order one book at a time to spread out the damage to the budget over time.  With this trilogy, I did not follow the usual procedure, ordering The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest at the same time.  And boy, am I glad I did!

There is nothing like ending one book and immediately being able to pick up the next one and start reading.  No wait.  No gaps in memory. No flashbacks to remind the reader what happened previously. The amazing thing about these last two books is the incredible continuity between them.  Where Fire ends, Hornet's Nest picks right up.  I love that, in part, because it happens so rarely between books in a series.

Now Fire was published in 2009 and Hornet's Nest in 2010, which explains why I'm late to the party. These were the paperback editions.  Before I purchased them, I read the reviews on Amazon, something I rarely do because many of the reviews contain spoilers.  And for some even stranger reason, I choose to read all the bad reviews.  Fortunately, they did not have a negative effect on my reading, but those bad reviews were certainly entertaining in and of themselves.



These books are kind of hard to explain.  They are not three separate stories but rather one story told in three volumes. This is not just a crime, who-dun-it murder story.  There's some espionage and defection and political corruption and conspiracy and scandal thrown in. There is Russian mafia and Sweden's version of Hell's Angels.  There are several love triangles happening - it would take a very large Venn diagram to work those out.  There's a stalking situation that seems to be unrelated to crux of the story but serves as an important device to move a character from one place to another.  It's a very large story, covering quite a bit of geography in Sweden and Europe.  But there's also redemption and revenge and justice, poetic plus legal, and a whole lot of people working together to vindicate a single person, to right an egregious wrong.

The most fascinating, and rather surprising, aspect of these stories is how they advocate for women and women's rights, so much so that sometimes it is hard to believe these novels were written by a man. In Hornet's Nest, each part of the story is led by a blurb on women and combat.  Part 1's blurb is about women fighting  in wars.  Part 2's is about Irish law banning women from combat and the Greeks discussing Amazons.  Part 3 gives more information about the Amazons of Libya.  Part 4 begins with a brief history of an all-female army of West Africa.  The main character of these novels is a woman, fighting for her life, her spirit, her emotional health and her freedom.  The other main character is a man, fighting for this woman, not in a romantic way, but in a freedom-for-all kind of way.  Stereotypically, the villians are really evil brutes, and not a woman in the bunch.  The father is the worst character of all; I certainly did not see that one coming, and I really like that, when I can't predict the direction a character or novel is going to take.  Formulaic fiction this is not!

While the ending of Fire left a lot to be desired, the ending of Hornet's Nest neatly wrapped things up and ended much better.  So much better, it forced me to think about the main character, Lisbeth Salander, and how she had grown and changed over the course of these three books.  I always enjoy character growth and development.

Reportedly, Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara will reprise their roles from in the movie of Fire.  I hope I don't have to wait too long.  Maybe while I'm waiting I'll check out the Swedish movies of these books.

"All the President's Men:" Book and Movie

It is a very interesting juxtaposition to watch a movie about a scandal so huge it forced a President to resign hours before watching a Presidential debate.

"All the President's Men" had a stellar ensemble cast.  Robert Redford played the clean-cut, by-the-book Woodward while Dustin Hoffman played the chain-smoking Bernstein (and I must confess to seeing shadows of Tootsie in his performance).  Jason Robards was Ben Bradlee, who is still alive. Hal Holbrook played Deep Throat, whom we now know was Mark Felt, Associate Director of the FBI.  Meredith Baxter, you know, Alex P. Keaton's Mom on Family Ties, played Mrs. Sloan.  Stephen Collins, the dad from Seventh Heaven, played Sloan.  How young they all were back in 1976.

Of course, one could not help but notice how far cinematography and basic technology has come since then.  There was one scene where Redford was on a pay phone and a car was driving by in the background, with all the occupants staring at him, like the celebrity he was. Woodstein, as Bradlee called the two, were doing research in the Library of Congress and the camera panned out, giving us the view from the ceiling looking down on them; the camera wiggled and moved!  One scene showed Woodward searching through phonebook after phonebook to find a phone number.  Now, we can just google it!  The garage scenes where Woodward had his conversations with Deep Throat were highly suspenseful; not sure our modern film makers could have done any better.  Seeing how a newsroom operated in the 70s with the reports using typewriters made me thankful for computers!  Even the credit card receipts in the 70s are so different from now - they were handwritten for goodness sake!

The most fascinating thing, for me, was the scenes of Washington DC. As a city it hasn't changed much, yet, so much there has changed.  Driving by the White House is not quite so easy now.  Buildings have incredible security that was not even considered in 1976.  It also seemed like there were more trees in DC in the 70s.

Unfortunately, corruption is still alive and well in DC. Where are the Bernsteins and Woodwards of today to uncover it?

As you wish . . . .

a very popular saying in my house.  If you've seen the movie The Princess Bride, then you know what I'm taking about.  If you haven't, get thee to Netflix and watch this movie!!  It has an incredible cast, very pithy dialogue, a love story, sword fighting and is celebrating it's 25th Anniversary!

A Facebook friend posted a link to this wonderful article and gave me the idea for today's post.  You see, The Princess Bride started out as a book. And I confess, I started to read that book once, long ago. I didn't like it.  So I stopped.  And this is one of the problems with watching the movie before reading the book: you expect the book to be like the movie and it is not.  This is also the case with the Jason Bourne movies and books, as well as one of my most favorite movies of all time, Gone with the Wind.

I'm going on a slight rabbit trail here.  You see, I stayed at the Tarleton Oaks Bed and Breakfast in Barnesville, Georgia once (it has been renamed Antebellum Oaks since Fred Crane died in 2008 and it was auctioned off).  It was owned by Fred Crane who played a Tarelton twin in the movie. He had quite the bounty of GWTW movie memorabilia.   On that trip, I also visited the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta and took a tour.  I also took a very similar tour in Jonesboro but it was lead by a man named Catfish who was quite a character himself (I'm guessing Catfish's tour was a lot more fun than Mr. Bonner's!).  So, you see, GWTW has a special place in my heart.  I've read the book and, not surprisingly, the book is different from the movie.  I've also read the sequels Scarlett and Rhett Butler's People (disappointing to say the least).

Now if there was a tour or a Princess Bride b&b, I'd go.

And I guess I should give the book another chance.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Movie Review

*WARNING - There are spoilers from this point on so STOP here if you don't want your viewing of the movie ruined.*













I finally watched this movie, obviously.  You can read the book review here.  I'd like to be able to say that for once I watched a movie of a book and the movie matched the book perfectly.  While this film managed to stick pretty closely to the novel, it failed on several major points.

First, I really liked the opening montage.  It was all done in a thick, black oily looking substance that could only be ink, pointing to Mikael Blomkvist's occupation as a journalist.  There were computer images intertwined throughout, linking to Lisbeth Salandar, hacker extraordinaire.  It reminded me a bit of the opening of some Bond movies.

Second, the music in this movie matched perfectly the action and the characters.  It wasn't done by Danny Elfman (The Simpsons) or Hans Zimmer (Gladiator and Pirates of the Carribean) or John Williams (Star Wars)  but by two people I'd never heard of, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.  Kudos gentlemen!

Third, and this is the spoiler part, the deviations from the book.  The movie had Harriet Vanger, the subject of the thirty-year mystery, posing as Anita Vanger but then had Anita conveniently dead in a car crash several years before.  Boo hiss.  I wanted to see the movie makers put Mikael on a sheep station in Australia.  I wanted to meet Harriet's over-protective son and to see that whole confrontation scene on the big screen.  But no, the director and screenplay writer conspired against the readers and deprived us of that by trying to substitute an unacceptable deviation from the book.

The second major deviation was in the scene concerning Martin Vanger's death.  In the book, Lisbeth finds Vanger torturing Blomkvist, whacks Martin with a golf club and then follows him as he's trying to get away by car.  Further down the road, away from Hedestad, Lisbeth watches Vanger crash his car into an on-coming truck.  In the movie, Martin drives off the road after trying to slam into Lisbeth on her motorcycle and then crashes into a petrol tank, which then conveniently explodes. I realize this was played out at the bridge, the same bridge where a car and truck crashed thirty years earlier and directed all attention away from the disappearance of Harriet Vanger.  So, I get the connection the director was trying to make with the past.  However,  All the director, David Fincher, would have had to do was add a 60-120 seconds more of chase scene and then, viola, the book is followed.  Although I will say that particular chase scene was well done - filmed from the wood looking at the unlit, deserted road and all you could see were the headlights of  Martin's car and the headlight of Lisbeth's cycle zooming through the dark.  However, that does not make up for the change.

The third deviation was that fact that when Lisbeth disguised herself and went globetrotting, bank-hopping and stealing, she used two disguises, not just the one the film showed.  Rooney Mara, as an actress, whose leather and mohawk Lisbeth disguised herself as blonde Irene Nesser the socialite, struck me by just how well Irene carried her purse which was quite different from how Lisbeth slung her backpack around.  A good actress pays attention to the little things to make the character(s) memorable.  Again, this little thing does not make up for the change.

I understand, that in the interest of time, budget, availability of shooting locales, resources, union contracts, etc., a movie script can't always follow the book exactly, however that doesn't mean I have to like it.  And I always wonder how the author feels about it. For example, I knew that Suzanne Collins helped write the script for Hunger Games, so I felt a certain safety, comfortable that she would not let the movie venture too far from the book but if it did, I was confident that her guiding hand was there.  Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (and the other two Girl books), died unexpectedly, leaving his father and brother to war over his literary estate with his "common-law" wife, so I guess we will never know what he thinks of these changes.

All The President's Men

For the past six weeks, my WEM book club has been reading All The President's Men (ATPM), Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's story of how they uncovered and exposed Watergate.  In 1972, I was 5 so this political event isn't embedded in my psyche.  However, politics hasn't changed much at all, despite the times.

I do know that reading this book was laborious - the cast of characters took up three pages.  It was hard at times to keep them all straight, including which was Bernstein (college dropout) and Woodward (Naval officer).  The unnamed sources Bernstein and Woodward used were just as hard, if not impossible, to keep straight.  However, it was quite an exciting adventure, in a cloak and dagger sort of way.

Reading about the process the two went through to keep extensive notes and record meeting dialogues, track down people who were willing to talk, getting in trouble with a judge for asking grand jurists about the grand jury testimony, traveling to Florida and California on the spur of the moment on the hope of getting information and putting the pieces together was quite enlightening.  Being allowed to be a fly on the page, so to speak, as to the editorial meetings and the writing process and the eventual fear that gripped the reporters when it all started to come out was not something most books give their readers a chance to do.

There were a lot of familiar names mentioned in this book: Helen Thomas, Bill Moyers, G. Gordon Liddy (how did he ever get a radio talk show?), Henry Kissinger, Pat Buchanan, Robert Dole, Morton Halperin (father of Game Change author Mark Halperin), and Brit Hume.

The one character I could connect with was Chuck Colson and only because Book Club had read his book, Born Again earlier.  The Colson in ATPM was not the same Colson I met in his autobiography; a religious conversion experience will completely change a man. I find that intriguing and it raises the questions of how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves.  Colson passed away in April, 2012; ironically, the Washington Post published a four-page, fair article on Colson's life.

Bob Woodward has continued to write about politics and politicians.  He has two books out on President Obama, The Price of Politics and Obama's Wars.  These might be good to read before the election to inform your voting.  I have not read either one.

If you care to read more about it, the Washington Post has an extensive website devoted to Watergate. Once I watch the movie, I'll revisit this post to share.

Literary Cruises

This blogging gig is turning out to be a little more difficult than I thought.  You see, I may have a reading list but I'm not always good at sticking to it. There are so many books to distract me, so many books to take me places I've never been and meet people I've never met before.  And that's what happened this summer.  While I have slogged through my reading list, I've also read a couple other books which I want to tell you about.

First we are going to cruise on down to the Carribean for Michael Crichton's posthumously published Pirate Latitudes.  This hardback treasure was on the Bargain Priced table at Barnes and Noble, so I picked it up for quite less than a King's ransom.  Surprisingly, this is a work of historical fiction, based on the life of Charles Hunter, real privateer, aka pirate.  It was a very riveting tale, one I could not put down, reading it in the space of about three days.  Pirates, lately, at least with the success of the Pirates of the Carribean franchise, are a hot topic and reading about the adventures of a real life one is even better.  (Rabbit Trail: It's hard to believe a little water ride about pirates at Walt Disney World turned into such a movie series!)

Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors and producers.  You can read more about his books, tv shows and movies here.  While researching this, I learned he was the writer for Twister, a movie my family watches frequently.  State of Fear was a thorough, thoughtful and scientific response to global warming.  Crichton's works live at the intersection of science and technology with humanity.  If you haven't read anything of his, do.  He will entertain you while making you think, not always an easy task.

Now we fly to Sweden.  The next book is another one in which I've come lately to the brouhaha: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; wow! really late! Didn't realize this book was published in 2005; better late than never.  I loved "traveling" to Sweden and trying to pronounce Swedish names in my head. I loved the snow and cold, the locations, the world traveling near the end.  I loved trying to predict whodunit but then finding the mystery solved in an unexpected way.  I do wish Mr. Larsson could have included a map or two, but then I love maps - they just help me see the action better in my head.  I was a little confused at first regarding who the story was really about but the ending cleared that up; a rather sad ending, in my opinion.

Throughout, this book has an underlying theme of violence against women.  And there is one particular brutal scene, so if you are sensitive to this, you may want to either skip the book or at least skip that part (you can message me and I'll give you page numbers in the paperback to skip if you want).  I found this book to have many, many different story lines, character relationships and themes (incest, corporate espionage, embezzlement, dysfunctional families of the highest order, Nazis to name a few) to the point where I envisioned Larsson the writer as Larsson the juggler maintaining as many balls in the air as possible.  

This book was translated from the Swedish.  It was very fascinating to read that; I found it to be noticeable, at times, especially with antecedents and pronouns, but yet it never threw me out of the story.  I admire the work of translators and ponder the difficulties inherent in their task.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is actually two movies, one that came out in 2009 and the 2011 one with Daniel Craig.  The 2009 version, according to my parents who watched it on Netflix Instant Play, is English subtitled.  My father usually doesn't like to watch subtitled movies but he said he enjoyed this one.  My mom was impacted by the aforementioned scene and the way the actress conveyed the character's pain.

So now that I've had some literary travels, it's back to the 14th century, slavery, feminism, politics and radicals.

Worm Correction plus Politics: Dinesh D'Souza

First, a correction.  Thank you, Kind Readers, for not pointing out my Wormwood mistake from this post.  Lewis had the Wormwood character and Tolkien had Grima Wormtongue, which I discovered while watching the extended edition LOTR trilogy over the past several weeks.  However, I believe there is no coincidence in the fact both of these men used Worm for these two characters.  I would love to have been a fly on the wall of the Bird to hear the Inklings' literary discussions, especially this one!

In case you did not figure it out, the unnamed book from last week is Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.  Reading this feels a little like reading Mein Kampf did - not exactly a book you want others to see you carrying around or reading at the pediatrician's office.  Even though I lugged this book to Florida with me last week, I just could not bring myself to read it; I was on a Navy base, not the most radical, rule-changing place on the planet so I am stuck at chapter 2.

 Rules for Radicals is an important book to read and understand, especially in this political season.  Another book I would highly recommend is Dinesh D'Souza's The Roots of Obama's Rage.  When I read this book a few months ago, it was not with a highlighter or pencil in hand so I'm not going to be able to share pithy quotes or make comments on things that stood out to me.

The last chapter of this book is the most important for, in it, D'Souza makes three predictions about Obama's presidency: tax increases on the rich, lack of effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and an all-out campaign against the US military.

The first one we see happening before our very eyes.  THe Congressional Budget Office is reporting the US will go into a deeper recession if the Bush tax cuts are not extended, including those for the 1%.  Democrats are adamantly against allowing the tax cuts for the wealthily, which, since 2008, has an ever changing definition - first it was those making $250,000 and then it was $150,000 and then it was $100,000, and according to this blog, even lower than that.

The second one is also happening now.  Israel is going to do something about it but the US will sit idly by, or keeps telling Israel to wait or back off or thinks "crippling sanctions" will work.  The text of Obama's state speech given with Netanyahu follows Rules#  3, 4 and 12.  Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, there is no doubt in my mind on that.

If you have any doubt about the third one, I have one word for you: sequestration.

D'Souza and an Academy Award winning producer have come out with 2016:
"2016 Obama's America takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world’s most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years. The film examines the question, "If Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?"

Across the globe and in America, people in 2008 hungered for a leader who would unite and lift us from economic turmoil and war. True to America’s ideals, they invested their hope in a new kind of president, Barack Obama. What they didn't know is that Obama is a man with a past, and in powerful ways that past defines him--who he is, how he thinks, and where he intends to take America and the world."

I have not seen this movie yet but it has received favorable reviews from 2 of my Facebook fans.  It has also surprised box office watchers with it's success.  

Election time is right around the corner.  No matter who you vote for, be an informed voter.

Interconnectedness

I am reading a book that contains this from the second paragraph of the prologue: "Few of us surveyed the Joe McCarthy holocaust of the early 1950s and of those there were even fewer whose understanding and insights developed beyond the dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxism.  My fellow radicals . . . . " (xiii).  Now, that should be a little clue.  I do appreciate an author who lets you know where he or she stands right off the bat.  Ayn Rand is like this, but of course, on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

Now, in this little volume, I thought there would be a dearth of things I agree with the author on.  Here's about the only point so far: " . . . today organized religion is materially solvent and spiritually bankrupt" (14).

I have found, however, many, many more points of contention. This man thinks that Moses and Paul were part of the middle class (20).  Hello?! Moses was raised in the household of Pharaoh and Paul was a rabbinic scholar, hardly the middle class in my mind.  The author must have missed that day in Talmud school (another clue).

I am also reading a book about the 14th century (see sidebar).  The section I am on now is about the various rebellions in which the French and English peasants revolted against the ruling class.  I was really amazed at all the revolutions that took place in France before the Big One, you know, the Les Miserables one: Marie Antoinette, let them eat cake! and all that.  The French have been angry for a long time, organizing themselves into revolts, albeit short-lived, without any help from community organizers or Marx.

The third book I've been lugging around has quite surprised me at how captivating it is.  Back in the 14th century, there was no journalism, only the reports of various, and at times, untrustworthy chroniclers.  While entertaining and informative, these reports were post facto.  This third book, All the President's Men, is a kind of post facto report but when one has 4 filing cabinets filled with notes (and that's just from the first 3 chapters) and documentation for each detective-type encounter, these chroniclers can be counted on to be trustworthy.

All the President's Men is a movie and I look forward to watching it, when I'm done with the book, of course!

I have seen Les Miz on stage in London; I cry almost every time I listen to the soundtrack, and my dear son informs me there will soon be a movie out on the same; hopefully I can get out of the 14th century before then! The book I mentioned first isn't a movie but we are living in a time where this book, whose author highly influenced our President and Secretary of State, is being played out before our eyes.

Guessed the book yet?

The Screwtape Letters

I am not reading this book now, but I have and consider it to be a classic, a must-read for any Christian, fan or follower.

C.S. Lewis takes his infinite imaginative skill by writing from a demon's point of view; a demon, Screwtape, who is set on helping his nephew, Wormwood, be a better demon.  But yet, the lessons really aren't for Wormwood.

They are for us.

Lewis dedicated this to JRR Tolkien.  If you've read any of The Lord of the Rings books or seen the movies, you know who Wormwood was.  Tolkien's homage to Lewis? Or Lewis's homage to Tolkein?


Either way, it is just so cool to me that Tolkien and Lewis were friends; that I have walked the same path they did.











That these buildings I saw at Magdalen College, Lewis worked in.

My plan for this blog was to write about authors in their birth month; Lewis's birthday isn't 'til November.  I feel like celebrating him today.

The summer reading list continues to dwindle!

Kyle Idleman is "the teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the fifth largest church in America."  If his sermons are delivered in any similar way to his writing style, his congregants must spend a lot of time laughing, after all, a merry heart is good medicine.  But as soon as the laughing would die down, Kyle would hit them with a zinger, like: "Fans often confuse their admiration for devotion.  They mistake their knowledge of Jesus for intimacy with Jesus" (p.27).  And the purpose of this book is to help you "define the relationship" (p.22) between you and Jesus.  Are you a fan or a follower?

At the end of each chapter is the story of someone who had something happen to them which catapulted them from being a fan to being a follower.  Some of these stories are truly heart wrenching, heart warming stories of what God can do in someone's life.  However, not one of these stories is about an ordinary Christian living an ordinary life - that won't sell books will it?  But that is the story of my life.  I'm an ordinary woman who has not been called by God to start a ministry to strippers or who tried to kill herself.  I'm a woman who has been a fan at times in my life, but I am certainly not going to find my life story in a book like this.  Does that mean God hasn't worked in my life?  Goodness no!  I can look back over yesterday and see His care and protection.  I can look back over my past and see where He was there, preventing so many bad things from happening to me that could have changed the course of my life dramatically.  I guess I'm a little put out with a book that subtly seems to say you have to have an excitingly horrible thing happen to you for your life in Christ to matter.  Idleman says "[if] you find yourself measuring your relationship with Jesus by comparing yourself to others, that is likely a self-indictment" (p.26) yet Idleman holds up all these people as examples, as people for the reader to compare themselves to, fan or follower.

Lest you think I didn't like anything in this book, there were several places where Idleman explained some cultural contexts of Jesus's time which helped me understand Jesus's words better.  For example, when the man ask Jesus if he could bury his father before following Jesus, that really meant "when my parents die, I will follow you" (p.190).  Idleman contrasts this with the response of Peter and Andrew, who drop everything to follow Jesus right then.  His explanation on the definition of the Greek word doulos was instructive: "It is a word that is most accurately translated as slave . . . [but it] is usually translated as 'servant'" (p.151).  I would be most interested to know why that is because a servant, to someone who loves Downton Abbey, is in no way anything like a slave!

What I really like is when one book I'm reading highlights or emphasizes something I've read in another book.  This happened with not a fan and Abundant Simplicity, which opens with a discussion of two things I had never really known or thought about.  As a Christian, we can practice "disciplines of engagement, such as study, prayer, service, worship and fellowship. . . . . [which] help us take in the life of God. Disciplines of abstinence, however, such as fasting, solitude, silence, chastity, secrecy. frugality and simplicity of speech and time, help us let go of life-draining behaviors" (p.11).  The purpose of this book is help the reader begin to practice the disciplines of abstinence in ways that will simplify life, making it easier to be in a position to hear and obey God.

Abundant Simplicity intersects with not a fan in the area of "'impression management' - controlling what other people think about us. Disciplines of simplicity reveal the self-serving motives we thought only other people had: pride, greed and desires to control" (p. 16).  Idleman hits on this in the chapter "Self-Empowerment or Spirit Filled?" He confesses how he used to move the stopper on the weight machine so the next guy after him would think he lifted way more weight then he really did (p.94).  I have really been convicted in this area, even to the point where I was able to see my own self misunderstand and then get defensive about something because I was trying to manage someone's perception of me!

The two also discuss how living in America, the land of plenty, can effect one's Christian journey.  Idleman writes, "Instead of approaching their faith with a spirit of denial that says 'What can I do for Jesus?' they have a consumer mentality that says, 'What can Jesus do for me?'' (p.148).  Johnson says, "Consumerism is an attachment to materialistic values or possessions because we think they're required for our happiness" and quotes Evy McDonald: "A theology of consumption  . . . Slowly, almost imperceptibly we['ve] wondered away from the foundational teachings of Jesus-sharing our wealth, identifying with the marginalized. . . and [have begun] to identify our worth with how much money we made or how many possessions we owned . . . . " (p. 89).

Abundant Simplicity is designed with experiments to try at the end of each chapter.  Some suggestions include mediating on Scriptures discussed in the chapter, journaling, discussing with a trusted friend some topic, taking a retreat, and trying not to talk for a certain period of time <gasp!>.  There are also discussion and reflection questions, which would be perfect for a group setting.

If I had to pick one of these books to recommend to you, it would be Abundant Simplicity. It will probably be a book I read every year, with a new highlighter color to mark my journey through it each time. I found the topics much more pertinent to my life and where I am in my spiritual journey.  It has already had an impact on my life.

September is National Preparedness Month.

So why I am writing about preparedness in August?  Well, because here in the Tar Heel state, hurricane season really starts ramping up from August to November.  And if you wait to prepare for any kind of emergency until September, you could be up a creek without a paddle.

What is being prepared?  It is being able to handle almost any kind of emergency or situation that is out of the normal.  If your electricity goes out in the middle of the day for no apparent reason, what do you do?  All of a sudden, there's no water coming out of the faucet, so how do you handle that?  A hurricane/snowstorm/ice storm/bad weather system is headed your way so what should you do or not do? What supplies are needed?

Now, the government has websites devoted to preparedness information.  The CDC has one here but since we all know what happened to the Atlanta CDC in The Walking Dead, well, go there at your own peril.  FEMA has some information too, but they don't have a good track record and if you get preparedness messages on your phone then a coronal mass ejection obliterates satellites and the power grid, those won't be too helpful.  I guess you might be able to sense that I don't think it's the government's job to provide me with anything after an event of some kind.  You will not find me in a line waiting for government hand-outs after a crisis because I believe in being prepared, as much as possible, for what ever might come down the pike.  And frankly, I feel the government recommendations are on the scanty side.

There is a lot of doom and gloom out there, people who blog that the sky is falling almost every day.  I have to stay away from a steady diet of that because it makes my Hysteria Meter peg in the red and it takes my mind off the One who is my Hope and Salvation.  So, I try to focus on blogs that are very informative and educational.

Survival Blog 

James Wesley Rawles can be a bit hard-nosed, but what can you expect from a former Army Intel guy?  He's written two novels, the first a thinly disguised tech manual with a barely perceptible plot.  I haven't read his second novel yet.  If you need to know how to prepare for an emergency or a long-term, grid-down, TEOTWAWKI situation, this is a great place to start.  Mr. Rawles has a nice glossary complete with a pronunciation guide.  

Rural Revolution

Patrice Lewis is so practical and down-to-earth!  I enjoy the pictures and the fact Patrice and I have the same kind of sense of humor.

Paratus Familia

I first learned about canning bacon from Enola.  Enola and Patrice are also friends, which is kind of neat.  Enola has an ebook on dealing with illnesses that I would like to get.

Preparedness Pro

Kellene Bishop's is one of a number of fantastic sites on preparing written by Mormons.  Just like they have cornered the scrapbooking market, Mormons seem to really have a disproportionate amount of websites on preparing and I think this is a good thing.  I have learned so much from reading a variety of these blogs, I appreciate that they are taught to do this and then willingly share with others.  Kellene just wrote a piece on famine that is must reading.  The thought of my children starving is a driving force in my stocking-up.

Coffee, Tea, Books and Me

Brenda is such a gentle soul who so willingly and transparently shares her struggles.  She is one of the first bloggers I ever read about stocking up.  Click on the "Deepening the Pantry" tab at the top to read through her archives on how she survived through lean times.

Thinking that things will always be like they are is not wise.  Thinking that the government will care for you in a natural disaster situation is not prudent.  Be aware of what challenges your region of the country could experience and then plan for them.  Be prepared isn't just for the Boy Scouts!

Next week, I am going to be discussing not a fan and Abundant Simplicity.

Check two off!

Some books are so beautiful in their prose, they require your undivided attention while reading them.  They are the kinds of books one reads straight through or has to put down, if only for a moment, because the language is so precise and lyrical as to be breathtaking, the characters so vivid and life-like you think they could be in the room with you.  Cutting for Stone is one of those books.  As you can see from the sidebar, this book has been removed from the Bedside Table because I finished it.  Yay me!  One book off the Seven list.

I highly recommend Cutting for Stone.  Abraham Verghese's skillful writing transported me to Ethiopia, New York City and back again.  His website describes the story this way:

The story is a riveting saga of twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone, born of [well, we are deleting this because I think it is a spoiler of sorts; of course you can always read the blurb at Verghese's website but that would ruin it I think]. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.But it's love, not politics -- their passion for the same woman [I kind of disagree with this because, well, Shiva doesn't strike me as the passionate type] -- that will tear them apart and force Marion to flee his homeland [what a journey that was] and make his way to America, finding refuge in his work at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him, wreaking havoc and destruction, Marion has to entrust his life to the two men he has trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.


When I came to this book, I was tabula rasa.  I hadn't heard about it anywhere, only from Margaret who recommended it to me.  I didn't read the back or look it up online, which helps explain why I think the above is a spoiler.  I am so glad to have approached the book this way.  I tried to guess, engaged in the story, wondering what was going to happen and how.  I have found that some of the best novels seem to ask, "What is the most unexpected thing that could happen in this story right now?"  And then those novels answer with something so unexpected and almost unpredictable, the reader is drawn further and further, mesmerized, into the story and then it's done.


Please be sure to look at the bibliography Verghese provides.  He did an incredible amount of research for this novel, which is always comforting to me as a reader.  It means the author isn't trying to write about something he or she is clueless about.  


And of course, this is another novel in movie production, with a release in 2013.  In order to learn who is in it, one has to be a member of IMBDPro, so we will have to wait until more information is released.  My little neck hairs are standing up.  This movie has the potential to win cinematography awards, IF the producers film in lush and beautiful places closely resembling what the book described, but we all know how big an IF that is, which is really sad because the nature, the brilliance of the flowers, the sound of the rains are exquisite.

Don't waste your time on  The Jane Austen Book Club.  It was so bad you have to google it for yourself.  I didn't get very far into when I stopped - too many sniveling females that Jane Austen would only use as background instead of main characters; too many 21st century American cultural maladies; too much gratuitous sex.  Poor Jane is turning over in her grave to have her name attached to such drivel.  Life is too short to read bad books, so I put this one in the trash.  Really, it was that bad.

Spend your reading time with Cutting for Stone.  You won't regret it!

First Guest Post!

I am a  great fan of Thomas Sowell.  He is witty, thought-provoking and instructional; a professor who does not condescend. I read his columns through Townhall.com and also from his website where his articles are linked at the Jersusalem Post.  My child will be reading his Basic Economics for high school; hopefully I can get it completely read by then!

Dr. Sowell's birthday was June 30.  He does not sound like 82 when I hear him on the radio!  In belated honor of his birth and with the looming presidential election, I would like for you to read his recently-penned, four-part series, "A Political Glossary."

A Political Glossary 

Part II

Part III

Part IV

It is important for me to insert a disclaimer here.  I am a political junkie.  There is an election coming up, one I feel will probably be the most important in my life time.  I will be discussing it here.  You have been warned. <insert scary Jack Nicholas face icon>

There is only one thing to post for today . . . .

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.
THE UNANIMOUS
DECLARATION
OF THE
THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyranny only.

HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean Time, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.

HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our Legislatures.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection, and waging War against us.

HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

HE has constrained our Fellow-Citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas, to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.

IN every Stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every Act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them, from Time to Time, of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connexions and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the Rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connexion between them and the State of Great-Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of Right do. And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.

John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr. Thomas Lynch, junr. Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, &c. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.

IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.

ORDERED,
THAT an authenticated Copy of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCY, with the Names of the MEMBERS of CONGRESS, subscribing the same, be sent to each of the UNITED STATES, and that they be desired to have the same put on RECORD.
By Order of CONGRESS,
JOHN HANCOCK, President.

BALTIMORE, in MARYLAND: Printed by MARY KATHARINE GODDARD.