from the "what goes around comes around" file

another gem from the writer's almanac:

It was on this day in 1793 that Maximilien de Robespierre, became the head the Committee of Public Safety, which led to the Reign of Terror in France.

Robespierre had started out as an idealistic lawyer and judge. He was well known for representing poor people in court, and he often spoke out against the absolute authority of the king. Even after he became a public figure in Paris and Versailles, he lived an extremely frugal life. He lived as a lodger in the house of a carpenter. He worked on the first French constitution and fought for universal suffrage. He opposed all forms of religious and racial discrimination, taking the unpopular view that that even Jews and black slaves should be granted full citizenship.

After the French Revolution broke out, Robespierre was elected to the new National Convention, where he called for the execution of the king. He then worked to unify the various splinter groups within the revolution. At the time, France was being threatened by war with Austria. There was also a great fear of civil war breaking out between the various revolutionary factions. In his diary, Robespierre wrote, "What is needed is one single will."

And so, a man who had fought for constitutional democracy and universal citizenship found himself helping to organize a military dictatorship. On this day in 1793, he took his place on the Committee of Public Safety, which would rule France for the next year. And in order to keep French citizens in line, Robespierre advocated the use of the guillotine, a new machine that was supposed to make all executions efficient and humane. The guillotine was set up in the Place de la Révolution, which later became the Place de la Concorde, and over the next year more than 2,000 people were beheaded for having opposed the Revolution.

At first Robespierre executed people who had supported the monarchy. But then he began to execute revolutionaries who were too moderate. And finally, he began to execute people who had merely opposed him on one issue or another. Eventually, members of the National Convention began to realize that no one was safe, and even they could be the next victims. So they turned on Robespierre. Exactly one year, to the day, after he had taken control of the Committee of Public Safety, he was arrested, and the day after his arrest he went to the guillotine himself.

For more than a year Robespierre had been executing people in the public square to cheering crowds. When Robespierre went to his own death at the guillotine, onlookers said the crowd cheered just as loudly as ever.

******

i have always been puzzled by the people i meet who tell me that my "progressive" or "liberal" views are a phase i will grow out of, not a set of beliefs i use as a life-model. then they generally cite themselves as examples.

i guess now i know what happens to the people who start out looking after the parts of society that need the help, and then...well, you see.

(caffiene, sleep deprivation and midterm elections)

scorching headache, despite ibuprofen. what i need is most likely sleep, and water. no go on the sleep, this is going to be my second 11-hour day in a row. which wouldn't be so terrible if i slept more.

jeremy and evie are out of town, so jeremy can work a few days in ann arbor.
to say i miss them--well, that's an understatement.

i just realized i didn't really bring anything for dinner. which means cereal (that was last night's dinner) or some sort of delivery food. of course, i don't want to spend that money. ick.

in other news--

evie went on the potty for the first time on sunday. she also completed her first no mommy/no daddy sleepover last night with jeremy's dad. and, of course, she is about the most incredible little being on the planet. i'm literally aching to see her!

jeremy's working on a short term contract. it is quite an adventure, this new "settled-down" work life. or, more correctly, it will be after the elections.

more to come. time to find water.

oh, microsoft excel...

...i am currently compiling the one spreadsheet to rule them all...election work is always important, but sometimes tedious.

here's where i get to invoke--and lead by example--my mantra that the details are what's important in this line of work.

anyway, here's a fun bit of distraction. enjoy!

random goodness

pirated from the writer's almanac today:

It's the birthday of Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts (1817). He's the author of Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) and the essay "Civil Disobedience" (1849). He went off to Harvard when he was just sixteen. He was twenty-seven when he built a small cabin on the edge of Walden Pond, a small lake near Concord, and wrote about his time there.

Thoreau said, "Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."

It's the birthday of poet and politician Pablo Neruda, born in Parral, Chile (1904). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. In his Nobel lecture he said, "All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are."

This makes me want to go home and read Neruda's love poems, and read Walden once and for all. And probably read Civil Disobedience for the first time since high school.

Instead, I will read and write and think about Mary Magdalene and Caravaggio; and some Rothko. I'm brewing some new poems for tomorrow's meeting with Diane, and maybe a little future grad work as well.

shine on you crazy diamond

syd barrett died recently...the announcement of his death as mysterious as the last years of his life.

if i weren't at work right now, i'd be playing the wish you were here album, an album so full of longing and dispair and wistfulness for the careless moments which've passed one by; an album for syd barrett, and everyone who's somehow died without dying.

how i love pink floyd.

jeremy's favorite album is pulse; mine, wish you were here.
alas, you can't have it ALL, right? we have to be a little different.

we used to lay evie down for naps with music playing, as the neighbors were either residing their home, or their annoying son was "rocking out" to CCR on his drumset. we would set wish you were here to play on a constant loop; her small voice carried like a miniature alto above the saxophone when she woke.

i hope she understands why her father and i love pink floyd.