Happ Birthday HDT

Today is the 190th birthday of one of my favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau. In honor of that, I started reading "Walden" again last night and thought I would throw-out a nice snippet from that quintessential book of his this morning... enjoy.

Chapter 16 - 'The Pond in Winter'

After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what — how — when — where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution. "O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The night veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether."

Then to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and go in search of water, if that be not a dream. After a cold and snowy night it needed a divining-rod to find it. Every winter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished from any level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or more. Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way first through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window under my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight sky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet is well as over our heads.

Outside Reading: A Must Read for Parents

Hey - I finally figured out how to post here! (How many months has it been? Duh. I'm a Wordpress girl.)

Anyhoo, it's just in time to tell you about the BEST book. I'm currently reading Protecting the Gift by Gavin De Becker and it's so amazing I simply can't do it justice. It's about protecting ourselves and our children from violence ~ including sexual predators and also things like how to choose a babysitter. I think it should be handed out to all parents & prospective parents. It's just that good.

I am reading so many books at once right now for upcoming reviews at The Opinionated Parent that I've given up on the book for this month but hopefully I'll join in for some summer reading.

Have a great weekend!
Nicole
TOP/MMTaM

Outside Reading - Nonfiction

Before I start reading one of the two options for this month’s book (no, I haven’t decided which one I am going to read just yet), I wanted to add another book review to the ever-growing list of outside reading reviews.

For Christmas, one of my Aunt’s (knowing what a reading-nut and rhetoric-nut I am) gave me the book The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words by Ronald White.

In the book, the author (who also wrote a tome entitled Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural which examined the second Inaugural) looks at the progression of Lincoln's thoughts and the growing prominence and articulacy of his speeches during his presidency by examining 11 of Lincoln’s speeches individually while also looking at their relationship to one another and how they all tie-in or, in the author’s words, how they are like a “string of pearls” that come together to make something incredible.

The author traces Lincoln's ever-evolving rhetoric over the course of his presidency in what can best be described as a series of critical essays.

(It should also be known that White puts an emphasis on how much presidential power can emanate from “rhetorical leadership”, something I wrote a lengthy essay on, from a Platoism perspective, when I was an undergrad)

In many of the speeches, White shows that Lincoln always left the audience with thoughts and ideas (which any good speech professor – such as me – will tell you is one of the goals of speechmaking) that will be picked up on in a later speech and which have developed more fully over time as Lincoln’s thoughts on those particular subjects have grown.

Now, enjoy an excerpt:

Lincoln’s farewell address at Springfield, IL. February 11, 1861

“My friends.

No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have been a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”

Abraham Lincoln arrived at the small brick Great Western Railway station in Springfield on February 11, 1861, prepared to travel to Washington and his inauguration as the sixteenth president of the United States. The day dawned cold and miserable, with intermittent rain dripping from the low-hanging clouds. Parked at the station was the Presidential Special, a train consisting of only two cars, an ordinary passenger coach and a baggage car, standing by to receive the president and his party. Both cars were painted a bright yellow. The grand locomotive-the L. M. Wiley, brasswork gleaming, with its huge balloon stack-hissed at the ready.

Lincoln had decided beforehand that he would offer no remarks, and the press had been so informed. After the many farewells of recent days, Lincoln believed there was no need for any more words. Newspaperman Henry Villard, a twenty-five-year-old German immigrant posted to Springfield in November by the New York Herald to report on Lincoln's daily activities after his election as president, captured a remarkable scene. "The President elect took his station in the waiting-room, and allowed his friends to pass by him and take his hand for the last time."

Villard observed that Lincoln's "face was pale, and quivered with emotion so deep as to render him almost unable to utter a single word."

On the Kemp scale of 1 being a piece of crap and 10 being TKAMockingbird-esque, I give this book a seven.

Book News

The new Harry Potter book has a publishing date.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment of the boy wizard's adventures, will be published and released at 12:01 AM on July 21st, according to author J.K. Rowling's website.

While I won't be in line to buy it at midnight, I will be buying it shortly after its release.

Outside reading Thumbs up!

This has nothing to so with Pi or VS. It DOES have to do with the book I need to finish before I can dive into the club reads. It's called A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke. It's the fictional tale of a Brit who goes to Paris to work with a dysfunctional French company. As the husband and I like to say around Casa Buffalo "stereotypes exist for a reason." This book is not politically correct nor is it pro-France, nor does Clarke wave his Freedom Fries. This particularly vivid passage about his Parisian neighbors had me in stitches:

I was also sick of my neighbors, as most Parisians are. I now knew every second of the morning routine of the family upstairs. At 7:00 a.m. alarm goes off, boom, Madame gets out of bed, puts on her deep-sea divers' boots, and stomps across my ceiling to megaphone the kids awake. The kids drop bags of cannonballs onto the floor, then, apparently dragging several sledgehammers each, stampede into the kitchen. They grab their chunks of baguette and go sit in front of the TV, which is always showing a cartoon about people who do nothing but scream at each other and explode. Every minute, one of the kids cartwheels (while bouncing cannonballs) back into the kitchen for seconds, then returns (bringing with it an excitable family of kangaroos) to the TV. Meanwhile, the toilet is flushed, on average, fifty times per drop of uring expelled. Finally, there is a ten minute period of intensive yelling, and at 8:15 on the dot they all howl and crash their way out of the apartment to school.

You've just made yourself a soothing cup of tea when Madame returns and gets her team of trained hippos to clean up the mess, clomping their hooves or whatever hippos have, in time to the nasal howl of some terminally lovesick French crooner. I once dared to go up and ask whether the hippos really needed to wear high heels indoors all the time, and a snooty woman in pearls slammed the door in my face.

I love this book.