A life in words

  • Living in the Past (+Poem)

    Living in the Past (+Poem)

    I’ve always been inclined to living in the past. For evidence, you need look no further my many-years-long effort to transcribe all of my old journals. Here’s a sample: Now tell me, do you know anybody else who’s transcribing their journals? I’ve kept a ridiculous number of the darn things, too—maybe 20 official journals and…

  • An Extra Day in Eastern Washington

    An Extra Day in Eastern Washington

    Due to bad weather on my intended route back to Utah I recently found myself staying an extra day at home in eastern Washington. I used the extra time to check out three nearby natural attractions: the McNary National Wildlife Refuge, the Twin Sisters / Wallula Gap, and the Skyline Trail on Badger Mountain. It was great to…

  • Christmas Carols in Prose #14: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

    On Christmas day I heard the bells play their old familiar carols, and they repeated wildly and sweetly the words “peace on earth, good will to men.” I thought how at the coming of day the Christian world’s belfries had rolled along the unbroken song, “Peace on earth, good will to men.” I bowed my…

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)