Virginia Red (Second from Right) and the Boys, That Other Adams (John Adams), Hudson River Bobby (Robert Livingston),  Nutmeg Sureman (Roger Sherman), and  Old Sparky (Benjamin Franklin).  Picture Courtesy Trumbull.

Note:  Two years ago today I posted this I posted a guest entry by  bloger Virginia Red and his associates with a brief introduction.  It wears well.  So Here it is again:

VIRGINIA RED, or LONG TOM as he is known on his My Space page, is a popular wordsmith.  The following political diatribe, of which he was the main author, has achieved something of a cult like following.  Although he generally gets authorship credit, a posse of associated bloggers contributed, edited and tweaked this political screed.  They include THAT OTHER ADAMS (so designated to differentiate him from his much better known cousin, a Boston ward heeler and disreputable rabble rouser named Sam) and OLD SPARKY, an elderly and exocentric Philadelphian.  Also involved were HUDSON RIVER BOBBY and Connecticut’s NUTMEG SUREMAN, whose main job seemed to be proofreading. 

The piece has been floating around for a few years and is frequently quoted, particularly its rousing introduction.  It blatant hostility toward authority and its bold assertion of some kind of equality among humanity have long irritated conservatives and frightened those at ease with unlimited power in their own hands.  Malcontents of every stripe—abolitionists, suffragettes, trade unionists, civil rights marchers, even immigrants, furiners, and Queers have taken the words to heart and incorporated them in their own agitations.

Most readers, however, will be unfamiliar with the bill of particulars RED and the boys drew up against George Rex, the reigning bad guy of the time.  Those trouble makers over at VETS FOR PEACE stumbled on the complete text and decided that most of it could apply more or less the current George, the Resident of the United States.  They are even using the text as the basis for a bill of impeachment against W., and they didn’t have to do much tinkering.

It just goes to show you what a hot potato this is.  Read for yourself.  Share with your friends and family between beers and brats this Fourth of July.

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 tyrants 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 harass 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 benefit 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 compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & 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 connections 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 connection 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 Honor.

ok this is my first time posting on here and i just need some advice.
  i've been with my boyfriend for about six months, i know that doesn't seem like a long time, but i really love him! things are going great for us and everything is perfect...but i have this good friend of mine who is a boy and well, we kissed and my boyfriend doesn't know, he just thinks i'm friends with the guy, and i am...but i think i might be falling in love with him! i don't know what to do, please help me!

You better finish all your art projects soon, or else you're going to have to wait another six months before you're manic again.

 HIGH SUMMER

The day lilies—

            you know the ones,

                        crowding corner patch  

                        across from the Church,

            leaning into the morning sun,

                        yearning nestlings,

                        orange maws wide,

                        insisting on that next fat worm.

 --Patrick Murfin

I first posted a slightly different version of this poem on my blog about this time two years ago.  Well, their back just as I remember them.  Probably even lusher this year.  Back when I wrote the poem McHenry County was in the grips of the third year of a prolonged drought.  The talk of the county was the shrinking aquifer.  Farmers fretted for their corn and soybeans.  Lawns were brown and even flower gardens faded, dusty, and a tad shabby.  Those tall day lillies looked even more heroic in that context.

It’s different this year.  The words are verdant and lush.  The drout was finally broken by torrential rains and flooding last August followed by a near record year of snow fall over the winter and a soggy spring.  We were not immune around here from the historic rains which flooded much of the Midwest.  Our localized flooding along the Fox River and low point ponding was a nuisance.  We fared better than Iowa or the Missouri River towns.  The flooded farm fields have dried out enough for the corn to come along quite nicely, thank you, on target for “knee high by the Fourth of July..”  And local farmers are counting the profits in their head with thought of bringing their bumper crop to a market starving for grain.  The price may even be high enough to offeset all of the soaring fuel and fertilizer costs.

Woodstock, where I work,  has never looked better.  Lawns are deep green.  Trees spread their generous canopies arching over the streets.  Gardens dazzle.  Those day lillies are taller than ever.

The astonishing beauty of this mid-summer does a lot to raise the gloom of the world going-to-hell-in-a-hand=basket.  Let us cherish this moment of serenity, however delussional.

This Tri-Colored Beech was planted by at the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock as a memorial for four  girls and young women of the congregation who have died in the past few years.  The moving dedication service was last Sunday.  The tree replaces a beloved old flowering cherry tree whose bifurcated trunk collapsed last year.  Landscaper extradinary Bruce Weiss planted a garden surrounding the new tree to be at its height for the dedication service.  It’s an example of the extraodinary flowers so abundant this year.

Some upcoming events I found while researching some dating ideas:

Original: craschworks - comments

douchiest phone message in history

Via radiantsun

Original: craschworks - comments

Via shanmonster.

Original: craschworks - comments

Adriana Volpe - An ex-girlfriend.

Naomi Campbell - Another ex-girlfriend

Heidi Klum - Yet another ex. (But not before he impregnated her with a daughter. )

Elisabetta Gregoraci - his current wife.

So who is the hunky stud who won the hearts of all these world-class supermodels?

Original: craschworks - comments