Saturday, October 9, 2010

Teach Them To Long For the Sea

If you want to build a ship,
don't herd people together
to collect wood and
don't assign them tasks
and work but rather teach
them to long for the sea.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Of Note: Most people in China have never even heard of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize this week. As an ardent advocate for freedom and democracy, his existence has been kept under wraps by a communist government that does not recognize individual liberty. Two years ago Liu was imprisoned for writing Charter 08 that was based on Charter 77, which helped bring about the end to communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Liu's manifesto was censored in China. In all likelihood, the prisoner did not know he won the Nobel Peace prize until informed by his wife when she visited him today. A spokesman for Human Rights Watch said this award could provide the impetus for the communist Chinese government to begin reforms toward freedom because "millions and millions of ordinary Chinese people, government employees, party cadres, and students are going to want to know who Liu Xiaobo is and why he was sentenced to prison. They are going to discover Charter 08, which will spread uncontrollably." That may be just what the Nobel Prize committee had in mind.

Today's Weather Report: Another beautiful day in the neighborhood--sunny and currently in the mid to upper 60's Fahrenheit. Tra-la. It is a shorts and t-shirt kind of day with company coming to visit for the weekend. The men, who arrived just moments ago, threaten to catch the largest bass in the lake but my husband also has sausage-making in mind so we will see how much fishing gets done. One of the men has an affinity for the 1937 dump truck we have here--so we can also expect to see that behemoth chugging down the road. Not the county roads--just the roads on our property as the truck is not licensed. The guys are sure to be surprised by the high water mark which is much different than the last time they were here. Congratulations to the Chileans for finally reaching the 33 trapped miners, although it will be a few days until they are extracted. Our hats go off to the United States drillers who accomplished the feat in record time.