8.30.2013

still dreaming

On the southeast corner of Stone and Wetmore is a moveable sign of the sort often employed by churches and small businesses. It sits at the corner of what looks to be an office building, but seems to exist only to subject passerby to an often aggressive viewpoint, like an overgrown bumper sticker.

The first message I remember seeing on it was
NO INCUMBENTS
THROW THEM ALL OUT
Another memorable one - which stayed up for some time - was
PHX BRICKYARD SELLS 3RD QUALITY BRICKS
DON'T BUY EM
 

When I drove by this Monday, it read
MLK AUG 28 1963
50 YEARS AND WE'RE STILL DREAMING

 
Although the sign's rants often come off as paranoid and angry, this particular message resonated with me. I'm still dreaming, too, and I worry that fifty years is not half the time it'll take to rid this country of the prejudice that infects it.

8.17.2013

for brian

April 21, 1984 - August 10, 2013

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.