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Showing posts from November, 2009

Thanks and Praise

Proclamation of Thanksgiving Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863 This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving. Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on 28, 1863, urging him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." She wrote, "You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution." The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

The Peace Sign

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Today I was driving in my jeep with the top down. Wearing my red bandanna and groovy sun glasses, I cruised flying high on an over pass. As I came down the ramp, I felt like I defined freedom. I wanted to throw my hands straight up in the air like I was on a ride at an amusement park, for safety sake, instead I let a primal scream soar up to the blue sky filled with billowing white clouds. The young man in the car behind me roared past me with his moon roof open. He must have felt it too, freedom. He stretched one hand high trough the open roof and gave me the peace sign. Ah, a kindred spirit I thought, smiling bright, I extended my left hand high waving "Peace" to my brother then I laughed uncontrollably. According to Wikipedia,the Peace sign or the "V" sign,or the “victory sign,” is a hand gesture with the index and middle fingers open and all others closed. It was used as a sign for victory during the Second World War by Winston Churchill, originally with palm in