It comes to light that 1,300 Texas residents who reside within 135 miles of New Mexico State University, which is in Las Cruces 46 miles from El Paso, may attend NMSU and have their non-resident tuition waived — a savings of about $4,000. According to a report by the Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico is subsidizing Texas students in an amount almost equal to what it provides in financial aid to New Mexico’s own neediest students.
Day: January 19, 2004
The sanctity of wasting good money
Mitch Albom is back from vacation.
$1.5 billion to “promote marriage?”
How exactly does a government that can’t get people to conserve gas, save water, stop using drugs or put away the pornography get its citizens to put rings on their fingers?
It can’t. It doesn’t. And it won’t.
The Raven
The Raven and other works of Poe on-line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more.”
Poetry and tales
Should your own library be sadly deficient for Edgar Allan Poe, the University of Virginia’s E-Book Library has a number of his works in various electronic formats. See in particular Browse E-Books By Author–“P”.
Edgar Allan Poe…
was born in Boston on this date in 1809 but moved to Richmond as a small child. According to the Poe Museum
After attending schools in England and Richmond, young Poe registered at the University of Virginia on February 14, 1826, the second session of the University. He lived in Room 13, West Range. He became an active member of the Jefferson Literary Society, and passed his courses with good grades at the end of the session in December. Mr. Allan [Poe’s foster father] failed to give him enough money for necessary expenses, and Poe made debts of which his so-called father did not approve. When Mr. Allan refused to let him return to the University, a quarrel ensued, and Poe was driven from the Allan home without money. Mr. Allan probably sent him a little money later, and Poe went to Boston. There he published a little volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. It is such a rare book now that a single copy has sold for $200,000.
The Poe Museum biography continues the story.
Robert E. Lee…
was born in Stratford, Virginia, on this date in 1807, the son of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee.
In 1810 the Lee family moved to Alexandria, then in the District of Columbia. The Lee’s lived first at 611 Cameron, but from 1811 or 1812 at 607 Oronoco.
Lee graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1829, second in his class and reputedly the only cadet to this day to have no demerits on his record. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great granddaughter of Martha Washington, at Arlington House in 1831. Arlington House was in the District of Columbia from the time it was constructed until 1847 when the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia was receded to Virginia.
So, although Lee supposedly supported preservation of the Union that his father and uncles had helped create and opposed slavery, and although his residence had been in Virginia no more than 17 of his 54 years, in 1861 he turned down command of the Union forces to remain loyal to Virginia. I suggest that nullified his record of no demerits.
Appropriately enough Lee’s strategic vision was limited to the Virginia theater. This shortcoming, common among the Confederate leadership, contributed significantly to the rebellion’s ultimate failure.
After the surrender at Appomattox Court House Lee was a prisoner of war but paroled. He returned to Richmond. He was indicted for treason but, with the support of Grant argued that the parole superseded any prosecution. On June 13, 1865, Lee wrote to General Grant about the parole and to President Johnson to request a pardon under the requirements of Johnson’s amnesty proclamation.
Richmond, Virginia, June 13, 1865.
Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, Commanding the Armies of the United States.
General: Upon reading the President’s proclamation of the 29th ult., I came to Richmond to ascertain what was proper or required of me to do, when I learned that, with others, I was to be indicted for treason by the grand jury at Norfolk. I had supposed that the officers and men of the Army of Northern Virginia were, by the terms of their surrender, protected by the United States Government from molestation so long as they conformed to its conditions. I am ready to meet any charges that may be preferred against me, and do not wish to avoid trial; but, if I am correct as to the protection granted by my parole, and am not to be prosecuted, I desire to comply with the provisions of the President’s proclamation, and, therefore, inclose the required application, which I request, in that event, may be acted on. I am, with great respect,
Your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE.Richmond, Virginia, June 13, 1865.
His Excellency Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States.Sir: Being excluded from the provisions of the amnesty and pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th ult., I hereby apply for the benefits and full restoration of all rights and privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Military Academy at West Point in June, 1829; resigned from the United States Army, April, 1861; was a general in the Confederate Army, and included in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, April 9, 1865. I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE.
Possibly due to clerical error concerning the requirement for a loyalty oath (Lee’s 1865 oath was lost until 1970) Lee was never individually pardoned. Nor was he prosecuted for treason. His citizenship was restored in 1975 in conformance with his original appeal to Johnson.
Lee was offered and accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee) and served from September 1865 until his death in October 1870.
Lee’s letter accepting appointment to United States Military Academy.
Matthew Brady photo of Lee a few days after the surrender.
From Douglas Southall Freeman’s 4-volume biography of Lee.
General Lee was returning to his camp and was close to it when he met a cavalcade in blue and was greeted with a cheery “good morning, General” from a bearded man, who removed his cap as he spoke. For the moment Lee did not recognize the speaker, but the latter recalled himself as none other than George Gordon Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and an old friend of kindly days.
“But what are you doing with all that gray in your beard?” Lee asked.
“You have to answer for most of it!” Meade magnanimously replied.
Iowa’s decision huge, until maybe tomorrow
Dave Barry reports from Iowa
This actually happened here, according to a Des Moines Register story that I swear I am not making up. A woman named DeAnna Rankins was working in a tax-preparation office, when a guy with a knife came in and demanded money. So Rankins grabbed a stapler — that’s correct: a stapler — and threatened him with it. And he ran away!
Rankins is quoted as saying: “I would have stapled him.”…
I’ll resume these reports Saturday from New Hampshire, the next crucial step in this strange — yet, at the same time, bizarre — process that we use to decide who should lead our nation.
Right now, I’m leaning toward DeAnna Rankins.
I Have A Dream
Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963
… I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”