The Today Show crew does a loving testimonial for the new Apple laptop, the MacBook Air.
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What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.
Judge Learned Hand
Remarks are excerpted from a speech Hand gave at “I Am an American Day” in 1944. Hand was born on January 27 in 1872. Many consider Judge Hand the most influential American jurist to have not served on the Supreme Court.
Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge is a lengthy book review of the major legal biography of Hand. The 1961 obituary from Time is worthwhile.
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Chief Justice John Roberts is just 53 today.
The actor James Cromwell is 68. Among his many roles, Cromwell was the farmer in Babe. The role earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Who was the lead in that film — the pig?
Mikhail Baryshnikov is 60.
Sultry-voiced Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies is 47.
Peter Fonda’s daughter Bridget is 44.
Jerome Kern was born on this date in 1885.
Kern and his wife returned to America, where he enhanced the scores of European musicals and worked as a rehearsal pianist. Then he met Oscar Hammerstein II, who became a lifelong friend, and the two collaborated on Show Boat in 1927. This musical gave us the songs “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” In 1933, Kern and Hammerstein produced Roberta, which included the famous song “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”
Kern moved to Hollywood in 1935, and he enjoyed success there. He wrote “The Way You Look Tonight” for the movie Swing Time, and the song won an Academy Award. In 1941, Kern and Hammerstein wrote “The Last Time I Saw Paris” because Paris had just been occupied by Nazi Germany, and that song also won an Academy Award.
Kern died in 1945 with Hammerstein at his side. At the memorial service, Hammerstein said of his friend Jerome Kern, “He stimulated everyone. He annoyed some. He never bored anyone at any time.”
… was born in Salzburg on this date in 1756. Theophilus—or Gottlieb—or Amadé means “loved by God.” As an adult Mozart signed Wolfgang Amadé Mozart or simply Mozart. In the family he was known as Wolfgangerl or Woferl.
A delightful Mozart web site is Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, complete with music while you browse. Among other things, the site has an analysis of the truth and fiction in the wonderful film Amadeus. (It’s “Amadeus, an apologia” when you open the Biography section. The site is structured in a way that prevents a direct link.)
Fiction or not, watching Amadeus seems like a wonderful way to celebrate Mozart’s birthday.
Photographer’s Guide to New Mexico (and a little bit of Colorado).
It begins:
There are three cultures co-existing in New Mexico (if you read the middle third of my Summer 1994 travelogue then you might question the extent to which these actually co-exist). The Indians created interesting pueblos. The Spanish some impressive churches. The Anglos … mostly some houses that look like they could have been imported from Cleveland.
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This from Glenn Greenwald:
As it turns out, the South Carolina polls were even more inaccurate than the New Hampshire polls were, though that fact hasn’t received much attention because predicting the wrong winner (as the New Hampshire polls did) is a far more dramatic error than under-predicting the winner’s ultimate margin of victory (as the South Carolina polls did). But, mathematically speaking, the magnitude of the polling error is actually greater in South Carolina.
The average of the pre-New Hampshire polls showed Obama with an 8 point lead, and Clinton won by almost 3 points — a difference of 11 points. By contrast, the average of the pre-South Carolina polls showed Obama with an 11 point lead, and he won by 28 points — a difference of 17 points.
Greenwald thinks it was the racial campaigning by Bill Clinton that gave Obama the last-minute surge, just as it was the negative treatment by the press that gave Hillary her come from behind victory in New Hampshire.
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