Brushes with history

Was lying in the backseat of an African-American sgt’s Ford sedan, covered with a blanket, the way that he advised, in Birmingham a block from the Sunday school bombing, when I was hitchhiking down to New Orleans.

Was getting ready to take the bus towards France after telling my bosses that the Soviets would not invade Dubcek’s Czechoslovakia, just before the tanks came in.

Was heading out of Monterey for a visit to the east coast the weekend Janis and Jimi started playing at the Pop Festival.

Was in the 10th grade remembering when I lived near Greensboro listening to the complaints about northerners causing trouble at the dimestore lunch counter.

Was coding in Pascal on my Lisa, transferring the executables over a RS232 connection to my 128K Mac as I readied the thermodynamics tutorial for the Stanford campus Mac rollout.

Was watching McGovern give a speech in Baltimore wondering how he got the nomination so easily, and then had everything fall apart as the autumn campaign against Nixon started.

Was watching the full moon out the window in Germany with the TV showing grainy pictures from the guys on the moon.

Was listening to the radio in the storage room while all the cadets in my Virginia military college were getting ready to enlist the next day, as Kennedy made his speech announcing the blockade.

Had just seen the billboards near the Texas border: “K.O. the Kennedys” with rifle sights printed over their faces, when I heard the news.

Was stubbornly doing the 4th assignment of my Stanford programming class on my Apple IIE watching it take 7 hours to compile, as the first student doing the course on a micro.

Was watching TV in a bar in Oaxaca with expats and mexican friends when Roberts messed up on the swearing in.

Was listening to KSAN-FM play "the wicked witch is dead" for a couple hours straight on the day J. Edgar passed on.

The New Four Freedoms (Republican Style)

Remember the Bill of Rights. Remember Roosevelt’s four freedoms. No one talks about the four new (non family-friendly) freedoms that we have these days. (Note: Freedom to get health care is not one of them):

1. Freedom to think ignorant stuff. You wanna be dumb, just do it. We don’t really care if you get educated. Just repeat everything on talk radio. Teaching you to read books woulda cost us plenty.

2. Freedom to do stupid stuff. Run away, take drugs and booze, hang out with weird people. Lie around homeless. Go psychotic. Whatever. Just don’t bug us or try to get anything we’ve got. You aren’t family. We don’t need to help you.

3. Freedom to get sick. Just lie there. By the freeway entrance. In the park. It's ok with us. We use hand cleaner. Its cheaper than medicine for everyone.

4. And biggest of all: Freedom to Die. Anytime you want, anyway you want. But don’t expect us to bury you. Not in our plots, whatda you think, you’re family?