The Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most masterfully written state paper of Western civilization. As Moses Coit Tyler noted almost a century ago, no assessment of it can be complete without taking into account its extraordinary merits as a work of political prose style. Although many scholars have recognized those merits, there are surprisingly few sustained studies of the stylistic artistry of the Declaration. This essay seeks to illuminate that artistry by probing the discourse microscopically -- at the level of the sentence, phrase, word, and syllable. The University of Wisconsin's Dr. Stephen E. Lucas meticulously analyzes the elegant language of the 235-year-old charter in a distillation of
this comprehensive study.
More on the Declaration: full transcript and
ultra-high-resolution scan,
a transcript and scan of Jefferson's annotated rough draft,
the little-known royal rebuttal,
a thorough history of the parchment itself,
a peek at the archival process, a reading of the document
by the people of NPR and
by a group of prominent actors,
H. L. Mencken's "American" translation,
Slate's Twitter summaries, and
a look at the fates of the 56 signers.
posted by Rhaomi
on Jul 4, 2011 -
72 comments
There is
a bitter feud between the two women who are trying to gain supremacy in the battle to make all of the Tea Party's travel arrangements.
posted by reenum
on Aug 9, 2010 -
70 comments
Border Stories is a series of
short documentaries about life on the US-Mexican border, none longer than 6 minutes. The subjects are:
drug addicts on the border (warning: graphic images),
electronic music group Nortec Collective,
hospital costs of fence jumpers,
lonesome Minuteman,
Mexican emigrant safety patrolman,
ranchowners whose land is an immigration throughway,
US-raised 18 year-old sent back to Mexico,
virtual vigilantes,
two old men provide water in the desert,
dangers of journalism in Ciudad Juarez,
graveyard of US tires in Mexico,
drug ballads,
hardened border policy hurts cross-border community,
another cross-border community fears closing of footbridge,
working illegally in Laredo,
mayors of the two Laredos,
migrants' safe house,
hand-pulled ferry,
dentistry in Nuevo Progreso,
Brownsville high school teacher protests border fence,
golf course with the border on three sides &
fishermen on the mouth of the Rio Bravo. Border Stories also has a
blog about immigration issues.
posted by Kattullus
on May 21, 2009 -
18 comments
Demon Denim. Feeding off a earlier
column in the WSJ by Daniel Akst, who wrote, "no fabric has ever been so insidiously effective at undermining national discipline," conservative columnist George Will takes up the (denim-free) banner in the crusade to rid America of "the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche."
posted by Liver
on Apr 16, 2009 -
158 comments
"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
~
George Washington / "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."
~
Thomas Jefferson / "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
~
Abraham Lincoln / "A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." ~
James Madison / "I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice." ~
John F. Kennedy / "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus --
and nonbelievers." ~
Barack Obama
posted by 0bvious
on Jan 20, 2009 -
270 comments
