Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Time	Event
12:18a	Two months later, we finally had a honeymoon in... Two months later, we finally had a honeymoon in Acapulco, an unusual one, with Hillarys whole family and the girlfriend of one of her brothers alongWe all spent a week together in a beautiful penthouse suite, walking on the beach, enjoying the restaurantsI know it was different, but we had a great timeI adored Hillarys mother, Dorothy, and enjoyed spending time with her father and brothers, playing pinochle and swapping storiesLike me, they were storytellers, and all of them could spin a good yarn I read one book in Acapulco, Ernest Beckers The Denial of Deathheavy reading for a honeymoon, but I was only a year older than my father was when he died, and I had just taken a big stepIt seemed like a good time to keep exploring the meaning of life According to Becker, as we grow up, at some point we become aware of death, then the fact that people we know and love die, then the fact that someday we, too, will dieMost of us do what we can to avoid itMeanwhile, in ways we understand only dimly if at all, we embrace identities and the illusion of self-sufficiencyWe cartier pasha watch pursue activities, both positive and negative, that we hope will lift us beyond the chains of ordinary existence and perhaps endure after we are goneAll this we do in a desperate push against the certainty that death is our ultimate destinySome of us seek power and wealth, others romantic love, sex, or some other indulgenceSome want to be great, others to do good and be goodWhether we succeed or fail, we are still going to dieThe only solace, of course, is to believe that since we were created, there must be a Creator, one to whom we matter and will in some way return Where does Beckers analysis leave us? He concludes: Who knows what form the forward momentum of life will take in the time aheadThe most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion somethingan object or ourselvesand drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life forceErnest Becker died shortly before The Denial of Death was published, but he seemed to have met Immanuel Kants test of life: How to occupy properly that place in creation that is assigned to man, and how to chanel jumbo learn from it what one must be in order to be a manIve spent a lifetime trying to do thatBeckers book helped convince me it was an effort worth making In December, I had another political decision to makeMany of my supporters wanted me to run for Congress againThe debt was paid off, and they wanted a rematchI thought Congressman Hammerschmidt would be harder to beat this time, even if Jimmy Carter won the partys nominationMore important, I had lost my desire to go to Washington; I wanted to stay in ArkansasAnd I was getting more interested in state government, thanks in part to the opportunity Attorney General Jim Guy Tucker had given me to write a brief to the USupreme Court on behalf of our state in an antitrust case involving the setting of interest rates on credit cardsJim Guy was running for Congress, for the seat vacated by the retirement of Wilbur Mills, so the attorney generals job would be open and it had a lot of appeal for me While I was mulling it over, my friend David Edwards, who was working for Citibank, called and asked us to go to Haiti with himHe chanel j12 said he had enough frequent flier miles built up to pay for our tickets, and he wanted to give us the trip as a wedding presentBarely a week after we returned from Mexico, we were off again By late 1975, Papa Doc Duvalier had passed from the scene, succeeded by his son, a portly young man whom everybody called Baby DocWe saw him one day when he drove across the big square from his official residence in Port-au-Prince to lay a wreath at the monument to Haitian independence, a statue of a powerful freed slave blowing on a conchHis security force, the infamous Tontons Macoutes, were everywhere, and intimidating with their sunglasses and machine guns The Duvaliers had managed to dominate, pillage, and mismanage Haiti until it was the poorest county in our hemispherePort-au-Prince was still beautiful in places but had the feel of faded gloryI remember especially the frayed carpeting and broken pews in the National CathedralDespite the politics and poverty, I found the Haitians fascinatingThey seemed lively and intelligent, and they produced beautiful folk art and see by chloe bag captivating musicI marveled at the way so many of them seemed not only to survive but to enjoy life I was particularly intrigued by the voodoo religion and culture to which I had had some limited exposure in New Orleans, and that existed alongside Catholicism in Haiti The name of the traditional Haitian religion comes from the Fon language of Benin in West Africa, where voodoo originatedIt means God or spirit, without the connotations of black magic and witchcraft attached to it in so many moviesVoodoos central ritual is a dance during which spirits possess believersOn the most interesting day of the trip, I got the chance to observe voodoo in practiceDavids Citibank contact in Port-au-Prince offered to take him, Hillary, and me to a nearby village to meet an unusual voodoo priestMax Beauvoir had spent fifteen years outside Haiti, studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and working in New YorkHe had a beautiful blond French wife and two bright young daughtersHe had been a practicing chemical engineer until his voodoo-priest grandfather, on his deathbed, chose Max to succeed chanel black handbags him (Comment on this)
12:19a	It would probably be the middle of November at... It would probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November was three months offThree months comprised thirteen weeksMuch might happen in thirteen weeks Sir Thomas would have been deeply mortified by a suspicion of half that his daughters felt on the subject of his return, and would hardly have found consolation in a knowledge of the interest it excited in the breast of another young ladyMiss Crawford, on walk95 Jane Austen ing up with her brother to spend the evening at Mansfield Park, heard the good news; and though seeming to have no concern in the affair beyond politeness, and to have vented all her feelings in a quiet congratulation, heard it with an attention not so easily satisfiedNorris gave the particulars of the letters, and the subject was dropt; but after tea, as Miss Crawford was standing at an open window with Edmund and Fanny looking out on a twilight scene, while the Miss Bertrams, MrRushworth, and Henry Crawford were all busy with candles at the pianoforte, she suddenly revived it by turning round towards the group, and saying, “How happy Mr Rushworth dior china looks! He is thinking of November Edmund looked round at MrRushworth too, but had nothing to say “Your father’s return will be a very interesting event “It will, indeed, after such an absence; an absence not only long, but including so many dangers “It will be the forerunner also of other interesting events: your sister’s marriage, and your taking orders “Don’t be affronted,” said she, laughing, “but it does put me in mind of some of the old heathen heroes, who, after performing great exploits in a foreign land, offered sacrifices to the gods on their safe return “There is no sacrifice in the case,” replied Edmund, with a serious smile, and glancing at the pianoforte again; “it is entirely her own doing “Oh yes I know it isShe has done no more than what every young woman would do; and I have no doubt of her being extremely happyMy other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand “My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria’s marrying “It is fortunate that your inclination and your father’s convenience should accord so wellThere is a very good living kept for you, purse logo I understand, hereabouts “Which you suppose has biassed me?” “But that I am sure it has not,” cried Fanny 96 Mansfield Park “Thank you for your good word, Fanny, but it is more than I would affirm myselfOn the contrary, the knowing that there was such a provision for me probably did bias meNor can I think it wrong that it shouldThere was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in lifeI hope I should not have been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too conscientious to have allowed itI have no doubt that I was biased, but I think it was blamelessly “It is the same sort of thing,” said Fanny, after a short pause, “as for the son of an admiral to go into the navy, or the son of a general to be in the army, and nobody sees anything wrong in thatNobody wonders that they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best, or suspects them to be less in earnest in it than they appear “No, my dear Miss Price, and for reasons goodThe profession, either lady dior bag navy or army, is its own justificationIt has everything in its favour: heroism, danger, bustle, fashionSoldiers and sailors are always acceptable in societyNobody can wonder that men are soldiers and sailors “But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of preferment may be fairly suspected, you think?” said Edmund“To be justified in your eyes, he must do it in the most complete uncertainty of any provision “What! take orders without a living! No; that is madness indeed; absolute madness “Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living nor without? No; for you certainly would not know what to sayBut I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from your own argumentAs he cannot be influenced by those feelings which you rank highly as temptation and reward to the soldier and sailor in their choice of a profession, as heroism, and noise, and fashion, are all against him, he ought to be less liable to the suspicion of wanting sincerity or good intentions in the choice of his “Oh! no doubt he is very sincere in preferring an chanel big income ready made, to the trouble of working for one; and has the best intentions 97 Jane Austen of doing nothing all the rest of his days but eat, drink, and grow fatIndolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymenA clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish— read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wifeHis curate does all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine “There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general characterI suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergyYou can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusivelyYou are speaking what you have been told at your uncle’s costume jewelry chanel tab (Comment on this)

<< Previous Day

2010/08/31 [Calendar]

Next Day >>