February 12, 1809

Today is a very special day. What makes today different from all other days? No, we don't eat only unleavened bread and dip twice. Rather, today, is the 197th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. That is what you call one of them auspicious days. These two men being my favorite two people ever, I am observing this as a private holliday. Abe and Chuck represent two opposite life trajectories, creating two different people in almost every possible way. Abe, the poor, ill-educated, yet ambitious lawyer-turned-politician was an eloquent and faithful man given to fits of great depression and brilliant passion. Darwin was rich and indolent, well educated at first at Cambridge, then Edinburgh (finally going with divinty by default, after failing medicine and finding law unrewarding), finally going on the Beagle Voyage largely at the urging of friends and family who were tired on him lying around the place, not lacking for patience he wouldn't publish the Origin of Species until he was 50, the Beagle set sail when he was 26. They became symbols for the two things best about our civilization (such as it is): Freedom and Science. The idea that no one may be kept from their rightful human dignity, and that reason when applied to the universe and it's contents yield understandings more profound than any petty mythology. Of course a solid half the nation--doubts the value of both men, if not generally rejects them outright. One hundred and ninety-seven years, and still we're caching up. That's a shame.
And remember, don't fuck with Darwin, he has a posse.