Abraham Lincoln

Here is an affecting little episode in Lincoln’s early boyhood. He was not always a god.

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On the first day of class, Abe appeared wearing a long, one-piece Lindsey shirt and, improbably, a sunbonnet. He returned home weeping because his schoolmates teased him. To spare him further humiliation, his mother braided a more masculine straw hat. The windowless, dirt-floored schoolhouse, situated about three miles from the Lincolns’ cabin, was made of rough logs forming little niches where the youngsters played hide-and-seek.

-- Michael Burlingame, “Abraham Lincoln: A Life”

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Marilyn French

"Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes."

-- Marilyn French

The VCR

This is the day that my old videotape recorder died. What we used to casually call the VCR, before the explosion of TV-entertainment technology left it behind with our vinyl records. I wonder: did I have it at Bay Horse, or did I get it when we moved here, before mother died? It's been a long time, whether it's fifteen years or twenty-five. I don't suppose I will be getting another one, despite the fact that I have a pretty big collection of porn on videocassettes taking up a lot of space in my closet. I am still not throwing them out, though. You never know: one day we may find ourselves stranded off the Internet, no longer able to afford the hardware and the cable connection, and it may then become worthwhile to look for a place that still sells VCRs. It would not make up for my loss of chikan videos, but at least I could get back to mostly fantasizing about lovely white women.