"Just a quicky!" as the Actress said to the Bishop....
But already I am a day late... this will be registered as an entry of Friday 13th February... however, on the other side of the channel it is still Darwin's 200th Birthday, for the next 50 minutes or so, and for the next few hours on the other side of the atlantic it is still Lincoln's 200th Birthday.
I cannot think of two other blokes, born so far apart, on the same day, that can have had such a profound effect on the future, in their own time, and subsequently in the history of mankind as Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln.
And to think of the enormity of their works and the connection between those major works.
One; the Origin of Species suggesting we all descend from the same origin and Two; The Emancipation Proclamation saying in effect all men are equal and one should not be enslaved to another.... if I grasped correctly what I read so many years ago...
And furthermore, these ideas are still being challenged today. One only has to witness the refusal of entry into the United Kingdom on the 12th Feb., yesterday, of Geert Wilders. A Netherlands politician. A member of the European Union. I have to consider this a little more.
Are we right to refuse entry to someone who is alledged to incite racial disharmony or are we right to allow him entry to speak his mind; to give him the right to free speech, however much we may disagree with him?
Churchill said, (to paraphrase the great man...) Jaw jaw is better than war war.
...must dash, I can feel a glass of Havana Club Anejo Especial coming on; shame I'm not allowed to smoke my Havana cigars in my own house - they'll go off soon.
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