Two Years before the Mast

-
Source: weskit.us

I read Richard Henry Dana's Two Years before the Mast in high school, and I have to say it changed my life. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Language Redeemed

-
Image
A lot of—maybe most—people used to think of Afrikaans as the language of Apartheid. Perhaps some still do . There's nothing about the language that makes it inherently evil, obviously. It, like English, is simply a West Germanic language with lots of borrowing from outside. Despite all the borrowing, however, it and the Dutch language are still mutually intelligible... and few people think of Dutch as a language of oppression, even though both Dutch and Afrikaans sound quite guttural to English-speaking ears. So a language whose vocabulary has been utilized to enforce brutality can also be used to express feelings such as love and tenderness. And if a language can be used to separate people according to ethnicity, it can also be used to unite people of different backgrounds. So please watch this video of South Africa's Stellenbosch University Choir—unable to rehearse or
Read more

If You Have an Enemy

-
Image
A naturalist, who has reared several bear-cubs, says, "If you have an enemy, give him a bear-cub. His punishment will be adequate, no matter what his offense." But the young farmer and his wife did not think so, and as for the baby who was now learning to walk, "Bar-Bar," as he called the young bruin, was a never-ending source of delight. —from Black Bruin (1908) by Clarence Hawkes
Read more

Annual Fight Song Post

-
Image
It's that time of year again, so I have once again ranked the principle fight songs of the Louisville Cardinals and their opponents this fall. In all honesty, I rather suspect that the football season will be canceled, but I'll leave this post up for posterity's sake regardless of what happens. And, we're off... 1. A recent poll was taken among people whose opinions count the most in these matters, and coming in at first place is everybody's favorite, Fight! UofL , Louisville's Greater Fight Song (that's my name for it—the Lesser, which is actually even better, is called Hail UofL ... see below). It is nothing if not worthy of the red birds and white squirrels which it so ably promotes. So with the rest of the civilized world, I shout, Go Cards ! 2. Pittsburgh is one of those schools whose main fight song is difficult to determine. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, however, and chose Hail to
Read more