83

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people ... the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty ...Enlighten the people generally, & tyranny & oppressions of body & mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

Thomas Jefferson, who would turn 268 years old today if he wasn't so seriously dead. I doubt that he knows or cares off in the Blue Beyond or if his soul is animating another vessel – brown-skinned, I'd be willing to bet, if there is anything to the notion of karmic lessons – these days, that his birthday is shared by the outlaw Butch Cassidy, a.k.a. Robt. Leroy Parker. How I loved writing and illustrating a book about our 3rd President....It's my brother's birthday, too, my lost, derelict, frightening & upsetting, tragic brother. May the Gracious Spirit keep him safe and far away from me.