I’m writing to you from a unique position on this bright Monday – sitting on an exercise ball instead of in my usual chair at my usual desk. And there-in lies a bit of a story – and some stuff I learned which I’d like to share with you.
For the past few weeks, I’ve had a nagging issue with my sciatica – a catch in my lower back that is sometimes acutely painful and sometimes merely uncomfortable. I tried to rest – though it wasn’t easy to find a relaxing position. I tried stretching – using some excellent stretches shown by my former massage therapist. I tried swimming, walking, and being active to loosen up this nasty tightness.
All those – and liberal use of ibuprofen – helped some. But the nagging ache continued.
I knew from past experience that massage would help a great deal – but my regular massage therapist has moved out of town and is no longer doing massage. I’ve been going to Karen for several years, and I was out of touch with other massage therapists in my community. What to do, what to do? Mostly my plan was to hope it might just go away on its own – but my hope was not terribly strong.
Then at our monthly writers group meeting, Brenda, whose work doesn’t allow her to join us very often, mentioned that she also is a licensed massage therapist. Hooray! It took a little juggling for the two of us to schedule a session, but you can imagine that my hope level was certainly rising.
And with good reason. In addition to an excellent massage, Brenda gave me several great suggestions for helping my sciatica to heal – and to prevent it from coming back. And that’s what I want to share with you! Even if you’re not troubled by this particular issue – or haven’t been yet – you might find these stretches and ideas useful.
· Sit on an exercise ball. In addition to distributing one’s weight in a way that a chair can’t do, an exercise ball gives your butt a massage as you sit. Brenda tells me that some kids with ADHD can even go off their medications if they are allowed to sit on a ball at school. Interesting! Brenda urged me to find a lower surface for my keyboard and try sitting on a ball while I work. I’m still getting used to that process and I’m not yet sure ball-sitting would work for me every single day. But I can tell you that I haven’t stopped bouncing and swaying all through this message – so apparently I’m massaging while I’m messaging. And so far, it feels pretty good!
· After sitting a long time or while you’re traveling, find a set of stairs. Stand with just one foot on the step and let your other leg and foot just hang – while you hold onto the rail for balance! Sitting shortens a muscle in the groin, Brenda says, and this exercise helps lengthen it again. Let one leg hang for a minute and then turn around and let the other hang.
· Brenda reminded me about using a tennis ball to help relax and stretch one’s feet. Just rolling your foot around on it feels great. A physical therapist once told me that some people with plantar fasciitis find it helpful to freeze a water bottle and roll that under their foot. Apparently not everyone likes that much cold, but it’s been a great thing for me to do.
· Brenda also suggested lying on the floor and putting your feet up on a chair, couch, or whatever you have handy. She says it’s relaxing, and it helps your back realign itself.
As I was leaving – quite relaxed and feeling more limber than I had in days – Brenda gave me a tour of her tiny – and miraculous – garden. I mentioned that my former massage therapist was big into gardening too. Brenda twinkled. “It’s that nurturing thing,” she said.
Which leads me to another tip – from me this time. Find your own nurturing, gardening therapist and make an appointment soon! Not only will it feel great, but just imagine what you might learn!
May you feel nurtured – and bouncy – this week!
Sally
Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Monday Moment - A Film That Made Me Think
I saw a movie over the weekend that I’d like to recommend - Charlie Wilson’s War. It’s a story populated with larger than life characters and a fascinating piece of our country’s history that was completely unknown to me before.
For those of you who haven’t seen the film – and I’m guessing most of you are far more up-to-the-minute than I regarding popular culture – I’ll do a quick recap.
Charlie Wilson was an actual US Congressman from Texas – a playboy who seemed mostly interested in whiskey, women, and fun. He represented a district where constituents were mostly interested in religion and guns and therefore didn’t need or want him to do much for them. So he felt free to make himself agreeable to other members of Congress – and collected a lot of favors owed.
One constituent, the fifth wealthiest woman in Texas and a former Cotton Bowl Queen – both of which got Charlie’s attention – did, however, espouse a cause for which she wanted Charlie’s help. Joanne H wanted the United States to help Afghanistan defeat the Soviet invasion of 1980. Ultra-right wing, Christian fundamentalist, rich enough to not have a care in the world, Joanne had deep passion for the plight of Afghanis dealing with Soviet atrocities in their country. And if she and Charlie could kick some Communist butt in the meantime, so much the better.
Long story short – that’s what happened. Charlie Wilson called in his favors and raised appropriations to Afghanistan from $5 to $250 million, brokered an arms deal between very unlikely players in the middle east – all of which led to the defeat and withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the eventual demise of the USSR as we knew it.
What Charlie Wilson was not able to do was to generate support to help rebuild Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew. According to the film and dvd interviews, he tried to muster Congressional support to build schools – especially considering that the war had left a huge population of Afghanistan under the age of 14. The film ends with his quote, paraphrased “We did grand and glorious things and the world changed – and we messed up the end game.”
It’s the end game I keep thinking about – how I and most Americans can be so oblivious about an area of the world that has turned out to have such a huge impact on us, how willing our government was to purchase guns, how unwilling it was to prevent the vacuum that allowed the Taliban to take power, how insular governmental and charity giving seems to have been about this issue.
Some months ago I wrote about Greg Mortensen’s attempts to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan – all with charitable donations (Three Cups of Tea). Where, I wonder, has Mrs. Rich Texan been in that effort? When the government wouldn’t allocate $1million to build schools, did Charlie imagine asking Mrs. Rich Texan to support that effort?
I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I know where some of my charitable giving will go in future months and years. I wish I’d known – and comprehended - the need years ago. Now that my awareness if not my full understanding has been raised, I can’t in conscience not seek out ways to help provide a positive future for Afghani children. I wish my motivation were more altruistic, but in truth I see it only as enlightened self-interest.
May you find a cause that fires your belly in the week ahead.
Sally
For those of you who haven’t seen the film – and I’m guessing most of you are far more up-to-the-minute than I regarding popular culture – I’ll do a quick recap.
Charlie Wilson was an actual US Congressman from Texas – a playboy who seemed mostly interested in whiskey, women, and fun. He represented a district where constituents were mostly interested in religion and guns and therefore didn’t need or want him to do much for them. So he felt free to make himself agreeable to other members of Congress – and collected a lot of favors owed.
One constituent, the fifth wealthiest woman in Texas and a former Cotton Bowl Queen – both of which got Charlie’s attention – did, however, espouse a cause for which she wanted Charlie’s help. Joanne H wanted the United States to help Afghanistan defeat the Soviet invasion of 1980. Ultra-right wing, Christian fundamentalist, rich enough to not have a care in the world, Joanne had deep passion for the plight of Afghanis dealing with Soviet atrocities in their country. And if she and Charlie could kick some Communist butt in the meantime, so much the better.
Long story short – that’s what happened. Charlie Wilson called in his favors and raised appropriations to Afghanistan from $5 to $250 million, brokered an arms deal between very unlikely players in the middle east – all of which led to the defeat and withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the eventual demise of the USSR as we knew it.
What Charlie Wilson was not able to do was to generate support to help rebuild Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew. According to the film and dvd interviews, he tried to muster Congressional support to build schools – especially considering that the war had left a huge population of Afghanistan under the age of 14. The film ends with his quote, paraphrased “We did grand and glorious things and the world changed – and we messed up the end game.”
It’s the end game I keep thinking about – how I and most Americans can be so oblivious about an area of the world that has turned out to have such a huge impact on us, how willing our government was to purchase guns, how unwilling it was to prevent the vacuum that allowed the Taliban to take power, how insular governmental and charity giving seems to have been about this issue.
Some months ago I wrote about Greg Mortensen’s attempts to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan – all with charitable donations (Three Cups of Tea). Where, I wonder, has Mrs. Rich Texan been in that effort? When the government wouldn’t allocate $1million to build schools, did Charlie imagine asking Mrs. Rich Texan to support that effort?
I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I know where some of my charitable giving will go in future months and years. I wish I’d known – and comprehended - the need years ago. Now that my awareness if not my full understanding has been raised, I can’t in conscience not seek out ways to help provide a positive future for Afghani children. I wish my motivation were more altruistic, but in truth I see it only as enlightened self-interest.
May you find a cause that fires your belly in the week ahead.
Sally
Monday, July 14, 2008
Monday Moment - Treating Myself to a Times
Yesterday I treated myself to a Sunday New York Times. Now that doesn’t sound like much of a treat – unless you’ve read a Sunday Times lately. What a window on the world!
There’s a window on a world I don’t know – the Chanel platform pump priced at $975. The ad only showed one and used the singular as I just did – but surely you get two shoes for that price? Especially since the design was so unusual that you’d surely wear them only ever so occasionally.
There’s a window on films and plays that makes what is offered at my local Cineplex (to which I hardly ever get anyway) look paltry and pathetic in comparison. And the window on New York Society – well there’s another world I will never know. And I put the book review section aside so I can’t yet imagine all the windows that might open up for me!
I confess that I skimmed, rather than read, the greater number of articles in the Times. But two articles really caught my attention – start to finish.
The first was about bicycling in Paris – and tapped into a belief that people will make healthy and positive environmental choices when it is easy to do so. The city of Paris has contracted with an independent supplier who has established bicycle rental kiosks all over the city – and especially close to Metro stops. Folks can subscribe to unlimited half-hour trips which allows most commuters to get to their destination and turn in the bike at the conveniently located kiosk nearby – all for about $50 a year. And people do use the bikes! A lot! You can rent the bikes by the day or by the hour too, but for commuting they have various subscription plans that make it easy and enjoyable to use bikes instead of cars. Brilliant!
Naturally there are some kinks. Traffic is too congested in parts of Paris to ride safely on a bike, and helmets are not yet required. But what a terrific notion – to make it easy to get exercise and reduce emissions! Seems like it could be a window of opportunity!
The second article had to do with a public health doctor attempting to convince the 96% of the citizens of an African country that they should use soap when washing their hands. Since I spend a fair amount of effort teaching benefits of handwashing to child care staff, kids, and anyone I can – I was fascinated with her approach. She found that just telling people that their hands carried germs wasn’t enough to change their behavior. So she went to Madison Avenue to find out how the marketers convince us to use toothpaste twice a day, use deodorant, and spray Febreze on our upholstery to finish a room cleaning ritual. All these are habits that advertising has helped shape in us – like washing our hands with soap.
Seems like the advertising folks know what they’re doing. After their campaign – which included making bathroom activity seem gross and disgusting – there has been a significant gain in washing hands with soap. Now that we know how to do it in Africa, maybe we can learn how to do it here too. Check out my favorite hand-washing website www.henrythehand.com for some tips on how to avoid infecting others and yourself with unwashed hands!
All that interesting information – and a lot more – just from treating myself to a New York Times. I recommend it! Oh and by the way – I haven’t finished the crossword yet, but I plan to tonight!
May you enjoy whatever treat you’d most like this week!
Sally
There’s a window on a world I don’t know – the Chanel platform pump priced at $975. The ad only showed one and used the singular as I just did – but surely you get two shoes for that price? Especially since the design was so unusual that you’d surely wear them only ever so occasionally.
There’s a window on films and plays that makes what is offered at my local Cineplex (to which I hardly ever get anyway) look paltry and pathetic in comparison. And the window on New York Society – well there’s another world I will never know. And I put the book review section aside so I can’t yet imagine all the windows that might open up for me!
I confess that I skimmed, rather than read, the greater number of articles in the Times. But two articles really caught my attention – start to finish.
The first was about bicycling in Paris – and tapped into a belief that people will make healthy and positive environmental choices when it is easy to do so. The city of Paris has contracted with an independent supplier who has established bicycle rental kiosks all over the city – and especially close to Metro stops. Folks can subscribe to unlimited half-hour trips which allows most commuters to get to their destination and turn in the bike at the conveniently located kiosk nearby – all for about $50 a year. And people do use the bikes! A lot! You can rent the bikes by the day or by the hour too, but for commuting they have various subscription plans that make it easy and enjoyable to use bikes instead of cars. Brilliant!
Naturally there are some kinks. Traffic is too congested in parts of Paris to ride safely on a bike, and helmets are not yet required. But what a terrific notion – to make it easy to get exercise and reduce emissions! Seems like it could be a window of opportunity!
The second article had to do with a public health doctor attempting to convince the 96% of the citizens of an African country that they should use soap when washing their hands. Since I spend a fair amount of effort teaching benefits of handwashing to child care staff, kids, and anyone I can – I was fascinated with her approach. She found that just telling people that their hands carried germs wasn’t enough to change their behavior. So she went to Madison Avenue to find out how the marketers convince us to use toothpaste twice a day, use deodorant, and spray Febreze on our upholstery to finish a room cleaning ritual. All these are habits that advertising has helped shape in us – like washing our hands with soap.
Seems like the advertising folks know what they’re doing. After their campaign – which included making bathroom activity seem gross and disgusting – there has been a significant gain in washing hands with soap. Now that we know how to do it in Africa, maybe we can learn how to do it here too. Check out my favorite hand-washing website www.henrythehand.com for some tips on how to avoid infecting others and yourself with unwashed hands!
All that interesting information – and a lot more – just from treating myself to a New York Times. I recommend it! Oh and by the way – I haven’t finished the crossword yet, but I plan to tonight!
May you enjoy whatever treat you’d most like this week!
Sally
Monday, July 7, 2008
Monday Moment - A Deeper Pursuit of Fun
It was a weekend of revelry – with friends and family too seldom seen and complete with the brilliance of talented young musicians, fireworks, and abundant sunshine! Add in the guilty pleasures of pig on a plate, and you’ve got a pretty accurate vision of my July 4th weekend! Fun!
My own experiences of Independence Day are largely focused on fun. When I was a kid, my family swam, picnicked, and shielded my tender ears and eyes from the fireworks’ biggest bangs. In my teen years, my folks and I went to a small town that was famous for its colony of Swedish settlers – and a great 4th of July parade. Our first year there, the parade perplexed us. It was a good long parade that started looking familiar after a while. Turns out, all the bands, floats, and candy-throwing cars circled the parade route twice! Why settle for fun when you could have twice the fun?
While working at the National 4-H Center after college, I – and about 600 4-H kids – gaped at the sights we’d only seen on postcards and television as bright blooms of fire burst over all the Monuments that can be seen from the roof of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I had the privilege to experience our country’s bi-centennial in a small Kansas town. And I’ve had a front row seat at the edge of Canandaigua Lake while the crowd behind me couldn’t contain their oohs and ahhs at the beauty in front of them.
Fun!
I’m not sure when I set the goal to read the Declaration of Independence start to finish on July 4th – and I certainly can’t claim to have remembered my goal every year since I set it. But when I have remembered, I found that reading those amazing words, remembering the radical and yet rational steps those guys took in Philadelphia, and all that has been done (and all those who have done it) to protect those principles – well it all just deepens my fun.
And in the hopes that it might turn out that way for you too (with apologies to anyone who might be getting a duplicate on this topic), I offer it here – with the hopes that you also had a July 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th full of good fun, good folk, and food – and that your summer will be rich in the pursuit of fun!
Sally
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
My own experiences of Independence Day are largely focused on fun. When I was a kid, my family swam, picnicked, and shielded my tender ears and eyes from the fireworks’ biggest bangs. In my teen years, my folks and I went to a small town that was famous for its colony of Swedish settlers – and a great 4th of July parade. Our first year there, the parade perplexed us. It was a good long parade that started looking familiar after a while. Turns out, all the bands, floats, and candy-throwing cars circled the parade route twice! Why settle for fun when you could have twice the fun?
While working at the National 4-H Center after college, I – and about 600 4-H kids – gaped at the sights we’d only seen on postcards and television as bright blooms of fire burst over all the Monuments that can be seen from the roof of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I had the privilege to experience our country’s bi-centennial in a small Kansas town. And I’ve had a front row seat at the edge of Canandaigua Lake while the crowd behind me couldn’t contain their oohs and ahhs at the beauty in front of them.
Fun!
I’m not sure when I set the goal to read the Declaration of Independence start to finish on July 4th – and I certainly can’t claim to have remembered my goal every year since I set it. But when I have remembered, I found that reading those amazing words, remembering the radical and yet rational steps those guys took in Philadelphia, and all that has been done (and all those who have done it) to protect those principles – well it all just deepens my fun.
And in the hopes that it might turn out that way for you too (with apologies to anyone who might be getting a duplicate on this topic), I offer it here – with the hopes that you also had a July 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th full of good fun, good folk, and food – and that your summer will be rich in the pursuit of fun!
Sally
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
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