"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."
Walt Whitman (1819-92)
"When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break."
Akhenaton (d. c.1354 BC)
And now, the current weather, from some random person we pulled off the street:
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Get the Duct Tape
au-dac-i-ty Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English audacite, from Latin audac-, audax
1 : the quality or state of being audacious : as a : intrepid boldness b : bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints
2 : trying to impose a false reality on everyone around you, just because you want to
I hate to revisit the Dan Rather/CBS forged memo controversy yet again, but this time we have truly entered what can only be described as some sort of happy place that reality goes to when things are really, really warped.
Last night, Dan Rather interviewed Marion Carr Knox, the former Air National Guard secretary that would have typed the controversial memos for Jerry Killian. Here, you would think, we finally have secured the "horse's mouth" or as close to it as we could get.
"I know that I didn't type them..." she bluntly said.
"However," she added, "the information in them is correct."
Then she went even further, postulating that it might have been that someone who had access to some original memos recreated them. She was sure they weren't her's because they used the wrong format and wrong terminology, but that didn't bother her because that was how they all "felt." (No, I'm not making this up! Check the link if you like.)
Dan Rather says that it doesn't matter if the documents are forged or not, because it was the "heart of the story" that was important.
Besides, Dan Rather is the "most trusted man in America."
After doing four and a half years worth of research into this matter this week, this blog has obtained copies of a memo from Dan Rather's secret file. We were going to fax it to ourselves to make it even more authentic, but only having one fax machine couldn't figure out how to do that. Here is the memo:
After presenting myself with investigating this memo, I can definitively say that I my source didn't type it. I my source always uses Times New Roman typeface, and it's in the wrong format. We have experts that will assert that yes, that is a real signature. And it couldn't have been typed on my computer because, well, just because.
So maybe this is just a recreation from someone who saw the original memo? Yeah, that's the ticket.
In any event, it's the heart of the matter that's important, right, Dan?
OK, now excuse me while I duct tape my head.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)
