Mister Flint

metiCulously carved
Human faces
intricate hIeroglyphs
filled with Combinations
of calligrapHic lines -
so-callEd bald, tall
and ecceNtric

mister flInt's jewels
were collecTed from
an idealiZed ruin
by European observers

thief
scholar
tall
bald
eccentric
so-called
Mister Flint

Cantata: the ancient astronomers

the heavens were a vast sphere, made of fire

dimidium ejus spati

for space was infinite and had no center

diapason

its base was the apparent disc of the sun
sixty times the equatorial radius of earth

a cone had its apex at the center of the earth
the distance to the moon and back

each planet lived in spheres numbered four

three spheres confined the moon

fere tantundem

he did not believe in the large parallax

in the region of the clouds and winds
the horizon equally divided the ecliptic

the homocentric spheres

sescuplum

why did the sun show no movement in lattitude?

diapason

the error disappeared at syzygy
in the pure and liquid air of continual light

dimidium

the shadow of the earth reached the sun's orbit
the planets continued gliding in their epicycles

in the lunar parallax
he observed the distances of zenith
at noon for three hundred stadia he saw no shadows

for space was infinite and had no center

dimidium

for space was a sphere, and earth was its center

diapason

Eudoxus
Hipparchus
Thales
Menelaus
Ptolemy
Kleomedes
Archimedes
Posidonius
Theon

A structural idea - time or space

layer 1) abcdea_b_c_d_e_a__b__c__d__e__
layer 2) a_b_c_d_e_a__b__c__d__e__abcde
layer 3) a__b__c__d__e__abcdea_b_c_d_e_


time/space --->

Daniel Webster on Military conscription

...Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?

Under what concealment has this power lain hidden which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty? Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life itself, not when the safety of their country and its liberties may demand the sacrifice, but whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it?

Sir, I almost disdain to go to quotations and references to prove that such an abominable doctrine has no foundation in the Constitution of the country. It is enough to know that that instrument was intended as the basis of a free government, and that the power contended for is incompatible with any notion of personal liberty. An attempt to maintain this doctrine upon the provisions of the Constitution is an exercise of perverse ingenuity to extract slavery from substance of a free government.