Contents

The Columbian orator: containing a variety of original and selected pieces, together with rules, calculated to improve youth and others in the ornamental and useful art of eloquence [Titlepage] Contents Introduction General Directions for speaking Practical Pieces for Speaking Oration on Eloquence Washington's First Speech in Congress, 1789 Paulus Emilius to the Roman People Exhortation on Temperance in Pleasure Judah's Plea for Benjamin Before Joseph Plea of Thomas Muir at Trial in Scotland On the Starry Heavens Paper, a Poem Cato's Speech Before the Roman Senate Dialogue Between Duelist, Savage, and Mercury Indian Chief to the Massachusetts Congress, 1775 Creation of the World Lines Spoken by a Seven Year Old Boy Pitt's Speech on the Stamp Act, 1766 Scene from the Farce of Lethe Eulogy on Dr. Franklin, Paris, 1790 Epilogue to Addison's Cato Self Conceit, Lines Spoken by a Very Small Boy Dialogue Between Howard and Lester Christ's Crucifixion The Wonders of Nature Dialogue on Physiognomy Oration at the Festival of Gratitude, 1796 Address to the President of The United States President's Answer The Oppressive Landlord, a Dialogue Speech in the British Parliament, 1770 Sermon on the Day of Judgement Christ Triumphant over the Apostate Angels Slaves in Barbary, Drama in Two Acts Speech in the British Parliament, 1770 Defense Before his Accusers Dialogue on Cowardice and Knavery Speech in the British Parliament Cicero's Oration Against Catiline Description of the First American Congress French General to His Army Reflections over the Grave of a Young Man "Moses in the Bulrushes" Speech of a Roman General Speech in the British Parliament, 1784 Address to the People of the U. States Choice of Business for Life Speech of a French General Speech in the British Parliament, 1777 Dialogue Between a Schoolmaster and School-Committee Speech in the British Parliament, 1770 On the General Judgement Day On the Works of Creation and Providence Speech in the British Parliament, 1778 The Conjurer, a Dialogue Speech in the British Parliament, 1775 Speech of the Caledonian General to his Army Modern Education, a Dialogue On the Existence of God The Dignity of Human Nature Infernal Conference Speech in the British Parliament, 1777 On the Day of Judgement The Dissipated Oxford Student Oration on Independence, July 4, 1796 General Description America, a Poem Dialogue Between a Master and Slave Speech in the Irish Parliament Scene from the Tragedy of Tamerlane Speech in the British Parliament, The Last Day Dialogue on Loquacity American Sages Speech in the British Parliament, 1777 Scene from the tragedy of Cato Oration at Boston, July 4, 1794 Dialogue Between a White Man and Indian Oration at Boston, July 4, 1794 Dialogue Between Edward and Harry David and Goliath Oration on the Powers of Eloquence Dialogue on Civilization Oration on the Manumission of Slaves A Forensic Dispute Oration at Boston, March 5, 1780

The book that Frederick Douglass used to teach himself oratory.

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Why Wearing a Baseball Cap Backwards is Dumb

Thanks to Ron H. 

Update: One more.......

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There was an old Soviet joke that went:

“How are you doing?”

“About average–worse off than I was last year, but better off than I’ll be a year from now. So about average.”

I hope it doesn't happen here. But at this rate...

Ravitch, the author of the controversial 2010 book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, showed herself to be witty, personable, and well-practiced in the polemical arts. She has emerged as an unlikely champion of public school teachers, having once trumpeted, from her federal post and then from the conservative Hoover Institution’s task force on K–12 education, the very reform measures—charter schools and make-or-break standardized testing—she now deplores and that teachers’ unions have generally bemoaned. The reason for her change of perspective: research, she says. There’s simply no solid evidence attesting to benefits from “school choice” or from the use of testing to determine how a teacher is evaluated and a school is funded. Indeed, mounting evidence suggests that these policies are undermining public education, Ravitch said.

Not every assertion of hers was soothing to the audience, however. At one point while lecturing, Ravitch cast her eyes toward the front row, directing attention to O’Keefe, who had put in a good word for Catholic education in his opening remarks. “I’m a great supporter of Catholic schools,” she said, adding, “we should be saving Catholic education” instead of pouring public money into charter schools that siphon off the best students from public schools and tuition-paying students from parochial schools. Her implicit call for public support of private, Catholic education met with polite silence.

A fine article by my friend Bill.

The Return of Virtue Ethics

What is the good life? How can we know?

Sorry, Charley

Was John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley a fraud?

Bill Steigerwald from the April 2011 issue

Listen to Audio Version (MP3) trip

A huge commercial success from the day it hit bookstands, Travels With Charley in Search of America was touted and marketed as the true account of Steinbeck’s solo journey. It stayed on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list for a year, and its commercial and cultural tail—like those of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath—has been long and fat. For five decades Steinbeck scholars and others who should know better have not questioned the book’s honesty. But I had come to realize that the iconic American road book was not only heavily fictionalized; it was something of a fraud.

No one could hear me talking to Steinbeck’s ghost that October afternoon. I was parked on an unpaved farm road in the earthly equivalent of outer space: the cornfields of North Dakota, 47 miles southwest of Fargo.

The closest “town” was Alice, a 51-person dot on the map of a state famous for its emptiness. The closest human was more than a mile away, hidden in the cloud of dust that her combine made as it shaved the stubble of the family wheat crop.

The area was the scene of one of the most dubious moments in Travels With Charley. Steinbeck wrote that he and his French poodle, Charley, camped overnight somewhere “near Alice” by the Maple River, where he just happened to meet an itinerant Shakespearean actor who also just happened to be camping in the middle of the middle of nowhere. According to Steinbeck, the two hit it off and had a long, five-page discussion about the joys of the theater and the acting talents of John Gielgud.

Bumping into a sophisticated actor in the boondocks near Alice would have been an amazing bit of good luck for the great writer. And it could have really happened on October 12, 1960. But like a dozen other improbable encounters that Steinbeck said he had on his 11-week road trip from Long Island to Maine to Chicago to Seattle to California to Texas to New Orleans and back to New York City, it almost certainly didn’t.

It’s possible Steinbeck and Charley stopped to have lunch by the Maple River on October 12 as they raced across North Dakota. But unless the author was able to be at both ends of the state at the same time—or able to push his pickup truck/camper shell “Rocinante” to supersonic speeds—Steinbeck didn’t camp overnight anywhere near Alice 50 years ago. In the real world, the nonfiction world, Steinbeck spent that night 326 miles farther west, in the Badlands, staying in a motel in the town of Beach, taking a hot bath. We know this is true because Steinbeck wrote about the motel in a letter dated October 12 that he sent from Beach to his wife, Elaine, in New York.

Steinbeck’s nonmeeting with the actor near Alice is not an honest slip-up or a one-off case of poetic license. Travels With Charley is loaded with such creative fictions.

Florida Interior Designers: A Case Study In Cartels

Chip Mellor, 04.04.11, 12:15 PM EDT

One in three Americans presently need the government's permission to work. So much for the Land of Opportunity.

If Americans want to see how to create jobs, they should stop looking to Washington, D.C. for answers and turn their attention southward to Florida. There, as a means of reducing the state's higher-than-national-average unemployment rate, Gov. Rick Scott has proposed eliminating job-killing licensing requirements in 20 occupations, ranging from auto repair shops to ballroom dance studios and hair braiders.

But businesses that have long benefited from government-enforced cartels in these occupations aren't giving up without a fight. The most vocal of those seeking to maintain their protected status are interior designers. Florida is one of only three states that regulates the practice of interior design; the other two are Louisiana and Nevada. Even though no less than the Florida Attorney General's office has admitted there is no evidence that interior design licensing has benefited the public in any way, the designers' cartel has hired a high-powered lobbyist to wage an aggressive PR campaign to remove interior design from the should-be deregulated industries.

I can't believe Chip Mellor doesn't realize the dangers of unlicensed interior decorators. Why, someone might end up with pink next to purple.