Freedom Train

Let me start by saying that I am SO glad I don't live in Chicago. I am sitting in my warm, comfy home and it is 71 degrees outside. In January. While the rest of the country is covered in snow. Yup, glad I live in Florida. Some of my Alaska friends are now in Chicago and I feel for them. This morning there were 17 inches of snow on the ground there with 2-6 more expected today! In fact, it is warmer in Skagway, Alaska than it is in Chicago. Ouch.

The lack of cold makes me feel only slightly guilty about my return to coffee. Not enough to stop me from drinking it though. So today, I write to you warm and full of caffeine, my mind full of ideas of revolution. I love when the events of the world correspond with the teachings of class, and this week they certainly do. Egypt is in turmoil. If you haven't read about it, you should. What started out 10 days ago as peaceful protest (think Thoreau and King) has turned violent and I am saddened by that turn of events. And yet, I think I understand it. While I never advocate violence, I am stricken by the Egyptian people's cry for change. They have been held down for too long. They are longing for rights and freedoms that their government has long denied. They are desperate to believe that their voices will be the catalyst for that change, and they are not willing to back down. They seem unafraid of death. Martyrs for a cause? I guess that remains to be seen, but how similar they seem to me today to the voices of the past.

The Transcendentalists spoke about the value of being true to yourself. They called for personal growth and those like Thoreau called for governmental change. Their voices echoed in the ears of people like Whitman who wrote of equality. Slowly, the match lit the paper and the paper lit the sticks and the sticks set the nation on fire. The words of a few men became the voice of a people who spoke against the institution of slavery. Escaped slaves added their own voices and the power of the abolitionist movement drove the nation toward change. Change came. In the form of a war. And while perhaps Emerson had a point when he quipped, "Sometimes gunpowder smells good," let us hope that the seeds of grow at a lesser cost in Egypt.

Today, I encourage you to think about what it means to be a revolutionary. Not a rebel. Any punk can be a rebel. Anyone can yell about an "unfair" rule or whine about what they didn't get or break the law just because it can be broken. None of that is revolution. Revolution is seeded somewhere else. It grows out of desperation. It grows from the soul. And when it is sparked, it cannot be killed. It's leaders might be slaughtered. It's people might go into hiding. But true revolution is built on the power of an unsilenceable voice.

EC. Write a one page summary (all in your own words) of the events in Egypt over the last 10 days. Follow the events through Friday (a lot might change by then) and submit your summary on Monday.