July 14, 2005
Times
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So goes the lead in Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities,” which, if I remember correctly, has something to do with the French Revolution.
For leads, it sure beats “It was a dark and stormy night… ” as well as most of the ones I strive for in getting a daily OoN off the launching pad. Further, it seems like a rather useful one for the keeping today of Bastille Day.
I realize that the Secretary of Defense might relegate such a holiday to Old Europe, especially if it’s French. On the other hand, I trust we not take too lightly the importance of revolutions as social cathartic, whether Gallic or American. They’re always an option and seem inevitable whenever a nation gets its priorities so distorted that the poor and the oppressed simply can’t — and won’t — take it any longer.
Happy Bastille Day citoyens.