IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to
right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such
has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To
prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his
Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly
neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for
that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign
to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent
to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging
its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries
to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized
nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high
Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of
their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless
Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress
in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by
every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in
War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free
and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to
the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and
the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and
that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War,
conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all
other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin,
John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson,
George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

It’s the 4th of July: Independence Day and Louis Armstrong’s birthday.

Don’t miss the 24-hour Louis Armstrong marathon on WKCR, Columbia University’s legendary radio station, all day on 89.9 FM.

Reprinted from OTBKB July 4, 2006. 

A great operal singer and a great arts administrator, this Brooklyn girl died today. She was borni n 1929 in Crown Heights, went to PS 91 and later went to Erasmus Hall High School.

After she retired from singing, she ran the New York City Opera for a decade. Later, she
assumed the volunteer post of chairman of Lincoln Center in New York
City from 1994 to 2002. Later she  accepted the volunteer
post of chairman of the Metropolitan Opera.

I found this pix on Rosie O’Donnell’s Flickr page.

At Naropa University in Boulder Colorado, there was a 12 hour reading of On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s beat masterpiece that is 50 years old.

Fans and some close friends of the late author took turns reading his
most famous novel aloud on Saturday. 

It was the kick-off to the university’s first Kerouac Festival.

.

Today in honor of the new noise code going into effect, which requires, among other things, that jackhammers be swaddled in noise jackets, I am re-running Hepcat’s jackhammer story. When I re-run a story I always color it red.

Hepcat and I were having a Greek salad for lunch at home when the phone rang.

Ring. Ring.

"Did you call yesterday to complain about construction noise?" a man with an adorably New Yawk accent said to me on the phone

"No, I think you have the wrong number," I said.

"Ahhhh, let me check," he said.
While he was checking, I called out to Hepcat: "Hey, did you make a noise complaint?" He was munching on some lettuce. 
"Yeah. That was me," he said as he grabbed the phone.
I was more than a little surprised.

But then again Hepcat is a man of few word (they don’t call him No
Words_Daily Pix for nothing and I guess this didn’t warrant a mention
when I asked him: "How was your day, honey?" I asked yesterday.  "Fine." was his simple reply."

Here’s a more detailed version of what Hepcat told the guy on the phone.

HEPCAT’S ACCOUNT OF YESTERDAY’S INCIDENT

Yesterday there was a DEP crew on Sixth Avenue at
the intersection of Third Street jackhammering the pavement away from a
manhole cover. Rather than the usual jackhammer as loud as a
jackhammer, it was the jackhammer as loud as a jackhammer in your very
own bathroom while you have a hangover. In other words much much louder
than the normal jackhammers that we all know and love.

So as I walked by on
my way to  U-Haul, I noticed that the jackhammer didn’t have the
so-called muffler that they’re required to have in New York City. If
you haven’t noticed, most jackhammers have a gadget that looks like a
small lawn mower muffler sticking out of them or are wrapped up in a
little blanket much like a newborn baby. These are required by the city
because they cut the noise considerably.

So I stopped and asked the
work crew why didn’t their jackhammer have the New York City required
swaddling?

"You’re supposed to have a muffler on that, why don’t you?" I said fully expecting the converation to go along the lines of: THEM:
"We have no idea what you’re talking about." ME: "Tell your supervisior
to give you the right equipment. It’s making too much noise."
THEM: "Thanks, buddy." 

Basic good samaritan stuff.

Instead, a crew
member said:  "So you want to make something of it? Why don’t you call
311?" interspersed with colorful Anglo Saxon construction terms of art.
So I said: "I’ll do just that!" And I took my handy cell phone out of
my pocket and one of the crew members started waving a shovel over my
head and made various threats. One of the others tried to reason with
the guy: "Put that down," he said.

The shovel-guy chased me west on
Third Street and finally was stopped by one of the other crew members.
Phew.

Shaken up, I continued walking toward Fifth Avenue. When I
finally calmed down, I called 311 and started telling them the whole
thing. When I got to the shovel waving portion of the account, they
switched me to the 911 operator because of threats and assault by
shovel. But, I don’t know, it seemed like the door was opening into a
weeks-long Kafkaesque episode I didn’t want to be part of.

So I told
the 911 people I didn’t want to press charges and all that. I finished
talking to the nice people at 311 who were very professional and that
was that until the phone call we just got It was  than 24 hours later.
Some of the city employees are doing a very nice job and some of
them…."

END OF HEPCAT’S ACCOUNT.

So when was Hepcat going to tell me that he nearly got hit on the head with a shovel?