a classy volume concerning class

required reading to further comment on this web log concerning healthcare, education, poverty, welfare reform, etc.

in other news, peter emily and i went to boston over the weekend. peter, the master blogger that he is, posted on his family's password-protected web log concerning our adventures. my favorite part was tea-bagging boston harbor. hope petey doesn't mind, but ima plagiarize his web-logging skills and include it here. enjoy:

what better place than the birth of a revolution than bean town (which nick told me is now referred to as title town) to memorialize our freedoms? emily hadn't been to Boston since she was little and stevey and i haven't been in awhile. so thanks to the meticulously organized fung wah bussing business, we made a weekend out of our freedoms.

we took the morning bus up there on friday and had most of the day left to explore a little bit. we walked through the boston common, where stephen spotted a pond that reminded him of ducks from some children’s book that landed there or something. i was chastised for being the son of a elementary school teacher and not know the name of the book.



after some putzing around newbury street for shopping and dinner, we followed the crowds to the charles river. we found a spot on mass. ave bridge and listened to the worst public program ever for a couple of hours before the fireworks started. it was pretty sweet, cause people could take their boats (motor, canoes, or row) right out to the barge from where they launched the fireworks. it was a pretty rad show.



the next day, we endulged emily and walked the freedom trail. stephen was jealous of the dude with the tights and the three-cornered hats everywhere. but we didn’t need them. with a few keystokes on the (almost obsolete) iPhone, we pulled up a wikipedia fountain of knowledge on any/every building or site that piqued our collective curiosities. along the way, we even commemorated our despision of king george III by throwing our own british tea bags in the boston harbor. all in all it a was a pretty good day, capped off with maybe the best ice cream i have ever had in my life at this place in cambridge that one of stevey’s photo friends took us.



if you look closely, those are actually english tea bags we're about to cast into the sea for taxation without representation...



this morning we went to church at Park Street Church right between the boston common and the cemetery that graves benjamin franklin, paul revere, samuel adams, and the more important john adams, where we sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” 177 years and 2 days after the public debut in the very chapel of said debut. on the program insert, it was written that 24 year old samuel F. smith, an Harvard (of course) alumnus, wrote this “unofficial national anthem” on a scrap of paper in less than 30 minutes and debuted on July 4, 1831 in Park Street Church.



the sermon was pretty interesting (at least for the first 25 or so minutes). he talked about how old testament prophets had to be counter-culture and against the grain to prevailing opinions that were contrary to their beliefs just like us today in an increasingly secularizing society. at the end he gave some “witnessing” (protestant talk for testifying or missionary work) take-home tips, not too unfamiliar to what you might hear in sacrament meeting or sunday school on missionary work.

1) keep a bible on your desk at work, as a symbol/reminder of God’s work and also as a conversation starter.

2) when you write cards (sympathy or whatever) to coworkers, add a verse of scripture and mention that this verse helped you during a hard time.

3) when people are having a difficult time, ask permission to pray for help for them with your friends at your church.

simple enough.


all in all in was a pretty good independent weekend.

oh yeah. and did i mention that i can hold emily in the palm of my hand... err. i mean, the top of my thumb.