A Privelege

Tomorrow Barrack Obama will be inaugurated. I admire his belief that the greatest untapped resource in this country is an engaged citizenry and that language is currency. It's been a long time since we have been challenged to be more.

Something from William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Banquet speech.

" I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."