Hardyville: Don't Tread on Me, I Won't Tread on You
Your life? It just plain isn't ours to rule. And by that, let me make it clear that we mean your life is not ours to administer, command, conduct, control, curb, decree, dictate, direct, dominate, govern, lead, manage, order, overrule, regulate, reign, restrain, run, sway, or take over. (Thank you Thesaurus.com.)
And in this day when every little interest group or crazed control clique thinks that every honest difference of opinion is intolerable and possibly even an act of terrorism -- in this age when everybody with the ear of any government agency wants to do the entire above paragraph to everybody else -- our "won't tread on you" capital-A Attitude is really, really, truly the thing that sets Hardyville apart.
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It's almost Christmas. (I'm allowed to use that word, this not being a government-financed column.) But it's also almost Hannukah, Yule, and perhaps half a dozen other holidays (and Jerry Falwell to the contrary, we're allowed to rejoice at those holidays, too).
All these holidays share the same central imagery: the return of light to a dark, cold world.
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In Hardyville, we're scientifically sure the radience of the sun will return, regardless of what rituals we perform. But we're also placing our lonely and very unscientific little hopes on the rekindling of freedom's incandescent beacon. We go on hoping like this, even though the darkness grows and the light seems cold and distant (and unfortunately seems frighteningly likely to be the headlight of an oncoming train, driven by a power-drunk government engineer).
# Fish or Man - The Judge's Decision Is In - Fish or Man won the appeal to his conviction for "warranting alarm" for carrying openly in the city of Ellensburg. Yay! [clairefiles]