"The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard."

Barbara W. Tuchman, big deal historian, who was born 100 years ago today, who, I'm pretty sure, wrote and/or said many a cool, intelligent thing but the above quotation has got to be one of the coolest. But the birthday person who's been on my mind today [along with a dreadful, infuriating, nightmare-inducing story I heard on NPR today and how truly marvelous & splendid is the 1999 movie Topsy-Turvy which I had on while I was painting this morning] is the 32nd President of the United States, who turned 30 on the day Ms. Barb was born. That'd be Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the greatest, most interesting & complex Americans ever born, no foolin.'

‎"Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle...."True individual freedom cannot exist w/o economic security & independence. People who are hungry & out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." Franklin D. Roosevelt, b. 30 Jan 1882.