Somnio Pax

I am not going to write much tonight. I am going into London tomorrow, I will give a nice long post either tomorrow or Sunday and let you all know what is going on, who I am meeting and what my plans are. One of the people I am going with has a digital camera so I will try to post some fun pictures of me and my classmates making faces at the guards too.

For tonight I leave you with a speech that is at the very heart of what I want to be a part of, if you ever get the chance, listen to the entire text of this speech, it is beautiful:

"...

'There are few earthly things more beautiful than a University,'
wrote John Masefield, in his tribute to the English Universities
- - and his words are equally true here. He did not refer to spires
and towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the
splendid beauty of the University, he said, because it was 'a place
where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those
who perceive truth may strive to make others see.'

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic
on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is to rarely
perceived - - yet it is the most important topic on earth : world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek?
Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons
of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am
talking about genuine peace - - the kind of peace that makes life on
earth worth living -- the kind that enables men and nations to grow
and to hope and to build a better life for their children - - not merely
peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - - not merely
peace in our time but peace for all time.
..."

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, at American University, Washington D.C.,
June 10, 1963