1. School still going okay. Started getting into the weeds of the Revolution with my Government class; they were surprised to learn of some of my clarifications (i.e. that the amount of taxes weren’t the issue, but rather the question of jurisdiction). Actually, the idea that the British government had a case at all seemed to be a novelty to them, though I focused on the fact that each had an argument rather than trying to make one case or the other. I also tried to draw their attention to the difference between legal authority (what the law says can be done) and practical authority (who can actually do what in a given area).

2. On that note, Revolutions are what happen when Legal Authority and Practical Authority become disconnected. Or, to put it another, more cynical way, Revolution is what powerful men do when they run into someone who actually has the right to tell them ‘No’.

3. By the way, some people insist on calling our revolution “The War for Independence” (e.g. the textbook I’m using for US History devotes a whole section to the point) and even say that ‘Revolution’ is an inaccurate term for the event. The idea, as my book says, is that a revolution is properly a “total upheaval in government, values, and way of life,” and that it is “destructive of moral standards and civilized order,” but that these didn’t take place in America (which is simply false in the latter case given the level of anarchy and violence that took place during and around the war).

Leaving that aside, along with the ambiguity of ‘total upheaval’ (how much upheaval is required then?), this is not the definition in use at the time, nor the one in common usage since, which is simply, as Dr. Johnson had it, “Change in the state of Government.” The British would hardly call the events of 1688 the “Glorious Revolution” if they were following the definition given above.

The modern heirs of Mr. Webster, meanwhile, give it as: “a fundamental change in political organization, especially: the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed.”

That fits our case pretty exactly: the violent replacement of one government – the British Crown – with another – the Continental Congress – within the scope of the thirteen colonies, enacted by a portion of the population (as opposed to a foreign invader). The latter government had not existed before the revolt and assumed to itself the same overarching authority as the former, only justifying itself on a different philosophy.

I always find it dubious when people try to substitute a commonly-used term for a different one on the grounds of a specific definition, especially when that definition isn’t the one in common use and especially when the latter term has more pleasing connotations than the one it replaces. I remember seeing one fellow insist that ‘conflict’ was, by definition, between sentient beings, so there could not be a conflict between man and nature. When I pointed out that is neither common use nor the dictionary definition, he stopped replying.

Though honestly, it doesn’t matter what you call the revolution; the moral, legal, and practical issues involved remain the same.

4. Anyway, on another note I’m also teaching kids to diagram sentences in Language Arts. To help them, I introduced the concept of what I call the ‘core sentence’, which is the same basic idea reduced to subject, predicate, and object/complement (if necessary).

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke these words to the crowd:” -> “Peter spoke words.”

Once you get the essential idea of subject-predicate down (“What we are talking about and what we say about it”), grammar becomes a lot more interesting.

5. Maybe I’m odd, but I didn’t really get grammar until I saw it laid out in philosophical language: “A Noun is a substantive” or “Prepositions join substantives that do not naturally coalesce.” Grammar gives form to ideas.

6. Speaking of language (many, many equivalents could be found):

7. Somehow, I never seem to have enough time, even when I’m really trying to focus on work. It all gets eaten up and at the end there seems so little left.