Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

And here, from the Caustic Cover Critic, this preview of Penguin’s latest set of Great Ideas volumes:

What a magnificent design. The others in the Great Ideas series are equally compelling.

Sure, FedEx and UPS do fast-turnover deliveries and do them well for the most part, but they cost an unreasonable amount for your average Joe or Jane who doesn’t care about the time frame. Paying $15 to ship a couple of volumes of Time Life’s Mysteries of the Unknown that cost 50¢ each at East Dundee’s Community Thrift Store defeats the purpose of the gesture.

I shipped three parcels — 1.2 pounds to Beloit, Wisconsin; 4.3 pounds to Minneapolis, Minnesota; and 3.7 pounds to Fairbanks, Alaska (“Honey, you sure? That’s gonna take twelve business days!”) — for a grand total of $11.08. FedEx’s cheapest rates combine to over $50. Plus, the post office lady had some bodacious acrylic nails.

Moreover . . .
– The new Love stamp doesn’t make me hurl,
– The Simpsons are on their own stamp series, and
– The beautiful Abraham Lincoln stamp series is still available.

Good on you, USPS. I’m not holding my breath for this to continue.

Unnecessary side note: Did you know that some kinds of biodegradable packing peanuts are edible? This is not an endorsement, merely a trivium.

• The New York Times story I posted the other day (“From Books, New President Found Voice”).

• This interactive feature, also from the Times, by which you may compare inaugural addresses from Washington to the present. Lincoln was one of the few presidents to prominently feature the word “constitution” in his speech.

• “Why Doesn’t Every President Use the Lincoln Bible?” from Slate describes an upcoming Library of Congress exhibition of “Lincolniana,” a word that makes me want to hurl regardless of my Lincolnphile status.

• My otherwise-terrible hometown has a beautiful statue of Lincoln, and once hosted him as an overnight guest following a speech. The site of the speech is marked by an engraved rock, while the inn where he stayed tries to utilize this connection. Too bad Oregon is still shitty!

• The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum opened in 2005. I still have not been, and this is really a travesty. Of course, I’ll have to lock myself in and never leave, a la From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

I’ve decided to write a series of posts on my favorite things. They will be issued as I get the itch to describe things and why I love them.

Lincoln, like Mr. Obama, was a lifelong lover of books, indelibly shaped by his reading — most notably, in his case, the Bible and Shakespeare — which honed his poetic sense of language and his philosophical view of the world. Both men employ a densely allusive prose, richly embedded with the fruit of their reading, and both use language as a tool by which to explore and define themselves.

Yes! Obama may be Harvard-educated, but he has followed a Lincolnish self-educating Great Booksy curriculum in his own life. His questioning attitude toward life and his professional pursuits indicates that Obama would wring more meaning from a reading of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax than Bush did from the 95 books he purportedly read last year.

► Math solitaire via FreeArcade.com — oh, my goodness, I am not going to get work done ever again. The splash screen includes the word “operand”!!

► One of our customers had an email address at this domain: Online-Buddies.com. It sounded, well, exactly how it is. Any legitimate business homepage with a press release about MANHUNT gets a chortle out of this kid.