Miss Liberty
I apologize for my absence from my blog duties for a few days. A new college class that I am teaching and some traveling obligations have kept me away from the computer. Last week my wife, Linda, and I flew to New York City for my initial meeting with the prospective publisher of my new book, A New Strategy for the War on Cancer. Looks like we are going to be a good match, and the book should be published in the spring.
We took advantage of the trip to play tourist as we walked miles of Manhattan streets and ate expensive food–how about a $17.00 sandwich at Katz Deli. Probably the most memorable sight of the week was the Statue of Liberty. I had been to the Big Apple a couple of times before, but had never actually visited the statue and climbed her interior. The up close and personal experience was awesome and inspirational.
The methods the French used to shape the many bronze sections and the techniques the Americans employed to put the structure together were far advanced for the 19th Century. It has stood proudly now for well over a century as a symbol of freedom for all who come to America. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” So invites Miss Liberty by the poetic words of Emma Lazarus. I was overwhelmed by emotion as I gazed on her beauty and meditated on what our nation has stood for since 1776.
However, mixed with that pride was disappointment in what I see this great nation becoming. I’m not sure the liberty that we were founded on is the same liberty that we expound today. Tomorrow in this blog, I want to share some thoughts about how so much of what we paid such a great price to claim is eroding. I will also relate the principles of our freedoms to our war on cancer. Let’s meet here again tomorrow.