And now for something completely different...

Mike Snider is the great and gracious host of the All Good Cafe in Deep Ellum, right down the street from my office. His restaurant is phenomenal -- he has some of the best chili con queso in Texas, and his Grilled Cheese with Green Chiles is most dreamworthy. However, the place is also home to some of the best music shows in town.

As the sign on the wall says: "It's like going to Austin... without having to drive through Waco."

Well, in addition to being a purveyor of fine food and a promoter of excellent tunes, Mike runs a nice listserv. What is amazing about his emails is that they are not focused on his place, but on the entire Deep Ellum scene. He singlehandedly keeps me under the illusion that I know what is going on in the local music world.

(which is, of course, a total fabrication since I have not been to a show in months... but I digress)

Anyway, he also occasionally offers pearls of wisdom along with lists of upcoming events. His latest email included the following quotes... which I believe we must all remember at this time in our nation's history.

I cite them here in this forum on fundraising because I believe that our work must never be removed from the ideals on which our country was founded, and we must rememebr that our purpose is not merely to raise funds but to direct our nation's resources in a way that is better for our communities and our country:

• "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry
  
• "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." -Abraham Lincoln
  
• "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" - Martin Luther King Jr.
  
• "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." - JFK
  
• "Moral courage is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." - Robert F. Kennedy
  
• "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
  
• "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
  
• "Well-behaved women seldom make history." - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
  
• "If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both." - Benjamin Franklin
  
• "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison
  
• "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president , or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
  
• "Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." - Winston Churchill
  
• "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he effeciently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." - Theodore Roosevelt
  
• "If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." - George Washington
  
• "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it." - Edward R. Murrow
  
• "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." - Dr. Martin Luther King
  

Please visit the All Good Cafe here:
http://www.allgoodcafe.com/