Happy Birthday Ben!

Today is Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday, and I plan to toast him tonight because he's one old dead white man for whom I have unequivocal respect. Ben believed in second chances in life and in conducting oneself in the public sphere is a way that would positively benefit all who observed him. He felt that any invention that would benefit mankind should be shared freely with the world, and he founded the first lending library in the United States. His contributions to our knowledge of the natural world are fairly extraordinary, given that he was a statesman first and amateur scientist second. The Washington Post highlights some of his accomplishments, and Wikipedia gives some background info I was pleased to find his Autobiography is not under copyright and freely available online, since it was this work that first turned me on to his coolness way back in my American Lit class in college. Here is another leader who coincidentally happened to be a thinker. Imagine that. Yeah, I know that he was a slaveholder, and that he believed in capitalism and free trade, and that to some he represented all that was revolting about our little fledgling country. I’m still willing to give him props for being a cool guy and worthy of admiration.