Cosplay at New York Comic Con 2013

Thanks to Fashion and Action for photos.

Motivational Speakers Cemetery

Great Freemasons: Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919)

You ask that Mr. Taft shall "let the world know what his religious belief is." This is purely his own private concern; it is a matter between him and his Maker, a matter for his own conscience; and to require it to be made public under penalty of political discrimination is to negative the first principles of our Government, which guarantee complete religious liberty, and the right to each to act in religious affairs as his own conscience dictates. Mr. Taft never asked my advice in the matter, but if he had asked it, I should have emphatically advised him against thus stating publicly his religious belief.

The demand for a statement of a candidate’s religious belief can have no meaning except that there may be discrimination for or against him because of that belief. Discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. The inevitable result of entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization.

To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great office for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker. If it is proper or legitimate to oppose a man for being a Unitarian, as was John Quincy Adams, for instance, as is the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, at the present moment Chaplain of the Senate, and an American of whose life all good Americans are proud then it would be equally proper to support or oppose a man because of his views on justification by faith, or the method of administering the sacrament, or the gospel of salvation by works. If you once enter on such a career there is absolutely no limit at which you can legitimately stop.
Theodore Roosevelt,

LETTER TO MR. J. C. MARTIN CONCERNING RELIGION AND POLITICS 
November 6, 1908

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/307.txt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt ( October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th President of the United States (1901–1909)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt


Matinecock Lodge No. 806, Oyster Bay, New York

I Got Burned Once.

My Religion

My Religion
author unknown

When talk turns to religion
I have notions of my own
Have my versions of the Bible
And things I think alone.

And I find them satisfying,
Find them comforting to me,
Though I wouldn't lose my temper
If you chose to disagree.

For religion as I see it
Is a pathway to the goal,
And its something to be settled
Between each man and his soul.

Now I'm not a Roman Catholic,
But I wouldn't go so far
As to fling away the friendship
Of the ones I know that are.

I've lived and neighbored with them
Come to love them through and through
I've respect and admiration
For the kindly things they do.

I've known Methodists, Baptists,
Scientists and Jews,
Whose friendship is a treasure
That I wouldn't want to lose.

So when the people talk religion,
I just settle back and see
Every helpful, loyal friend
Each Church has given me.

Great Freemasons: John North Willys (October 25, 1873 – August 26, 1935)

John North Willys (October 25, 1873 – August 26, 1935), father of the Willys Jeep, was an American automotive pioneer and statesman.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Willys


(Barton Smith Lodge 613, Toledo)

I Used To Be an Adventurer Like You....

Great Freemasons: Manly P. Hall

Great Freemasons: Ellsworth Milton (E.M.) Statler (October 26, 1863 – April 16, 1928)

Ellsworth Milton (E.M.) Statler (October 26, 1863 – April 16, 1928), founder of Statler Hotels, was an American hotel businessman born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Milton_StatlerDeMolay Lodge 498, Buffalo, NY

Great Freemasons: Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914)

Laws are never as effective as habits.
Adlai Stevenson I


Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) served as the 23rd Vice President of the United States (1893–1897). Previously, he served as a Congressman from Illinois in the late 1870s and early 1880s. After his subsequent appointment as Assistant Postmaster General of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–1889), he fired many Republican postal workers and replaced them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the enmity of the Republican-controlled Congress, but made him a favorite as Grover Cleveland's running mate in 1892, and he duly became 23rd Vice President of the United States.

In office, he supported the free-silver lobby against the gold-standard men like Cleveland, but was praised for ruling in a dignified, non-partisan manner.

In 1900, he ran for Vice President with William Jennings Bryan. Although unsuccessful, he was the first ex-Vice President ever to win re-nomination for that post with a different Presidential candidate. Stevenson was the grandfather of Adlai Stevenson II, a Governor of Illinois and twice Democratic Presidential candidate.



(Bloomington Lodge 43, Illinois)


Photo by Napoleon Sarony (1821–1896)

You can only be young once....

Mr. Krugman Told Me It Would Stimulate the Economy....

Excuse me sir....

I am a libertarian because....

Great Freemasons: Allen B. Wilson (October 18,1824 – April 29,1888)

Allen Benjamin Wilson (October 18,1824 – April 29,1888) was an American inventor famous for designing, building and patenting some of the first successful sewing machines He invented both the vibrating and the rotating shuttle designs which, in turns, dominated all home lockstitch sewing machines. With various partners in the 19th century he manufactured reliable sewing machines using the latter shuttle type.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_B._Wilson


(Harmony Lodge 42, Waterbury, CT)

Thanks, Obama

Great Freemasons: Willliam C. Menninger (October 15, 1899 – September 1966)

William Claire Menninger (October 15, 1899 – September 1966) was a co-founder with his brother Karl and his father of The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, which is an internationally known center for treatment of behavioral disorders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Menninger

Great Freemasons: Joseph Rucker Lamar (October 15, 1857 – January 2, 1916)

Joseph Rucker Lamar (October 15, 1857 – January 2, 1916) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court appointed by President William Howard Taft. A cousin of former associate justice Lucius Lamar, he served from 1911 until his death in 1916.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rucker_Lamar


(Webb Lodge 166, Augusta, GA)

I am free because I say I am....

Happy Columbo Day!

Great Freemasons: Henry Dodge (October 12, 1782 – June 19, 1867)

Henry Dodge (October 12, 1782 – June 19, 1867) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, Territorial Governor of Wisconsin and a veteran of the Black Hawk War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dodge


Louisiana Lodge 109 (MO)

Great Freemasons: Trent Lott

We cannot forget the little things we take for granted in America that remain the disdain of dictators and terrorists throughout the world.
Trent Lott

Chester Trent Lott, Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is a former United States Senator from Mississippi, who served in numerous leadership positions in both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate. He entered Congress as one of the first of a wave of Republicans winning seats in Southern states that had been solidly Democratic. He became Senate Majority Leader, then fell from power after praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat presidential bid.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Lott


(Masonic Life: Shortly after completing law school and returning to the Gulf Coast, he had petitioned, been accepted and initiated an Entered Apprentice in Pascagoula Lodge No. 419 on September 18, 1967. However, the busy schedule of a congressional aide and freshman House member made advancement a challenge. Nonetheless, he was finally passed to the Degree of Fellowcraft on August 23, 1975, and raised a Master Mason on August 29, 1975. That October, Brother Lott took most of his Scottish Rite Degrees in the Valley of Gulfport, but did not receive his 32nd Degree until October 23, 1976. He subsequently received the K.C.C.H. in 1983 and was coroneted a 33° Inspector General Honorary on December 12, 1987. )

"Front Man" by Liam Brazier

h/t:
http://geektyrant.com/news/2013/10/8/wall-worthy-superhero-cubist-art-by-liam-brazier

Great Freemasons: Leonard Wood (October 9, 1860 – August 7, 1927)

Leonard Wood (October 9, 1860 – August 7, 1927) was a physician who served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Military Governor of Cuba, and Governor General of the Philippines. Early in his military career, he received the Medal of Honor. Wood also holds officer service #2 in the Regular Army (John Pershing holds officer service #1). He was present at the 1906 First Battle of Bud Dajo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Wood

(Anglo Saxon Lodge 137, NY)



(Art: "Leonard Wood - Maverick in the Making 1882-1921" (1860–1927) by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) oil on canvas, 1903 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)

Albert Einstein quote

One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
Albert Einstein


(Art: The Question by Eddie Newell)

I am a Freemason.

Great Freemasons: Edward Vernon Rickenbacker (October 8, 1890 – July 23, 1973)

Aviation is proof that given the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.
Eddie Rickenbacker

Edward Vernon Rickenbacker (October 8, 1890 – July 23, 1973) was an American fighter ace in World War I and Medal of Honor recipient. With 26 aerial victories, he was America's most successful fighter ace in the war. He was also a race car driver and automotive designer, a government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation, particularly as the longtime head of Eastern Air Lines.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Rickenbacker


(Kilwinning Lodge 297, Detroit)

Metal

Great Freemasons: Matt Whitaker Ransom (October 8, 1826 – October 8, 1904)

Matt Whitaker Ransom (October 8, 1826 – October 8, 1904) was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and a Democratic U.S. senator from the state of North Carolina between 1872 and 1895.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Whitaker_Ransom

Here is "An address on the military and civil services of General Matt. W. Ransom, May 10, 1906" by WM. H. S. Burgwynn.



(Johnson-Caswell Lodge 10, NC)

Great Freemasons: Henry A. Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965)

The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965), from Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord


Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd Vice President of the United States (1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture (1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce (1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace
(Capital Lodge 110, Des Moines, Iowa)

Christian Bale

Based on a True Story....

Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires....

Furloughed...

Great Freemasons: Alexander Majors (October 4, 1814 – January 13, 1900)

Alexander Majors (October 4, 1814 – January 13m 1900) was a U.S. businessman, who along with William Hepburn Russell and William B. Waddell founded the Pony Express, based in Kansas City, Missouri.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Majors


(Golden Square Lodge 107, Westport, MO)

Great Freemasons: John Ross, Cherokee Chief (October 3, 1790–August 1, 1866)

“Our Hearts are Sickened”: Letter from Chief John Ross of the Cherokee, Georgia, 1836

By President Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828, the only large concentrations of Indian tribes remaining on the east coast were located in the South. The Cherokee had adopted the settled way of life of the surrounding—and encroaching—white society. They were consequently known, along with the Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, as one of the “Five Civilized Tribes.” “Civilization,” however, was not enough, and the Jackson administration forced most of these tribes west during the first half of the 1830s, clearing southern territory for the use of whites. Chief John Ross was the principal chief of the Cherokee in Georgia; in this 1836 letter addressed to “the Senate and House of Representatives,” Ross protested as fraudulent the Treaty of New Echota that forced the Cherokee out of Georgia. In 1838, federal troops forcibly displaced the last of the Cherokee from their homes; their trip to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) is known as the “Trail of Tears.”

[Red Clay Council Ground, Cherokee Nation, September 28, 1836]

It is well known that for a number of years past we have been harassed by a series of vexations, which it is deemed unnecessary to recite in detail, but the evidence of which our delegation will be prepared to furnish. With a view to bringing our troubles to a close, a delegation was appointed on the 23rd of October, 1835, by the General Council of the nation, clothed with full powers to enter into arrangements with the Government of the United States, for the final adjustment of all our existing difficulties. The delegation failing to effect an arrangement with the United States commissioner, then in the nation, proceeded, agreeably to their instructions in that case, to Washington City, for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with the authorities of the United States.

After the departure of the Delegation, a contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, and certain individual Cherokees, purporting to be a “treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of Georgia, on the 29th day of December, 1835, by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious Delegation, in violation of a special injunction of the general council of the nation, proceeded to Washington City with this pretended treaty, and by false and fraudulent representations supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited Delegation of the Cherokee people, and obtained for this instrument, after making important alterations in its provisions, the recognition of the United States Government. And now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the Senate, and approved by the President [Andrew Jackson], and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of the displeasure of the United States, and the threat of summary compulsion, in case of refusal. It comes to us, not through our legitimate authorities, the known and usual medium of communication between the Government of the United States and our nation, but through the agency of a complication of powers, civil and military.

By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.

We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralized, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.

The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country. And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of the United States; nor can we believe it to be the design of these honorable and highminded individuals, who stand at the head of the Govt., to bind a whole Nation, by the acts of a few unauthorized individuals. And, therefore, we, the parties to be affected by the result, appeal with confidence to the justice, the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a compact, in the formation of which we have had no agency.

In truth, our cause is your own; it is the cause of liberty and of justice; it is based upon your own principles, which we have learned from yourselves; for we have gloried to count your [George] Washington and your [Thomas] Jefferson our great teachers; we have read their communications to us with veneration; we have practised their precepts with success. And the result is manifest. The wildness of the forest has given place to comfortable dwellings and cultivated fields, stocked with the various domestic animals. Mental culture, industrious habits, and domestic enjoyments, have succeeded the rudeness of the savage state.

We have learned your religion also. We have read your Sacred books. Hundreds of our people have embraced their doctrines, practised the virtues they teach, cherished the hopes they awaken, and rejoiced in the consolations which they afford. To the spirit of your institutions, and your religion, which has been imbibed by our community, is mainly to be ascribed that patient endurance which has characterized the conduct of our people, under the laceration of their keenest woes. For assuredly, we are not ignorant of our condition; we are not insensible to our sufferings. We feel them! we groan under their pressure! And anticipation crowds our breasts with sorrows yet to come. We are, indeed, an afflicted people! Our spirits are subdued! Despair has well nigh seized upon our energies! But we speak to the representatives of a Christian country; the friends of justice; the patrons of the oppressed. And our hopes revive, and our prospects brighten, as we indulge the thought. On your sentence, our fate is suspended; prosperity or desolation depends on your word. To you, therefore, we look! Before your august assembly we present ourselves, in the attitude of deprecation, and of entreaty. On your kindness, on your humanity, on your compassion, on your benevolence, we rest our hopes. To you we address our reiterated prayers. Spare our people! Spare the wreck of our prosperity! Let not our deserted homes become the monuments of our desolation! But we forbear! We suppress the agonies which wring our hearts, when we look at our wives, our children, and our venerable sires! We restrain the forebodings of anguish and distress, of misery and devastation and death, which must be the attendants on the execution of this ruinous compact.

In conclusion, we commend to your confidence and favor, our well-beloved and trust-worthy brethren and fellow-citizens, John Ross, Principal Chief, Richard Taylor, Samuel Gunter, John Benge, George Sanders, Walter S. Adair, Stephen Foreman, and Kalsateehee of Aquohee, who are clothed with full powers to adjust all our existing difficulties by treaty arrangements with the United States, by which our destruction may be averted, impediments to the advancement of our people removed, and our existence perpetuated as a living monument, to testify to posterity the honor, the magnanimity, the generosity of the United States. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray. Signed by Ross, George Lowrey, Edward Gunter, Lewis Ross, thirty-one members of the National Committee and National Council, and 2,174 others.

Source: John Ross, Letter from John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Indians, in Answer to Inquires from a Friend Regarding the Cherokee Affairs with the United States (Washington, D.C., 1836), 22–24.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6598/


John Ross (October 3, 1790–August 1, 1866), also known as Guwisguwi (meaning in Cherokee a "mythological or rare migratory bird"), was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828–1866, serving longer in this position than any other person. Described as the Moses of his people, Ross influenced the former Indian nation through such tumultuous events as the relocation to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ross_%28Cherokee_chief%29
(Lodge uncertain but likely of Cherokee Lodge 21, Tahlequah)

Great Freemasons: A.E. Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942)

BEHIND the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or marvellous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practised at reception by all secret societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed.
A.E. Waite

Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. As his biographer R. A. Gilbert described him, "Waite's name has survived because he was the first to attempt a systematic study of the history of western occultism—viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of proto-science or as the pathology of religion."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._Waite

(Marylebone Lodge 1305, London)