I’ve emphasized a portion which our pastor read the Sunday before Thanksgiving this year.

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March 30, 1863

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

Whereas the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation; and

Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of March, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Kinnikinic \Kin`ni*ki*nic”\, n. [Native American, literally, a mixture.]
Prepared leaves or bark of certain plants; — used by Native Americans of the Northwest for smoking, either mixed with tobacco or as a substitute for it. Also, a plant so used, as the osier cornel (Cornus stolonijra), and the bearberry (Arctostaphylus Uva-ursi). [Spelled also kinnickinnick and killikinick.]

Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

From dictionary.die.net

None of the poll answers quite fit my response. No, I don’t own a Kindle. I wouldn’t even consider it because it’s too expensive. But even if someone offered one to me for free, would I really use it? Many fantasy/scifi books I like to read aren’t available for Kindle. Plus, I can get a used novel cheaper than buying a Kindle version.

But there are other drawbacks as well. I echo many of the comments at GeekSugar: I like the feel of a book in my hands, it’s nice to see how far you are through the book, and curling up with a book just feels warmer.

But what about size? The average trade paperback would be okay on a Kindle, but what about coffee table books? Even reading a newspaper or magazine on the Kindle would probably annoy me. Give me The Virginian-Pilot homepage or the physical front page of the paper over the Kindle any day. Why? I can see so much more at a glance.

Screenshots of reading the NYT on the Kindle make it look like you see one article at a time, or the main article first, I’m not sure which. How annoying.

Plus, there was one comment at GeekSugar that I’ve never thought of before but with which I agree wholeheartedly: you can share a book. I think I’ve always liked that about books, the ability to share. The number of books I checked out from various libraries from grade school through college is definitely in the hundreds. I would be only mildly surprised to find out that I have borrowed thousands. (Speaking of which, I couldn’t justify spending cash on Kindle books in order to research a term paper. I would probably never look at them after the semester is done.)

While on vacation recently, I went through a stack of books from my growing years to sort out the keepers. It was a combination of novels and picture books. When I was done, I immediately decided to offer the rest to my best friend who is homeschooling her children. There was joy in sharing the books that I had experienced, hoping that other young minds would have good experiences with them as well. And if her family already had any of the books I gave her, I told my friend to pass the extras along to the other homeschooling families she knows.

Could you pass on knowledge like this via Kindles? I think not.

Finally, there is still an art to creating books that make some a pleasure to use or read. Sure, the scifi books are pretty formulaic in design: same shape, same paper. I suspect that many trade paperbacks have more design in their cover art than in the layout of their contents.

But almost any other book has been designed. Even an instructional book on HTML or cascading style sheets has some design to it: margins that allow for tip boxes, icons to indicate the family or use of a particular tag, etc.

Not only would it be difficult at best to peruse a book on the Kindle featuring Ansel Adams work, it would altogether obliterate the presentation of his photography. The presentation adds to the experience and enhances the artwork within. Can a Kindle replace that? Can the design of digital readers evolve far enough to handle these types of books without sacrificing too much in the usability of the device itself?

No, I’ll take real books any day. And maybe someday someone will get them after I’m done and enjoy them all over again.

(Good golly, what if a 14th century monk who had painstakingly copied and created illuminated manuscripts could see us now?)