Ahhh, Jefferson...

I went to the University of Virginia, a place where Thomas Jefferson is rammed down your throat like corn down a French goose. So you sort of think you have a bead on the man's general thinking. Then I came across this:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

As if building UVa and Monticello weren't enough (that whole presidency business aside), it turns out the guy was a visionary. Who knew?

Actually the second half of the quote is cool too, but to get it you have to go to a blog called Jack's Financial News & Opinion. He used images of two of my paintings in a post titled "The American Slavery Act of 1913" and juxtaposed them to the Jefferson quote. As I write, the American Slavery... post is the top one. But things have a way of changing. Try scrolling down.

I like Jack for several reasons:

1. He asked permission to use the images.
2. He bought a poster.
3. He seems to like rattling the cage a bit, and that is certainly a good thing (up, one has to add, without specific reference to Jack but, rather, in a larger sense, to a point).

And let me close with a public note to John Casteen, outgoing president of the University of Virginia, a man who sits in a chair upon which, presumably, Thomas Jefferson sat:

At what point do we stop building the University of Virginia? In the face of tuition costs outstripping virtually every general benchmark of financial growth over the last decade, do you really need another freaking building? Couldn't this money be better used terminating Al Groh's contract and hiring somebody who can get the job done?