Ambrose Bierce

A little while ago I used a quote from Ambrose Bierce for my Quotable Thursday feature. I usually try to link the quoted person to their wikipedia page so that you can go and learn more about them if you so please. In the process of doing that this time however, I saw that this person had an interesting story – he disappeared.
Ambrose Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist. He was born in 1842 and earned himself the nickname “Bitter Bierce” primarily because of his motto ‘nothing matters’.
In 1913 the then elderly writer traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective of the country’s ongoing revolution. According to Wikipedia:

“In October 1913 Bierce, then in his seventies, departed Washington, D.C., for a tour of his old Civil War battlefields. By December he had proceeded through Louisiana and Texas, crossing by way of El Paso into Mexico, which was in the throes of revolution. In Ciudad Juárez he joined Pancho Villa's army as an observer, and in that role he witnessed the Battle of Tierra Blanca.

Bierce is known to have accompanied Villa's army as far as the city of Chihuahua. His last known communication with the world was a letter he wrote there to Blanche Partington, a close friend, dated December 26, 1913. After closing this letter by saying, "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination," he vanished without a trace, becoming one of the most famous disappearances in American literary history.

Oral tradition in Sierra Mojada, Coahuila, documented by the priest James Lienert, states that Bierce was executed by a firing squad in the town cemetery there. However, all investigations into his fate have proven fruitless, and despite an abundance of theories his end remains shrouded in mystery.”

I don’t know much more than what is in the Wikipedia link, but thought it was rather interesting and wanted to share it with you.

Polling Station

So I had a great idea for a new poll but then lost it and can’t come up with a good one since. Or it could be that the one I had wasn’t that great to begin with and I can’t come up with anything good at all. So it will probably be a few days until I can think of something decent enough to put up for my November poll, but if I can’t think of something soon I will put anything up.

While we are speaking of polls however, today is Election Day for the US. I am so excited to get Bush out of the Whitehouse once and for all. How that man stayed in power for so long is beyond me. I am routing for Obama, which if you knew me at all would be quite obvious - I don’t think the two party system in the states is all that great, but I am definitely a democrat when forced to choose one over the other. This has been the longest and most expensive election in the history of America and I am really hoping that something positive and historic comes out of all this time and money. Although, no matter who wins history will be made either the first African American president or the first female vice president. If you are American – get out and vote today and have a say in your country. The Canadians had a record low for our recent election, but it was a waste of time and money since there was very little chance of anything significant changing. You Americans, however, have the possibility for so much positive change and therefore should have a record high for voter turnout – go prove my theory right!