On March 22, ...... 2008 (today), is marked World Water Day. An observance that resulted from the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, it's intended to raise awareness about the need for and dearth of clean water in many parts of the world. (It's an issue on which we posted here.) In more fortunate regions many restaurants this past week took part in the Tap Project, by which patrons were asked to contribute $1
for each glass of tap water they otherwise would have been served free.... 1638 (370 years ago today), the Massachusetts Bay Colony expelled Anne Hutchinson for religious dissent. Hutchinson was an antinomian, an opponent of the rule of law, a position that set her at odds with her male-dominated, Puritan society. In unsuccessful defense at her religious trial (left), Hutchinson proclaimed:
As my sin hath been open, so I think it needful to acknowledge how I came to fall into these errors. Instead of looking upon myself I looked at men. … I spake rashly and unadvisedly. I do not allow [that is, sanction] the slighting of ministers, nor of the Scriptures, nor any thing that is set up by God.
Following her banishment Hutchinson lived in Rhode Island and then in New Amsterdam (later, New York); there she died in 1643 during a battle between European settlers and Native Americans.
