Sarah Draper sent me a link to some of her pics from her trip in Boston.
She went to her first ball game ever at Fenway. Not a bad way to start out. Now every other game may be a let down.
For a complete list of pictures check out Adam Copeland’s blog.
I’m putting this week’s paper together and watching/listening to U2 “Live” in Boston.
Well I don’t suppose it’s live anymore, I’m watching it via DVD. But watching the band rip through Sunday Bloody Sunday with “Get up stand up – stand up for your rights” sung during the bridge makes me really sad I won’t be seeing them on their tour this year.
This is from one of our columnists, Wes Riddle. Thought it deserved to be read in more than just Harker Heights.
It has been four years since the attack on our nation September 11th, 2001. Iraqi representatives are now struggling to write a constitution, which they will ultimately have to talk to their people about and then ratify (or reject) through special election.
Our Constitution, by way of comparison, was written over 218 years ago and ratified 216 years ago after two years of debate, in the Year of our Lord 1789.
The president, in order to give the Iraqi government encouragement, and perhaps to limit U.S. domestic expectations as to the product, said at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention August 22nd, that “we understand how difficult it is to write a constitution from our history—our Constitution has been amended many times over.â€
The statement hit me like a splash of cold water, and I wonder how many Americans realize what a stupid thing the president said.
A conservative president—or at least one whose conservatism embraced strict construction of the Constitution—would never have said such a thing, either by referring to the Constitution in the context of one in Iraq, or by lading it with so many negative and erroneous implications.
Moreover, for the president to say it is far worse than someone else, because he is the chief executive of this Constitutional Republic. The implication that our Constitution was deeply flawed from the beginning, or that democratic government necessarily entails frequent amendment to its organic law for a just and stable regime to emerge, is hardly History 101 or Civics 101. Indeed, it is pretty much horse hockey.
The historic War Between the States witnessed a de facto suspension in the operation of the original Constitution, and this fact may or may not imply a serious flaw in the original Constitution. But that remains a debate of first order amongst historians and constitutional scholars, and the issues involved are manifold, difficult and nuanced.
To flippantly assert that the Constitution was messed up and so was amended a lot of times, is more worthy of a middle school essay than a speech by the president.
In point of fact, we’ve had 27 amendments.
The first ten are known as the Bill of Rights and were essentially agreed to during the ratification process to ensure passage of the Constitution. They went into effect in 1791, virtually in tandem with the main body of the document. So that leaves 17 amendments in 214 years, an average of one every 13 years.
The last amendment in 1992 regulates congressional salaries and is something of an anomaly among the rest. Its origin is the early Republic too, but the measure lay dormant until a college student discovered it was procedurally “stuck.â€
The United States in its first 76 years added just two amendments besides the Bill of Rights, and these dealt with technical matters of Judicial reach and operation of the Electoral College.
Indeed, most amendments are procedural improvements, not substantive or philosophical.
Since George Washington, all presidents adhered to two terms (maximum) in office. Only when Franklin Roosevelt ran until he dropped, did we have to amend the Constitution to reflect what was the political tradition and custom.
Middle class values likewise have always been Victorian, as it were, and people moderated drink or shunned it altogether through both suasion and legislation at community, county and state level.
Two amendments to the Constitution involve a passing of national prohibition on alcohol and subsequent repeal.
One amendment involves when the terms in office begin and end, and when Congress shall assemble; another involves how succession to the office of president occurs in the event of his death.
One amendment specifies Electors for the District of Columbia (DC), so it can participate in the selection of president and vice-president.
One amendment extends the franchise to women; one prohibits poll taxes in order to vote; and another lowers the voting age to eighteen.
In all the years of our history, we’ve had only two short periods when several amendments to the Constitution occurred nearly at once.
In other words, there are only two periods—an average of once every hundred years—during which it can be argued the Constitution lagged social reform of democratic majorities.
The first was during Reconstruction, after the War Between the States. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments redefined the rights attendant to a national citizenship and integrated freedmen (former slaves) for the first time into the polity.
The second period during the Progressive Era, resulted from the eclectic demands of rapid industrialization, mass immigration and the rise to world power status, and gave us the 16th through 19th Amendments.
The 16th provided for the income tax, which proved also to be the wherewithal for big government and the prosecution of modern wars.
For all its amendments, however, the U.S. Constitution remains the oldest fundamentally unchanged governing document in the history of the world.
It would be good if historians were left to describe the constitutional “regimes†which follow amendments, especially following the periods of Reconstruction and the Progressive Era.
Unfortunately, constitutional regime change is also identifiable after the New Deal and again since the Sixties until it has become a kind of constantly moving target.
Constitutional change is wrought now, not by amendment but by “living†reinterpretation of the Supreme Court supplemented virtually at will by congressional and executive edict.
Constitutions then and now are difficult instruments to construct and even more difficult to live by and maintain according to the intent of their founders.
As the president would have it, it is certainly nice to know that you don’t have to get it completely right the first time since you can always amend the instrument.
It is by far much better to know you can count on a constitution’s meaning, unless and until it is amended.
_____________________
Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. He is Adjunct Professor of American History and Government at Central Texas College (CTC) and Fellow with the National Humanities Institute in Washington, D.C. Widely published in the academic and conservative opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. Email: wes@wesriddle.com.
In the past few weeks, Allman and I have been talking about publishing responses to our reader’s e-mail and snail-mail. But he beat me to the punch and published his first Reader’s Mail column a few weeks back. Since he had a great response, I decided I would follow suit.
So here is my own take on Reader’s Mail. Feel free to send your own comments and questions to eveningstar@hot.rr.com.
Jonathan, please come visit us in Mesquite. You haven’t been home in a month. We’ll even take you out for dinner if you come. – Mom and Dad
Hmmm. Gas to drive to Mesquite for a free meal, $50. Eating dinner the next night with friends, $15. The look on my parent’s faces when I show up unnanounced, priceless.
Jonathan, on August 2, you published HHHS QB Donny Shorts on the cover of the 2005 Sports Guide. After a loss to Cedar Park do you think you’ve given the team the “Cover Curse?â€
Brandon, I don’t believe in silly superstitions like that. I have a feeling Shorts and the rest of the Knights will show us what they are really made of this week against Killeen. Now I’m going to have to ask you to go outside, spin in a circle four times and spit into the wind for suggesting such a silly thing.
Editor, with the rising cost of gasoline, do you think we’ll soon find another alternative to fuel our automobiles? – Billy Trucker
As a matter of fact, our office has been researching a number of fuel alternatives in our vehicles. We haven’t found anything that runs our vehicles quite as well as gasoline, but here are some cost comparisons to what we’ve tried.
1 gal. regular gas – $2.89
1 gal. lowfat milk – $2.60
1 gal. soda (store brand) – $4.73
1 gal. gatorade (pre-mixed) – $7.96
1 gal. water – $.75
1 gal. vodka – $60.52
1 gal. of Red Bull Energy Drink – $31.84
1 gal. of ethenol – $2.05 (but we won’t go into all the costs of actually producing a gallon of ethenol).
So while they may not be as effecient as gasoline, we think some of these other options could be a viable way to save some money on your daily trips. Others — not so much.
Jonathan, since you work in Harker Heights and live in Belton, who will you root for during the big Oct. 28 matchup? – David Tuma
David, I hope my job does not depend on this. But I often like rooting for the underdog, so ‘Big Red Nuf Said.’
Jonathan, we’ll even pay for gas if you’ll just come and visit. – Mom and Dad
Free meal and free gas with my parents, priceless. I think I better go to Dallas — soon.
Well that’s it for this edition of Reader’s Mail. Be sure to send your questions, comments praises and gripes to eveningstar@hot.rr.com.
If you can catch it, watch Point of View on PBS tonight. I think it starts at 10 p.m. in Dallas on KERA (13). It’s on right now in Central Texas.
Here are some summaries and quotes from the web page.
“The Hobart Shakespeareans” discovers how one teacher’s uncommon commitment and resourcefulness have opened up worlds of opportunity for his “disadvantaged” students — and perhaps have demonstrated a way forward for America’s beleaguered public education system.
Summary:
Imagine the sight and sound of American nine- and eleven-year-old children performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Henry V — and understanding every word they recite. Imagine them performing well enough to elicit praise from such accomplished Shakespearean actors as Ian McKellen and Michael York, and to be invited to perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. Such a spectacle would be highly impressive in the toniest of America’s private schools. But what if the kids were the children of recent Latino and Asian immigrants attending a large Los Angeles inner-city public school in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods?
Teacher Rafe Esquith shares his assessment of elementary education in the US:
Our schools and, sad to say, some families do a very bad job with children in public places. “Kids just being kids” are often noisy and rude, spoiling a movie or museum for other people. We shouldn’t accept this. We need to teach our children the proper behavior in all kinds of situations. If they’re rude, let’s teach them how to be polite. Just taking the kids on trips isn’t enough. We as parents and teachers must do a better job if we want our children to be better human beings.
I’m sitting in my office (on my day off) waiting for a DVD to burn. I spent roughly five hours putting together a 5 minute highlight video for the CWF. And for some reason its taking another 5 hours to render or something. I just want to go home and show it off, but I don’t think it will finish till next Monday. Geeze.
What gives.
I’ve been catching up on some blogging too while I’m waiting. Can I just say, I really loathe Xanga? I don’t know what it is – but it annoys me. I think part of it is because it lets people ad hyperlinks and other types of web coding, but it doesn’t actually proof the code to make sure it works. So then someone comes up on your page and it freezes your browser half the time. So annoying. Please get rid of all the extras on your blog. If you want to show people a music video of your favorite band, give them a link. Don’t try to force everyone to download it everytime they want to read your website.
Oh and one more gripe. If you have an XML or RSS feed on your site, please don’t post half entries on your RSS feed. There’s almost nothing more annoying than Xanga than using my RSS Reader and having to click open another window to read the rest of your entry.
GEEZE.
Why can’t people just do everything I want them to?!
Ok. Enough of that. No more griping tonight. Just getting it out of my system before I head home (sometime next week if my computer doesn’t speed up).