The world was captivated earlier this week by the incredible engineering achievement of drilling teams to bore through 2300 feet of the granite rock of the Andes in less than two months to successfully provide a rescue portal for 33 trapped Chilean miners. This same week another drilling milestone was achieved in the Swiss Alps every bit as awesome in its achievement and unsurpassed in its scope. Since Roman times the perilous journey from northern to southern Europe has been blocked by the granite majesty of the alps with only two viable portals, the St. Gotthard and St. Bernard passes providing arduous and time consuming causeways for the motivated traveller. In modern times these passes have been successfully traversed by roads that make trans-European travel viable, but there has been increasing concern for the threat of damage to the local alpine environment caused by increasingly high volume truck and rail freight travel through the passes. The Swiss, however, are a particularly focused people acutely aware of their unique position on the European continent and the integral role the soaring alpine vistas play in the formation of their national character. Over two decades ago, they determined to do something about the increasing congestion. The something was a massive public works project costing over 10 billion dollars and 23 years to completion- and what a project it has been.
This week the Swiss nation celebrated the completed drilling of a 35.4 mile tunnel under the Gotthard that now forms the longest transport tunnel in the world, surpassing the Seikan Tunnel in Japan by over a mile. The Swiss are no strangers to tunnel technology and achievement owning 3 of the 20 longest transport tunnels currently serving world travellers. The achievement at this time is one of connectivity only as the viable use of the tunnel is expected to take 7 more years to initiate.
When all is said and done, the tunnel is expected to reduce the travel time for road freight slightly over one hour in passage through versus over the Gotthard, but more importantly to the Swiss, remove the visual damage to their beloved alps caused by the travel of people looking to pass through the country, not be a part of it. Only the Swiss can say if it is worth three decades and billions of dollars to achieve this engineering marvel for the sheer joy of returning the Gotthard Pass to something closer to the vistas enjoyed by Europe’s first hardy travellers. The toll to each Swiss citizen for this investment, 1300 dollars apiece. Hopefully, the next time I travel the pass, they won’t try to get their investment back all in one transit through the tunnel.
The preliminary numbers from the Congressional Budget Office are in for fiscal 2010 and they are, unsurprisingly, as bad as predicted. The combination of completely unharnessed government spending, reduced recessionary receipts, and a progressively unstable entitlement environment have come together in a perfect storm to explode the standard of acceptability accrued over two hundred years of national budgets from 1790 to 2008. President Obama continues to maintain a relative detachment to the whole spending debacle, recently having proposed an additional 50 billion in “stimulus” spending to follow up the trillion dollars of “stimulus” spending that had apparently little effect on the health of the American economy. The perspective is a fairly simple one – President George W. Bush, facing the 9/11 recession, fighting two wars, and passing “big government” ventures in education with No Child Left Behind and in Medicare Prescription as a spendthrift “compassionate conservative” managed to amass 2 trillion of deficits over 8 years contributed to the national debt. President Obama in just 24 months has already expanded the national debt by 2.76 trillion dollars, with no end in sight. Is it feasible that profligate spending will destroy the American ideal enemy armies and national calamities failed to dent?
Gateway Pundit tackles this issue head on with an eye opening graphic that crystallizes the proportionality of the current government’s disdain for budgetary discipline:
At what point does this pattern of spending enter into the theater of the absurd? The statistics get more dire the closer you look at them. In a country where a deficit of 4% of GDP was considered outrageous, the current Obama budgets rack up 10% and 9% of GDP respectively. A ridiculous 37 cents of every dollar now spent in the budget goes to deficit spending or service of the debt, not to defending the country, supporting infrastructure improvements, or positioning this country to reach for big ideas.
I am approaching the point of numbness to the whole headlong self-destructive behavior. Once again, it is time for adults to reassert authority, and take back the keys from our undisciplined kids playing recklessly with this nation’s future. No excuses, people. On November 2nd, 2010 get it done. Recess is over, and its time to get down to some hard work.
A history book that holds particular joy for me is Samuel Elliot Morison’s ” Admiral of the Ocean Sea”. Morison was one of America’s greatest literary historians and an expert seaman in his own right. Eventually achieving Rear Admiral U.S.Navy status for his personal involvement and superb documentation of the role of the U.S. Navy in World War II, Morison first achieved fame as a Harvard history professor for his hands on biography of Christopher Columbus, “Admiral of the Ocean Sea”, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1942. Morison took it upon himself prior to the war to sail to the precise locations of the Columbus voyages, to feel what he felt and see what he saw, bringing an irreplaceable awareness to the historical tome.
For many years prior to its destruction by political correctness, October 12th had a special place in the American experience as a day that separated all that came before, from all that came after in history. A single man, the explorer from Genoa, Christoffa Coromba in Genoese, or as we have come to know him, Christopher Columbus, determined to find the western route to the East Indies, and looked to find any government who could find a legitimate reason to underwrite his voyage. Columbus was not a specially intellectual man, but was a well read one, who had come to believe strongly on the basis of his extensive sea voyages and what he had gleaned from books that a viable shorter way to the Orient existed sailing west that would compare favorably economically to the recent Portuguese discoveries of trade routes around the Cape of Africa. The obvious financial benefits of such a shorter trade path were clear to all European powers, who were just beginning to escape the introverted scope of the Middle Ages and enter into a period of aggressive questioning and exploration known as the Renaissance. Columbus went to Portugal first as this small country was the pathfinder in extensive transoceanic voyage. King John of Portugal, whose own brother Henry had discovered the trans-African route, saw no reason to undercut his current seafarers. Next, Columbus went to England, than Italy, but received little encouragement. After all, most thought Columbus was seriously off base in his calculations and unlikely to return from such an expensive and risky undertaking. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain were initially not significantly more helpful, but changed their mind and granted Columbus a fairly generous contract they would later regret, of 10% of all economic benefits achieved from a successful trade route and expected discoveries. They were comfortable with doing so as they thought he had little if any chance of succeeding.
Columbus was one of a growing number of conceptualizers that saw the world as round, as such, logically available to circumnavigation from either direction. He seriously underestimated the world’s diameter, concluding Japan likely some 3000 miles due west of the Canary Islands, rather than the 19,000 it actually was. A miscalculation of this magnitude of the distance between land masses was serious business for certainly no ship in 1492 was capable of maintaining necessary supplies to keep the ships going without replenishment anywhere near such a distance. The Spanish monarchs, desperate to be players in the burgeoning European outreach to distant worlds, determined anyway to provide him three small ships, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, and sufficient men to staff the ships. Columbus left the Canary Islands September 9th, 1492, and, understanding the existence of the “trade” winds better than most, headed due west.
Morison, traveling Columbus’s route, reproduces much of the tension and disappointment in the succeeding five weeks directly from Columbus’s journals, Nada it became clear to most on board that Columbus was willing to sacrifice them all to prove himself right, as he sailed far beyond the theoretical turn around point that supplies would allow. Mutinous grumblings grew ominously as weather grew worse and no evidence of land was apparent. Morison describes a risky moment where Columbus in early October commands a perilous cross ship meeting to impel the sub commanders to direct their men to go a few days more, and is rewarded finally by some floating evidence of human activity on the water that buys him some time. Then, the night of October 11th, 1492, and Columbus “sees” a light in the distance, and men begin to believe that a momentous day is upon them, and fully understand the significance. Morison captures the moment:
“Anyone who has come onto the land under sail at night from uncertain position knows how tense the atmosphere aboard ship can be. And on this night of October 11-12 was one big with destiny for the human race, the most momentous ever experienced aboard any ship on any sea. Some of the boys doubtless slept, but nobody else. Juan de la Cosa oand the Pinzons are pacing the high poops of their respective vessels, frequently calling down to the men at the tiller a testy order-‘keep her off your damn eyes must I go below and take the tiller myself?'” …Under such circumstances, with everyone’s nerves as taut as the weather braces, there was almost certain to be a false alarm…only a few moments now and a moment that began in remotest antiquity will end. Rodrigo de Triana, lookout on the Pinta’s forecastle, sees something like a white sand cliff gleaming in the moonlight on the western horizon, then another, and a dark line of land connecting them…tierra, tierra! he shouts, and this time, land it is…”
The point of contact with the New World, not the orient Columbus surmised, was an island in the Bahaman chain, Guanahani, or as it was christened by Columbus San Salvador, and the world was never the same. Columbus had reached beyond what men could do, and what men feared to try, and was victorious. The untoward actions of Spain and other powers evermore in their treatment of the natives and resources of the American continent does not diminish the singular achievement of the explorer hero Columbus, who imagined the far side of creation and had the will to take the perilous journey to live out his dream.
It is one of the more ingrained myths of the modern American political experience that the more liberal you are, the more likely you are going to be seen as intellectually gifted or even brilliant, the more conservative, more likely the dummy with persistence. Quick – name our “intellectually gifted” presidents of the last fifty years: Kennedy, Carter, Clinton ,and Obama -the “intellectually challenged”: Ford, Reagan, and George W. Bush. Our current President Obama was noted to be “brilliant” by commentators as diverse as Peggy Noonan and Joe Klein, without a single released college transcript revealing assessed capacity, or a single legislative accomplishment as a state or federal senator. David Remnick, Obama’s biographer, states, “Its certainly a relief to a lot of people that Obama shows no signs of the incuriosity displayed by his predecessor (Bush). Obama has proven his intellectual and literary firepower.“ The power of liberal insight is it transforms people from being intellectually capable to being intellectually “gifted” on the solitary basis of the righteousness of the idealistic liberal cause. President Obama in his righteousness has struggled with the inability of the segments of the American public to see the obvious benefits of his well thought out positions. Instead they “cling to their guns and their religion”, and inconceivably deny the merits of the stimulus and health care packages he has produced, so clear to any thinking person. In juxtaposition are the two identified presidential “dullards”, Reagan and George W. Bush. Mr. Reagan the obvious C student at Eureka College and B-movie actor, was assumed to be incapable of the decision making capacity and policy conceptualization that led to a spectacular economic boom and the fall of the Iron Curtain. Yet his diaries and writings show a depth, assuredness, and farsightedness based on bedrock principles that defy the attempted dismissiveness of his critics. George W. Bush holds an especially pilloried position in intellectuals’ hearts when it comes to dullardness. He is the king of the incapable conceptualization, the crown prince of incuriosity. Yet of the three combatants for the Presidency, in order of intellectualism- Gore, Kerry, Bush- which had the SAT score in the top 20% of takers, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and the intellectual competence to fly jet fighters? Ummm, that would be the dullard Bush. No matter – the guitar playing Kerry was a clear intellectual heavyweight compared to the thick thinking Bush according to the media definitions of 2004, and Bush’s structural clarity in his decision making style and firm support of his management team were seen as profound mental rigidity bordering on -that’s right, dullardness.
Intellectuals remain flummoxed by the unwillingness of people or events to conform to their version of the facts. The sceptics of global warming were denounced as “flat earthers” for being unwilling to accept the “overwhelming evidence” of global warming, even as the 2009 East Anglia debacle showed data manipulation and out right fabrication at the base of the arguments. President Clinton insisted that engagement with the North Koreans worked “under my watch” even though the North Koreans themselves admitted they brazenly lied regarding all elements of the Clinton era benchmarks, and successfully achieved a nuclear device. Now President Obama is flummoxed by Iranian leaders engaging in evangelical self interest in nuclear development, when it was clear to him the failing of the Bush team was their anti-intellectual obstinance about accepting the Iranian theocracy as the legitimate expression of the Iranian people, even as Obama observed as hundreds of thousands of Iranians bravely protested and hundreds died defining for all time the regime’s illegitimacy.
The “unfortunate” conclusion of all this smart vs dumb presidential nonsense is that the components of leadership – organizational skills, temperment, intuitiveness, insight, principled logic and ability to instill passionate trusting involvement of a people- are hardly gaged by an individual’s grade in first year law school or his or her media savvy. It is hard earned, ‘ boots on the ground’ performance that shows a politician’s true smarts, and our ability to find leaders who can solve some of the bigger issues of our time will determine our own success as a people, and our survival as a civilization. We may want to consider a more diverse assessment of leaders as they come before us, such as the contrasting leadership styles under pressure of people such as Sara Palin or Hillary Clinton, before we dismiss one, and anoint the other. The great educational institutions of America have produced some great leaders, but no more than the training ground of the school of hard knocks and personal challenge.
As the election of November 2nd closes in, the national perspective often clouds the fact that this election is very much a plebiscite on the quality of state and local governmental management. Governors seats and the senate and assembly positions are up for grabs across the nation, and as Tip O’Neill, the old Boston pol once so famously claimed, ‘all politics is local’. In many ways the consensus on state and local governments often precedes the eventual national direction and concerns, and 2010 is shaping up to be an election about competence. Chris Christie, in winning the governorship of the very blue state of New Jersey last year on the issue of competence and adult management, changed the sense of the possible in all state elections and has states with incompetent governmental styles reeling in fear of the potential electoral wave before them. State governments are frequently under the onus of the requirement for a “balanced” state budget, where the national government has no similar requirement. State governments who have done a poor job of supporting their local economic advantages, and have instead fed the ballooning demands of state and local employee entitlements, allowing them to devour the discretionary portion of their budgets, are in particular trouble. When the economy was sufficiently successful to support the spendthrift habits, the balance sheets seemed to work out, but with the recession lingering, states have had to progressively pilfer from other state fund vehicles to make up the difference. My home state of Wisconsin under democrat governor Jim Doyle has been one of the great thieves, and has seen progressive loss of support in the bond market for its follies. Wisconsin, an upper Midwestern state long known for effective government, outstanding education, and a diverse economy of both agriculture and manufacturing, has become a progressive loser compared to its better run neighbors in Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota. The election in Wisconsin for Governor this year, pitting republican Scott Walker against democrat Tom Barrett, is a particularly sharp contrast in philosophies of restoration of investment in economic sanity and local industriousness versus the stand-pat support of the safety net against all other needs. The pattern of local and state competence and economic success is reflected in Standard and Poor’s state bond ratings, which reflect the lender’s confidence in whether their bond support will be realized by return on the borrowed money. The map not surprisingly gives a pretty clear indication of the state’s most “in trouble” for a coming electoral sea change.
How does your state compare to your neighbors when put under the microscope of appropriate management of all your states assets and resources? The web site 24/7 Wall Street has a terrific breakdown of where the fifty states rate in regard to the concept of “well run”, including not only the traditional standard of fiscal information, but also, GDP per capita, debt per capita, credit rating, household income, percent of residents below the poverty line, support of education, support of infrastructure, and health care coverage – all impacting the state’s capacity to meet current needs and successfully invest in its future. Take a look at the survey and see where your state rates. Wisconsin has always seen itself as an example for the nation, but its rating and its credit status are average at best, thanks to a decade of lack of discipline and focused attention to developing weaknesses. And if you live in California, not so the long ago, the pinnacle of state innovation, economic growth, and educational growth – read’em and weep. On November 2nd, if you don’t finally step up to the plate and vote to start to right your ship, God help you.
A new movie reminding all of us of the excitement surrounding one of the great “athletes” of any generation is moving into theaters. The movie is about the horse Secretariat, the magnificent triple crown winner of 1973. I expect to go see it and cry like a baby. Why? Because Secretariat is intimately tied to my life long emotionalism regarding the concept of being a witness to an act of perfection. Whether it is Usain Bolt winning the 100 meters at the Olympic games in a style so thoroughly outclassing his opposition, Roy Halladay pitching a no hitter, or Franz Klammer skiing at the edge of catastrophe and death willing himself to victory in the downhill at Innsbruck in 1976, I have always struggled with my composure at the moment of triumph. Amazingly, in 1973, the hero-athlete was a horse and an epic one at that.
Secretariat was not a great story that snuck up on anybody that year. He was from the moment he stepped on the track at age two already a horse with incredible attached expectations. He looked like a winner, with a beautiful sorrel finish, three white stockings and a blazing white star on his forehead. And Secretariat was huge; 16.2 hands tall and in his prime cracking the scales at a Peterbilt size of 1,175 pounds. He had a appetite like a glutton, and a bizarre “human” personality – spunky, confident, and particularly fond of crowds and cameras. He was in short, “the Natural”, at a time when the national media was capable of framing a story and the public was desperate for a feel-good true life hero. At the end of his entry year in racing, he was already voted Horse of the Year by the horse racing establishment, and was the odds on favorite to bring home a triple crown for the first time in 25 years – consecutive wins in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont over a 5 week period. Considered the ultimate racing competition , this marathon process demands progressively longer distances out of the race horse until the final sprint of the Belmont, where the animal is expected to duel over 1 and1/2 miles to complete the crown.
Like any great victor, Secretariat needed a foil. In the Triple Crown races of 1973, it was an extremely talented horse named Sham, who it seemed was capable of matching Secretariat stride for stride and clearly was the class of the competitor group. Sham dueled with Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby, requiring a track record performance by Secretariat to nose out Sham by 2.5 lengths. The Preakness followed, and the duel continued with Secretariat again applying a late surge to catch Sham and win the Preakness. With the Preakness win, Secretariat was reaching legend status and simultaneously appeared on the covers of Tim, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated as “Superhorse”, a level of celebrity hard to describe at a time when there was no internet or 24/7 coverage of events as the Internet and cable TV now provide.
The Belmont loomed as the ultimate match race between Sham and Secretariat, as other horse owners cowed by Secretariat’s dominance refused to participate in the expected humiliation of their prized horses. As a result, only three other non-descript horses were entered in the race. Ali had his Frazier, Laver had his Newcombe, and now Secretariat would have his Sham.
I was a child at the time but it seemed that all the world was watching on that Saturday afternoon, June 9th, 1973, for the great Belmont Stakes duel. The Triple Crown was on the line, the hype of a “superhorse”, and the overflow New York crowd at the Belmont bet on Secretariat for the simple right to covet the winning ticket if Secretariat could pull off the win, as the winner was going to collect only 20 cents on a 2 dollar ticket. The right to say “I was there” with the momento was felt to be more important than cashing in the ticket. The crowd was psyched and wanted to see something special – and that is what they got.
The horses broke and by the first turn the two protagonists had separated themselves from the others. Secretariat and Sham pressed each other neck and neck through the first mile at a blazing speed. Sham’s jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr. a hall of fame jockey knew his horse was at maximum capacity, and prayed that Ron Turcotte, Secretariat’s jockey was as concerned about his steed. It didn’t really matter what Turcotte had in mind. At the 6 furlong mark, Secretariat pushed into the lead, and created a level of performance no jockey had any right to control. As unforgettably described by Chic Anderson, the legendary horse race announcer on CBS that afternoon, the unfolding event stunned Anderson into emotional awe – “Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!”
No one had seen anything like it in a championship event. The horse was now 9 lengths, now 16 lengths, now 20 lengths, and finally an impossible 32 lengths in front of the field. He stormed down the stretch alone, no whip driving him, the hysterical crowd roaring, to the fastest quarter ever recorded, and the fastest mile and 1/2 distance in history. In a race records set by tenths of a second, Secretariat would break the Belmont record by 2.5 seconds and crushed the competition in a performance for the ages. Pincay, knowing the challenge was hopeless in the face of such greatness, eased Sham back to a last place finish to preserve the competitive colt’s body against certain destruction. I will never forget the unforgettable moment, the sense of perfect beauty and power that this special horse provided in that two minute interval of my life. Secretariat averaged almost 38 miles an hour, and was still accelerating at the finish.
When the great horse died of laminitis at age 19, an autopsy revealed what we all suspected – the great heart of Secretariat was at least two times the size of an average thoroughbred. In a world where thoroughbreds were driven by propellers, Secretariat was powered by a jet engine. Behold – “Superhorse”.
Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies earlier today threw a no hitter against the Cincinnati Reds, winning 4-0 in only the second no hitter in major league baseball playoff history. He threw to only 28 batters; the only runner reaching base was Jay Bruce, who walked on base with two outs in the fifth inning. Halladay, who had thrown a no hitter as recently as May 29th against the Florida Marlins, was as close to perfect as a pitcher can be without getting to perfection. The rarity of the event in the 107 year history of World Series and championship runs further illuminates the spectacular level of achievement, and focuses further on the singular performance of Yankee Don Larsen in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers and Sal Maglie.
Don Larsen was the definition of a journeyman pitcher with an overall career record of 81 wins against 91 losses, with major league stuff, but a propensity of inconsistency and wildness. He had managed to blow a 6 run lead in game two of the series, and was not initially sure he would be called on to pitch game 5. Regardless, the call to the mound was not wasted, and immediately his catcher Yogi Berra realized something was quite different on the afternoon of October 8th, 1956. Larsen was showing pin point control and substantial velocity. He only went to three balls on one batter the entire game, and only required two significant fielding plays, a ricochet grounder out by Jackie Robinson in the second inning, and a Gil Hodges drive to left center requiring a running catch by Mickey Mantle. Nothing else was really close, and it dawned on Berra the catcher in the eighth inning that Larsen was approaching perfection, much less a no hitter. The Yankee dugout grew deathly quiet to Larsen , and his quips regarding the situation were left empty in the vacant stares of teammates who feared any response would jinx the never previously achieved performance. The mound proved to be the safest and calmest place for Larsen, and he ended the game of 97 pitches with a strikeout of Dale Mitchell , a career .311 hitter. Never before, and, until today, never since had anyone achieved a no hit championship pitching performance, nad though Halladay came close , no one other than Don Larsen has achieved 27 up, 27 down, and 27 out.
Roy Halladay is a Cy Young winner with two no hitters to his credit; Don Larsen is just another pitcher among thousands who played the wonderful game of baseball. For one afternoon in 1956, however, Don Larsen raised his average talent to supernatural levels, and achieved an immortal moment in baseball lore. It is the incredible beauty of baseball that allows these kind of special moments and in a strange way makes autumn the best season of all. Thanks Roy, and thanks, Don.
I reported on August 30, 2010, about the unfolding drama in Chile where 33 miners thought lost in a mine collapse over 700 meters underground at the San Jose Mine in Chile were discovered trapped but alive. The amazing story of their survival and perseverance is about to reach the moment of truth as rescue efforts are approaching critical drilling depth for rescue from three directions. There has been little recent information regarding the health and mental stability of the minors, but the rescue efforts have been historic and the hope is the longest known underground human survival saga may soon reach a successful climax. Two Chilean and one Canadian mining rig are pounding through bedrock in order to create a rescue tunnel through which a rescue cage may be lowered over two thousand feet and pull the miners out one by one.
The extent of this rescue effort and the scale of the human heroism being displayed knows little comparison. The lessons learned by so many sciences with this effort – rapid deep rock drilling, isolation psychology, group leadership, effects of extended claustrophobia, lack of light, and sleep wake cycles in a non-structured test environment are all at unforeseen levels of experience. The trial of these miners could easily help us to understand the effects of deep space travel and many other considerations only hinted at experimentally.
We can only hope and pray that the end process is a successful escape for these brave, tortured men, who lived their lives to bring food to the table of their families, but may soon provide us all with profound food for thought.
It is only one month to go in that most marathon of marathons, the American national election cycle. The process of election in the United States has become so time consumptive, expensive, and career oriented, that the consideration that there are important ideas to be debated and democratically determined often gets lost in the maelstrom. Except….this election cycle. It certainly was originally heading toward being one of those elections where one establishment party would argue with the other establishment party over who would be best positioned to outspend the other for the right to outspend your money. This time, however, a funny thing happened. A growing grass roots process of concerned citizens tired of interchangeable parties and policies decided that this election cycle would be different than all the rest – this election cycle would not be about who was in charge, who was spending more, who was more equipped to “govern – this one would be about ideas.
Imagine that, an election about ideas, not people, we elect to govern us. The tea party movement has calmly stepped on the supposed third rail of politics, that the personal profile of a politician is more important then the ideas they espouse. To the horror of the national establishment parties, the electorate determined time and time again that they would put forth candidates that would be rigorous with principle, and not just appearance. Candidates such as Rand Paul , Scott Walker, Carl Paladino, Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, and Marco Rubio, along with a host of others, have shifted the emphasis from their at times their thin or flawed resumes to the power of their ideas. It is the fear of all establishment parties concerned, that these people might actually vote on their principles. As a result, we , the electorate, have a unique election that requires us to decide what principles we actually believe in.
1. Is the Constitution of the United States the critical document of the American Ideal, or a “guide” to be constantly reformatted and interpreted? When legislators swear to support, protect, and defend the Constitution, should there be accountability? The 2008 Congress left their session in 2010 without putting forth a budget, their primary responsibility under the constitution. They passed governmental takeovers of private industry, banks, and ultimately, the health care decisions of individuals without considering their constitutionality. They left in place a broken immigration system that threatens the concepts of nationhood expressed in the Constitution. Does this ultimately matter to the citizen – the 2008 Congress gambled it would not.
2. Does the Bill of Rights have modern value to the individual citizen? Are the concerns expressed regarding the current legislative negligence regarding -Amendment II: the right to bear arms, Amendment IV: the right of individuals to be secure in their houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, Amendment VI: the right to a speedy trial, Amendment IX, the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, not to construe the denial of other rights of individuals, otherwise not mentioned in the Constitution, Amendment X: the rights reserved to the individual states not otherwise specified in the Constitution- sufficiently important to demand compliance by legislators?
3. Should the individual right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” be a legislated quality or an individual determination? Do laws that purport to support the public welfare, do so at the expense of civil liberties? Should a government determine what you may eat, how you should educate yourself, what level of comfort you should live in, what kind of house you should live in, what books you should read, how many children you should have, what level of support you may supply your family’s future generations? Should taxes be used to support the nation’s progress and infrastructure, or as a weapon to determine the extent of individual success and redistribute individual achievement and happiness?
4. Should laws be established that provide for the present with no provision as to the future? Does the American Ideal require protective parenting? The nation’s spending habits are driving toward a future where all the nation’s resources will go toward maintain the “comfort” of the population against any other need. Who is looking out for the future generations; should it matter to the living what damage they do to future generations dreams of the above principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
5. Does the concept of Nationhood matter anymore? The current congress and President have legislated strongly toward a globalization process that progressively weakens the concept of the American nation through support of international law standards rather than national ones, pursuit of “climate” legislation, that internationalizes American economic decision making, immigration policies that blur forever the borders and result in acceptance of illegality and inconsistency, and reject the concept of an American leadership role in defending the principles of freedom and civilized behavior. Is a nation a place on a map, a certain racial characteristic, or a consensus of ideas that all within believe in and uphold?
One month to go to the humdinger of all surveys of what we truly believe- its going to be interesting.
The human voice creates at times a special kind of beauty that transcends the visual expectation. Perfect pitch, perfect phrasing, and perfect expression are often attached to artists that do not meet our desire to focus the visual and the aural senses as a singular expression of beauty. Recently talent show winners such as Paul Potts and Susan Boyle have defied our expectations and have produced moments of sonic beauty that surprise the listener who expects that commonplace individuals can not produce uncommon lyric expressions.
A special case is a native hawaiian singer and musician by the name of Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole, known as IZ. Born in Honolulu in 1959, IZ had achieved a local noteriety as an interpretor of native Hawaiian folk music, but reached world wide acclaim just before his death for a rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, a Harold Arlen / E.Y. Harburg song from the Wizard of Oz movie, made famous by Judy Garland. IZ created a unique Hawaiian folk inflection to the song that was re-inforced by his classic and extremely nimble ukulele technique that elevated the song into an unforgettable projection of the Hawaiian paradise. His talent was far more than one song, however. He brought a serene tenor voice to both original and classic songs as well as Hawaiian folk music that evoked visual images of meditative beauty that few fans will soon forget. He was a proud native Hawaiian who never stopped promoting Hawaiian language and culture in a respectful way that had often previously been reduced to somewhat superficial and cartoonish expressions by earlier Hawaiian performers such as Don Ho.
Iz Kamakawiwo’ole was limited in his artistic achievement ultimately by his one personal fatal flaw – an inability to control his own weight. By his adult performance years, he grew to a eventual weight of 757 lbs that eventually killed him at the young age of 38 secondary to weight related respiratory ailments. His physical girth created a strange juxtaposition – the subtle,beautiful tenor instrument that was his voice eminating from such a large physical creature. It brings a special kind of tragedy to his gift that makes it more special for its impermanace. It makes us ever more aware the God given gift of human talent comes in all kinds of packages and and unexpected directions, and is ever more special when we are caught unawares.
