“Stay the course” justified. The difficult is hard, the impossible just takes a little longer. No, this war is not over but this event, the significance of which is embodied in this photograph, is a significant battle won.
A young Iraqi girl asked for her finger to be inked even though she was too young to vote in this Iraq election. Iraqis voted in Sunday’s election as insurgents killed 38 people across the country, unleashing a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.
While we mourn the lives lost and disrupted, the Iraqi elections with (albeit too many) fewer casualties of terrorism than in previous elections indicate continuing improvement in our fostering of freedom in another corner of the world. It may not become democracy as we understand it, but the added freedom is not trivial.
Richard Gross, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and colleagues calculated that Saturday’s quake shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds.
Parents have always worried about where to send their children to school; but the school, statistically speaking, does not matter as much as which adult stands in front of their children. Teacher quality tends to vary more within schools—even supposedly good schools—than among schools.
But we have never identified excellent teachers in any reliable, objective way. Instead, we tend to ascribe their gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere—but not replicate. The great teacher serves as a hero but never, ironically, as a lesson.
At last, though, the research about teachers’ impact has become too overwhelming to ignore.
Worrying about our education system in this country is one of the few things that truly nags my mind. I think I could become obsessed about the problem if I had more time to contemplate the problem.
What is the problem? I see the symptoms in my “day job” manifested in high school “graduates” who can barely fill out applications for court-appointed legal representation and one, if you can believe it, spelled his name differently in two places on the application. I hear of failures of education when colleges have to provide remedial courses for students who took dual-credit courses (whom you might have assumed were high-achieving students).
For all of those reasons I was intrigued by this article describing an objective approach to identifying truly effective teachers and learning what makes them different — different in that they are bringing their students along much faster than their peers. Bill Bennett talks of studies demonstrating that getting rid of the lowest-performing 5% of teachers can have dramatic effect on the overall educational results in America.
Let’s figure out what makes great teachers great and try to replicate the distinguishing features. America cannot survive and retain its place in the world if we don’t.
It’s the day after election day for the party primaries in Texas and hopefully everyone got out to vote for the candidate of their choice. With early voting available it has become even easier to vote. What was your most important vote yesterday?
Voting is at the heart of this representative republic of ours. From the day people escaped the King of England and the fiefdoms that made virtual slaves of most, voting has been important, and fundamental, to this nation. The Continental Congress and eventually the constitutional convention adopted a constitution by the process of … voting. The document was then ratified by the original members of the union, state by state, ratified by voting. See the timeline here. What could possibly be your most important vote? It’s not what you think.
For two centuries and more following that time, citizens in cities, counties, states and the nation have been voting for legislative representatives, for the executive branch from mayors to governors to the president and, at least in Texas, for judges. Countless elections are held each year casting millions of votes. What is your most important vote? It may not be what you think it is.
We elect legislators who write the laws, the executive who administers the laws and the judges who interpret the laws. Laws are important, thus your vote is important. Law are important, indeed essential, in a civilized society for it is through those laws that a civilized society regulates the interaction between and among the people. In uncivilized societies all you need is the biggest club, and when a nation-state is uncivilized (e.g. Nazi Germany) all you need is the biggest army. But in a civilized society you must have laws to define how we deal, one with the other.
Our fighting men and women have fought and died all over the world defending our freedom and, at it’s core, our right to vote. And all over the world there are people fighting even as I write this article to try to gain basic freedoms and, in particular, the right to vote. Voting is not only a right but truly is a privilege.
How you vote has an impact on how, and when, and to what extent the laws of our nation impact you, and me, and all of our neighbors. What then might be your most important vote? It almost certainly is not what you think it is.
Laws do regulate our relationships, one with the other. Whether it’s a contract matter, a marriage or divorce, the making of a Will or the probating of one, the resolution of a business dispute or a fenceline controversy, or perhaps obtaining justice for a crime perpetrated upon us, laws have a direct and immediate impact on our lives.
But when one of those matters of societal regulation goes awry, the law means nothing unless and until the matter gets into court for resolution. At a moment in time at the end of a trial there is a coalescing of all three branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — creating a pinnacle of power that becomes vested solely in active participants in the administration of justice: the jury.
That jury hears evidence, gets instructed by the judge on the applicable law, then deliberates and ultimately: votes. What then might indeed be your most important vote? It’s the one as a member of a jury, an active participant in the administration of justice. That collective vote resulting in a jury verdict can have impact far beyond the immediate litigants. It can in fact come to have nationwide impact. Surely, such a vote or even the potential for such impactful vote is your most important vote.
The jury who sentences a defendant to “X” years for “Y” crime has just set the standard for the plea bargaining process between the District Attorney and defense lawyers for years to come. The jury who determines for the first time that a particular act was negligence sets a standard that governs future similar cases. Whenever a jury assesses a large punitive damage award against a defendant for acting in a malicious manner it will have sent a message deterring that defendant from similar actions in the future. And when even large corporations suffer large damage awards, regular or punitive, that can change not only their behavior but that of an entire industry.
Think of the Ford Pintos and their exploding gas tanks, the Corvair that had a propensity to roll over, or the many suits regarding tobacco or asbestos. Entire industries have modified behaviors, policies and products: all in the face of the votes of jurors.
Certainly, your vote as a juror may well be the most important vote of your career as a responsible citizen. Don’t squander that privilege the next time you get a jury summons. Step up, become an active participant in the administration of justice, and cast your most important vote.
I said this was “thought of” as a speech idea … I did a real quick jot of basic notes two weeks ago, then got tied up in a trial out of town for seven days and, sliding into town last night just prior to the Toastmasters meeting, had to do the speech in substantially an extemporaneous fashion. With some trepidation, I recorded mine along with the other speeches, and mine is here:
I have a few courthouse photos and hope to add those to my Flickr site, and to add to the collection. I just wish I’d had the idea of a book of Texas courthouses before someone else did it. Actually I did think of it, while a senior in high school! Should have worked on that instead of wasting time in college.
So here’s one for starters: San Saba County, Texas.
This is big. The history of America (as opposed to simply “American history”) is a fabulous story in spite of the many bumps encountered along the way. It is a history of which to be proud to have inherited, to be a part of preserving, and to be a part of creating for future generations. Yet, sadly, as Secretary Bennett states below, it is not only our school children’s worst subject but it is being steadily illegitimized.
(Update: Links to purchase the books. Amazon.com & Barnes and Noble. No pecuniary interest in this — just an advocate for a better education in history. And go to the sample site for the online component of the history series as it would be used.)
Secretary Bennett stated: “History is our nation’s school children’s worst subject. And yet, the history of America is the greatest story of the modern era. It should not be boring, it should not be dumbed-down, and it should not be politicized. It is the story of a great experiment—what Abraham Lincoln called a ‘proposition.’ It is the story of many noble efforts to live up to that proposition, sometimes failing, more often, succeeding. This great adventure is told the best way I know how, chronologically, excitingly, honestly. ‘Once Upon A Time’ can still be an invitation to our youth and there is no greater ‘Once Upon A Time’ than ours. It is the dream of a lifetime for me to have a textbook in our nation’s schools explaining all of this—and with a most exciting curriculum to accompany it. And to do so with the leader in excellence in education publishing, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a special privilege.”
The Texas Board of Education — even at this time — is in the process of approving new history books (see State Board of Education — Revisionist History in Progress) but there may yet be an opportunity to influence them toward a good history: which this is. I have Parts I & II and find them to be a wonderful read and am convinced that they represent an authoritative work of history. If I had the money, I would gladly donate the entire curriculum to our local school district.
And I think our local schools should be encouraged to adopt this series even if not approved by the SBOE. I am increasingly convinced that at the feet of poor education in general and of history in particular can be laid the lacks of ambition, patriotism and sense of public service among an all too large portion of our population both young and old. I would never stoop to condemning entire generations, but from my life and professional perspective I have to say that all too large a segment of our populace fails in those areas of ambition, patriotism and sense of public service.
Where do YOU stand? Will you call your school board members today? Is knowledge of the history of this great nation important in your mind? If it is, then you’ll do something about it.
Why you should be nice to your relatives, especially the older ones …
WILL OF HERMAN OBELWEISS
I am writing of my will
mineselluf that dam lawyer want
he should have too much money,
he asked to many answers about
family. first thing i want i dont
want my brother oscar have a
dam ting what i got. he done me
out of forty dollars fourteen years
since.
I want it that hilda my sister
she gets the north sixtie akers of
at where i am homing it now. i bet
she dont get that loafer husband
of hers to broke twenty akers next
plowing time. she cant have it if
she lets oscar live on it i want it i
should have it back if she does.
Tell mamma that six hundred
dollars she been looking for for
twenty years is berried from the
backhouse behind about ten feet
down. she better let little frederick
do the digging and count it
when he comes up.
Pastor lucknitz can have three
hundred dollars ifhe kiss the book
he wont preach no more dumhead
polotics. he should have a roof put
on the meetinghouse with (it) and
the elders should the bills look at.
Momma the rest should get but i
want it that adolph shud tell her
what not she do so no more slick
irishers sell her vokum cleaners
dy noise like hell and a broom dont
cost so much.
I want it that mine brother
adolph should be my execter and i
want it that the jedge make
adolph plenty bond put up and
watch him like hell.
Adolph is a good business man
but only a dumkoph would trust
him with a busted pfenning. i
want dam sure that schlemic
oscar dont nothing get. tell adolph
he can have a hundred dollars if
he prove to jedje oscar dont get
nothing. that dam sure fix oscar.
(signed) Herman Obelweiss.
I’ve had this piece for my entire legal career and have used it many times in speeches. It’s cute, and is reported to be an actual Will filed in Anderson County, Texas. Don’t let it be said that the law is totally dry.
(This was originally done as a speech for the Highland Lakes Toastmasters, and is based on an actual case. The essential facts are true, with minimal poetic license taken.)
I am here to tell you a tale of Murder on the Mountain. A true tale, and you know it is for I would not tell you that were it not so. It’s a tale of evil. But evil is often juxtaposed with good, and sometimes they meet head to head. And we hope that good wins over evil.
First let me share a tale of two people sharing a seemingly good life, indeed an idyllic one. The couple met when she was only 16 and while he was a good bit older, there was an immediate attraction and on the very day they met, on a sunny afternoon beside the river, they made love on the cool grass of the river bank. Over many years there were children, and they traveled back and forth between Texas and Colorado in their RV, enjoying life. Somewhere in the 20 years another woman came to live with them and the three commenced enjoying what some would call an “unconventional” relationship.
In spite of their seemingly idyllic life there had been evil even before they met. There had been a murder on a mountain. On a cold, high mountain top in Colorado. How do we know? Because there was a photo of the victim. Gruesome, as such photos tend to be. And the man talked to the woman about it. How he had to kill the fellow and how later the body was tossed down a mine shaft on that cold, high mountaintop in Colorado.
Why would the man tell the woman these horrible things, you ask yourself?
You see, the “love” on the banks of the river was not love, but rape.
And the man was older because, he was the girl’s father … having left her mother even before the birth. They had been reunited that day, that special day on her 16th birthday. And after the rape, he kidnapped her and kept her captive for those 20 years, dodging discovery by flipping between Texas and Colorado, not in an RV but in a junky trailer, living in out of the way places.
Fear kept the woman under control. That photo was enlarged. It portrayed a man, obviously dead, hanging upside down in a tree — spread-eagle and naked; and the enlarged photo hung over their bed, always, with the threat that if she ran he would find her and she would endure a similar fate.
The other woman was not simply a new friend but a stranger who had become lost and sought directions at the wrong place, and was snared in the man’s trap. There were indeed many children, but few were born for most of the many pregnancies ended in abortions.
Yes, good and evil can meet face to face, and good usually wins. It did here, for he was caught and tried. The daughter and other woman testified, bravely. I say bravely because this man was pure evil in flesh form. There have been only two defendants into whose eyes I could not look. He as the first, and the one and only time I looked him in the eye it sent such chills down my spine that I vowed to never again do that. Instead, I would look down at his chest when I had to address him.
The women testified, bravely as I said. They looked him right in the eye and told the story of those many years of rape and incest. And they looked the jurors in the eyes and their clear facts resulted in a conviction. I did once again look into the defendant’s eyes – on the day that I rendered the jury’s multiple sentences and stacked them so that he could never again see the light of day.
Good triumphed over evil that week in a country courtroom in Burnet County. Justice prevailed over the man, and both women were freed, not only physically, but now psychologically and emotionally in spite of horrors that most of us can barely imagine.
Now then you know the real story. It’s not so much about the juxtaposition of good and evil in this world, or the fact that pure evil does exist, but it’s more about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of evil.
There is an epilogue to these tales. The man who came to be called “defendant” and now is “convict” wanted to spend his time in a Colorado prison instead of Texas. He bartered a deal with Colorado that he could do that if he could lead them to the remains of the man in the tree and clear up the Murder on the Mountain. A Texas Ranger took him to Colorado and with the Colorado state police and the convict they combed the cold, high mountaintop where the convict thought that mine shaft to be located, but it was never found.
He remains in the Texas prison system. As far as I know, the women lived happily ever after.
There’s a really smart guy talking on the radio … and it’s not me. No, really. It’s Bill Bennett, and those who know me very well at all know that I think he really is … a really smart guy. And he talks on the radio on the Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show. I get it on Sirius and subscribe so that I can download the podcasts since I can’t be available for the whole show.
Bennett was Secretary of Education under President Reagan and later “Drug Czar” as it was called. He is a tremendous historian (love “America: the Last Best Hope” — the best American history you will ever read), and a keen observer of American life today. He said something on Feb 4 that while obvious to most, still bears repeating. He was talking to a teacher from Montgomery, Texas who was bemoaning the 10 below-70 grades he had recently issued … and having had NO parent call. The discussion turned to what’s wrong and Bill said “… give me better families, better schools, and more teaching in the churches and I’ll give you back 90% of the pathology in American life.”
I thought it was so good that I’ve excerpted the discussion. Hear it here:
An interesting piece from Liberty Counsel. (Note 1) I saw a portion of the Mike Huckabee show last night and a LC spokesman was talking about this problem. Pay attention: The SBOE — which approves standard curriculum textbooks — is in the process of making changes that you should know about. America has a rich past, indeed its beginning, founded on Judeo-Christian values and the continued assault from many sources to obliterate this history is both disturbing and fraudulent. That our own State Board of Education might be participating is a horrifying indictment of the “government school system.” Awaken, silent majority, awaken to this threat and do something about it.
Some of the suggestions that have come forward at various times include:
* Removing references to Daniel Boone, General George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day, and Christmas.
* Including the cultural impact of hip hop music, ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow, and the Hindu holiday of Diwali.
* Replacing the term “American” with “Global Citizen”– stating that students need to be shaped “for responsible citizenship in a global society” without any mention of citizenship in American society.
* Replacing expansionism and free enterprise with imperialism and capitalism.
The Board’s next meeting is in March and the final reading and adoption of the social studies guidelines will be in May.
Make your voice heard now, before the next meeting. Please call the board members at 512-463-9734 and encourage them to promote traditional, pro-American language in their guidelines, or you may email them at sboeteks@tea.state.tx.us.
via Liberty Counsel. (http://lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14102&AlertID=1094 accessed on 2/8/2010)
The ability of the Texas SBOE to, essentially, set the social studies/history textbooks for the nation is a huge issue this year. As was pointed out on the Liberty Counsel site,
As Texas is a leader in textbooks, most other states purchase the same educational materials. The textbook controversy in Texas affects every American because, to have a bright future, we must know our past. America has a rich past founded on Judeo-Christian values and to forget them, or worse, to distort them, will doom our future. Those who want to reshape America begin by rewriting our past. We repeat the mistakes of the past when we are ignorant of them.
Liberty Counsel is a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family. Established in 1989, Liberty Counsel is a nationwide organization with offices in Florida, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and hundreds of affiliate attorneys across the Nation.
Some might call me a techno / hobby / news junkie ... and they'd be right if they did. I'm pretty simple, really. I work because I enjoy it, and to support my hobbies of motorcycle touring on my BMW, fishing out of my kayak, and hiking. Then there is photography, internet stuff, geocaching and anything to do with gadgets, especially of an electronic nature, which recently has led me back to amateur (ham) radio. More on the about page
with offices in Florida, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and hundreds of affiliate attorneys across the Nation.
