State of the Union
I’ve always thought the State of the Union address was a fairly worthless endeavor and actually, as an American, somewhat embarrassing to watch. Kevin Williamson put it pretty well in an article he wrote last year for the National Review titled Great Caesar’s Ghost. If you’re interested in reading it, I’ve linked it here. The first paragraph is in the box to the right to whet your appetite.
The whole idea of a State of the Union address rises from Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution describing the powers of the President which says: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”
From what I have gleaned, George Washington did meet with the Congress in what was the first State of the Union “report”, but when Thomas Jefferson became President, he deemed the practice of addressing Congress too “kingly” and began the practice of sending written reports. This proved satisfactory for 112 years until President Woodrow Wilson changed the tradition to a formal address to Congress. This has morphed into the political spectacle we’ll be subjected to tonight.
Lest this be considered just Obama or democrat bashing, let me heap some of the blame on President Reagan for making things worse. He is responsible for the odious new tradition of placing “guests” in the audience which serve as props for the political messages in the speech. And as Mr. Williamson says in his article, “The next Republican president should remember why his party is called the Republican party and put a stop to this.” Hear, Hear!
Consider the Sources: Almost totally Internet; some from Mr. Williamson’s article and some from other searches.
Bugles Across America
As previously discussed here, ECC employees were randomly awarded $5 for participating in Red Shirt Fridays. A matching contribution was given to Bugles Across America at the end of 2014. Please use the link if you would like to know more about the organization or contribute to them.
Warts and All
I haven’t been posting as often as I would like the last few weeks as I’ve been working on getting another project up in our portfolio. (Not to mention dealing with the holidays, Will and Kathy’s retirement, etc.) Yei-Yei’s Game Room is a project that we’ve been working on since the summer of 2013. We expect it to wrap up this Spring. The project is unique. It is an underground game room with two bowling lanes as the center piece. The challenges of the underground structure adjacent to a lake with the associated waterproofing along with learning a plethora of bowling alley minutia were something out of the ordinary. Anyway, I thought I would include the link to the draft here for anyone who wants to watch the creation and editing process as it goes. I don’t want my lurkers to get bored!
I’m attempting to create some slide shows to illustrate some of the sequencing like I did with the Logansport Library page. I did a slide show for the stairs there. (I’m always amazed when I see how many pictures I’ve taken and yet don’t have the one I want.) There is an issue with the program where it doesn’t like more than one slide show on a page, so I’m attempting a work-around on that.
If you go there and find errors, feel free to let me know. I’m still considering it a draft until I put it in the portfolio link structure so you can find it from the main website menu.