What Happens If People and Not Congress Abridge Freedom of Speech?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/sports/colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-protests-and-NFL-activism-in-quotes/?utm_term=.209ad7d520df

When you have finished reading all of the recent comments published in the Washington Post newspaper address shown above you will likely come to the conclusion that one football player’s deliberate attempt to make a point has been achieved. The ongoing protest is viewed by some as a beacon leading to change and equality for a particular group. There is also a counter group brimming with anger and it questions the how, when and where ethics of the unpatriotic demonstrators. The potential for growth or for loss for the country is being played out with no apparent end in sight in all of our media. In addition to those who have spoken and have been quoted daily, there are countless other men and women who are apparently quietly accepting or rejecting his decision and the consequences of that decision. Do the unmeasured and unheard voices present a potentially different unseen and unheard outcome? 

One thought concerns me greatly. I have not considered it before and yet it exists in plain sight and it is troubling. Separate the freedom of speech language from the total First Amendment language and it reads "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech”. What happens when and if a decision is made to abridge the law by individuals and groups of people and not Congress? What happens when people exercising their rights stop other people exercising their rights? Some of you will say, "That cannot happen." Really? 

Our amended Constitution does not say you have to like, approve or support what someone does or says or where and how they choose to say it. You have been granted both the freedom of speech and a great personal responsibility which you must learn to master. The real challenges to this nation are not the demonstrators or the demonstrations or the language used or who says it. The challenge is how the nation chooses to address the issue being protested. I choose to follow the Constitution because it is the law of the land and without it we merely exist and are literally not unique as a people or a nation.

Time Seen Through Poetry, Music and Etymology

Today my mind has acted like a compass unable to locate and settle on true north and I wandered about looking at time in poetry, music and finally word etymologies. Even for me, that combination is a bit weird but then I often find myself going in different directions at the drop of a thought especially if I think I might run into something I didn’t know, or something that has vexed me and I need an answer. Though odd, today’s walkabout has confirmed again my belief that elements of the concept of time can be found nearly everywhere and they are capable of revealing things that are unique and hidden in plain sight.

            Time and Poetry

I began my walkabout by wondering if time could be linked to poetry and I simply typed the phrase ‘time and poetry’ into my search engine and up popped a list of 16,700,000 results in 0.64 seconds. I chose topic one: https://www.poemhunter.com and was delighted because in addition to a title, the poet’s name and the text of the poem, I had the additional pleasure of seeing the text and hearing it read aloud. I found poems about time passing, about time and love, about the importance of time, about time as precious and about time running out. Not bad for a few minutes of simply looking around. Yes, I do like poetry.

            Time and Music

Disclaimer: When I was young, I actually tried, dramatically and unsuccessfully, to learn how to play both the accordion and the violin but I still learned to love music. I believe that I learned to love classical music because of a radio program sponsored by American Airlines out of Chicago called Music till Dawn.  I listened to that program on a tall wooden framed Philco radio in my bedroom almost every night when I was in my teens.

When I typed in time and music I discovered concepts which had eluded me in youth explained and pictures that could have helped me to make a connection with the little symbols named notes, sharps and flats which are found on sheet music. I was really fascinated by a simple picture of a piano keyboard which could be placed on the piano above the keys as a visual guide and as a reminder. Pictures and the use of simple words like forks and chopsticks helped me to see what I could not see and grasp as a child. It is difficult for me to draw a picture of a piano keyboard with just words but read the words first and then turn to the web site shown below for clarification. The black keys are in groups of two (chopsticks) and three (fork). The key to the left of the chopsticks is the note C and the key to the left of the fork is the note F. Wonder of wonders it made sense and so did the later explanations of sharps and flats. All of this doesn’t mean that I can now learn to play the piano or the accordion but a light went on in my head and the room was no longer dark. http://www.dummies.com/art-center/music/piano/how-to-identify-the-keys-on-a-piano/.

            Time and Etymology

My original goal for today was to merely clarify the meaning of the word “saeculum”.  I found that it can be defined as a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a given human population. Here, I was reminded that etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Examining saeculum at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saeculum, I discovered  the classical and Ecclesiastical pronunciations of this word differ. The classical Saeculum is pronounced (sae-ku-lum) and Ecclesiastical is pronounced as (se.ku.lum). I also learned that the letters ‘sae-” mean to sow, bind, knit and tie together. Those meanings are joined by the addition of the Latin suffix –culum  to form some nouns derived from verbs. I even discovered a list of “Latin words suffixed with the suffix –culum “ at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Latin_words_suffixed_with-culum.

For good measure, I learned that the Romans picked up the word saeculum from an extremely successful nation of peoples who were named Etruscans. Etruscans believed that their nation would exist only through ten lifetimes and would then end.  It turns out they were correct!

Promise to myself: Return to the visit Etruscans one more time and then move on to the Romans because the Romans who followed the Etruscans in history have a similar nation ending story of their own.

Our Earth's Journey Around the Sun

Our Earth’s Journey Around the Sun

My daughter recently sent me a simple five word sentence which she had posted in her blog site at http://guhacaveoftheheart.blogspot.com/. As I read it again and then again I paused and turned from what I was planning to do and lingered in its truth. Her shared sentence was: "Time goes from present to past." In essence we by nature look at something and recall another time and image. She also revealed the source of the words as coming from the Zen Master Dogen of 12th century Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōgen .

Earlier in that same day I had been struck by the fact that the shadows created by the morning sun shining on the trees in my back yard had moved dramatically from when I had last paid attention to them, and I clearly remembered that I had watched their repeating patterns through an earlier autumn then through winter, spring and summer. Now they had returned to autumn. I hadn’t been paying any conscious attention to the shadow’s movements but they had, indeed, moved and in my mind the never ending cycle revealed itself again. It was at this point that I realized that physical challenges I had faced in the prior year were finally ready to be put aside and I could return to the past and continue my walkabout with time. Where you are when you are ending or beginning the cycle we call a year makes no difference at all.

During the trying time I had forgotten the uniqueness of the earth’s movement and truthfully didn’t even care but it is some of the obvious and the subtle elements of that movement which I choose to share with you today. Join me on my walkabout and observe our earth’s graceful dance around the sun.

Remember: I choose to not share all I have read and learned on my journey because this is my journey. I will, however, leave a few signposts for you to examine and perhaps find your own discoveries. Two of the signposts were shown above. The rest are shown at the end of my walkabout and perhaps the beginning of yours.

Our earth’s journey around our sun takes 365.24 days. Because it is not exactly 365 days, the year needs to be adjusted every four years from 365 to 366 days. The added day makes it possible for all of the seasons to occur at the same time each year. That adjustment year is called leap year. The added day is called leap day and it has been added to February as its 29^th day. Leap day has its pluses when it comes to seasons but there is also a drawback for those people who are born on February 29 because they can experience their calendar birthday only once every four years.

Depending on your age, each and every year is accurately described as gone in the blink of an eye or as taking forever. In fact our earth’s journey is not the stately walk of lovers on a beach. On each of the 365.24 days we travel a fairly accurate 1.598 million miles per day at roughly 18.5 miles per second. We experience a time in our journey when we are closest to the sun and yet it occurs on January 3. It is called the Perihelion. Conversely we find ourselves at the greatest distance from the sun on July 4. That event is called Aphelion. Both events occur about two weeks after our two solstices. Both of these words describing our extremes came to us from ancient Greece. Peri means close and Apo means far. Yes the Greeks also had a name for the sun. It is helos. A solstice also has a most and least time. The Summer or June solstice occurs on June 21/22 and the Winter or December solstice occurs on December 21/22. They arrive six months apart. Their season arrivals reflect the times when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, and are marked by the longest and shortest days.

Since there is an existing and observable balance between closest and furthest and longest and shortest it is logical to find that we have two periods when there is a time of sameness. Those periods have been named Equinox. An Equinox is the time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator. The celestial equator is defined as the projection into space of the earth's equator; an imaginary circle equidistant from the celestial poles. I can hear you thinking about that sentence because I am not really scientifically or mathematically comfortable with another equator and more poles either. It hurts my head too! Just focus on the time of the year when the days and nights are of equal length, about September 22 and March 20, and you understand an equinox.

All of this predictability is only possible because our earth is tilted. It appears that about 4.5 billion years ago an object about the size of Mars collided with our earth and that collision resulted in a world tilted in its relation to the sun. It is the tilt of the world which make the seasons possible. Not only is the world tilted, it actually wobbles between roughly 21.4 and 24.4 degrees and the extremes of the wobble occur within a roughly 41,000 year cycle. The increase and decrease of the tilt can be shown to set the table for our earths predictable heating and cooling cycles. This cycle theory was proposed by a Serbian named Milutin Milankovitch in 1930.

Together, we experience four seasons, equal days and nights, heat and cold, longer and shorter days and we travel through space at high speeds. In all of this, we remain in place and yet we move and because of an ancient collision we all experience the year we sometimes take for granted. Because the journey repeats itself whether you pay attention to it or not and all observable events come and go on a predictable schedule our journey around the sun together is a dance we all can and should enjoy.

Guideposts:

A guidepost is another name for sign post but I prefer it to be merely a guide and not the end.

1.      http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C2TSND_enUS618US618&q=time+and+date.com

2.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season

3.      https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html

4.      https://www.livescience.com/18972-earth-seasons-tilt.html

5.      https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-time

6.      https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/aboutseasons.html  

7.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus

8.      https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Milankovitch/ 

9.      https://www.quora.com/Why-does-February-have-28-days

Our DACA Issue

I do not know if any of you who might be reading this entry have also followed the DACA issue but I am personally delighted by the possibility that our Congress will take the President’s suggestion to act wisely and promptly to seek a just outcome for all DACA individuals within the 6 month window of opportunity he has provided in his recent decision. I believe the President’s decision is correct and just. I want you to understand that I am not against any of the DACA individuals who can meet the requirements in the yet to be established legal path to their possible citizenship.  I am personally relieved that their futures will finally be determined by the rule of law rather than in the dysfunctional courts of media and personal opinion. President Calvin Coolidge spoke these words on July 5, 1926 in Philadelphia. “It is not the enactment but the observance of laws that creates the character of a nation.”

Those among you who have chosen to inappropriately speak of President Trump as cruel because of his decision must consider the following facts about our nation’s Constitution.

Our Constitution is the law of the land.

Our government’s Legislative branch includes a Senate (100 members) and a House of Representatives (435 Members). Our Legislative branch was designed and empowered to Make the laws.

Our government’s Executive branch includes the President, Vice President and the President’s Cabinet. Our Executive branch was designed and empowered to Carry out the laws.

Our government’s Judicial branch includes the Supreme Court and other Federal lesser courts. Our Judicial branch was designed and empowered to Evaluate the laws.

Because it is ours, we must find a way to let our nation’s Constitution work its magic yet again and we must make a personal promise to learn and understand our Constitution and the ideals that created it.