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When King George III heard Washington had refused to be king, he said, 'If that is true, he must be the greatest man in the world.'
John R. Miller
February 19, 2011
5
Citizen Leadership
Today we merge Washington’s birthday with the birthdays of other presidents and submerge them all in clothing and appliance sales. But it was not always so. Americans in past centuries celebrated Washington’s birthday as a winter version of the Fourth of July. Americans in Cambridge, Williamsburg, Richmond and Milton, Conn., were already celebrating Washington’s birthday even before the end of the Revolutionary War. After his death in 1799, hundreds of cities and towns held birthday events. Such celebrations briefly abated in the early 1800s, as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were, while admiring of Washington, also envious of the awe in which Americans held him. By the 100th anniversary of Washington’s birth in 1832, however, celebrations were once again …
Wisconsin’s Democratic state senators apparently have found loopholes in the state ethics laws that permit them to shirk their official responsibilities. If the 14 senators who have fled the state in order to deny Republicans a quorum to conduct business in the legislature are not stopped, disruptions of this sort are going to become widespread. Over time, similar stunts will be pulled, with variations, by both parties in states across the nation. The truants from Madison would have appalled the leaders who wrote any American state constitution, including Wisconsin’s. In days before fast travel by cars and airplanes, the chance of a hookey-playing senator seeking effective sanctuary in another state was not anticipated. Constitution writers considered that the authority to …
Concept view of Tampa-Orlando HSR station (Source: Florida High Speed Rail) Governor Rick Scott of Florida has turned down $2.4 billion in federal high-speed rail money. The money, part of President Obama’s push for building high-speed passenger rail, was to be used for a line connecting Tampa and Orlando. In his prepared remarks, former business executive Scott said his concerns centered on “capital cost overruns,” unrealistic “ridership and revenue projections,” and a fear that his “state would have to return the $2.4 billion” if Florida couldn’t afford to keep the project going. As news of the announcement spread beyond the Sunshine State, others in the high-speed rail funding queue moved faster than the 250 mph Shanghai Maglev …
The revolution in Egypt is another historic product of alternative media, espeically Facebook, home to the "April 6 movement" that commemorates the brutal beating death of a young Egyptian blogger who had exposed the 2008 beating of a demonstrator in the industrial city of El-Mahalla El-Jubra. Instead of stopping the communication, the police beatings provoked a huge following. And then a revolution.
