Upon Some Reflection

I've done some resting and reflecting and not a whole lot of writing. What is it I want to write about now? As the tabs above make obvious, I'm interested in the topics of politics (which covers a lot of ground from civil rights to economic theories to governance styles and foreign relations....), vampires (as a symbolic study), Lyme Disease (as a public service) and parenting (well, just because I am one and it's a wild ride.)

During the election, my writings were heavy on the politics and that balance is likely to change now. Two political topics that are currently still on my mind though, are economic theory and constitutional law. Of course, the economy is on everyone's mind. I've done some studies of it while getting my MBA and it's been of interest to me for a while. Particularly because two of the premises on which economic theories have been built have always seemed absurd to me. In recent years, though, there has been a new school of though that has challenged these theories. I'd like to see a transformation of how we treat economics at the governmental policy level, so I'll try writing about that from time to time.

Constitutional law is not something I've had more than a fleeting interest in before. Certainly, we've seen a lot of constitutional issues come to the fore with the Bush Administration. Bush's actions have defnitely spurred me to read parts of our founding document again, specifically the Bill of Rights. But what has really motivated me to write and explore and learn about this revered piece of work is Sarah Palin's gross misinterpretation of it.

I'm not saying she's willfully misinterpreting or she's cognitively impaired. But, I can imagine she's never actually studied it. I went to schools all over the country while growing up. My father was in the Air Force. He retired as I entered my sophomore year in high school and we moved into his mother's house while he went back to college. My grandmother lived in New Canaan, Ct., a very wealthy town with a well-endowed school system. We had a planetarium in the high school and a fully operation television studio, along with a course catalog larger than some colleges. By all accounts, I lucked into a top-tier education. Still, I barely remember studying the constitution. Certainly, we read it, but I don't recall debates about interpretation or teachings about different schools of thought or competing governance philosophies of the founders. As an adult, I could vaguely tell you about the Bill of Rights, but couldn't have listed all of them. For all of Palin's charisma and eagerness, she didn't come off as an intellectual. So, I'm guessing she never went beyond what she was told in school and may have absorbed in her political sphere. Never applied her own critical thinking. (Let's hope so anyway, because for all the interpretation there might be, no one would agree with her characterization of the 1st Amendment.)

So, on the politics front these are the topics I'll continue writing about. I'm sure there may be other things that crop up based on current events. But I hope you'll join me in re-reading and studying the Constitution of the United States of America. This way, we're intellectually armed the next time a candidate makes her own claims about what it says or an administration violates it.

I'll have to a little studying up first, so expect to some vampire voyeurism in the meantime....