JULY FOURTH & THE SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court is the last bastion on the ship of Government to which citizens look for legal interpretation of The United States Constitution.  We do so when we believe we have been unfairly denied opportunities to participate in our communities.


The Supreme Court is where we seek legal understanding to pursue equal opportunity for education,
or the freedom to choose our own life style, faith or privacy, or to ensure that laws, rather than instruments of violence and vigilantes, protect us and our communities.


When decisions are made by the Supreme Court that tend to steer us away from the shores of equality and justice it is disillusioning at best and disquieting in the extreme.


As we celebrate the Fourth of July 2014 we need to ask legislators, our Courts and elected officials toward what shore are you steering us?

HAWKEYE PIERCE AND SCIENCE

So what was Hawkeye Pierce, star of the television series *M*A*S*H, sitting with a helmet ringed with wires on his head?  I came upon him, also known as Alan Alda when I saw the television show "Scientific American Frontiers."  He was about to have his brain waves charted by a machine.






Alan Alda, film and television star, slim, handsome and looking younger than his 75 plus years, sat on a swivel chair, serving as an eager research subject about to learn how his brain worked.  Then he wanted to explain it so that the information was understood by the public.




With his sense of humor and profound respect for science Alda wanted to teach scientists to become
capable communicators. He wanted to use the techniques he had learned from acting, directing and writing to inspire a greater interest in science.


He took what he called "a crazy idea" to universities around the country but found no interest except  at Stony Brook University in New York. There he developed his ideas for a Center which became known as the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.




 Perhaps plain English and Alan Alda's "crazy idea" may be just what the doctor ordered to help people be less fearful of  learning and science.












 

TAP DANCING AROUND TAXES

It's that time again!  State and Congressional offices slow down and legislators go home.


Back home, elected officials try to win over voters by tap dancing around the quick sand of taxes, and budgets as they try to explain why they voted as they did.


This is what happened here in Missouri.


On the last day of their Session, the men and women we elected to office passed a Budget which voters will now pay for dearly.  The Governor called the Budget a "grab-bag of giveaways!"


Missouri State Senator Paul LeVota from Independence explained that his vote to exempt the sales tax from membership fees to the Sprint Center in Kansas City was because those taxes were not being collected anyway.  Now, if that does not sound like tap dancing, I don't know what does.


 In the meantime,  a new movement is underway here in the Show Me State .  This one proposes to do away with all income tax and replace it with sales taxes just like they have in Las Vegas. Buy that one and there is a Bridge I want to sell you!


Did I hear tap dancing?