September 15th is Felt Hat Day the end of the season when men may wear their straw boaters and Panamas rather than the fur felt fedoras, porkpies, homburgs, and bowlers that we wear (You do wear a hat, don't you?) the rest of the year. For more information see http://www.thefedoralounge.com/. Straw hats may not be worn again until Straw Hat Day which is May 15th.
POST-GAZETTE - Res Publica
A Politician Cares Only About One Job—His Own
by David Trumbull - July 23, 2010
What is going on with Res Publica? A column about local politics and local current events has, more and more, been devoted to U.S. international trade policy. As I sit in a room in Washington, D.C. writing yet another column to send up to Boston, I say to the readers, Believe me that what is going on here in the federal capitol city is too important for Post-Gazette readers not to know, and so little reported in the main-stream media that if you don’t read it here you may not see it anywhere else.
Much is made, on talk radio, and in other conservative and Republican circles, of the American jobs lost due to the Clinton-ear North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Preferential trade benefits for the nations that border us on the north and south may be a good idea, but NAFTA is full of so many loop-holes that much of the benefit of the agreement has gone to other nations, especially China. Yes, it is little reported, but is easily documented, that U.S. jobs lost to Mexico due to NAFTA are nothing compared to U.S., Mexican and Canadian jobs lost to China due to NAFTA.
Looking out for our backyard, the nations of Central America and the Caribbean, was a long-standing U.S. policy going back to the early 19th century “Monroe Doctrine.” But the trade agreement we have with those nations, like the NAFTA it is modeled on, is shot full of holes that make it a significant transshipment vehicle for Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other nation’s products.
As our “jobless recovery” continues apace—with substantial fears that even this economic up tick may be a temporary blip before we enter the second part of a double-dip recession—policy makers in Washington continue to push more NAFTA-type schemes sure to result in more American job losses.
You don’t hear much in the news about the proposed U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. And you won’t hear much about it until after the November election. That’s because this one makes NAFTA look like good policy. It will, immediately upon passage, open our market to a duty-free (with a permanent ban our ever increasing that rate) flood of goods from an industrial powerhouse. As for access to the Korean market for U.S.-made goods, our negotiators agreed to allow the Koreans to impose a 10% tax on our products, and gave them the flexibility to raise that tax any time they wish to any level they need to keep U.S. products out. President Obama has stated that he wants Congress to pass this abomination sometime after early November—in other words, after the election.
The machinery of government here in Washington is slowing grinding its way toward a free trade agreement with several nations bordering the Pacific Ocean, including duty-free access to the U.S. for goods from the communist nation of Vietnam. That’s another agreement you will not hear about in the mainstream press until after the election.
Politicians talk before the election about creating American jobs, but watch after the election for the votes they take to send more jobs overseas. The typical politician, after the election, does not worry about jobs—he has his job, and that’s the only one he cares about.
[David Trumbull is the chairman of the Boston Ward Three Republican Committee. Boston's Ward Three includes the North End, West End, part of Beacon Hill, downtown, waterfront, Chinatown, and part of the South End.]
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the
land.
The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give every man his due. Freedom, from which men are called free, is a man’s
natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force
or law: Slavery is an institution of the law of nations, against nature
subjecting one man to the dominion of another.
Our constitution favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all.
This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you --1 Samuel chapter 8.
1. Welcome, happy morning!” age to age shall say:
“Hell today is vanquished, Heav’n is won today!”
Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore!
Him, their true Creator, all His works adore!
Refrain “Welcome, happy morning!”
Age to age shall say.
2. Earth her joy confesses, clothing her for spring,
All fresh gifts returned with her returning King:
Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,
Speak His sorrow ended, hail His triumph now.
Refrain
3. Months in due succession, days of lengthening light,
Hours and passing moments praise Thee in their flight.
Brightness of the morning, sky and fields and sea,
Vanquisher of darkness, bring their praise to Thee.
Refrain
4. Maker and Redeemer, life and health of all,
Thou from heaven beholding human nature’s fall,
>Of the Father’s Godhead true and only Son,
Mankind to deliver, manhood didst put on.
Refrain
5. Thou, of life the Author, death didst undergo,
Tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show;
Come, then True and Faithful, now fulfill Thy Word;
’Tis Thine own third morning; rise, O buried Lord!
Refrain
6. Loose the souls long prisoned, bound with Satan’s chain;
All that now is fallen raise to life again;
Show Thy face in brightness, bid the nations see;
Bring again our daylight: day returns with Thee!
Refrain
1 O sacred head, sore wounded,
defiled and put to scorn;
O kingly head surrounded
with mocking crown of thorn:
What sorrow mars thy grandeur?
Can death thy bloom deflower?
O countenance whose splendor
the hosts of heaven adore!2 Thy beauty, long-desirèd,
hath vanished from our sight;
thy power is all expirèd,
and quenched the light of light.
Ah me! for whom thou diest,
hide not so far thy grace:
show me, O Love most highest,
the brightness of thy face.3 I pray thee, Jesus, own me,
me, Shepherd good, for thine;
who to thy fold hast won me,
and fed with truth divine.
Me guilty, me refuse not,
incline thy face to me,
this comfort that I lose not,
on earth to comfort thee.4 In thy most bitter passion
my heart to share doth cry,
with thee for my salvation
upon the cross to die.
Ah, keep my heart thus moved
to stand thy cross beneath,
to mourn thee, well-beloved,
yet thank thee for thy death.5 My days are few, O fail not,
with thine immortal power,
to hold me that I quail not
in death's most fearful hour;
that I may fight befriended,
and see in my last strife
to me thine arms extended
upon the cross of life.
1. When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.2. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.3. See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?4. His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.5. Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.6. To Christ, who won for sinners grace
By bitter grief and anguish sore,
Be praise from all the ransomed race
Forever and forevermore.
