I recently finished reading Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. A fascinating book, could not put it down – even though it is very long. That time in our country's history is spectacular to me. I was a science teacher and there was a supposed theory that there must have been some alien intervention for some like Einstein and Newton to have the insight they did. More likely God's guiding hand. Anyway, for that group of men – Washington, Jefferson, the Adamses, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, etc. - to come together and accomplish what they did is certainly evidence for that.

I had previously read books about Jefferson, Washington, and Adams. The picture of them and Hamilton is so different from one biography to another. Of course, each author is trying to sell his book and will paint the picture that people will buy. Capitalism sticks its finger into history! The one story that seems to stay the same as to who is the real hero of the era, the one who keeps the fledgling ship of state on course, is Washington. How many times he saved The United States for all of us! Beating the Brits, the Cincinattus speech, resigning from the army, and leaving after two terms to mention the most historical.

Anyway, read Alexander Hamilton. A great book.

As I cruise through the blogs, I notice a lot of poetry. Original and favorites. Let me add mine. Long ago and far away, a person in a position of responsibility (an upperclassman at the Naval Academy when I was a Plebe) caused me to memorize a poem in an effort to show me the error of my ways (I gave a wimpy excuse). I had to stand on my chair at breakfast and recite at full voice it until it was done satisfactorily. That poem has stayed with me for half a century. It is my post cave-man primal roar and my antiwimpiness buckler.

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
black as the pit from pole to pole.
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced not cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance,
my head is bloodied, but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
finds and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
how charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Yesterday was the Democratic primary for Virginia. Two candidates, Harris Miller and James Webb were up to be the party's opposition to the incumbent Republican Senator, George Allen. Virginia has open primaries, any registered voter of any party can vote in the primary. I am an independent but felt compelled to go down to the local fire department to vote even though it is predicted that this primary will set a record for low turnout. The impetus to me in this case was once again, negative advertising. Miller's advertising was anti everyone, Allen, Bush, Webb, Rumsfelt, etc. Miller supposedly has the support of the party machine. Webb's ads and website were certainly Democratic and against the Republican platform, certainly appropriate. The websites for the two reflected the same bias. Webb had a conspicuous link to his stand on the issues, Miller did not. My decision was obvious, vote for Webb. Well, folks, the news came out today, Webb won the primary. A defeat for negative advertising – well, partly.

With the approaching elections, the television has those horrible political advertisements on it again. I know our campaigns are nothing like the elections of 1800 and much of the early years of our democracy, but negative political ads still bother me - a lot. I tend to vote against the candidate with the most vicious ads. In the last Virginia gubernatorial election, Kaine got my vote because his opponent, Mr. Kilgore, ran the meanest nasty ads first. The current nasty ones are from MoveOn.org and are against Representative Thelma Drake, the incumbent of Virginia's Second District. I do not know whether she is Democrat or Republican except that MoveOn.org is against her so she must not be a Democrat. I went to MoveOn.org's website to try to complain but they did not offer an option of writing them. They want visitors to vote on some highly structured and biased issues but no chance of airing one's views.A sign of closed minds. I think that if God himself ran against Mrs. Drake, I would still vote for her. So far, Mrs. Drake's ads have been reasonable. I sent her an email thanking her for that and expressing my views on nasty political ads. Senator Allen has a very positive ad on now expressing his accomplishments. I sent him an email thanking him for that and asking him to continue in this vein. Time will tell!

It is a nice, peaceful June Tuesday afternoon. About to rain, I fear. A good time to try my hand at a “blog” while listening to Victoria de los Angeles singing Carmen on VivalaVoce. There are a bunch of really good blogs out there. Before trying this, I surfed over some on Blogger, Google, etc. It is a surprise to find so many very interesting ones, wish I were literate in all of those languages. If anyone wonders about the writing ability of modern society, he should wander around the blogs. There is a lot of very good writing. I taught science at a private school with a very demanding English teacher. Let us just call him “Jim”. Jim would assign a goodly number of papers each year to his twelfth grade class. Many of them would get rejected. Most often for a lack of commitment and self involvement on the part of the writers. He even flunked some about to graduate Seniors!!! Some meetings with the Assistant Headmaster about those. Jim would be pleased with many of these blogs. I guess that one of the purposes of a blog is to reveal yourself more or less anonymously. With good sentence clarity and structure, of course. I only hope that my blogging can live up to the standard that so many of the rest of you have.