My co-worker showed me for the upteenth time this week some pictures she took of a rally near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The rally was a bunch of people, some she apparently knew, singing "All you need is love" and carrying signs about tolerance. She showed me the video she took of them with her phone and then looked at me. I could tell she was expecting me to think that what this small group of people were doing was significant and hopeful but I couldn't muster much enthusiasm about this protest. It certainly is going to change the fact that we are in for a world of hurt these next 4 years.

What one Founding Father really wanted.

Lately I've been spending a lot of my time visiting the memorials that abound in Washington D.C. For example, my friends Alan and Ashley came up from Atlanta this weekend and they wanted to see among others, the Jefferson Memorial. In the portico of the memorial that has a giant statue of Jefferson there are also his words etched on the walls. Those include of course, what he wrote in the Declaration of Independence but there is much more. I read the following on one wall and a chill went down my spine. Read it all of you who blather on endlessly and ad nauseam about what the Founding Fathers wanted in government and especially those of you who insist on a "strict constructionist" interpretation of the Constitution. "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."