BLASTOFF - 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
(Thank you to Rumpole for permitting this to be reposted this afternoon. My apologies to our readers for posting two posts on the same feature - but there is a slightly different slant to my post. I also have posted some new information on Elections & JNC appointments below).

50 YEARS AGO TODAY ......








..... Astronaut John Glenn climbed into his Friendship 7 space capsule atop an Atlas rocket at Cape Canaveral, blasted off, and became the first American to orbit the Earth.


Sometimes I think we forget about these monumental accomplishments in American history. Our children attending elementary, middle school and high school get little in the areas of history and civics. I would guess that if they were asked, "Who is John Glenn", less than 10% would have a clue. Sad state of our educational system, here in Florida, and all around the country. But our Republican presidential hopefuls will surely make the inability to obtain birth control a much higher priority than teaching about history or civics, if any of them are elected President this November.


And while we are talking politics, did you happen to read your local newspaper this weekend? The Herald invited former justice of the Florida Supreme Court Raoul Cantero and Mark Schlakman, a senior program director for the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at FSU to write an OP ED about the Death Penalty.


The piece is entitled "Unanimous Jury Verdict A Must For Florida's Justice System". It is well written and it is speaking to deaf ears if it was meant to reach most of our elected legislators in Tallahassee. While they spend their time this session giving tax breaks to businesses that hire only non-union workers and redraw the geographic lines for the next decade of voting districts to make them "fairer", they ignore the two simple facts that speak loud and clear on this issue:


1. Of the 33 death penalty states, Florida is the only one that does not require unanimous verdicts. Even Georgia and Texas demand a 12-0 vote.


2. Since 1973, Florida leads the country in reversing more death sentences than any other state.


You can read the entire Op Ed here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/18/2647451/florida-ignores-unanimous-jury.html


We hope everyone enjoyed their President's Day Weekends. For those of you youngins', we used to celebrate our 16th President's birthday, Abe Lincoln, on February 12th, and our 1st President's birthday, George Washington, on February 22nd. Congress finally changed that in 1971 when they decided to move most federal holidays to Mondays. They chose the third Monday in February to honour our first President, but rejected the part of the legislation that would name the holiday President's Day. Instead, today we actually honor President George Washington's Birthday. Of course, our retailers didn't see it that way, and over the years, they continually called it President's Day, until the name stuck.

On the Election & Appointment news of the day:

Circuit Court - Group 49

As a result of Richard Hersch's appointment last week by Governor Scott, Group 49 found itself with only one candidate: Victor De Yurre. That was until County Court Group 28 candidate Teresa Pooler, (sister of Katie Pooler), withdrew from that race and filed in the Group 49 race. So, for now, County Court Group 28 is left with lone candidate Tanya Brinkley.

JNC: Circuit Court .....

The JNC has received applications from 16 attorneys and three County Court Judges for the open seat of Judge Julio Jimenez. The shock is from who is NOT on the list. After applying for what must have been a dozen or more times, and being nominated by the JNC to the Governor's office a dozen or more times, Judge Deborah White-Labora has not applied for this seat. Judge White-Labora told me last month that she was done, for now, applying, if she did not get the appointment that recently went to Richard Hersch. Can you blame her?!

Also missing from the applicants: Miguel de la O, who was another one of the six finalists in the Hersch group from last month. De la O is currently a candidate for Circuit Court Judge running against Greer Elaine Wallace in Group 42.

Those on the list include:

Paul Aiello, Steven P. Befera, Manuel L. Casabielle, Judson L. Cohen, Michelle Ashby Delancy, Ariana Fajardo, Alan S. Fine, Andrew S. Hague, Victor J. Hayes, Lisa Lehner, Christine Lopez-Acevedo, Louis V. Martinez, Cristina Miranda, Jonathan Parker, Bonnie Riley, Vivian Rosado, Alan D. Sackrin, Rodney Smith, Veronica A. Xiques

JNC: County Court .....

Interviewing this Friday, February 24th, for the open County Court seat of Norma Lindsey:

Veronica Adriana Xiques, Rodolfo A. Ruiz, Vivian Rosado, Yadira Pedraza, Jonathan Parker, Gordon Charles Murray, Sr., Jonathan Meltz, Steven Lieberman, Carlos Guzman, Vincent Peter Farina, Ivonne Cuesta, Judson L. Cohen, Manuel Casabielle, Tanya Brinkley, Christopher Andrew Angell, David Alschuler .

CAPTAIN OUT ...........

GODSPEED JOHN GLENN

IT'S FAT TUESDAY and we will be having pancakes for dinner (but lunch at Irene's) The Captain's take on John Glenn is coming and w are happy to report Maya Angelou is out of the hospital. 


"Godspeed John Glenn". With those words, said fifty years ago Monday, the United States entered the space race for real as Glenn became the first American in orbit.  For further reading on the first seven American astronauts (The Mercury Seven), you can do no better than Thomas Wolfe's  "The Right Stuff." 

We've been thinking a lot lately about "American Exceptionalism" and the fact that there is no such thing. If you think there is, try flying in a plane built by people who brag about American Execptionalism instead of by qualified engineers. Americans have done exceptional things. Indeed we have saved the world from tyranny. Multiple times. But you can't spend money already spent. Each challenge must be met by that generation and merely prattling about how good you were last week or last century gets you nothing. We personally like nothing more than kicking the butt of the lawyer who tells us they've never lost a case, because their record means nothing in the current case. 

As we think about John Glenn's remarkable achievement, we wonder where all the criticism is? Glenn was launched into space by NASA- a taxpayer funded agency. We don't see anything in the Constitution about space or NASA.  NASA created the rockets that launched the space capsules through partnerships with hundreds of small companies and several large contractors. And it wasn't the idea of American Execptionalism that created the rockets and capsules. It was exceptional Americans that got us into space and to the moon and safely back, except for the brave men of Apollo One. 

An individual company on their own or even in concert with others could not have afforded the billions of dollars it cost to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade and bring him safely home. And what profit was there in creating the lunar lander or the Friendship Seven or the Gemini and Apollo series of space crafts? Without a partnership between the Government and private industry we all would have been going to sleep-in the words of Lyndon Johnson- by the light of a communist moon. 

Yet in the current environment such promotion  of governmental partnerships gets you called a "socialist" or worse by the Republicans. Yet strangely we don't hear anyone criticizing Eisenhower or Kennedy or  Johnson or  Nixon (that's two Republicans and two Democrats for those of you counting at home) for creating NASA and spending billions of tax payer money landing men on the moon. Why the silence? It's deafening- and there's nothing exceptional about that. 

Coming soon: "Pando and the Faber Effect. "