Bleu contre jaune … Fight !

…a day makes!

I took this about 10.30 this morning, and I promise you, that sky has not been photoshopped!!

© B. Perkins

After weeks of constant and sometimes torrential rain we had a halfway decent day today. The sunrise was a pretty one over the city

Shot using my Minolta X-700 and scanned into PC. Standing next to North Head Lighthouse looking northward up the Pacific Coast.

She Had Some Horses

She had some horses.

She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.

She had some horses.

She had horses with long, pointed breasts.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.

She had some horses.

She had horses who danced in their mothers’ arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their bodies shone and burned like stars.
She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet in stalls of their own making.

She had some horses.

She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren’t afraid.
She had horses who lied.
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues.

She had some horses.

She had horses who called themselves, “horse.”
She had horses who called themselves, “spirit.” and kept their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.

She had some horses.

She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.

She had some horses.

She had horses who got down on their knees for any savior.
She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.
She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her bed at night and prayed as they raped her.

She had some horses.

She had some horses she loved.
She had some horses she hated.

These were the same horses.

~ Joy Harjo

This is one of my favorites, its in Mersea, Essex.
This was part of photography exam

This is near a pub where I live in Maldon, Essex.
Also near a boat yard & a canal as you can see in the photo.
I love how blue the sky is considering how freezing it was that day,
 which you can see on the ground; snow!!
I think its interesting how the picture has captured two completely
different weather types. What a strange but wonderful world we live in.

This is a beach in maldon, Essex.
The blue sky really makes this picture look like its from a film or book.
The sun is beaming down, its so bright on the sand. The tied has gone out
but you can just see it in the background; so still.
The sand goes on & on for miles till it connects to the sea. This is one of my best photos
 because you can really get lost in this photo, takes you to a
different place. It's almost like i took it from abroad....

Greatest city on the planet;  Boulder, Colorado!

By Michael Hughes November 25, 2009

We have so much to be thankful for; we live in the most beautiful Colorado town on the planet.  We have enviable weather where many people walk or bike to work or class.  The blue skys, the crisp mornings, the wonderful running, biking, hiking, climbing are awsome .  World class restaurants, chefs and foodinistas.  Life is supposed to be fun!  Boulder!

Parts of the movie “Sleeper,” with Woody Allen, were filmed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and at the clam shaped “spaceship” house along I-70.

Running, walking and bicycling are so highly regarded in Boulder that sometimes the city plows the Boulder Creek path before they plow the streets! Priorities!

The well known television show Mork and  Mindy utilized a house in Boulder on Pine St. for the exterior shots of the characters home.

Baseline Road is a significant east-west route to both Boulderites & cartographers, as it marks the 40th parallel on world maps. The total length of Baseline Road is about 38 miles.

A 1992 survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that Colorado had fewer overweight people per capita and more people who exercise than any other state.  Because we have numerous opportunities to workout and move our bodies.

A Colorado Daily poll found that seven out of ten Boulderites own bicycles. Another guidebook states that Boulder’s bicycle count is approximately 93,000 – almost equal to the total population!

The Chautauqua Auditorium is an all-wood structure built in 1898. In the evening, when the Colorado Music Festival musicians stop playing, you can often hear the rafters-dwelling owls hooting along with the music.

The Flatirons got their name by pioneer women who said they looked like flat, metal irons used to iron their clothes.

Flagstaff Mountain was named for the flagpole that sits on top of the summit, which was visible when Boulder was first settled, as it was a completely treeless plain.

Scott Carpenter, a NASA astronaut, grew up in Boulder. He named his space capsule after his home on Aurora and 7^th St. The capsule was Aurora 7.

The University of Colorado at Boulder’s buildings are built with red sandstone, quarried in nearby Lyons.

With Coors, Anheuser-Busch, this area has become the largest beer-producing area  in the world. Not to mention the microbreweries (Boulder Beer, Walnut Brewery, Left Hand, nearby Oskar  Blues and many more).

Robert Redford was a janitor at The Sink, before moving on to become famous!

Boulder has more used bookstores per capita than any other city in the country.

Boulder’s going to the dogs! Recent visitor counts to Boulder Mountain Parks found a ratio of 1 dog to every 5 visitors.

Every year, Boulder Mountain Parks core area receives 1.8 million visits.

In 1967, Boulder became the first city in the United States to tax itself for funds to be used specifically for the acquisition, management and maintenance of Open Space.

The Hotel Boulderado was named by combining Boulder and Colorado so no visitor would ever forget where they had stayed.

Best of Boulder

Boulder has won more accolades than any other city in America for its recreation, culture, health, business climate and overall quality of life.

2008

America’s Smartest City – Forbes magazine, February 2008

The West’s Greenest Restaurant – The Kitchen – Sunset magazine, March 2008

Top 10 World’s “Greener Cities” – Urban Land Green magazine, Spring 2008

#5 in “Top 25 Best Green Places to Live” – Country Home magazine, April 2008

Top Pick for Food & Wine Vacations – Organic/Veggie – Orbitz, April 2008

Top 25 Destinations in the US – TripAdvisor, April 2008

Top 100 Destinations in the World – TripAdvisor, April 2008

#3 in “Top 10 Cities for Masters Runners” – Masters Athlete magazine, May 2008

The 10 Brainiest Places to Retire – US News and World Report, May 2008

#8 in “Top 25 Small Cities & Towns for Art” – AmericanStyle magazine, June 2008

America’s Top 5 Cities for Cycling – Bicycling magazine, June 2008

2007

#8 in “Top 10 Cities for Artists” – BusinessWeek, February 2007

Top Triathlon Town – Inside Triathlon magazine, April 2007

#7 in “Top 25 Best Green Cities” – Country Home magazine, April 2007

#5 in “Best Cities for Empty-nesters” – Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, June 2007

Top 10 Hottest New Restaurants – Bon Appetit magazine, June 2007

#8 in “Top 25 Small Cities & Towns for Art” – AmericanStyle magazine, June 2007

#3 in “Top 10 Rooftop Bars” – Sunset magazine, July 2007

#6 in “Top 10 Farmers’ Markets” – EatingWell magazine, August 2007

Best Places to Retire – US News and World Report.com, August 2007

#1 “Top Small-City College Destination” – Denver Business Journal, October 2007

#4 “11 Most Bicycle-Friendly Cities in the World” – Virgin Vacations.com, Nov. 2007

Top 10 Best New Restaurants – 5280 magazine, December 2007

Contact me today if you or anyone you know needs real estate help….
e-Mail michael.hughes@sothebysrealty.com Direct 303-359-6627 Website:www.bolderrealestate.com

Last week i created a series of product on zazzle based on my photo, Early Morning Sun Rays #19. The early morning sun beams its rays from the azure winter sky through the leafless maples to the cedars and forest below. The sky is a pristine light blue with a hint of thin white clouds in the background. Darkened outlines of bare branches in the foreground and cedar trees in the background provide stark contrast with the early morning sun. As the rays travel from the sun through the forest, several large sunspots a of lighter and darker red radiate from the sun. One small green sunspot floats like a small orb in the midst of the trees.

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Postage

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
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Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Make personalized stationery on zazzle.com

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Magnets

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
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Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Many more Keychain designs at zazzle.com

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View more Forest Buttons

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
See more Forest Stickers

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Design custom tee shirts at Zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Create custom t shirts at zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Shop for another greeting card on zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Make post cards on zazzle

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
Browse more Forest Mousepads

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
View other Forest Aprons

Early Morning Sun Rays #19 by dlmtleArt
More Forest Bags

Dawna’s Gallery of Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, and T shirts

Dawna’s Fine Art Prints at

Dawna’s Zazzle Gallery of items featuring her Art and Photography

Robert E. Goodin

This post is a simple summary of and a low profile commentary on Robert E. Goodin’s working paper “On Constitutional Design”.

According to Goodin, “political scientists do not have a particularly distinguished track record when it comes to designing constitutions” (p. 1) despite the fact that they often come up with ideas for new constitutions and reflections on the existing ones. He thinks they’d better keep working this way, since it is more interesting to have them commenting on a wide range of issues besides constitutions.

I. Constitutional Design

A. Contra the Skeptics

Goodin emphasizes the fact that constitutions, contrary to many other institutions, are built and rebuilt consciously by definite actors at a definite time. He defines the modus operandi of designers as

1. First-principle: “Minimally sensitive to local traditions”
2. Blue-sky: “Minimally sensitive to constraining circumstances”
3. Blank-sheet: “Minimally sensitive to past practice”

His example for this? Well, he thinks that designer clothes are not comfortable (see the picture). He doesn’t leave the metaphor there.

He says that there are two alternatives to designer clothes (or, should I say, houte couture constitutions?):

1. Off-the-peg items (even these are cut to some basic design. It is a generalized version of the common-sensical design)
2. Made-to-measure articles (preferable)

Goodwin is a supporter of made-to-measure constitutional designs but he approves that in the end, it all comes to general principles (p. 3).

"Designer clothes are notably uncomfortable." Well, who can disagree with that?

For the concept “design”, the author borrows the Bauhaus slogan: “harmoniously fitting form to function”.

Forms? “Alternative constitutional arrangements”.

Functions? “Purposes those constitutional alternatives are supposed to serve”.

What’s harmony? It means “fitting the separate bits together in such a way that they interfere minimally one another in the performance of their designated functions”. Cool definition.

But all this is about internal consistency. What about the relationship between the design and its environment? A good design must also adapt well to the “larger functions which [it is] supposed to serve”, according to the writer.

To meet these ends, constitutional design has two crucial elements:

1. Functional requisites: The things the constitution is expected to do.
2. Functional equivalents: Alternative mechanisms to fulfill functional requisites.

A good design picks the best functional equivalent to satisfy the functional requisites. Obviously.

II. Constitutional Aspirations

“Constitutions constitute the skeleton of the polity” (Here comes another metaphor!). This function of the constitution is called higher law. (But, to make things more confusing, Goodin says that we should call this function lower law. However, thank Jupiter, he does not follow this idea in the coming paragraphs and leaves us in peace with the initial definitions).

But constitutions also act as the source for the flesh by creating goals and aspirations.

And this makes the skeleton metaphor a very very bad metaphor.

Goodin agrees with Bruce Ackerman’s claim that constitutional moments evoke people’s higher selves and motivate them to pursue long-term ideals rather than short-term interests.

Although people put a serious effort in constitution-writing, constitutions are to be amended in the future. However, they are hard to modify. This hardness comes from the constitution’s function: being the framework within which primary laws are amended, enacted and utilized.

There’s also a political reason: we want it to be hard to amend the constitutional law because we want it to limit the playground of politicians. We want it to define the grounds on which political commitments and agreements will take shape.

What makes citizens interested in long-term common interests is that since constitutional laws are hard to amend or replace, it is hard to calculate the benefit one will gain from any one article of the constitution. It is thus rational for citizens to try to increase the “average citizen’s long-run well-being” by coming up with good constitutions. He calls this logic of uncertainty.

Something makes me wanna draw a parallelism between this and Rawls’ veil of ignorance.

Goodin thinks the fact that we don’t bump into the traces of this logic in the classified records of parliamentary meetings weakens this argument.

This doesn’t make much sense really. No parliamentarian would openly state that he is pursuing long-term principles just because his short-term interests appear to be incalculable at the moment.

He thinks logic of appropriateness is at work along with logic of uncertainty. Parliamentarians, because they are sitting in the parliament and discussing high-level concerns, they tend to think about long-term common benefits.

To be honest, this sounds far less convincing than logic of uncertainty.

Ability of constitutional debates to evoke higher ideals makes Goodin claim that political philosophers should focus on uncovering these ideals and finding out ways of “framing institutional structures capable of evoking them”.

III. Constitutional Options

A. Against Borrowing Off-the-Peg Models

Many constitution writers tend to borrow “tried-and-true” models. Goodin says that he is planning to do this but he makes it clear that he intends to go “beyond the tired trinity of British, French and American constitutions” (p. 8).

However, Goodin also warns us about the perils of borrowing constitutions from elsewhere. To explain why, he utilizes the general theory of second-best. This theory says, if I understood him correctly, that if one of the aspects of the first-best model does not work, it is not enough to replace that aspect with the second-best: all of the first-best aspects will need to be revised. This theory makes it clear that it is not enough to have a model which is partly appropriate to the reality at hand. The reality might necessitate wholesale alterations to the model. Thus, it is clear, it is not good enough to borrow a model which functions good in a completely different framework.

B. Canvassing Wider Options

If a tried-and-true model can be devastating in a different environment, constitution-writers need to know all kinds of alternatives in order to pick the model appropriate to the given environment. For this, they need a menu which includes far more than this year’s catalogue of off-the-peg products.

Goodin’s aim, here, is not giving all possible alternatives that could be utilized by constitution-writers. He merely wants to give “different ways of skinning the constitutional cat” (and no, it has nothing to do with Satanism or illegal Vietnamese cuisine).

1. Democratic Responsiveness: Making vs. Applying the Laws

“We want our laws to reflect the will of the people”, don’t we? (Don’t bother to ask who ‘we’ are.)

Goodin gives two alternative strategies to keep the will of the people relevant to the laws:

1. “Franglo-American” strategy: Keeping the actors of the law enactment accountable.
2. Alternative strategy: Keeping the law enforcement actors accountable.

The second is really interesting. Since what simply matters is to force the legal process to take the will of the people into consideration, keeping law-makers accountable does not appear to be the only option. However, would it be equally democratic to keep the monarchy and having citizen councils when it comes to law-enforcement? Ofcourse not. Because the laws citizens will try to enforce in this case would be created arbitrarily, which is completely non-democratic.

2. Checking the Abuse of Power: External vs. Internal Controls

A very wide-spread concern is to keep the government within a circle where it will maintain its power but will not abuse this power.

There are alternative strategies to achieve this aim, according to Goodin:

1. Giving people vested rights and empowering courts to stop government from violating these rights.
2. Separation of powers. (Shoot yourself if you’re reading this summary but you don’t know what this means)

These both mechanisms try to create an external control over branches of government. However, Goodin claims, it is possible to create internal control within branches. A way of doing this would be concentrating the power and “thereby giving the authority in question both the motive and the ability to check abuses of power”.

My reaction to this proposal? Nothing but a huge question mark that could be seen from the Moon. Although Goodin talks about diffusion of responsibility (“what is many people’s job is no one’s”) and blame avoidance (“each passing the buck to co-responsible parties”), if we are to keep our concern with the abuse of power with our concern of the will of the people, references to the Middle Age arguments don’t mean much. At least to me. Adversus solem ne loquitor.

As Goodin argues, such arguments can be used to show why “responsible party government” is good.

But responsible party government does not mean the USSR government where governments were supposed to have internal control if this line of logic is functional.

3. Protecting Minorities: Output vs. Input Filters

“The standard way of” protecting minorities “is through rights guarantees of one sort or another” (p. 11).

Goodin defines this method as “filtering outputs”, outputs being the actions/laws. An alternative to this method is to filter inputs: limiting the legal arguments to a sphere where the discourse will not include “racist appeals or arguments defamatory of minority religions or ethnic groups”.

Will limiting the language of parliamentary debates in any way guarantee the non-existence of discriminatory laws? Ofcourse not. Any parliament is capable of making terrible laws while talking about beautiful concepts. Goodin also admits this weakness of filtering inputs.

4. Social Pluralism: Tolerating Diversity vs. Promoting It

The “ordinarily mechanisms”, as Goodin calls them, for accomodating social pluralism “are constitutional guarantees of toleration” (p. 12). There are hands-on and hands-off variants of such mechanisms while the former defines various institutions of social pluralism and the latter recognizes an unregulated space where civil society acts on behalf of various religions, races, languages, etc.

However, this is not the only way of recognizing the importance of social pluralism constitutionally. A constitution can also “actively promot[e] more diversity”. Goodin gives the example of Locke’s constitution for Carolinas where everybody was free to belong to whatever church they desire to, but it was obligatory to belong to one or another.

Goodin gives various reasons why this alternative might be preferable to the standard attitude of mere tolerance:

1. Mere tolerance might give authority to “distinctly illegal groups”.
2. It might ossify the existing power relations among groups.

C. Ensuring Functional Fit

As he has already said before, Goodin thinks it is essential to go beyond creating novelties when it comes to writing constitutions: bits need to be harmonious with each other and the whole needs to be harmonious with the circumstances.

In this section, Goodin gives the example of “the perils of presidentialism”: where the president and the parliament both enjoy the authority given by popular elections, neither of them tend to recognize the authority of the other. Often this mechanism leads to deadlocks between two branches. This makes comparativists to think that popular legitimacy is better to be given to one branch of the government. It is deemed preferable to have parliamentarianism where the parliament enjoys the advantages of being elected by the people while the chief executive is elected by that parliament. The other alternative is Latin American presidential dictatorships where the popularly elected president ignores the views of the popularly elected parliament.

Goodin offers two alternative ways to solve this tension which is rooted in having two branches of government elected by the people:

1. Having an unaccountable or indirectly-accountable institution to filter the decisions of the parliament. This will, according to Goodin, decrease the parliament’s ambition to own the final word on representing the will of the people.
2. Limiting the authority of the parliament to the local issues while deeming the president as the only representative of all nation.

Although I support Goodin’s idea that we should look beyond the tried-and-true models and be more creative when it comes to design issues, I really don’t think the first alternative is convincing since a popularly elected parliament which does not even tolerate the control of a popularly elected president will not tolerate the control of an unaccountable upper house.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Goodin states that there is a “higher purpose to be served” by creating constitutions. Although he does not clarify what that higher purpose is, from the rest of the paper we can claim that the higher purpose is coming up with a constitution which will blend sensible alternatives harmoniously with each other and with the circumstances. He finishes the paper by saying that “when it comes to fundamental questions of constitutional design, … much can be known and much can be done – and theorists can help.

Some areas of a painting require many layers of color. I make sure to allow time (at least a few days, but sometimes it can even be weeks) for each layer to dry. If I add too many colors of paint at one time it all starts to blend together into a muddy mess, and you loose the clearness of colors that give my oil paintings their vibrancy.

I did a little more work painting the center of this sunflower.

After adding some highlights to the center, I painted the shadows using dark brown and navy blue.

Posting some last remianing shots of Bhongir Fort…

....

Stairway to Heaven ?

Bhongir Fort