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| Some of our group at the 2016 Texas Indepence Day celebration at Washington-on-the-Brazos |
Today is the 181st anniversary since Texas
declared independence from Mexico, where dictator Santa Ana had thrown out the
constitution and trampled the rights of the people. The siege at the Alamo was
underway at that moment, holding off forces from February 26 to March 6. Estimates
range from 182-257 Texians and Tejanos dead and 600 Mexican soldiers. The
length of time the few martyrs held off the entire Mexican army allowed for the
declaration of independence to be signed, and for troops to be gathered and
inspired to win independence just a month and a half later at the Battle of San
Jacinto.
I’ll be celebrating this Saturday at
Washington-at-the-Brazos, where the declaration was signed, by playing old-time
music with some friends, in pioneer dress. I joined in this event last year,
and it was great fun. There are re-enactors and plenty of hands-on activities
for families.
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| a blacksmith at the 2016 celebration at Washington-on-the-Brazos |
The other anniversary is actually Saturday, but I’m
celebrating today. The first Spherical Model blog post was March 4, 2011, so I’ve
been doing this for six years now.
In case you’re new here, the Spherical Model is an
alternative to the right/left model for political ideas. It has the advantage
of showing how economic and social ideas interrelate, so we can see what leads
to freedom, prosperity, and civilization.
The full story can be found at the website:
SphericalModel.com.
I’ve done several shorter versions. A good place to start is
The Political World Is Round, from December 29, 2014.
And if you prefer a video version—which is helpful, since
the Spherical Model is three-dimensional—that’s available here: https://youtu.be/IGoh5X-CPGA
I once wrote about the behind the scenes of this smallest of
all think tanks. I’m repeating that today, with some updating, since more
than three years have gone by.
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The Spherical Model is mainly just me, plus those I talk
things over with—which happen to include my three adult children, whose
interests align neatly with the three spheres, so I refer to my children in the
blog as oldest son Political Sphere, second son Economic Sphere, and daughter
Social Sphere. All three are married and pursuing lives we can be proud of.
Political Sphere finished law school almost two years ago
and has been working as an assistant DA in a smaller county a couple of hours
from here. He and Mrs. Political Sphere have two children—Little PS1 and Little
PS2, my brilliant and adorable grandchildren. Political Sphere probably has the
most influence on the blog, because he calls regularly to talk through ideas
with me. He has guest posted a couple of times, and I keep wishing he would do
that more often, but life does have a way of getting over-full.
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| That's me, with Little PS1&2, among the bluebonnets last spring at Stephen F. Austin State Park |
Economic Sphere graduated with a degree in economics, and is
nearing the end of his time in the US Army. He has returned from two long
deployments to Korea. He and Mrs. Economic Sphere live at an Army base not too
far from here. He plans on yet more college afterward, and economics still come
up just about every time we talk.
Social Sphere finished college a couple of years ago, and
then took their newborn to South America for an internship to help
undernourished children. She and Mr. Social Sphere been working in creative
pursuits. Little Social Sphere is now two and getting more verbal. He is a
delight. She is both an idea generator and a person who makes others feel
good—so she has influenced this blog more directly than can be evident to
anyone but me.
I refer to myself as Spherical Model. (My actual name shows
up on the website, where I own the copyright, if you’re interested enough to
search that out.) Sometimes I say “we here at the Spherical Model,” but that’s
mainly just me. Here’s a brief bio of me.
I graduated with a degree in English, specializing in
writing and editing. I spent my early career years as a writer and editor,
mainly in the field of education, but partly in computer documentation—way back
when we used Wordperfect 2.0. (I go back far enough to have learned WordStar,
in case you’re a word processor historian.) One of those jobs was at a language
translation company, where I did Spanish and Portuguese quality assurance—and
also Arabic, although all I needed to test there was whether the words showed
up in Arabic script or got left in English. Among the education jobs were
college level teacher development and support, and high-low curriculum writing
(that means for higher grades, for middle school and high school, with low reading
ability). I wrote textbooks and workbooks on government and biology.
I spent a lot of years, starting before the birth of
Economic Sphere, as a stay-at-home mom. The most intense decade of that was
2000-2010, when we homeschooled, an adventure not to be missed. The Spherical
Model idea came out of a homeschool effort to explain political ideas to my
children—back in 2004. So my kids were the first to be taught the Spherical Model.
Mr. Spherical Model and I have been married for 35 years and
counting. We both graduated from Brigham Young University. That does, in our
case, mean that we are Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints). Both of us come from families that go back to early pioneer
days. His graduate school was in Indiana; we went back and wandered around the
campus during a trip last fall—first time back there. We’ve since lived in northern
California, Washington State, and now Texas, where we’ve been homesteading
since 1998.
I have other interests as well: music, art, photography,
health, cooking, sports, and probably other things that would make for a
pleasant grandma-blog, if I didn’t feel compelled to continue what I’m writing
here. I’m active in a local tea party, which comes up occasionally in this blog.
I’m a precinct chair. I’ve been a district and state delegate a few times. And
I frequently write to my representatives. I’ve worked at the polls and have been
a poll watcher several times. In other words, while I don’t consider myself a
political activist, I do try to get involved to do good where I can.
When I started writing on Defense of Marriage issues, back
around 2003, I was talking with Richard Wilkins, who had come to speak to us.
I’m a good note taker, and I believe I can take a number of ideas and arrange
them in understandable language, so I asked him about writing, even though I
had no credentials. He said it was valuable to have the viewpoint of a mother,
and I should never be apologetic for that. So I’m acting on faith that what I
have to say can be valuable to readers. I hope it is.
I love the Constitution. I love this country and pray for
its preservation. And I love civilization. I wish the whole world would choose
to live in the way that leads to freedom, prosperity, and thriving
civilization.
Now, on to another hopeful year.
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