Remembering the Past to Appreciate What We Have

image from Rep. Valoree Swanson's facebook page

This is the season for Texas history. March 2^, 1836, was the signing of Texas Declaration of independence from Mexico. While that was going on, a tiny force was holding out against an overwhelmingly large Mexican army—for thirteen days—at the Alamo, which finally fell on March 6^th. While things were looking pretty bleak, it was only a little over a month later, April 21^st, at the Battle of San Jacinto, that Texas won its war for independence.

Last Saturday I played music as part of the festivities at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed. That location is about halfway between us and the grandkids, so we talked their parents into bringing them. When I was done playing, we still had some look around time, and took a few photos.

Washington-on-the-Brazos, where Texas declared independence from Mexico

The building, at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed, was a lot more rough frontier than the original US colonists signed their declaration.

re-enactors of the signing

Re-enactors gave us an idea of the people who signed the Texas Declaration. Weather was good, but chilly. It's unpredictable this time of year. The signers in 1836 did it as quickly as they could, to get out of that drafty building.

inside the building where the Texas Declaration was signed

They had a good model for a Declaration of Independence, since they had the US as a model.

Grandddaughter Little PS 1

The kids got to make things: a cornhusk doll, some tooled leather.

demonstrating an old-time potter's wheel

We got to watch a potter at work.

demonstrating an old-time weaving loom

And a weaver.

I’m amazed at the ingenuity of what people figured out to do before electricity. The machines are involved and detailed, but foot-powered.

a protestor

I took a picture of this guy because of his costume and swinging the flag. But then I heard what he was saying. He was located in a protest zone, declaring his First Amendment right to express his views. All good. But his view was that Mexicans had been mistreated here in Texas, and it was their land. I think he stopped short of saying we ought to give it back; I didn't keep listening.

But this is curious. He’s at the place where Texans—including both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking—fought and won a war for independence from Mexico, because their dictator, Santa Anna, had taken away their rights, and all efforts to peacefully seek redress were thwarted. Stephen F. Austin had spent 18 months imprisoned, without charges, just for seeking a peaceful solution. He returned to Texas saying the only option left was war.

This painting of the Battle of San Jacinto
hangs in the Texas Capitol, but I got this image from History.com

After the Battle of San Jacinto, a brief and decisive victory for Texas, which included capturing Santa Anna, Texas was free of that tyranny. It’s the same way the United States became free from the tyranny of the British king following the Revolutionary War. The argument to give Texas back to Mexico makes no more sense than giving back the thirteen original American colonies to Britain. Once a war is fought for freedom, you don’t give your land back just to be nice.

It’s ironic that this man was making his argument in a place made safe for him to make it—because we won freedom from tyranny. And he’s complaining about that?

Our US Constitution is the best document ever created for allowing people to have freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

This is a good time to be alive. Innovation that has come out of a free market over the past couple of centuries is phenomenal. We live in relative peace. People all over the world are now more likely to have their basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing met than at any time in history.

It’s good to take a look at history now and then to help us appreciate how very good things are in the present.

Anniversary Celebrations

Some of our group at the 2016
Texas Indepence Day celebration
at Washington-on-the-Brazos

Today is the 181^st 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.

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.

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.