On April 5, 1792, U.S. President George Washington exercised his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power was used in the United States.
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Our First Veto
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Camille Paglia
Modern liberalism suffers unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. On the other hand, it expects governments to provide materially for all, a feat manageable only by an expansion of authority and a swollen bureaucracy. In other words, liberalism defines government as tyrant father but demands it behave as nurturant mother. Feminism has inherited these contradictions.
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, p. 3.
Last Thursday, SpaceX successfully re-used a previously flown rocket to launch a payload into orbit.
Sure, NASA had re-cycled rocket parts before. That is, the U.S. space agency had recovered spent rockets.* But those were rebuilds.
SpaceX’s most recent triumph was to launch a “stage one” rocket that had gone into space before —and returned. Last April it delivered a payload to the International Space Station and then safely touched down vertically** — just like in 1950s sci-fi!
You could see the evidence: the weathered look of the rocket fuselage.
This Falcon 9 rocket not only placed its Luxembourg-owned SES-10 into orbit last week, it then returned — again! — to its ocean “drone ship” platform.
A new age in space commerce thereby hit a new landmark.
Or would that be “spacemark”?
Re-using a rocket is like how airlines re-use jet aircraft. Less waste, expense. Making the whole industry more viable. The technology and expertise to safely land and recover the rocket is astounding.
Alas, videocasting of the most amazing part of the effort, the landing and recovery of the Falcon 9 rocket, failed — noticeable by its lack in both the live Periscope feed and the YouTube archive. But we had seen that very same rocket land last April, onto SpaceX’s charmingly named droneship, Of Course I Still Love You.
Ocean mark? Drone mark? It hit the mark, whatever you call it.
Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, had every reason to breathe a sigh of relief, as well as engage in some apt exultation, after the mission.
We can, too. Space industry privatization and progress? Actually happening.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The Space Shuttle was a different technology entirely, a re-usable spacecraft. What we are talking about today is the powerhouse stage-one booster rocket, like the old Saturn V that the Apollo program famously exploited.
** The Space Shuttle, remember, landed horizontally, like an airplane. Future re-usable manned spacecraft will no doubt do this. A private return-entry spacecraft, like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two, put into orbit by a re-usable Falcon 9 rocket, would be the next logical new achievement. Though, obviously, these are different companies with tech that is not, I think, meant to work together.
That judges of important causes should hold office for life is a disputable thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body.
Aristotle, Politics, Book II, 1270b.39.
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Tippecanoe (and, sadly, MLK, too)
On April 4, 1841, William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and the one with the shortest term served (he died on his 32nd day as president). Renowned Indian killer (having risen to fame for his part in 1811’s Battle of Tippecanoe), a proponent of the expansion of slavery into Northwest Territories, and a Whig, Harrison won the presidency in part by turning the Democrats’ “log cabin and hard cider” aspersions on his character as the basic symbols of the campaign.
Though hardly a “limited government man,” some limited government history buffs proclaim him the Greatest President, on the ostensibly droll and possibly cynical grounds that he spent so little time in office.
On a sadder note, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on this day in 1968.
Where is child care most expensive?
In America, it is in our shining, shimmering national swamp. Yes, in Washington, D.C., infant care averages nearly $1,900 a month, more than $22,000 a year.
So naturally, if you’re a politician, you see that as too . . . low?
It has been decreed, since last December, that workers caring for infants and toddlers must upgrade their educations to keep their licenses. The District’s brave new world-class day-care regulations, the Washington Post informs us, are designed to “put the District at the forefront of a national effort to improve the quality of care and education for the youngest learners.”
Yesterday, at Townhall.com, I provided the details on
- which day care workers or home caregivers must acquire
- what type of college degree in early childhood education or,
- if currently degreed in another field, how many semester credit hours in early childhood education they must have, or
- whether a Child Development Associate (CDA) would suffice, and
- by what date . . .
. . . just to keep their relatively low-paying jobs.
You may be shocked, but these new regs do not apply to the politicians and bureaucrats regulating the “industry.”
The costly credentials required to provide child care will certainly raise prices that D.C. parents already can ill afford. And won’t help those newly credentialed, either: “prospects are slim,” the Post admits, “that a degree will bring a significantly higher income.”
In a perfect world, every child-care worker would wield a Ph.D. in early childhood development. Be a pediatrician. As well as a psychiatrist.
And a former Navy SEAL, to fend off terrorists.
But who can fend off this regulatory attack on common sense?
I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration based on photo by Carolien Dekeersmaeker on Flickr
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Dave Barry
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
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Mountaintop
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
At Townhall, Paul discusses the latest wonder of regulation in our imperial city. Click on over. Then come back here for more detail. Details such as….
The District has decreed that the directors of any licensed “Child Development Centers” or day care, in non-bureaucratic nomenclature, must have a “Bachelor of Arts (BA) in early childhood education or a BA with at least 15 semester credit hours in early childhood by Dec. 2022.”
The regs also mandate that “teachers” have at least an “Associate of Arts (AA) in early childhood education or an AA with at least 24 semester credit hours in early childhood by Dec. 2020.” What the non-state’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education calls “assistant teachers” must have a “Child Development Associate (CDA) by Dec. 2018.”
Of course, not all day care is performed in perfect, state-of-the-art child development centers. Some folks throw caution to the wind and simply keep other folks’ kids in their home.
They’re quite sensibly known as “Home Caregivers.” They still need a license, however, and the helpful D.C. regulations order them to garner that piece of paper known as a “Child Development Associate (CDA) by Dec. 2018.” Indeed, so must the people dubbed “Associate Home Caregivers.”
Additionally, an “Expanded Home Caregiver” is ordered to obtain an “Associate of Arts (AA) in early childhood education or an AA with at least 24 semester credit hours in early childhood by Dec. 2019.”
- Washington Post: D.C. among first in nation to require child-care workers to get college degrees
- National Academies Report: Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8, A Unifying Foundation
- OSSE: Final Rulemaking for the Licensing of Child Development Facilities
- Economic Policy Institute: The cost of child care in Washington, DC
- Washington Examiner: Washington, DC, now requires child-care workers to get college degrees, hurting families and workers
- Forbes: D.C.’s College Mandate For Child Care Workers Is Something To Cry About
- Psychology Today: Should Homeschooling Parents Have College Degrees?
- Institute for Justice: Occupational Licensing
- Fortune: You’d Be Surprised How Many Billionaires Don’t Have a College Degree
- Forbes: Multimillionaires Without High School Diplomas
Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.