2008
Week 15
April 129, 2008

Hi

They actually did it. Someone sent us home.

The last time for 15 of us. With a plaque instead of a gold watch. Budget, I suppose. Forty of you came for part of the day and many more sent greetings. THANK YOU!

Usually, we can go back and work a bit at our desk in the chamber until the end of December. Not this time. They are repairing the long-term damage of rain water leaks and general deterioration in the chamber, so those chairs will be gone come Monday.

I am so grateful for the repairs. The Nebraska capitol is a strikingly beautiful building, with marvelous art. If you have not toured the art, it is worth a special trip. Even a five-year-old will find fascination with the paintings in the law library.

The beams over our heads in the chamber have gold inlay on mahogany, each portraying a period of law. One beam recognizes Spanish law, when Spain owned the land. French symbols are shown on the second, and the third has signs of the U.S., which has owned the land since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. All around the outside are depictions of other systems of law, from the Hammurabi Code 1800 B.C., to the law of Moses 1200 B.C., to the domination of the law of the Roman Empire, to the primary role of English law in our country. That is only one room!

The art story deserves telling, so a quick version now. In 1930, careful Nebraskans told the architect, Goodhue of Philadelphia, that it was time to put the art work out for bid. His response was quick. He already had top artists under contract. From New York City. (Gasp.)

Starving artists in the beginning of the depression included artists who were among the elite of the art world. They rented a warehouse in NYC and began the tedious work of the floor mosaics, statues, the human diorama in stone of courts of ancient law, the signing of the U.S. constitution, and on and on. These were loaded on railroad cars, with the floor mosaics slid on brown paper sheets and stacked. The tower work required railway tracks right up to the edge of the rotunda, so the paper with the floor mosaics were close to where they needed to be. The artists came to be in residence for the installation, for painting murals, etc.

All of this is to lead you to think about the style of art to be created in the 1950s in a tower on the far-away Nebraska plains. It is Greek, Roman, Egyptian. Solid built nude figures of life and home. Robust images of farm families. Muscular figures of business and industry. And topping the dome, not an Indian or a prairie pioneer sowing seed, unless that pioneer sower came from Egypt, wearing an Egyptian headband reminiscent of the Pharaohs. Some came from Egypt! Obviously, I love it. We Nebraskans remain careful and refuse to spend money for art, such as finishing the inner courtyards. However, we have a priceless gift. The early Nebraskans tired of their shoddy capitol buildings and gave us one that no state could possibly afford today.

0We had fireworks right up to the last day. The override of the governors veto of fluoride directives was curious. Some were wondering if we should not test it longer. I was remembering when fluoride was considered a Communist plot, to poison our water and drain our brains of basic intelligence. Today, health care providers say its value is obvious, for children who drink too much bottled water have more cavities. Folks held steady and we overrode the veto.

Raising the gas tax one cent per gallon created quite an anti-tax stir. I do understand the concern about taxes, but sigh at the task of helping the public to understand taxes. This is a tax shift, not an increase. We are saying that users of roads should be more responsible for upkeep than those paying property taxes, who will get some relief from this. To put it plainly, when you change taxes and do not change the budget, someone else will be paying or receiving the tax benefit. And I find no one who thinks we should be spending less on the roads in the future. Efficiencies, yes. But narrower roads, with thinner base and traveling over leaner bridges??? No.

I do get a smile from all of it. Several letters have said it was good to have term limits so we can move these high spenders out. Hello? Term limits helps to make us bold. At any given time from now on, half of the body will not face election at the end of the term. They can do as they see fit. From now on, a senator spends the first four years figuring out how to do the job and the second four years doing what s/he feels is best for the state. We care about constituents, but they have lost control. The governor has gained in power, and he also is termed out, so he can do as he pleases the second term. Unless he wants a national job. Hmmm.

My young granddaughters are helping this week, so I will give a more detailed review of our thoughts behind the scenes in a post script next week.

Cheers

Lowen