If the text is ambiguous, yielding several conflicting interpretations, Scalia turns to the specific legal tradition flowing from that text -- to "what it meant to the society that adopted it." "Text and tradition" is a phrase that fills Justice Scalia's opinions. Judges are to be governed only by the "text and tradition of the Constitution," not by their "intellectual, moral, and personal perceptions."
It turns out that "tradition" comes from the same word as "betrayal." Both involve a handing over. Claiming to speak in the name of tradition can also be a kind of betrayal in several different ways. First, traditions are often contested. Hewing to one particular vision of tradition obliterates other interpretations of the past and other alternatives for the future. Tradition never speaks with one voice, although, to be sure, persons of particular predilections may hear only one. In this way, a tradition can be a kind of extradition, banishing other perspectives and handing them over to their enemies, so to speak. Second, to respect tradition is also to betray, submerge, and extinguish other existing and competing traditions. It can lead us to focus on a falsely unitary or unequivocal story about the meaning of the past when we should recognize the past as a complicated set of perspectives in tension with each other. Finally, to act in the name of a tradition is often to betray the tradition itself, by disregarding the living, changing features of a tradition and substituting a determinate and lifeless simulacrum.
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
This paper critiques the branding and labeling of the physical public domain with the names of corporations, commercial products, and individuals. It suggests there are under-recognized public policy conflicts between the naming policies and practices of political subdivisions, trademark law, and right of publicity doctrines. It further argues that naming acts as currently constituted are often undemocratic and unfair, constitute illegitimate private appropriation of public assets, and constitute a limited form of compelled speech. It concludes by considering alternative mechanisms by which the names of public facilities could be chosen.
The modest facade belies a warm and expansive interior. Large glass panels create a horizontal plane that softens the distinction between exterior and interior, and strong orange horizontal beams extend from interior to exterior to reinforce the sense of fluid space.
The house was designed in three zones: the first zone for guests and entertaining, the middle zone for family socializing, and the third, more private zone for bedrooms and baths.
The modern architect cannot avoid a war that is now underway as a result of the spreading of the city over the countryside. A part of this war is the battle between the downtown merchants and the merchants of the outer shopping centers. A tremendous amount of money has been invested by leading banks and insurance companies in downtown buildings, as it has in town factories, which are also showing a tendency to migrate outside of city limits. The money-controlling institutions are obviously not going to abandon their heavy capital investment, and the fight to save the original downtown is coming more and more into the open. . . .
It is quite clear that there is going to be a long struggle between the desire of the average city dweller and shopper to escape from the concrete wilderness of the downtown metropolis and the desire of the investor to protect his enormous investment. If the Southern architect, either one in practice or the fledgling about to leave the architectural school, does not assume the responsibility and the social obligation imposed upon an ancient and respected profesison to join in this fight and help to bring it to a proper conclusion, then American cities in the New South will be left to the arbitrary control of the speculator, the highway engineer, the layman boards, the planner who is not an architect. In this respect the architects are already shamefully tardy. To state it simply, modern architects have no great significance unless they accept responsibility for over-all city and regional planning.
Mae Rothstein . . . "requested a clean, crisp house, a black and white house, including the white vinyl floors used throughout." Described as a perfectionist, Mae worked with the architect and builder in selection of materials and to assure excellence of craftsmanship. Builder Frank Walser was one of the few contractors in Raleigh whose work met the exacting standards of Small and other leading modernist architects. Until their deaths in 1976, the couple maintained their beloved house meticulously. After two subsequent owners, the present owner has renewed the house with equal care for its special qualities.
Cyril Connolly, the British critic and essayist, in his essay titled “Tapering Off” deals with his book-buying obsession. He resolves he will buy no more books. He will decide on the books he will keep and the books he will give away.
Book collectors do not try to sell their books. That would be sinful. Either give them away or leave them up to the executor and the auctioneer to get the best price. . . .
It is an increasingly familiar story, in this industry and others: a small specialty nursery known for unique plants is bought by a larger company hoping to take advantage of its cutting-edge appeal and to get new plants for mass marketing. What ensues is invariably a loss of diversity — as the new owner narrows the selection of plants, choosing mainly those it thinks will have mass appeal — and, often, a loss of the vision that made the nursery attractive to begin with.
Taylor made the interior purposely simple to focus the congregation's attention. He sought out a striking white marble with gold streaks for the altar to draw all eyes to the central area of worship. The stained glass windows, designed by Crosby Willett of Willett Stained Glass Studios of Philadelphia, represent major events in the church calendar. They present a color gradation rising from dark to lighter colors. The striking window behind the altar represents the Holy Spirit symbolized by a dove traveling to the heart of man which is just above the level of the altar. The window rises the full height of the building, with the physicality and earthly reality of man at the lower level.
In Raleigh, the Fadum house "led the hit parade for months as it was going up," reported the News and Observer. A few "sidewalk superintendents" compared its form to a chicken coop, but it was generally admired as "A House of Light by Day and By Night," and for its sophisticated melding of natural materials and house to site.
As noted by Linda Edmisten [who wrote the National Register nomination], the building was the first in Wake County to use load-bearing wood columns to carry a cantilevered roof truss grid--thus sheltering spaces within non-load bearing brick and glass curtain walls. In 1951 Architectural Record praised the "light, suspended quality" created by the handling of the angle of the columns. The house, set on a concrete slab, rises from one story tall on the street side to a full two stories overlooking the Carolina Country Club gold course, with a marvelous expanse of glass opening up the interior space to nature. This arrangement was also planned to enhance energy efficiency, with the glass walls facing southeast and a deeply overhanging roof.
The house is a striking embodiment of Wright's Usonian principles. As [Raleigh architect] David Black explains, these included the modest size and cost; efficient use of space through open planning; zoning of spaces by use; innovation in structure and materials; and responsiveness to site and climate. In formal terms, the Usonian house typically features such materials as brick, plywood, and wood; flat or single-slope roofs, and expanses of glass to emphasize the indoor-outdoor relationship. Both the Kamphoefner and Fadum Houses display these features, but the Fadum House is "more explicitly Usonian and daring," To keep costs down, architect Fitzgibbon planned the house to use standard materials of steel, brick, wood, and plywood. He enhanced the economy of space with built-in cabinetry and other storage features. Another strong Wrightian influence is seen in the brick fireplace with sunken hearth and built-in settee, a cozy spot that complements the dramatic prospect of the glass curtain wall.
Within the recommendations that would affect Wilmington particularly, were calls for a new redevelopment authority and economic incentives to encourage minority business and homeownership in the Northside and Brooklyn, which were among the sites of racial violence more than a century ago.
. . .
The report also called for a new permanent exhibit at the Cape Fear Museum, money to make research resources available at the New Hanover County Public Library and new monuments and markers.
Among the recommendations with statewide impact, a unit on the 1898 events would be made a permanent part of the state public school curriculum. Also, the commission recommended that a television documentary be produced and aired nationally.
The commission recommended that several newspapers - including the Star-News - which reported on the event as it happened, to work with the North Carolina black press association to prepare a summary of the commission report, study the effects of 1898 and impact of Jim Crow on the state's black press and endow scholarships for black journalists.
. . .
The recommendations also asked Congress to include New Hanover County in the U.S. Voting Rights Act, a move that would give federal oversight over the drawing of electoral districts.
They believed -- as we do -- that it is wholly appropriate for local officials, for a local community, to take a stand on an issue as important as impeachment and the conduct of a president. They believed -- as we do -- that even small communities far away from the centers of power have not just the right, but the obligation to stand up when they believe there is injustice.
The greatest danger to democracy lies in an inert populace. One person throwing pebbles can make ripples. But if a second and third person join in, the pond is full of waves, maybe breakers. That is the theory and hope of democracy.
I encourage you to listen to your constituents, consult your own conscience, and, if you are so moved, to join us in roiling the waters.
A Southern community is thus seen to have it in its power to choose its Negro inhabitants. If it is afraid of ambition and enterprise on the part of black folk, if it believes that "education spoils a nigger," then it will get the shiftless, happy-go-lucky semi-criminal black man; and the ambitious and enterprising ones will either sink or migrate. On the other hand, many honest Southerners fear to encourage the pushing, enterprising Negro. Durham has not feared. It has distinctly encouraged the best type of black man by active aid and passive tolerance.
I want to avoid preaching at you but I do want to convince you that the true and durable path into and through experience involves being true to the actual givens of your own lives. True to your own solitude, your own secret knowledge. Because oddly enough, it is that intimate, deeply personal knowledge that links us most vitally to reality and keeps us most reliably connected to one another. Calling a spade a spade may be a bit reductive at times but calling a wooden spoon a wooden spoon is the beginning of wisdom, and you will be sure to keep going in life on a far steadier psychic keel and with far more radiant individuality if you navigate by that principle. Doing so may entail self-doubt, some divergence from the accepted wisdom, yet whenever the unconventional decision or the unusual move issues from a freedom that has been earned rather than a desire for notice, it has the force of revelation.
Among other things, the Founders were convinced by historical example that for a republican government to last, it could not function over a large area. As the dominant political philosopher of his time, Montesquieu, wrote in 1748, "it is natural for a republic to have only a small territory." This notion became as axiomatic in American popular thought as in its doctrine. Both John Adams and Alexander Hamilton drew the lesson that the vast expanse of the United States--not as it is today, but as they knew it then--made it likely that a durable central government would have to verge on monarchy. For his part, Patrick Henry was hardly alone when, in 1788, he warned, "Our government cannot reign over so extensive a country as this, without absolute despotism."
The most impressive thing about the place is that - unlike many other schemes where developers have been obliged to include social housing - there is no aesthetic difference between the different types of tenure. It's all one kind of architecture, in one cohesive scheme. There is no class divide. Instead, it just oozes class.
But Whitlynn Battle, whose 11-year-old daughter sang in the program, said the letters [including the teacher's apology] saddened her because they showed the school didn't grasp why black parents would be offended.
"I wasn't really looking for an apology," she said Wednesday. "I was looking for them to understand what was wrong with what they did and they went in the opposite direction. They don't get it and the sad thing is, I don't think they ever will."
Battle, who already planned to remove her child from the school at the end of this academic year, said no amount of balance would make up for her child singing a song that includes the lyrics "Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern Rights!" and "here's to our Confederacy."
"There's nothing they could have sung after that song short of `We Shall Overcome' and I think I'd still be angry," she said. "Those words should not have come out of my daughter's mouth."
"Well, ever since I was a kid, I've been interested in life," Tucker says in a matter-of-fact manner. "Then I heard about DNA, and I got real interested."
Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870) was a native of Virginia. He graduated at Princeton in 1805, and read law with Judge May in Petersburg, Virginia, in whose office as a law student was General Winfield Scott. He read the Statute of Laws of North Carolina in the office of Judge Murphy, of Orange, where he began the practice of law. He was UNC-Chapel Hill trustee for 24 years, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for 19 years, President of State Agricultural Society, member of the Peace Convention, and a member of the convention of 1861. In 1830 as a member of the Board of Trustees he drafted a report on the financial crisis of the University and made an eloquent plea to the General Assembly for aid to the University. Mr. Frank Nash of Hillsboro wrote in 1905 in a piece for the News and Observer "he was great as a lawyer, great as a judge, great as a financier, great as a farmer - rugged, indomitable soul in a frame of iron, made to conquer, and conquering every difficulty on every side."
