Matters of Opinion

   It is Independence Day Weekend. And if I still had a Betamax player I'd get out my pirated copy of the musical "1776" and make my family watch it with me again.
   Yes, I know. This comic opera version of the drafting and approval of The Declaration of Independence has all kinds of historical inaccuracies in it -- John Wilson wasn't a wimp. Caesar Rodney wasn't dying [yet]. Martha Jefferson was way too ill to come to Philadelphia. Richard Henry Lee wasn't going to be governor of Virginia.
   But I love it anyway. And at least two bits of that play/movie's wonderful dialog seem not only accurate about then, but about now.
   This first one, a bit involving Continental Congress President John Hancock and New York Delegate Lewis Morris, makes more sense than ever. [It helps to know that, throughout the play, New York always abstains. Courteously.]:
Morris: [as Hancock is about to swat a fly] Mr. Secretary, New York abstains, courteously.
[Hancock raises his fly swatter at Morris, then draws back] 
Hancock: Mr. Morris,
[pause, then shouts] 
WHAT IN HELL GOES ON IN NEW YORK?
Morris: I'm sorry Mr. President, but the simple fact is that our legislature has never sent us explicit instructions on anything!
Hancock: NEVER?
[slams fly swatter onto his desk]
Hancock: That's impossible!
Morris: Mr. President, have you ever been present at a meeting of the New York legislature?
[Hancock shakes his head "No"]
Morris: They speak very fast and very loud, and nobody listens to anybody else, with the result that nothing ever gets done.
[turns to the Congress as he returns to his seat]
Morris: I beg the Congress's pardon.
Hancock: [grimly] My sympathies, Mr. Morris.

   Also, reading the statement from U.S. Rep. Eric Massa on why he voted against the climate change bill -- no funding for hydrogen fuel cell research -- reminded me of the pained complaint raised by one delegate who found something missing from Thomas Jefferson's draft of The Declaration of Independence.
Joseph Hewes: Mr. Jefferson, nowhere do you mention deep sea fishing rights.
John Adams: Oh good God! Fishing rights? How long is this piddling to go on? We have been here for three solid days! We have endured, by my count, more than eighty-five separate changes and the removal of close to four hundred words. Now, would you whip it and beat it 'til you break its spirit? I tell you, that document is a masterful expression of the American mind!

Indeed. Even without the songs. Read it here.

-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News