The Court apparently likes to look at Jefferson and other crafters of our constitution through a strange lens, where they interpret belief systems as unimportant and maybe even uneducated, while weighty matters such as art, music, and other obscure topics are intellectual and deserve some sort of protection that our founding fathers would never have thought possible.

If the flag isn’t a symbol of our country, our strength, our freedom then what is? How is a burning cross in a yard illegal, but the burning of our flag is ok? When we skew what is obvious to most of us as common sense, we somehow have given up part of our God-given freedoms, rights; the sacrifice made by those that have served and are serving is somehow lessened. Plato once said “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” Regrettably, LSU has seen fit to uphold a what so many of us see as a horrible Supreme Court decision. Only in the liberal ( and I don’t mean liberal in the classical sense of the word) halls of education could they view this as somehow ok.

Let us not forget that we didn’t view the USS Cole bombing or the bombing of Khobar Towers as an act of war; we can all see how that worked out for us.

We adopted the dog in spite of his scars of trauma – physical and mental. He was afraid to leave his cage, the room, the building. He dug his toenails into the tile floor, splayed his legs like a newborn foal, and resisted all efforts to transport him to his new abode. I finally hoisted him, which he did not like either, into my truck. His toenails dug into the leather seat. I nearly threw my hands in the air, ready to wave the white flag and rid myself of this beast. My son, Ty, a wise second grader, took a liking to the mixed breed lab immediately and assured me everything would work out fine.

Yard work with the dog around is challenging. When planting shrubs, the game is to dig faster than he does; behind me, he paws in the newly dug mound, sending the dirt flying back to me. He digs holes with the precision of an engineer; deep and long enough to lay his entire 80 pounds in and leave his head resting on the ledge of the newly formed canyon. My backyard resembles an exploded minefield (sometimes walking in the backyard is like traversing a minefield for very different reasons.)

Of course, he has his cute moments, if you consider begging for attention as cute. He has a habit of resting his head on my leg, beating his heavy tail on the floor, and staring a hole through my newspaper. As soon as I rub his head, he collapses to the floor on his back, legs in the air as if he is a dying cockroach, with one paw pointing to his belly, a neglected place that deserves attention.

Thunderstorms send him running for cover, baying and looking over his shoulders at the invisible, giant beast chasing him. Vacuum cleaners, motorcycles, the dreaded washtub, plastic bags blowing in the wind, and trash cans placed on the street elicit the same response. He also runs from cats, small dogs, and insects skittering across the floor.

He rarely hangs in head in shame when he has done something wrong. I stood over a mountain of shredded newspaper and called his name, my voice full of disdain and disapproval. The bonehead sped to me, tail wagging, tongue lolling, ready to pounce as if he was a defensive tackle and I had the ball. Nor was he remorseful when caught, paws on the kitchen counter, eating the remnants of a berry pie. He even thought it was acceptable to stay in the kitchen afterwards begging for another snack.

Now, years after that trip to the rescue shelter, I sip my morning coffee and lovingly stroke the short, yellow fur. Ty is now in college, so it is just the dog and I. Conversation is minimal, two old souls enjoying our time. A squirrel scampers from the oak tree, looking for the acorns that have already begun to drop. The dog looks at me with deep brown eyes; his pink tongue slips out the side of his mouth, slops over his already wet nose, and hangs dripping from the other side of his mouth. I can feel the tension in his shoulders. I lift my hand and off he goes, just as the mighty shot left David’s sling, only he never finds his Goliath. He circles the tree twenty or so times, all the while barking, looking upwards, and pouncing into the begonias, petunias, and impatiens. I look at Yeller, shake my head, and wonder would shelter be upset if I returned him.

According to Occam’s Razor the simplest explanation is, more often than not, the best explanation. Perhaps, somebody does need a knife that will cut a cinder block one minute and slice a tomato the next. Maybe not that extreme, still, infomercials do seem to solve any number of problems we may or may not have. A.J. Khubani, CEO of Telebrands, sold over 200,000 adhesive earlobe supporters and 2,000,000 portable stairs for arthritic dogs. Ron Popeil, former owner of Ronco, sold everything from the pocket fisherman to spray-on hair, and sold his own company (not via infomercial) for $55 million. So different infomercials appeal to different people with different problems: PX-90 appeals to people who wish for smaller waists and bigger muscles; Extenze appeals to men that believe women want bigger johnsons, not bigger wallets; Kevin Trudeau and Carlton Sheets appeal to those who do want bigger wallets; the list is endless. The solutions they sell are simple, straightforward, and often have us scratching our heads wondering why we did not think of such amazing things.

But are we really looking for a solution? Maybe it goes deeper than that…

In 1992, Ross Perot burst on the political scene with voodoo sticks for pointers and a litany of line graphs, bar graphs, and pie charts in the first political infomercial; a 30-minute block of prime-time political shrewdness. Perot gave voters hope that his business acumen would “expand the tax base, reduce the national debt, and bring new meaning to ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ ” Later polls revealed two out of five viewers found Perot’s ads to be truthful as opposed to Clinton and Bush, Sr. as “almost truthful.” Our potential office-seekers sell themselves as firebrands of a new civil, democratic revolution; harbingers of change, cut from some different mold our Creator keeps for extra special occasions. Voters buy it or not. Candidates do not let on that a watched a pot never boils – neither does governing. Still, it is nice to hope for change.

Hope, ever elusive; Alexander Pope believed it springs eternal. I hoped the Pedi-Paw was a miracle of some kind and not something that would catch fire ten minutes into its assigned task (ok, maybe it was twenty minutes). As I lay in bed, lulled by the pulsating late night, blue light of the television, perhaps, in the witching hour a fairy pitchman comes to us and casts a spell – a spell with no reason or logic, but one that gives us something to believe in. What? Isn’t that better than admitting I fell for an infomercial?

This is, mind you, two tracks in one. Six technical switchbacks on the left slow the racer after she speeds through three high-speed kinks on the right. The repaved track has phenomenal grip and shaved down patches smooth as glass. Turn twelve is a three hundred foot blind descent towards an air barrier and concrete wall, both pocked with the black streaks of earlier crashes – which corner workers bounce on after the race.

Long ago, before the flickering blue night-light, there were advertisements that promised, in addition to Charles Atlas’s ultimate manhood and voluptuous women needing examination with x-ray specs, any number of solutions to problems we did not know we had. I remember many of the items, novelties of an innocent time and prepubescent desires – learning, yearning, and void of any knowledge of deceptive money changers and greedy promoters – but they are no longer relegated to the back pages of comic books long since sign-off signals became a relic of our recent history. Filling the dead of late night, local stations choke the darkness of the witching hour with blocks of advertisements making dubious claims but appealing to millions of viewers; endless and inexpensive airtime is the wet-nurse to emotional, impulse buyers.

I watched today as veterans of long ago wars were, once again, called to stand. Old men slowly rose, some shaking, some aided by grandchildren, but still they stood. Joined by their brothers of Korea, Vietnam, Honduras, Desert Storm, Somalia, the Balkans, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, they proudly stood. They wore patches of 1^st Cavalry, 4^th Infantry, 3^rd MAF, and many others. Some rose again as bagpipes played the Marine Hymn. Blue and Gold Star Mothers wiped their eyes. I wept as an old airman recited the symbolism of the Missing Man Table Ceremony and dried my eyes as politicians made promises soon to be forgotten.

We are here today, as Americans, because thankfully each generation has risen to the call of freedom, picked up the guidon, carried it into battle across oceans and into foreign lands. One generation passes the guidon, passed to younger blood but the old traditions and the long history remain. No brother is forgotten, no generation is forgotten. We are not the greatest generation, rather one that stands guard and ready. Another generation and another conflict will come – we will pass the guidon along just as the next generation will accept it.

God bless America, our veterans and their families.