Merry Christmas 2009 and Happy 2010 to all our family & friends around the world.

Isn’t it interesting that our calendar year begins and ends in the cold, wet, and dark months of winter (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere). Winter brings the satisfaction of accomplishment and completion with autumn just concluded and the hope and anticipation of unborn history soon to exit the womb of preparation in spring. Winter is a time of catharsis—a restoration, renewal, and revitalization that is more important than we are usually willing to direct credit. So it is for our family this winter season. We celebrate a safe and productive 2009 and look forward to 2010. Some of our family highlights include our trip to New Mexico for a family reunion at Grandma and Grandpa Winfree’s, helping Tressa and her husband Chris move from Utah to Atlanta, Georgia via tornados and thunderstorms of Kansas, visiting Church historical sites in Missouri and Illinois, and staying with Chris’ family in Missouri…this year we were able to see all our children’s in-laws. What a blessing to grow our relationship with them. Our highlight visit of the year was our son Brian’s visit in November. Tom got his mission call to ¡¡Mexico City!! and spent November and December in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah learning Spanish and improving his skills to teach the gospel. He will travel to Mexico in early January. He also completed a successful year at Cal State Fresno. Rosey competed her 10th year of dance—she is growing into a very graceful and poised young lady. She is completing her 8th grade year and looks forward to high school. With all her siblings gone, she is also basking in the “only child” environment at home. Mike and Vicky love the Yosemite Ward of nearly 700 members spread over the Sierra Foothills covering over 1,200 sq miles. We are making many great friends. We love being grandparents and being surrounded by family. We are happy to tag along as we have served and celebrated with our family and friends in their challenges and achievements. In turn, thank you for your love, friendship, and strength as we have walked our road in 2009. We look forward to 2010 with great anticipation of new experiences, new opportunities with old friends, and new friends and family to come.
Grandchild Photo Gallery—Our 3 Wise Men
The pirate and the bumble bee are Mike and Vicky’s grandsons.
They live very close by and grandma and grandpa are very spoiled getting to see them almost everyday. They are enjoying the mountains, family, and growing up (while grandpa gets in touch with his inner 4-year old). James Powers is a singer and our resident dragon slayer.
We all sleep safer at night knowing James the Knight has swept the grounds of any errant fire breathing serpents.He also loves to sing—especially his dad’s songs and he loves nursery school—where his great-grandmother still teaches. Mitchell Eagar would never come in the house, except that is where the chocolate milk is located. He loves the outdoors and his favorite thing is playing with his cousin James. Puddles and taking his dog Franklin for walks are his specialties. Thomas Eagar was born December 8th and is a happy little angel.

His favorite activity is cuddling—much to the joy of his mom and Grandma Vicky.

So, no movement on the house due to rain... I thought I would post a thought just for grins and since I know no one is reading this anyway...

The Danger of Populism

Some consider the political spectrum to be something like Figure 1.

In many ways, in that spectrum, the far left and far right are much the same, just different uniforms. A more accurate political spectrum that clarifies roles and extremes is the power of government (see figure 2).

Historically, the most common form of government is the Oligarchy. Even the dictators and monarchs have had their councils and elite that help keep them in power. Often Anarchy is fomented by an Oligarchy, to create the willingness of the people to gain control of the chaos. Communist Russia and the Russia under Putin are two examples, as is post WWII China. Democracy, or people rule (from the Greek) has a flaw—the potential unrighteous dominion of the majority. A Republic is a government ruled by law, not by the majority alone. The lynch mob can hang a supposed criminal in a Democracy where the lynch mob majority votes yes. In a Republic, the law protects the supposed criminal to a fair trial. In fact in the highest form of a Republic there is concern over type I and type 2 errors—where the guilty might be set free if there is doubt over guilt in order to ensure no innocents are punished. In a lower form of a Republic the guilty are punished and also some innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time to ensure all the guilty are for sure caught. I am grateful to live in a country where OJ Simpson went free and not an Argentina during its Dirty War against terrorists. How close did we come after 911?

No where in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution is the word democracy used (nor in any of the constitutions of the 50 states). Greeks experimented with democracy and it led to anarchy and eventually oligarchy. The Romans experimented with the republic and that led to wealth. Some discovered the power of this wealth and overturned the republic into a democracy (with crazy things like agricultural subsidies, pork barrel projects, a dole) and finally anarchy and, yep you guessed it an oligarchy. Will Durant (The Story of Civilization) suggest from his study of history that democracy is really only a transition from the rule of law to the oligarchy. “As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy,” he suggested. The Founding Fathers also understood history and form a republic, not a democracy. The Federalist Papers discuss this issue at length (See Madison’s tract in the tenth paper for example). Remember, the Pledge of Allegiance is "to the Republic."

The essence of freedom is the limitation of government. Not limitation to the point where government cannot protect the people, but limitation from the rule of the few and the rule of the majority alone. The box below is a model of the basic building blocks of any government. Some level of power and some accepted common identity by the ruling body. If that government has a monopoly on coercive power it tends to be an Oligarchy. If that government has an irreducible common identity that is usually represented in the rule of law, that is, a Republic. See Figure 3

One oft used form of republic decay has come in the form of populism—the democratic breakdown of the rule of law. Populists generally gain power or support in periods of crisis or perceived crisis. In other words, history has demonstrated that the populist leader is perceived as a savior from crisis and the people hand over their power.
Like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, this form of populism “buys” the vote in a democratic society where government is allowed to grow too powerful and too huge... The republic begins its tailspin to anarchy and eventual oligarchy, not unlike the experience of Peron’s Argentina when they ran out of their "plata dulce" gold reserves. So what would happen if Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin didn’t have their petro dollars? What would happen if the United States debt was called by the international community, or the government simply couldn’t pay its bills? If this populist bailout package doesn’t work, you can be sure a level of anarchy we have never experienced in this country will be a potential outcome. If it does work, it is possible (but hopefully not probable) we will be left with a less painful transition to Oligarchy, but Oligarchy none the less. See Figure 4


I am not saying any of this could or would really happen, but it is a concern as we all move through this period of crisis. It didn’t happen with Roosevelt. I hope Obama is as visionary a leader.

When Benjamin Franklin exited the Constitutional Convention a lady asked him, “Sir, what have you given us?” His response was, “A Republic Ma’am, if you can keep it.” Yet most Americans when asked would say we have a Democracy—not a Republic. That has me a little worried.

Stop Work Order

I look at the pictures from the last post--near Thanksgiving, and everyone is in shorts and t-shirts. Tomorrow is New Year's Day and I have no progress to report. I got a stop work order from my friendly neighborhood building inspector because I didn't have pictures, only a written description and engineering specs on the next phase of my project. The county had approved the plan, but I guess they hold the right to change their mind in mid-stream. I hope to hear back from my very patient draftsman and engineer next week and we can get back on track once again. I haven't even started putting walls up yet and I am beginning to become concerned about my two-year limitation on my building plan approval. What happens if I don't get it finished, or I run out of money due to all these set backs? Do they make me tear it down and start over? Probably I get to pay all the fees over again.... Kind of like a 21st century version of debtors prison. I will keep you all posted as to my progress.

With most of the work done on the music studio, I have turned my attention to the house once again. With the help of Paul and Mike, and an interesting guy named Cougar, we were able to pour the floor for the garage. I didn't get any pictures of the finishing work because I ran that machine--due to my extensive experience with floor buffers in my early years at the Air Force Academy. It took 14 yards of cement to fill the stem wall and cover the 30 X 31 foot floor.




Paul and I cut some expansion joints in the slab--that I will fill later with silicon. I am trying to keep the slab moist, to cure slower. This has raised the potential of some very shallow puddles that my grandsons have enjoyed. Probably not that healthy with the cement dust in the water, but both moms were not present, so hopefully I won't get in trouble. They never read this blog anyway.

In my Bob the Builder role, I had a busy week last week and this week will be a frenzie of activity. I completed the stairs down by the music studio and put in a stone threshold. Here are a couple pictures.




I was also able, with the help of Paul and Mike Wynn, to build the trench from the well to our home site and run the water line.



I am not sure how people did these tasks before the kind of equipment we use today. Speaking of that, I also rented a tractor (for a small fortune and an option on my next born child--I think I am pretty safe there) to fill in the house area prior to pouring the slab--which will hopefully take place later this week. Fortunately, I have some able help on the tractor with my grandson James, and of course the ever present expertise of Mike and Paul.

I am working rebar and getting the sub-floor ready for the radiant floor heating at the new house. Nothing worth a picture. I did pretty much finish the music studio on Friday. I put in the trim and the wood floor on Thursday, and then the base board and a few finishing touches on Friday. Matt moved in a lot of his music equipment and Tom's keyboard on Friday evening--then promptly left to play a couple gigs on Saturday. He will start setting things up on Monday. Looking for some great music to come from those four walls... Here are a few final pics.

Almost done with the Music Studio! Here are a couple pictures of the inside about a week ago.


Remember, this is only a 10 foot by 12 foot building with 10 foot walls..., 12 1/2 peak. I put tongue and groove 1X6 boards on the ceiling for the acoustics. Turned back really well, but lots of work. I put in a small loft mostly for storage of musical instrument cases, etc.



The outside is about two-thirds painted and is starting to look pretty good. By the end of this week it will be completely done. I also hope to have our house back on track this week. I got the upgraded engineering plans approved by the county last Wednesday--so we are cleared to proceed with the slab and the structure!!!