Monday, July 28, 2025

Monday Musings - July 28, 2025

1. It has arrived. The 5th and final Monday of July is here and there are only 22 Mondays remaining in the year.

2. It looks as if the Orioles are going to be sellers before the July 31 MLB Trading Deadline. They effectively played themselves out of playoff contention since the All Star Break by going 5-6 (.454). They are currently 11 games under .500 standing at 47-58 (.447). There are 57 games remaining and the O's need to win 37 of them to reach the expected 84 wins necessary to lock down a Wild Card Playoff spot. That means they need to play .649 (37-20) baseball. I don't see that happening. But, still l hope!

Crossing the Loxahatchee River on my Bike
Tequesta, FL
July 27, 2025

3. I got out a bit earlier yesterday to ride and rode almost 22 miles around Tequesta and Jupiter. Being Sunday morning the traffic was light and the roads open. Being early, I had hoped it would be cooler, but alas, it was not. I enjoyed the ride and saw multiple tortoises along my trek.

4. I read the speech the our Vice President gave on July 5, 2025, at the Claremont Institute in which he makes some very concerning statements. First off, he believes that America as a creedal nation. That is a scary notion because it is clear that America was not intended to be creedal--there is no religious creed that is to be followed. But even more concerning was the statement: So I believe one of the most pressing problems for us to face as statesmen is to redefine the meaning of American citizenship in the 21st century. This, apparently, is becoming a new way that citizens can be deprived of their rights. As I read further in the transcript, he lays out a number ideals that citizens must meet and he also clearly denigrates those of alternate or atheistic religious beliefs.

(Transcript: JD Vance’s Speech At The Claremont Institute’s Statesmanship Award Event)

5. This Day in History. July 28, 1868: Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of State William Seward issues a proclamation certifying the amendment.

Two years after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts, where new state governments, based on universal manhood suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which saw the 14th Amendment, which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the “equal protection of the laws.”