I WENT TO NASHVILLE AND BACK TODAY, for a meeting of the state committee on constitutional revision that I’m on. It was at the Capitol, and when it was over Bob Cooper, the Attorney General, took one of our out-of-state visitors on a tour. I haven’t wandered the Capitol proper in quite a while, so I tagged along. Tennessee’s Capitol is very pretty in an austere sort of way, and if I’d had more time — and if I were Ann Althouse — I’d have a lot of stunning photos. But here are a couple, anyway. It was interesting to hear people compare Capitol-building trivia, and it brought home that when the artisans who designed the chandelier in the Senate chamber put in intertwined symbols of the state, they were doing something with political, not just aesthetic, implications — things that show even today in little bits of state pride on the part of constitutional officeholders. Federalism is built on these things, as well as on the Tenth Amendment.

The meeting was pleasant and useful, and in its informality and its matter-of-fact practicality it brought home another difference between state politics and government and those at the national level. Or maybe it’s just a Tennessee thing; I don’t have much experience with other states’ operations.

Driving both ways today, I noticed that high gas prices still haven’t induced people to slow down — or, judging from the traffic, to drive less. What was sad was that although some of the trees are in full spring glory, many are brown from die-back induced by the late freeze. They’ll bud eventually, but the huge patches of brown on the mountainsides looked like some strange disease was breaking out.

And yeah, posts continued via “scheduled posting” — I managed to get online briefly a couple of times, but never for all that long. I like that feature.

UPDATE: Yes, it was a public meeting, though sparsely attended by the public — I wouldn’t have blogged about it otherwise. I’m just not blogging about this stuff in detail because I don’t think many readers are deeply interested in updating the gubernatorial succession provisions of the Tennessee Constitution. But yes, they know about the blog — both Gen. Cooper and Gov. Bredesen made InstaPundit jokes during the introductions.