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Laura Bush wanted to make sure her husband’s presidential center reflected their Texas roots, and it does — right down to the building’s limestone base from the Midland area, where they both grew up and lived after they were married.
The former first lady led the design committee for the 226,000-square-foot George W. Bush Presidential Center, which houses the 43rd president’s library, museum and policy institute. The center, which opens to the public May 1, was dedicated Thursday at Laura Bush’s alma mater of Southern Methodist University, not far from the couple’s Dallas home.
“I wanted it to have the Texas feel that this building does because that’s where we’re from,” Laura Bush told The Associated Press in a phone interview last week. “I also wanted the building to be modern-looking, to be forward-looking because George was president during the very first decade of our new century.”
The Bush center features woodwork from Texas tees, including mesquite hardwood floors and pecan paneling. And the center’s 15-acre urban park recreates a Texas prairie complete with a wildflower meadow, a new blend of native grasses and even trees transplanted from the Crawford ranch.
Fliers criticize TSA, scanners
Airline passengers have been walking through full-body scanners for nearly five years, but only now are fliers getting a chance to officially tell the federal government what they think about the screening machines.
In response to a lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Transportation Security Administration could continue to use the scanners as a primary method of screening passengers. But the court ordered the TSA to give the public a 90-day comment period, which the agency failed to do when it launched the scanning program.
The comment period began online in March, and so far the TSA has been getting an average of 26 comments a day - nearly all of which blast the TSA and the scanners for a variety of reasons.
The most common objection is that the scanners violate the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure.
To add your comments, go to the website www.regulations.gov and type in the case, TSA-2013-0004.
