Have Things Changed?

  MONTICELLO, Va. - I never had the chance to write a letter to James Madison, but if I had, I wish I could have penned something similar to what his friend Thomas Jefferson wrote to him on June 17, 1785:
  "... my God, how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy."
  I found that quote in a sample of Jefferson's letters at the gift shop at Monticello (pronounce it "chello"), his home the last 40 years of his life. You find Monticello not far from Charlottesville, Va., and the University of Virginia, which Jefferson helped establish in 1819.