No one forgives with more grace and love than a child.
Real Live Preacher
The US Open Pledge of Allegiance Kerfuffle:
A Contrary Opinion
This is one of those issues where I'll disagree with my mother and almost all relatives. I've mentioned one of them in a past post. I attended a public high school graduation about 5 years back for one of my nieces which took place on the premises of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. One of the female graduation speakers decided to give testimony to Jesus Christ and His importance in her life, for a few minutes in duration. My position might be regarded by some as nuanced, but I think is clear: at public events, expressions of religious speech should be limited and general or inclusive (versus parochial) in concept. If there is parochial speech, it must not be exclusive. For example, I don't mind a fleeting reference to Jesus Christ (an analogous concept to fair use of the copyrighted property of others). On the other hand, if you are going to allow someone several minutes of testimony meant to influence the behavior of others, you have to allow some variation of alternative parochial views. The reason is fairly obvious: for instance, if one promotes a belief in Christianity but none other, it constitutes a de facto official endorsement of a particular religion. This is a majoritarian abuse of power. Thus, I prefer to make the content of public event speech as general as possible, e.g., limit explicit mention of certain religious figures like Jesus Christ or the Buddha, versus use of "God", which is common factor among multiple religions.
At the same time, I oppose government-sponsored censorship of limited or general religious speech or symbols on government property; I see those as robust symbols of our traditional heritage of religious liberty. For example, I don't mind an occasional cross, Menorah, display of the Ten Commandments, etc.
Now I have to admit I did not watch the US Open coverage this weekend, but I've seen heavy rotation of the Pledge kerfuffle all over Fox News coverage today--probably close to a dozen times, which is absolutely absurd. For those who are not aware of the kerfuffle, there was a video montage of kids saying the Pledge of Allegiance; there are intermittent pauses in the pledge, often involving service member activities. The controversy is that certain words are missing towards the end of the recitation: "[one nation], under God, indivisible [with liberty and justice for all]."
You will not hear this opinion from other conservative commentators, but for one thing I actually LIKE the montage. First of all, there is no reason for using the Pledge of Allegiance at all for the golf tournament. Second, what we have is an edited version of the Pledge; who the heck is authorized to go around as the Pledge police? I mean, do we argue we can't use sporting event highlights unless we show the entire games? Third, the Pledge itself has changed over the years. Some people forget that the author of the Pledge was a Baptist minister whom never even included "under God" in the Pledge itself. It took until 1954, more than 20 years after Bellamy's death, before the words "under God" were ADDED to the original Pledge. Now these Fox News-sponsored Pledge censors seem to have a problem more faithful to the original Pledge. Under what kind of Alice in Wonderland thinking is this? The Pledge is "defective" in its original form?
Personally--and I'm sure I'll get pushback from so-called patriotic Americans--I find the requirement to say a pledge to be rather quaint, jingoistic and fundamentally un-American in the sense that liberty necessarily requires the right NOT to say the Pledge--in any variation, in full or abbreviated form. I personally like to say the Pledge as is, but for a majority to decide in 1954 they wanted to change the Pledge and go ballistic that some people are criticized for using their unalienable right to express their version of the Pledge: by their own framing of the issue, they violate the very essence of our Bill of Rights; the violation of the minority's right of self-expression is, at its core, unconstitutional. For these majoritarian authoritarians, I simply say: GET A LIFE.
The US Supreme Court: Unanimous Verdict Against
Class Action Lawsuit Abuse and the Wal-Mart Case:
Thumbs WAY, WAY UP!
This was blatantly an obvious attempt by lawyers to try to cherry-pick their way (on less than a handful of allegations) into a flimsy wide-ranging conspiracy across literally thousands of employees, one that would seriously open Pandora's box of class action lawsuit abuse and hold corporations up for extortion on a massive scale. It is morally unacceptable. The court rightly said that if any individual female employee has a LEGITIMATE case of gender bias based on her own experience, not a nonsensical, thinly-substantiated conspiracy theory, that employee can present a case based on intrinsic merit; you couldn't steal the property of shareholders by being added to a lawsuit without ever being subjected to an act of discrimination. I argued for this court's decision in an earlier post.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update. This segment is a thrice-weekly, more readable summary of some key blogs covering the the recovery of Fukushima Daiichi shutdown but damaged nuclear reactors 1-3 and relevant spent fuel pools, whose critical cooling systems failed as the result of power failure following a record earthquake/tsunami.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blog notes:
- Monday update: The blogger references certain post-audits of the incidents and describes some glaring omissions and issues: for example, it looks like venting decisions were too little, too late tied up in bureaucracy instead of being empowered locally and probably contributed to the explosion. He also points out missing details like why reactor 2 had water added but others didn't. The blogger points out other things like the spent fuel cooling units are working far better than expected and waste water decontamination processes are working slower than expected. He notes some Japanese nuclear plants want to start up again, but are still facing local bureaucratic problems. He also once again criticizes Health Physics policy enforcement at TEPCO.
"Rush Limbaugh has a new iced tea and the label has a picture of him dressed as Paul Revere. How confusing is this going to be for Sarah Palin?" - Jay Leno
[The Paul Revere label got photoshopped by the same people whom did Anthony Weiner's Congressional gym shot: they were both larger than life.]
"I just read that more companies are bringing back jobs to the U.S. that have been outsourced to other countries for years. So the next time you call tech support, you might actually get someone who speaks perfect English — and knows nothing about computers." - Jimmy Fallon
[To minimize customer confusion, the companies will be routing calls to your local 7-11.]
Killebrew Fact
June 24, 1954: Still just 17 years old, Harmon Killebrew hits his first home runMusical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago,"If She Would Have Been Faithful"
