Day: June 26, 2002

Blogging has been light, and it’s late and I’m tired. But I feel the obligation to catch up a bit here, so here’s the quick capsule Bear Truth on all the latest issues:

Bush Speech: Dug it — groovy riffs and a beat you can dance to, all the way from Ramallah to Riyadh.

Lilo and Stitch: Still haven’t seen it, damnit.

Pledge of Allegiance Ruling: Two thumbs up. People are saying this is trivial, but it’s not. Given that we are in the middle of a war against religious facism, I think its vital to refresh our own memories that we are a secular society. I have no opinion on the legal basis (or lack thereof) of the ruling, but it feels right to me. And to those who say “what’s next, getting rid of ‘in God we trust’ on money? I say “yup”, and good riddance. The sign says “shall make no law respecting” and I for one would be happier if we took it for what it meant. The whole “but God is as generic concept” argument is nonsense — just ask a polytheist.

Worldcom: Hey, everybody makes mistakes. This one just had nine zeros after it.

World Cup Finals: Huh?

That is all.

Folks –

If you haven’t done so already, you need to sign up to sponsor somebody in the Coming up on July 27, it’s a marathon session where bloggers get “sponsors” to donate $$$ to charity in return for the bloggers pulling a 24-hour session of blogging (minimum one post per 30 minutes, if I understand correctly.)

I highly recommend jumping on the bandwagon of my good buddies Meryl Yourish and Lair Simon — you can find more info on the charities they are sponsoring and how to sign up on their pages.

Go. Now !

A federal appeals court has ruled the Pledge of Allegiance to be as it endorses religion. (Found via InstaP)
Interesting. I seem to recall that the “under God” portion of the Pledge — which I presume was the part causing the court heartburn — was only added in recent times. I want to guess at the President, but I’ll surely get it wrong — but I think it was somewhere between 1950-1970. Little help, anyone?
Anyway, assuming the ruling stands, does that mean we should just go back to the old pledge, sans deity?
Update: Folks have written in to contribute that the year was 1954; the President was Eisenhower. Michael Hankamer also notes the following:
“This version of the Pledge of Allegiance was taken from the CNN website. Now I could be wrong, but it seems to me that CNN – and the Court (?) – has lost a comma.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Correctly, it should read:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Silly pro journos. “Professional Fact Checking” indeed…

Sir Reynolds, being a gentleman as well as a scholar, indicated to me that he’d rather I blog my info on the case of Judge Patterson and he’ll link. So never one to refuse the InstaGuy, here it is, in slightly-less-edited-for-primetime form than usual (I’m low on time, so mostly just cutting & pasting from my email to Glenn):

—-

OK Glenn, here’s some additional info. (This will definitely teach me to keep my big mouth shut… or at least, it *should*):

1) I found a more independent confirmation of some of the judge’s remarks. Still clearly partisan, but at least it’s not the actual parties to the case. ((I found this link via “End the War On Freedom“)

Interestingly, the substance of the judge’s remarks quoted are similar to the quote you found, but the language and phrasing are different.

2) To go for the even *less* objective source, I found Stanley’s Senate election campaign homepage, and in particular, the subpage he’s maintained on this
particular court case. It includes a press release which appears to be the primary souce for the article you cited (it contains the exact quote you noted

3) Unfortunately, it sounds like a transcript of the court appearance in question won’t be available for some time; Stanley’s web site indicates they will post
it when it becomes available, but that it may not be on the web until August.

4) I’ve struck out on finding any more ‘objective’ sources… sorry. If I stumble across anything further I’ll certainly pass it on.

ANYWAY: My conclusion on this is I am a bit more convinced of the accusations against this judge; Stanley’s site makes some pretty compelling-looking
arguments. But I would still sure feel a lot better if I found a source *other* than one of the parties directly involved (or clearly biased to favor Stanley)
to document exactly what Judge Patterson said.

-NZB

Sorry for the light (in other words, nonexistent) updates this morning; probably won’t be much new until tonight. I just burned through my lunchtime blogging doing some additional research on the case of a judge in Denver who is alleged to have dissed the Constitution: believe it or not I’m just going to you over to Glenn’s site rather than repeating it here; I haven’t blogged the issue myself and I’ve sent all my info to InstaGuy. You’ll see an initial update with my skepticism on the quote, and probably another one will follow soon with the additional sources I dug up. (If you can’t stand the suspense: I remain skeptical of the quote as I can’t find a truly objective source to verify it, but am a bit more convinced than when I started out as Stanley (the accused in the case) appears to be making a fairly credible-looking argument against the judge…)