Do as I say, not as I do...

This is precisely one of the top ten things wrong with Amerka (U.S.A.) today: The notion that rules and the law is for everyone else, but never for "me."

Seems like everyone in some way seems to think they're above it (the law or the rules). Granted not everyone is a Kenneth Lay, Jack Abramov, Tom Delay or Bush/Cheney. Those guys are all obvious and there's far more like them than you can possibly imagine. (Follow the money. Find great wealth or power, and I'd bet if you had the time and/or resources you'd statistically stand a good chance of finding some rules or laws that have been "bent" or "interpreted differently." Human history validates that point all to well; why would our era be any different.) Feeling "above it all" at that level is nothing new. But now it's pervasive. Think about yourself. Never parked in a handicap space with a sticker that wasn't yours? Never sped down the freeway, because, well, you were just going with the flow of traffic? Never went through the express line knowing full well you had more than 15 items? Sure these are small things (and easy to rationalize), but every time you overstep one of these "little" rules or "rise above" any law, no matter how major or minor, you are entering this realm of the "self-important" and the entitled. You are then acting as if the rules or laws are for everyone else but not you and you are furthermore likely as not violating any sense of what is either courteous or civil or just or in the interest of the common good or some combination thereof. And that becomes just another destructive blow to the notion of a civilized** culture. Some blows are smaller than others, true, but they are blows nonetheless.

Oh, and keep an eye on your legislators. What you don't see can hurt you.



**showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable; marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultured; polished.

If a Cross Falls...

If a Cross falls in the middle of a desert and there's no one around to hear it, does it make any noise? This one does. *(text at bottom in case the link gets broken). Long story short is an 8 foot cross in the Mojave National Preserve has to go. And rightfully so. Though it's been a long on-going legal battle going back to 2001.

Anyway, the ACLU, no surprise, had another take on the matter.

Funny how the government thought they could get around the problem by a little land transfer. Yeah, right, like nobody would see through that little bit of sheistering. The federal appeals court saw through it. Thank God.

Funnier still (not) is how when ever the courts rule in favor of keeping religion OUT of government or publicly held places --like courthouses, schools, PARKS in keeping with the separation of church and state, it's called "legislating form the bench," (a term equally used in their dismay over equal rights rulings) but whenever the courts rule in favor of something these same religious radicals call it affirming this or upholding that.

Legislating from the bench is an oxymoronic notion anyway -- we all know judges don't really legislate and can't legislate (obviously) but merely determine if something is within the parameters of the law or not. It's truly one of those doublespeak Republican spin terms which, as usual, has little bearing to actual truth (or reality).

One of the single most galling aspects of the religious radical right is their continuous, deliberate, and adamant refusal to accept that this is not a theocracy and that not everyone is hoping to turn it into one -- a large number of Christians included.


* Judge Legislates From the Bench; Again

Since the basic rule of law had to be thrown out in order for a judge to legislate from the bench, then obviously, to any thinking person, the court that is null and void is not qualified to hand down any more rulings, and is itself held in contempt by default.

The 9th Circuit Court regularly over steps its documented charter, and is itself null and void from the first legislated decision it handed down many years ago. Courts can not legislate; that’s what elected officials are for.

The very title of the so-called news story below should be a tip off that “Something is Rotten in Denmark.”

There is nothing in the Constitution that claims that America is required to be antiseptic of Christianity. With our founding documents, including the Constitution, based on The King James Version of The Bible, we would be without a government; and the Constitution declared null and void if the 9th Circuit Court's legislation were correct.

Court forbids Mojave park's cross display
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 09/07/2007 11:11:51 PM PDT

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE - A cross that stands above the desert as a memorial for Americans who died in World War I represents an unconstitutional federal endorsement of Christianity, according to a legal opinion handed down by the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The cross stands atop Sunrise Rock on Cima Road inside the Mojave National Preserve. The preserve is public land, part of the National Park System. Upholding a 2005 court decision, Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote that the cross would not be allowed even if the government traded Sunrise Rock for other land with a private party, thus removing the cross from public land.

The court published its opinion Thursday.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, supported a land trade in a 2002 piece of legislation that would have transferred Sunrise Rock to a Barstow chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in exchange for a 5-acre patch of land.
Lewis could not be reached for comment Friday.

Mojave National Preserve superintendent Dennis Schramm said park officials have not yet determined the full impact of the court's opinion.

"I haven't heard anything from anyone yet," he said. "I'm still under a court order to keep it covered."

The cross could be viewed from Cima Road earlier this summer. The original monument, a wooden cross, was placed at Sunrise Rock in 1934, according to court documents. That cross has since been replaced by a metal edifice that was bolted into the rock in 1998.

Sunrise Rock has frequently been a site for Easter Sunday services.

Thursday's ruling stems from a 2001 lawsuit filed by Frank Buono, a former assistant superintendent at the Preserve who was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Court papers from an earlier stage in the case noted that Buono was "deeply offended by the display of a Latin Cross on government-owned property."

Federal attorneys representing National Parks Service officials defended the cross's presence in the Preserve. Department of Justice spokesman Andrew Ames said that as of Friday, no decision had been made on whether to appeal the case.

Published Sep 08 2007, 05:57 AM by Stu Marks with 24 view(s)

Filed under: VA, Memorial, Park, National Park, American, Legal, Cross, Constitution, Bible, 9th Circuit Court

http://www.adventure-space.com/blogs/outdoor__national_park_news/archive/2007/09/08/judge-legislates-from-the-bench-again.aspx

Sometimes I wish...

Sometimes I wish I was born in any other country but the U.S.A., like maybe someplace in the E.U.

I am often ashamed of our lack of civility, our greed and values that place money and the accumulation of wealth above all else, our obsession with celebrity and our exponentially growing inability to be compassionate toward others or demonstrate the least understanding of other perspectives if they differ from our own.

I miss the sea.

After spending many summer days on the warm sand, listening to the surf --sometimes a whisper, sometimes a roar-- I find I'm a bit blue and maybe not adjusting to the influx of fall so well. Though I can't miss it's approach: the greens are now the brittle greens, the near dying and yellow greens of autumn. And the air is cooler, drier, crisp. The days are not as long. I miss the hot sun on my face, feet in squishy sand, and the water. We came from the water, millennia ago. We can't live without the oceans. Water cleanses. Purifies. Renews. I miss the sea.

Hmmm, bet they'd love to hear this.

Got an interesting and alarmingly direct response from a seller on ebay who had an item listed and for which I was tempted to place a bid, EXCEPT the shipping was more than a bit excessive: roughly $20.00 for something that could just as easily be mailed in a $5.00 flat rate box, priority mail even. This is what the seller had to say when I called him (or her) out on it:

My shipping is so "inflated" because I ship the same day, use high
quality packing materials, include delivery confirmation with a track
number, and to avoid high insertion and final value fees from ebay.

Bet ebay would just love to hear this. They'd drop his sorry ass from their site. Can't say I'm surprised. Seems everybody wants to make a buck at the expense of others. Corporations locate offshore to shelter assets or declare bankruptcy to shed pension obligations or current salary commitments (both arrived in in good faith via contract negotiations), as we've seen in the steel and airline industries to name a few. So, from corporate boardroom to some schmuck hocking goods on the interweb from the breakfast nook in his kitchen, the call to greed and avarice runs deep and it's undertow is strong.

As you were...

I'm guessing you noticed the extended hiatus. Yup. Couple of reasons for that:

a) wasn't feeling the need to blog, and the last two posts were good reminders that there is much to do and remain cognizant of.

b) I was on an extended stay away from home. But that is over too now, so all roads lead to home and the resumption of life as usual.

Ponder this.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."

Sinclair Lewis

"If you are uneducated, you are a danger to this country."

Robert Kennedy, Jr, 03-19-07, Widener University Speaker's Series

Interview with Larry...

Rex: I do feel hate sometimes from courts and politicians, but I only very rarely feel it living my daily life in San Diego. Some days I think they wish we'd just all disappear from the face of the Earth, but most days I feel like we're all accepted and integrated, at least in the cities. Aren't we, culturally, kind of in a supremely schizo phase? Also, what straight people do one-on-one with the gay people in their lives seems very different from what slimy politicians do in public. My ex and I were good friends with the fundamentalist Christians who lived next door. Perhaps they didn't like gays, I don't know, but they liked me and Bob, as a gay couple, just fine. In other words, schizo. Discuss.

Larry: It is seeing your life through such rose-colored glasses as you describe that is so dismaying to me. Yes, life is better for the blinded. Leave San Diego and go to northern Idaho, or to parts of Queens in New York City, and you would not live as you describe. Indeed, I am sure there are portions of San Diego where you could get seriously mugged. I am actually kind of sick and tired of palaver -- hot air -- as you just passed. I am also sick and tired of those who say that everything is better now than the old days. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't; this is an irrelevant argument. It is the today that we have to contend with. Every action that I describe in my ACT UP speech is an action of hate -- by judges, by our government, by our elected officials, by government bureaucrats. And until gays start facing up to this fact, that this is hate, not just, say, difference of opinion, then we continue to live in the doggy do-do that we do.

The whole interview by Rex Wockner is here.