General News Items

[fauxklore]

First, I'm surprised that nobody on my friends list has commented on Salazar v. Bueno. That's the Supreme Court case involving a cross that was erected as a veteran's memorial. The issues are the usual separation of church and state ones, with the interesting question of whether just declaring a few square feet in the middle of federal property to not be public land is a legitimate work-around. What I've read so far makes Scalia look remarkably ignorant. That's unusual. Normally, I disagree with many of his opinions, but can respect that they have some sort of reasoning. But to claim that a cross is a secular memorial symbol is insulting.

Second, I want to note the death of Ben Ali. You have probably never heard the name, but he was the founder of Ben's Chili Bowl, a major D.C. institution. It's the sort of place one should go to once, for the atmosphere. It's even been visited by President Obama. (And one notable thing about the current first family is that they go out to eat more often and a far wider range of places than their recent predecessors did. This is a good thing.)

Finally, speaking of Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize flap is pretty much a non-story as far as I'm concerned. It's not like the prize has ever really meant anything beyond the committee's desire to give publicity to some idea or other. (In fact, it's often a good way to make sure the recipient ends up being further persecuted and/or marginalized.) That said, I' was surprised as I'd been expecting to to go to Morgan Tsvangirai.

Comments

[shmuel.livejournal.com]

I hadn't been aware of Salazar v. Buono until now, and have only skimmed through the basics so far. And given that I have a photo of Scalia on my refrigerator, you might say I'm a bit biased. With that said, two points:

1) Taking issue with something a justice says in a written ruling or dissent is perfectly reasonable. Taking issue with assertions used to test either side in the oral arguments is kinda silly.

2) Even if it did reflect his actual feelings, I'm not sure I'd disagree with this assertion, within the confines of this specific case. The claim that a cross is a "common symbol of the resting place of the dead" seems much closer to the mark than the argument it was reportedly a challenge to, which was that the memorial "signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins."

Anyway, I look forward to reading up on this.

[fauxklore]

From what I read, he specifically said it was a secular symbol. If I were a Christian, I would be extremely offended by it.