After work yesterday I went to the gym to work out and read from my textbook for Finance (I do a lot of reading on the elliptical machine, being able to read while running without getting sick and being immune to poison ivy seem to be the trade-off for my allergies/eczema/asthma).  On the way there, as I so often do, I found myself listening to NPR.  They had a piece about the current supreme court case regarding the white cross in Mojave.  To sum up the case, for anyone unfamiliar, Christian veterans erected a white cross to honor the war dead in 1934.  However, it was erected on public land, which was eventually (in 2002) deemed to be in conflict with the separation of church and state.  To get around this the government donated the land to the Vets and in return they agreed they’d take care of the land. 

Now, what has happened is that the ACLU is (rightly) suggesting that this is still showing preferential treatment for one religious group.  After all, the government didn’t donate equal tracts of land to Jewish Veterans, etc.  What was interesting about this spot on NPR was that the correspondent read verbatim (some of) the argument between the ACLU, Justices Ginsburg and Scalia.  For the full transcript, click here.

What shocked me was Scalia’s ignorance and inability to hold up the basic tenets of his office, to speak for the diffuse peoples of the United States, and not just for himself. 

At one point Scalia said: The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead.

The ACLU representative, Jewish, informed Scalia that “I’ve been in Jewish cemeteries, there’s never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.” 

Not much was made of this, but it was shocking to me that Scalia could so freely admit that he can see no further than his own big Italian nose.  “golly, when I go to my cemetery all I see are crosses, so that MUST be the only way anyone marks a grave, what are these dumb Jews carping about?”   I bet he thinks pizza and pasta are the only things the people of the united states eat for dinner.  “Matzah ball soup??  I’VE never seen that, so spaghetti must be the most common food people eat.”  Notice the worst part, Scalia didn’t even qualify his remarks with an “in America” like so many misguided right wingers tend to do “America is a christian nation, America was founded on Christianity, America does not torture”, etc.  So, Justice Scalia, a supreme court justice believes that all over the world the cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead?  I’d say at best a nondemominational square stone is probably the right answer… hello… how many big crosses do you even see in your local christian cemetary?

By the way, when did something being “the most common” make it immune from separation of church and state?  Isn’t that precisely why we have those laws?  We have them so that minority religious beliefs aren’t pounded down to dust by a state sponsored majority.

But, at the end of the day, this is all nonsense anyway.  Religion, I mean.

A friend sent me earlier in the day this link to Christopher Hitchens’ speech in Australia (at the Opera House??).  I downloaded the video and watched/listened to it as I completed the painting.  Many times during his speech I had to stop and look up at the screen (I was painting on the floor) as the reasons he was giving for disbelief in God were the same that I have and I rarely see brought up in those kinds of discussions.  He even uses the topical event of Roman Polanski’s ummm “situation” as a proof against Christian (only) morality.  Unfortunately the only people who will ever watch this video are the people who already agree with him.  In America for some reason it is seen as welcome for cults to proselytize (we all know what the Mormons wear when they do this, right? …how do you think we all know that?) and yet when any respected author, scientist, etc. speaks out against religion (essentially proselytizing for Atheism/Agnosticism) it is seen as highly offensive.   Our school system is seen as a complete joke to other 1st world countries.  Not so much because we’re falling behind in math and science, but because we actually have people on school boards even considering for one moment to put something as ridiculous as Creationism in science texts.

My disbelief in God was furthered along a few hours later when I saw the Daily Show’s interview with rapper Slim Thug.  Who, although I’ve never heard of him, and his wikipedia entry is only one paragraph long, apparently has too much money to know what to do with and lamented that he had to settle for a Bentley Flying Spur instead of a Rolls Royce due to the current economy.  

Does Sufjan Stevens have enough money to buy Bentleys?  Oh wait, Sufjan’s music has been used in commercials and in films, so people have actually HEARD his music, so that isn’t a good example.  Or maybe it is, because I don’t believe Sufjan (and “Sufjan” in this sense is a stand in for any and all talented young musicians who are widely recognized among music critics and have their music occasionally acknowledged in the mainstream media as well) is as rich as Slim Thug.

Slim Thug couldn’t get his new Rolls Royce this year.  There is no god.

 

 

 

UPDATE!  —- looks like I wasn’t the only one who heard this piece on NPR and got pissed off…