Pick Your Poison
"We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country."
-Paul Weyrich - Free Congress Foundation
It's the end of a busy week. There are lots of things to be thankful for, especially in my personal life. My cold is almost gone. The family is healthy and not complaining. I'm learning to meditate. Got a positive resolution to a tricky financial problem without bloodshed. Enjoyed a great sunset and can even see a few stars among the brown, smog-clouds. Life is good on the home front.
Elsewhere, there were positives. No devastating hurricanes in Florida. Kerry has finally articulated a clear and convincing opposition to the Bush brigade. The local news did not include a freeway car chase today. The California legislature just passed the strictest auto emission pollution control law in the world. LAX airport security worked today when TSA workers confiscated a handgun from the carry on bag of LAPD's anti terrorism official. The movie, "End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones" had a brief, successful run this week. Just noticed that Gonzalo Rubalcaba is playing at the Catalina Bar and Grill next week, so life will continue to be good.
Now, for the bad and the ugly news. Here's the latest, and I guess Florida is getting ready for another hurricane tomorrow, so strike out the happy dance for Florida in the paragraph above. The GOP Intel bill is worrisome since it was drafted behind locked doors to keep the Dems out. The death toll in Iraq is the highest ever and hideously vicious. And so it goes. No sense perpetuating redundancy tonight.
Of all of these major activities, the most disturbing was the passage of The Pledge Protection Act which has the strange purpose of not allowing a federal court to hear any challenge to the "under God" reference in the Pledge of Allegiance. Looks like Weyrich and his followers have a victory in the making. It's clear that the moral majority is holding some elected feet to the fire and is revising the Constitution to suit its religious agenda. The the voting public is becoming alarmed and mainstream churches don't seem to like this direction either, especially if it means churches may lose their tax exemptions.
Interesting that Congress seeks to limit the authority of the Supreme Court just before an election. Maybe Bush is not confident in winning the White House, and the Republicans might be worried about their Republican majority elsewhere if Kerry wins. They have reason to worry if Teresa Kerry was able to raise one million dollars for Kerry/Edwards in one night. And, she did it in Arizona, McCain/Goldwater country. The local and state Democrats have it so well together, the Kerry campaign has decided to cancel their ad campaign there. Amazing. The spin I got from mainstream media is that Kerry couldn't win in AZ!
The Republicans definitely need to worry about the direction of the Supreme Court if Kerry is elected. Three Supremes will most likely retire in the next few years and a more aggressive and liberal court might temper the moral majority's attempt to reinvent the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
