About a decade ago, maybe more, a factory burned down somewhere in New England. It took a year to rebuild. For that whole year the owner of the factory kept paying his employees their full salaries until the plant reopened. I remember hearing an interview with the owner - I don't remember his name, or what the factory made, but I remember that the interviewer asked the owner why he kept paying out these salaries. The owner shrugged. "How many suits can I wear?" he replied. Read More
Images Conceits & Lollygags
Some thoughts on the Pledge of Allegiance
September 7, 2013
This from my friend Howard Pearlstein:
I was asked about this and this is what I answered -- my objection not religious but semantic...
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I am not an atheist and I never cared one way or the other about daily bible readings in elementary school.
My objection to the insertion of "Under God" has always been that it defeated the purpose of the Pledge.
Consider this, syntactically:
When you say: "One Nation, indivisible.." you're saying this is one indivisible nation. One whole coherent unit. That we are all one people bound by a common ideal.
When you say -- even worse, change the assertion that we are all, regardless of individual difference, all one people, when you change it to: Read More
I was asked about this and this is what I answered -- my objection not religious but semantic...
*********
I am not an atheist and I never cared one way or the other about daily bible readings in elementary school.
My objection to the insertion of "Under God" has always been that it defeated the purpose of the Pledge.
Consider this, syntactically:
When you say: "One Nation, indivisible.." you're saying this is one indivisible nation. One whole coherent unit. That we are all one people bound by a common ideal.
When you say -- even worse, change the assertion that we are all, regardless of individual difference, all one people, when you change it to: Read More