The Constitution, Fallujah, and Thanksgiving

According to a report by Reuters, dated November 24, 2004, a teacher in California has been barred from giving his students copies of documents that mention God -- including, among others, the Declaration of Independence. Now, I will have to say that I will concede the possibility that the materials cited in the Reuters report could have been "selectively edited" to overly-emphasize the religious ponderings (pre-blog, of course!) of the Founding Fathers; but I suspect that this is not, in fact, the situation. Anything is possible in the People's Republic of Kalifornia! I will also say that I'm, well, disappointed, that the teacher has sued. It's an understandable response, especially in today's cultural climate; and I guess I don't really blame him for doing so -- but still, it's a disappointment that some other avenue of redress either doesn't exist or wasn't (so far as we can tell from the news report) explored. Why does it always seem that the initial response is to go to court and to sue, especially for big monetary damage awards? (Credit is due to the blog "small dead animals" for the link to the Drudge Report, where the link to the Reuters article was found. I'm probably going to add "small dead animals" to my blogroll here.)

Meanwhile, there are some interesting reports from the war in Iraq. It was big news recently, when an embedded reporter captured on video the shooting by a U.S. Marine of an Iraqi who was apparently unarmed. That reporter has posted his thoughts about the experience, and it's worth reading. Meanwhile, a soldier on the ground has also written of the event. His thoughts can be found here. (Again, thanks to "small dead animals" for the "Letter from Fallujah" link.)

Finally, it wouldn't be the Thanksgiving holiday without some domestic violence arising as the family turkeys argue about the family turkey. One such entry is found in this report from the Boston Herald. It's so sad to read these stories, again and again. At least, no one was killed here. What a way to have to remember the Thanksgiving holiday: "Oh, yes, that's the day Uncle Raoul was killed by Uncle Albert..."