Topic: The Culture
On your knees, America!
No double entendre implied at all...
Kenneth Wilson in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993) gives this advice: In speaking or writing you may use double entendre to amuse, but be sure that your audiences will both understand and enjoy it, or it would be better not to attempt it at all. Inadvertent double meanings can embarrass writers or speakers.
So the on-your-knees business only has one meaning, not three....
Fred Clark reminds us, today is officially our National Day of Prayer. To be precise, in 1952, Congress passed a law establishing the National Day of Prayer as an annual religious observance.
And as Clark says - Quick: give me another sentence that uses the words "Congress," "law," "establish" and "religion."
Oh well, not a big deal.
Yes, there is an "honorary chairman" selected by the nonprofit committee that promotes this business. It's a ceremonial position. This year that would be Oliver North. Yep.
A little history from July 5, 1989...
Yeah, well, he's since been born-again I guess.Former White House aide Oliver North has escaped jail for his part in the Iran-Contra affair.
The decorated Vietnam veteran was convicted of three - out of 12 - charges relating to illegal United States' support for the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s.
He received a three-year suspended prison sentence, two years on probation, 1,200 hours' community service with inner city drugs projects and a $150,000 fine.
The retired lieutenant-colonel has also had his annual service pension - of $23,100 - suspended after 20 years in the US Marines and he has been barred from holding any federal office.
In his summing up at the US District Court in Washington Judge Gerhard Gesell described North, 45, as a "low-ranking subordinate who was carrying out the instructions of a few cynical superiors."
Many commentators have expressed surprise at the leniency of the sentence for offences, which attract a maximum 10 years in prison and $750,000 fine.
... North was found guilty in May of falsifying and destroying documents, obstructing Congress and illegally receiving the gift of a security fence around his home in Virginia.
Here's the opening of the president's proclamation -
In his first Inaugural Address, President George Washington prayed that the Almighty would preserve the freedom of all Americans. On the National Day of Prayer, we celebrate that freedom and America's great tradition of prayer. The National Day of Prayer encourages Americans of every faith to give thanks for God's many blessings and to pray for each other and our Nation.
Harmless fluff.
Clark reviews all the press coverage and adds this:
Clark takes this all to seriously. No harm. No foul.I find the idea of an official National Day of Prayer, like the "under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance, a bit hard to swallow. Either it's a serious affirmation of religion -- in which case it seems to violate the Establishment Clause, or else it's a hollow exercise in civil religion -- in which case it seems to violate serious religious faith.
Prayer is a Good Thing. It's far too important to allow it to be highjacked in the service of hollow pieties and political campaigns, so I'm not a fan of the National Day of Prayer.
Posted by Alan at 09:19 PDT
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