Tuesday, October 06, 2009

5 comments:

jreichart said...

First of all, I would like to send prayers and best wishes to all the people involved in the floods in India, as well as the fires in California.

As far as the Supreme Court case goes, I think that is ridiculous. Honestly, I believe that it is sad that in this day in age it is so common for people to raise such commotion over small, peaceful, and sentimental things. This cross is a tradition that is strictly there to honor veterans. Who would complain about honoring veterans? However that is not the problem. Although there is a chance that politically it might be seen as wrong to have that cross placed there, I am simply upset with the fact that this particular man (who is a christian non-veteran mind you) feels it necessary to speak for veterans against this "horrible feat". I really hope and believe that the Supreme Court will rule this in favor of those cute, old people that simply want to honor past veterans with a traditional symbol, whether it is religious or not. There are much bigger problems with legitimate controversy that are currently taking place in our government.

AAgostini said...

Agreed. It seems that both sides are being unreasonable in relation to the Mojave cross issue. While I can understand why some would be upset by a Christian-biased representation of veterans, I don't think the original intention was to exclude other cultural groups. To my understanding, the cross was
constructed before the area of the Mojave desert became a national preserve in 1994 under the California Desert Protection Act. For this reason I believe the court will rule in favor of the cross. It will be interesting to see what impact of the court's decision will be, seeing as, as the video mentioned, previous similar cases involving public display of the ten commandments have had varying outcomes.

On the topic of autism, I agree that some of this increase can be attributed to the fact that doctors are becoming more informed in recognizing the many forms and degrees of the disease leading to an increase in diagnosis. Although it is unfortunate to see numbers of affected people rising, I believe there will be some positive outcomes. As more people are affected, more attention will be given to the issue, and more doctors will begin to understand the disease. Hopefully this awareness will lead to better treatments or even a cure.

nsomers said...

Since they did allow the Ten Commandments to stand as a memorial for veterans in Texas, I believe they will let this cross stay. Like Alyssa mentioned, if other culture groups feel that their veterans are not being represented maybe they could put up a Star of David? In the Arlington Cemetary there are several crosses on tombstones, but there several other religious symbols offered as well. I think that as long as any other religion is not denied the right to put up a symbol of their own they Supreme Court will let the cross remain where it is.

klatour said...

I agree on the Mojave cross issue. This is one family's way of honoring the veterans and it seems very appropriate and even common for a cross to be used to symbolize remembrance of lost loved ones. Jon makes a very good point when he said the supreme court could be dealing with bigger problems. Although it is on a national preserve, it seems to be a lot of fuss over nothing.

nsomers said...

Regarding autism...
I just saw part of TV program (Datline I believe) that was talking about how vaccines may be causing autism. It was saying that kids seem to be developing normally but once they recieve certain vaccines they begin to develop signs of autism. Maybe our advances in vaccines are causing the increase in autistic children. I'm not suggesting that all vaccines cause autism or that vaccines are the only cause of autism. But I think more research needs to be put in to this to verify if vaccines are a real cause of autism so that if in fact it is, we can prevent increasing the number of children with this condition.