Pledge of Allegiance

The good news, as far as I see it, is that the Supremes have ruled that "...under God" will stay in our Pledge of Allegiance at least until another lawsuit winds it's way to the high court.

And believe me pholks, I don't think for a minute that it was a coincidence that the ruling was announced on June 14, Flag Day.

Although the Supreme Court tossed out a California atheist's suit claiming the "under God" phrase violates the Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state on a technicality.

The court ruled that the father who filed the suit on behalf of his school aged daughter does not have legal custody of her and was not entitled to act in her behalf.

The ruling does not uphold the pledge as being Constitutional.

The bad news is that the reason for the omission of ..."under God" during the opening of College of the Sequoias graduation ceremonies is still unknown.

COS President and District Superintendent. Dr. Kamiran C. Badrkhan said this week the administrative staff still has been unable to contact Bob Rhoades, the graduating Associated Student Body Commissioner of Clubs who led the pledge. The omission provided the biggest crowd response of the evening. Dr. Badrkhan subsequently asked the final speaker of the evening, Anetra Baffo, to lead the pledge a second time with, of course, the "under God" right where it should be. That produced the second loudest cheer of the evening.

Pholks, I continue to follow this story and will provide any updates as they occur. So until the Supremes decide whether to eventually rule on the Constitutionality of the issue, let's chalk this ruling up to a good Flag Day.

SPEAKING OF UPDATES, I gotta hand it to CalTrans again. State, county and city workers around the Valley are busy this time of year on a number of highway, road and street projects. And I think it is neat that signs are posted to let us drivers know that caution is needed and to help us traverse the highways and byways which are being repaired and updated.

But in Woodlake last week on several occasions when work was not in progress and all the shovels, even those being used to hold up tired workers were put away, one electronic Cal-Trans sign flashed out the message "No Data" hour after hour.

It certainly got my attention, which of course, is the purpose. "Have a Nice Day" or What's Up?" or "No Construction Today, Just Be Careful" would be nice. But no, just because someone forgot to unplug the electronics, or whatever, motorists are left to ponder why there isn't any data. Or what data might be missing.

This is not the kind of update we need.

NEEDING IS ALSO THE SUBJECT of a news story this week from Southern California. Seems like the City of Huntington Beach is considering building a $10 million wave pool whose target consumer group would be surfers in their mid-20s who have jobs, spouses and not enough free time to ride the real waves just blocks from their homes, in most cases.

According to the Associated Press, the city fathers, and/or mothers originally voiced their doubts about the idea due to the closeness of the Pacific Ocean, but later embraced the idea. No final decision has been made on this proposal which gives a whole new meaning to the term "Hanging 10."

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