but I've been watching this story. I think if the Supreme Court rules to tear down this monument built by a world war I veteran they are makin a HUGE mistake. This Cross has stood for over 75 years, I don't even know if the Mojave was government land in 1934 does anybody? Jewish and Muslim veterans groups are supporting the ACLU in their bid to tear it down because it "doesn't represent THEIR war dead". They should be ashamed of themselves..........for one thing you probly couldn't FIND a muslim soldier from America in the first World War. Taking it down is just plain wrong.
High Court Appears Split About Cross on Park Land
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 7, 2009; 12:21 PM
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared split over whether lower courts were correct in deeming a 6 1/2-foot cross, built on public land as a memorial to World War I dead, an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.
The case is the first major opportunity for the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to divine the meaning of the First Amendment command that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
But during oral arguments, the justices appeared to be looking for a narrow way out of the case, focusing on whether Congress's decision to transfer ownership of the land to the Veterans of Foreign Wars would cure the violation.
Justice Antonin Scalia was the only justice who seemed to want to address a broader question of when religious displays on government land violate the Establishment Clause. He said it was not automatic.
Scalia disputed an assertion by Peter Eliasberg, counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, that the cross was the essential symbol of Christianity and that a war memorial that featured only a cross by definition excluded recognition of soldiers of other faiths.
When Scalia said the cross was the "most common symbol of the resting place of the dead," Eliasberg replied that would not be the case in a Jewish cemetery.
Scalia shot back that it was an "outrageous conclusion" that the cross only honored Christian war dead.
But the justices mostly concerned themselves with the convoluted legal history of the case, Buono v. Salazar, which includes two trips before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and two interventions by Congress intended to keep the cross in place without violating the First Amendment.
The court's decisions on religious displays have established few bright-line rules. Instead, rulings are usually narrow and case-specific.
The Mojave cross's protectors, which include veterans groups and the federal government, say the symbol is a historic, secular tribute; its original plaque from the 1930s said it was erected to honor "the dead of all wars." They argue that Congress has taken the steps to distance itself from any appearance of endorsing a religious display -- including transferring the acre of federal land on which the cross was erected to the VFW in exchange for five acres of land given to the government by the family that acts as the cross's unofficial caretaker.
But the ACLU, Jewish and Muslim veterans, and others say government actions have only deepened the problem. To avoid the lower courts' rulings that the cross must come down, Congress has designated the site the country's only official national memorial to the dead of World War I, elevating it to an exclusive group of national treasures that includes the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore
I'm not sure about American muslims, but i know there were nearly a million muslims who fought with the allies as colonial conscripts or independant arab tribes against the turks in the mid-east. It's strange how ww1 is so overshadowed in history by ww2.
Pam, I am glad to see these issues addressed by SCOTA, it means that there will finally be (or Not) some clarity on what is (or Not) acceptable as religious mixed with federal. Am I making myself clear? If this cross is not acceptable, then any ancient tribal symbols may not be acceptable. In my opinion, a Christmas tree, swastika, (forward or backward moving), fish, cross, or whatever are unoffensive in themselves. It is the idea behind those symbols that people get so upset over, and our constitution says that ideas are not to be restricted, (free speech). This may also put a stop to those loonies who sue over a public display of the creche or the commandments. I would think that this particular cross would be covered by free speech, wouldn't it?
I think it would be considered a war memorial and left alone. I really think the whole question is retarded but that's just me. I don't see why it's a problem to start with. Religious symbols don't offend me ..ANY religious symbols because I don't base my faith on symbols so other religions symbols don't diminish my faith in my mind. Does that make any sense? Hell I don't know if it does or not.
The whole point is a man put that monument up as a remembrance of the guys he knew that didn't make it back AND all the others, he tended it till he died. It stood there since 1934 and it took till now for somebody to get "offended"??....it's like spittin on those guys sacrifice.....it's just a stupid lawsuit and the people who are all for it need to look to their OWN symbols and remember theres gonna be SOMEbody who ain't gonna like em or want to have to look at em no matter what they stand for. I'm a pretty lenient person as most of yall on here keep pointin out but all this "demanding of rights" and "taking down what's offensive" to SOME just drives me insane. I DO NOT see why it always has to be either /or.....................................if I don't like something I just don't pay attention to it, but GOD why would anybody just do that :P that would be too easy.
theres one thing we all should remember. You do not have any right to not be offended. :)
Couldn't find an embedding code.. so I will post the link to the video here..
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=4226712&cl=15967346&src=news
The Federal gov't ought not to own land or property except post offices,
Federal courts, or military posts. In the first place, it was never intended for the
Fed's to be in the land business, or any other business for that matter. Instead,
it ought to be state land or privately owned.
ACLU = Freakin Morons....
You know, if it wasn't for the sacrifice of the men that cross was there for, the ACLU wouldn't have the ground to stand on. Our veterans, the bulk of which are of a christian faith, paid the price for the freedoms that we enjoy. Taking down that cross would be akin to spitting on their graves.
As to the federal government owning land: Who paid for the Louisiana Purchase and who owned it until it was settled?
Quote from: Wilma on October 08, 2009, 07:28:28 AM
As to the federal government owning land: Who paid for the Louisiana Purchase and who owned it until it was settled?
Then it was divided up into state lands. Land was granted to people back then, in large chunks. It was called land grants. the 13 colonies were originally formed using these grants. Same thing happened as the nation aquired land.
The feds are not supposed to own any lands.
Quote from: Wilma on October 08, 2009, 07:28:28 AM
As to the federal government owning land: Who paid for the Louisiana Purchase and who owned it until it was settled?
Oh Wilma! I could SO get in trouble answerin this one................................................ 8)
Quote from: redcliffsw on October 08, 2009, 04:39:00 AM
The Federal gov't ought not to own land or property except post offices,
Federal courts, or military posts. In the first place, it was never intended for the
Fed's to be in the land business, or any other business for that matter. Instead,
it ought to be state land or privately owned.
Actually the government owning it is what has kept it from being destroyed, I am a supporter of national parks and preserves. If that is what it takes to save it so be it.
Pam, I wouldn't want to get you in trouble, but if it weren't for the federal government, we wouldn't be the big nation we are today. Part of us would be French, part Mexican, part Russian. Who else was trying to get a piece of us?
Lol I was thinkin about the REAL owners......which was NOT the french OR the spanish! ;D
You're right of course, but if we hadn't done it, another nation would have. I wonder what it would be like if the Indians had kept and developed it. Could they have done it without the technology that white man brought with him?
Quote from: srkruzich on October 08, 2009, 07:59:25 AM
The feds are not supposed to own any lands.
What founding or subsequent document states this?
Oh god.......you had to ask me that.....LOL Actually strange as this seems I was thinkin about that very thing on the way home from town this morning. I was lookin around at the country and the woods......ask Mom, where I live is really rural...there are a lot of people but it's basically a rural county, small towns few and far between. I got to thinkin about ecology and the environment which led me to what it was like here a couple hundred years ago which led me to thinkin about the colonization which led me to thinkin about the way europe was when the first people came from there. The way it was HERE when they got here....now bear with me yall and listen and think beFORE you jump down my throat.
We had two seperate continents with two seperate kinds of civilizations. Natives had been here just as long as europeans had been in europe basically. We had two seperate systems with SOME similarities such as farmers etc. When ...take for instance the English.....left Britain to come here it was a tenant landlord system there. Various "industries" had so polluted the Thames and other rivers that they were dead...this is like 250 300 years ago mind you....what forest was left was OWNED as a private hunting preserve by the monarchy...you could be KILLED if you got caught "poaching the kings game" even if your family was starving. France and Spain were really no different. Europe was a polluted disease ridden mess.
When they landed here....a continent that had been inhabited JUST as long.....there were virgin forests, clear sweet water full of various aquatic life, game everywhere, clean air, tall grass prairies, and there were PEOPLE, some lived in towns and farmed, some were nomadic...they lived WITH their land instead on ON their land.They had no immunity to european diseases because those diseases did not EXIST here. Filth causes those diseases. The land was PART of them not something to be used up and moved on from. Even you hardcore "the europeans were the best thing that ever happened to this place" people know that is the truth. Whether you will admit it to yourselves or anybody else is an altogether different subject. Admit it or not those people WERE makin use of THEIR land in the way they thought was right. They WERE developing it in their OWN way. Now maybe they would not have made the same use of it as the europeans even NOW. But think about the way this land was then after MORE than a thousand years of indigenous settlement and think of how it is now after only 300 years of european settlement use and abuse.
Technology has teeth....it chews things and people up and spits them out all used up. I think we ALL would've been better off if the europeans had adopted the NATIVE way instead of forcing the european way on the natives.
Now before CERtain people crawl up my ass....this is MY opinion.....I don't care if you agree with me or not. Wilma asked a question and I answered it the way I was thinkin. Now chew away or not it makes no difference to me :D
I learn a lot from you Pam. Thanks.
Pam, you are right, of course, but knowing my ancestry besides the Indian, who would I be now if the Mayflower had sunk on it's way over here. Perhaps I would still be hiding in the hills of Tennessee, but if Europeans hadn't colonized, the Cherokees would never had been moved to Oklahoma. Actually, Oklahoma wouldn't be Oklahoma either. Oil wouldn't have been discovered because there wouldn't be any need for it. The gold and silver would still be in the ground, also, because it had no value to the natives. Settling and developing the Americas was inevitable because of who the Europeans were. There is a whole world of discussion in "What if?" but we have to live with what is and make the best of it.
We live in an area that has the 2nd largest Indian/Native American Population in the United States. I have worked with lots of full blooded Indians, because of my wife's Indian Descent my kids were involved in Operation Eagle, which is an Indian sponsored youth program. The indiians I have been around have never compliained about the life they live today or about the Europeans taking over. Many of the Indians in Oklahoma are well educated, have good homes, good Jobs, have or are sending their children to College, they own busineses, are Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers and other professional people.
When I started with Phillips 40 years ago the Chairman of the Board and CEO was a full blooded Cherokee and was the Principal Cheif of the Cherokee Nation, his name was W.W. "Bill" Keeler.
All of the Indian Nations in Oklahoma are very prosperous, they own lots of Casinos, employ lots of their people as well as others and donate lots of money for civic projects. The Cherokees netted $139Million last year in their business operations. I think all of the Nations are very prosperous in their business operations and they use those profits to the benefit of their people.
In summary I don't think the Native Americans of today would give up the life they live in Oklahoma to go back and live like they did 300 years ago.
I forgot to mention that W.W. Bill Keeler was Bud Adams, that owns the Tennessee Titans Uncle. The first Mrs Boots Adams was a Keeler.
Amen Frank,I have had and still am, good friends with quite a few full blooded Native Americans. We might banter about the "fur faces vs Tonto ' thing but never have any of them ever griped about what they have now. Years ago one of my best friends was full blood Osage/Oto. Just this past summer if you had driven by my place you would have seen a very large & expensive RV parked in my yard for over a week.It's owner is a full blood Apache and I think he likes it much better than living in a earthen lodge.
It was a theoretical thought yall. vice versus versa three hundred years ago. had nothing to do with whether or not anybody is satisfied with their life today, it was about how it might have been different.
and cleaner.
I will agree with you there Pam. I'm sure the life was less stressful to Native Americans as long as an ample food supply was available. I hunt artifacts and have since I was a pup. The one thing that I find on sites that used to amazes me is all the fresh water mussel shells I find. I suppose they were plentiful and can be made edible--I know because I've eaten them. I hear stories that when the first white settlers came to these parts there were very few trees and nothing but tall grass. Can you imagine the wild fires they had every year ? Lightning hits in Nebraska and a strong north wind ?? Guess the Gulf of Mexico would be where it went out.
Mother Nature cleanin off the trash :) Gotta admit She did a pretty good job when She still had a free hand. I would've LOVED to have seen this country before....I've always been interested since I was little bitty, I still have a hide scraper I found when I was about 8 or 9. I found a rock one time that looked like a ball of mud somebody had played with, like it still had finger marks in it...I've got it in a box somewhere :P It makes you feel a connection to find stuff like that. Makes you wonder about the people who left them. Think my ideal callin would have been archeology or anthropology, now I'm just the armchair variety.
Pam,
I found my first artifact playing trucks & cars in a sandpile. It is an obsedian point and the only obsedian one I have ever found.Like to know which river it was dredged out of. My collection is cataloged (and I guess you would say the sites are registered) with both WSU and Ks. historical society. I have never found a Paleo point in Elk county and have never seen one from here. The oldest I know of is Archaic but them puppies are 5,000 - 7,000 years old---if I remember right. All this rain and it dries a little I better go see if I can find a couple good points--or scrapers. :)
I was fishin with my Dad when I found the scraper, I THINK it was on Otter Creek but I don't remember for sure. There are arrowheads all OVER the place down here...we found a lot on job sites in Bella Vista Ark. and there are several fields around here where every time they plow you can walk the field and find all kinds. They planted alfalfa last year tho so don't do much diggin there anymore lol My ex-brother-in-law had a place on the white river down by Goshen Ark. He had like 10 or 15 grinding stones and pestles he had found walkin the river. Every time it rained you could find more. One I like the best I found is out of pink flint. I have some a friend gave me that are made out of colored glass.
Crap it's startin to lightnin pretty close so guess I better get off here :P have a good evenin!
I wish i had a nice stone mortar and pestal to grind my herbs with.
Steve, Mano's (grinding stone ) are fairly common to find and I'm sure would be easy to make your own out of a sand stone. The Matate (sp) (grinding bowl ) aren't as common--or haven't been for me. The only perfect one I have I was digging some top soil down by the river and found it purely by luck. The grinding bowls haven't survived the years of tilling the ground.
Quote from: jarhead on October 08, 2009, 10:06:19 PM
Steve, Mano's (grinding stone ) are fairly common to find and I'm sure would be easy to make your own out of a sand stone. The Matate (sp) (grinding bowl ) aren't as common--or haven't been for me. The only perfect one I have I was digging some top soil down by the river and found it purely by luck. The grinding bowls haven't survived the years of tilling the ground.
Hmmm
where can i get a chunk of sandstone. i suppose i could work one down fairly easy.
I am guessing sandstone would have to be rather thick cause as you grind you would also wear down the stone. But it would be a perfect surface for grinding the herbs.
Quote from: srkruzich on October 08, 2009, 10:32:40 PM
Hmmm
where can i get a chunk of sandstone. i suppose i could work one down fairly easy.
I am guessing sandstone would have to be rather thick cause as you grind you would also wear down the stone. But it would be a perfect surface for grinding the herbs.
There is sandstone all over the place over by Fall River lake but it really ain't what you want unless you want your herbs full of sand when you get done! You want granite or some other really hard rock. Limestone might work.
You're right about stuff gettin broke with plowin etc. Jarhead.
All the grinding stones and bowls I have ever found, including a kazillion broken ones, have been made from sand stone. Granted I'd imagine you would be eating quite a bit of sand along with your ground maize but that's probably why almost all (old)Natives they have studied had teeth worn down to nubs. I see bowls and such at tourist traps that are made from lava rock but most are fakes. About all stone walls in these parts are sand stone so go snatch you a flat one Steve,and after a year or two of grinding I bet it looks like a bowl.Alot of grinding stones and bowls have "cupped ' indentations on the back-side and are called nutter stone so when you smashed a walnut that puppy would kinda stay in the same place instead of flying everywhere. Other books say the nutter stone was used to put differant colored paints in---then others say they were used to put the end of a stick in when you made fire with a a bow. My guess is it was used for all the above, and probably more things than that.
Pam, I know there are some real pretty pink flints but the" experts" tell me that most pink flints got their color from being heat treated--and yes, they heat treated alot of flint before knapping it. The Flint Hills have 4 differant kinds of flint and one example is Florence flint. It is whiteish/ grey but after heat treated a pretty pink. That same Florence flint in Oklahoma is known as Kay county chert. I have a handful of points I found ,as a pup, between Bee Branch and Damascus, Arkansas but I've been told that Arkansas made the flood plain of all moving water, state owned and against the law to hunt artifacts on state land.
I have found some different colors of flint since I've been down here....I've got one big chunk I found that is the prettiest color of blue I've seen. I had never seen truly BLUE flint before. I've got blue and pink both. I collect rocks that catch my eye be it because of color or weird shapes whatever. I've got one I found in Buffalo creek that has what looks just like a KEYHOLE in it, the ball of mud rock I was talkin about, various crystals, obsidion I found up by Webb City, one that looks just like a horn of plenty with little baby rocks attached to the inside that I found down by Powell, mica, even got a chunk of marble I found,some that are shaped like bowls that I use for candle holders.......people give me crap about my rocks :P but I LIKE rocks lol
I know most of the old ones are sandstone but I didn't figure Steve wanted grit in his herbs!
Quote from: pamsback on October 09, 2009, 09:27:49 AM
I know most of the old ones are sandstone but I didn't figure Steve wanted grit in his herbs!
You know, I found the best way to chop herb is to use a food processor, man, not a bowl. Thats where the herb goes after you chop it man. ;)
Quote from: Varmit on October 09, 2009, 09:59:53 PM
Quote from: pamsback on October 09, 2009, 09:27:49 AM
I know most of the old ones are sandstone but I didn't figure Steve wanted grit in his herbs!
You know, I found the best way to chop herb is to use a food processor, man, not a bowl. Thats where the herb goes after you chop it man. ;)
I suppose it depends on what you want to use the herb for :)
Quote from: srkruzich on October 10, 2009, 08:33:38 AM
Quote from: Varmit on October 09, 2009, 09:59:53 PM
Quote from: pamsback on October 09, 2009, 09:27:49 AM
I know most of the old ones are sandstone but I didn't figure Steve wanted grit in his herbs!
You know, I found the best way to chop herb is to use a food processor, man, not a bowl. Thats where the herb goes after you chop it man. ;)
I suppose it depends on what you want to use the herb for :)
well....medicinal purposes of course.... ;)
Quote from: Varmit on October 09, 2009, 09:59:53 PM
Quote from: pamsback on October 09, 2009, 09:27:49 AM
I know most of the old ones are sandstone but I didn't figure Steve wanted grit in his herbs!
You know, I found the best way to chop herb is to use a food processor, man, not a bowl. Thats where the herb goes after you chop it man. ;)
Some herbs if you use a blender the heat from the blender blades chopping it up will destroy the properties in the herb. One such herb called stevia, if you chop it with a fast blade and not use a mortar and pestal will cause the herb to heat up and release the bitter oils in it making stevia useless as a sweetener. There are two ways to use this herb, one is to place fresh or dried leaves into water and let the water absorb the sweetening properties, the other is to grind into a powder. Both solutions you do not want to heat the herb in any way.
Now why would i want to grind up a herb like stevia into a powder, since it would make a drink awful to have powder? You can take the powder and suspend in alchohol and make a tincture. This tincture is much like vanilla extract. Then you can take the solution and strain the powder out of it after about a month and use drops in your tea or coffee or baking products, and NOT get the bitterness that you would get from heating it.
Steve, Have you ever drank catnip tea ? As a pup it was our main medicine for a common cold. Today if I have the creepy crud I still swear by it. Catnip is a distant cousin of marijuana and I've read if you smoke it you might get a tiny buzz. Bet my Mamma didn't know she was fixing us kids a "drug tea". :)
Quote from: jarhead on October 10, 2009, 01:10:08 PM
Steve, Have you ever drank catnip tea ? As a pup it was our main medicine for a common cold. Today if I have the creepy crud I still swear by it. Catnip is a distant cousin of marijuana and I've read if you smoke it you might get a tiny buzz. Bet my Mamma didn't know she was fixing us kids a "drug tea". :)
Never drank it. I don't see why we couldn't. I do use several herbs. I have in the past used mari for pain but not by smoking. I made tincture out of it. I also have to say it works a hell of a lot better than codeine which is a addictive narcotic where the marijuana isn't.
It also is a wonderful herb to promote sleep in tincture form if your going through insomnia.
Why would you want to go to all the trouble of preparing stevia as a sweetener when there is sugar? and all those other artificial sweeteners? Or is there some other benefit from it?
The best cure for the common cold is a raw onion sandwich with plenty of butter and I mean plenty. Works everytime for me and protects the rest of the family, too.
Maybe it wasn't in the blood. Maybe it was in the drug! ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: Wilma on October 10, 2009, 03:13:51 PM
Why would you want to go to all the trouble of preparing stevia as a sweetener when there is sugar? and all those other artificial sweeteners? Or is there some other benefit from it?
Because it is a natural sweetener that diabetics can use with absoluely no elevation of blood sugar as a result of it. Stevia is also used as a plant based insulin.
You take equal, splenda, they both raise blood sugar since their technically sugar but they are dosed with chlorine which isn't good for the human body. The other stuff is carcinogenic.
1 pound of stevia is equal to 300 pounds of sugar as far as sweetness level.
PLUS i can grow stevia in my back yard, whereas i cannot grow equal, or splenda, or saccharin, or even sugar.
QuoteThe best cure for the common cold is a raw onion sandwich with plenty of butter and I mean plenty. Works everytime for me and protects the rest of the family, too.
Actually i find habeneros do a good job on killing colds. super high in vit c and clears the sinus's fast.
I think I've seen ads for 2 new sweetners that use stevia as the ingredients. Truvia and something else I can't remember are the brand names.
Also, we heard on the news the other day that there are 12 states that have legalized medicinal marjiuanna use. Some of those states even have VENDING machines! You have a special card that you have to swipe in order to buy it.
Lastly, where I grew up in NW KS, we would find flint arrowheads and scrapers all over the place. No, we did not have much flint rock around that area, but the indians brought it with them and when they settled, they would chip off pieces. We'd always go looking after a rain and they would be easy to find. To find a full arrowhead was a treasure! Most of them were chips and pieces.