Went to a talk by Michael Newdow last night, he being the guy suing congress for putting ‘under god’ in the pledge of allegiance, with . We sat in the front row, and exchanged a couple of words with him before he put on his show. met up with us afterwards, and had some very negative opinions of it, mostly regarding the lack of propriety, which is a fair criticism, even if I didn’t care about it. =)
It was interesting. Part informative presentation, part history lecture, part personal story, part rally. One of the parts that found most objectionable were his little interspersed home-written folk songs. (I bought a cd for $10 afterwards, mostly to support his cause). He claimed that one of his major reasons for doing this is to encourage a sort of individual-striving-for-the-common-good that I find quite heartwarming. And I think the folk music worked towards supporting that spirit.
It was also somewhat educational in terms of constitutional law, and the place religion holds in the government.