Good evening, gentlemen.

I couldn't open the page, Phil, but I had heard about this.

Just a few dozen words:

When I say the Pledge of Allegiance, I leave out the words "under God" because they do not conform to my religious beliefs. (Let me add that there is a Porky Pig cartoon from the 1940s that features the Pledge without any invocation of the deity. The phrase was added in the 1950s so that Communist atheists would be rooted out when their tongues turned black saying it.) Should anyone try to make my child -- or anyone else's child, for that matter -- recite something in violation of his religious beliefs, that poor slob wouldn't know what hit him.

Jehovah's Witnesses object to the Pledge in toto. I am not a Jehovah's Witness. See the above paragraph.

I am ambivalent about the Pledge for this reason. Religious liberty emerges from under its rock. There are, and will continue to be, minority opinions in America. That is kind-of the whole point.

Has anyone in Madison, WI, bothered to talk to the members of the school board? After the public protested, they responded to the will of the people, did they not? Were they or were they not acting in good faith to safeguard the welfare of the children as they saw it? Were they concerned about the effects of martial references on the emotional state of the children, or was this just a blanket banning of all patriotic music? Was the markedly non-martial "America the Beautiful" also included on the banned list, for example?

One presumes the right of the citizens of Madison to recall their elected officials at will, of course. A more constructive course of action might be to clarify their instructions in view of radically altered circumstances. They overreacted. This is not a crucifying offense.

These are people who volunteered to take on a position of responsibility in the schools of Madison, probably for no pay. If it's anything like school directorship in Pennsylvania, it's hard work, featuring endless memoranda, personnel issues, and dealings with state officials. People call them at home. They go to all kinds of committee meetings, and probably all the school functions they can fit into their schedules, not just the ones featuring their own children. They may be much more difficult to replace than people realize. They erred, were hollered at, and backed away from their error. If they had not listened to their community, the recall effort would sound a lot less like a witch hunt to me.

I also wonder where the superintendent was in all this. School boards make policy and deal with the budget; they don't make administrative decisions. This board appeared to be outside their realm, in other words, waaaay too involved. Classic micromanagement. Does the superintendent habitually stand on his back legs or not?

The public of Madison -- all the public in all the communities across America, as well -- needs to carve out three or four hours a month to attend school board meetings to see what's happening there before they make judgments about board actions.

Regards--
Mary Anne