George,

Mr. Holden's rote repetition of the birthing history of the Pledge is only moderately interesting to those who failed to study their American History in high school. But like most rituals of the modern day thay have evolved to find completely different meaning and significance.

Maybe loper.org should explore some of those rituals and find their sordid past and relevance to the souls of modern man. I would suggest starting with the Easter Bunny, May Day, and curfews.

But as a word of advice, if you are going to base your philosophical reasoning and conclusions on an encyclopedia please use Diedrot's not the Britannica. Diedrot's Encyclopdie can be purchased in its original format through Daedalus Books online.

Yours in the pursuit of modern day relevance,

Blake Caravati (electronic mail, March 6, 2003)

Editor's Note: A search of "site:loper.org Easter" on google generates 31 articles including Paul Weyrich's Easter Commentary declaring that 'Christ was crucified by the Jews,' Flex-Time for Religious Holidays, Comments by the Charlottesville-Albemarle Clergy Association condemning a 'B.C.' Comic Strip depicting a Jewish menorah morphing into a bloody cross, a minister admonishing George W. Bush (at an Easter service in Crawford, Texas) and the congregation to be 'bent toward God,' a 1999 political ad by Massachusetts Acting Governor Paul Celluci asking whether his Democratic rival Attorney General Scott Harshbarger would get rid of the Easter Bunny, an account of Guy Lombardo's rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne' at the University of Virginia in Easter Week of 1930, Pope Gregory XIII's calendar reforms in 1582, brought about in part because Easter was sliding toward summer, Lloyd Snook's comments on Christians, Anti-semitism and Christ-killing, etc. and Easter Baskets With Toy Soldiers.

A similar search yields a piece by Sally Bastion and Kate Rosenfield on Labor Day and May Day, and pieces about curfews at Bob Jones University, in Charlottesville [see http://www.loper.org/~george/trends/1998/Oct/27.html and http://loper.org/~george/archives/2002/Jan/65.html] , in Virginia and by the United States government.

A search of "site:loper.org flag" on google generates 266 articles while a search using the word 'pledge' yields 144 articles, including Republican Warren Barry's remarkable sound-bite referring to 2001 members of the Virginia House Education Committee as 'spineless pinkos.'

I would invite readers to make publically attributable comments on my web site about the relevance and origins of these and other rituals and to the souls of modern man.