No Public Display of 'Last Supper'

City Attorney: Remove Painting of 'Last Supper'
The separation of church and state has made its way to the Lake Tahoe. Artist Vernon Lee of South Lake Tahoe discovered the delicate balance when he was asked by the city Tuesday to remove his version of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last Supper" from the Senior Center, a move that angered many seniors. It's a city-owned facility - one the 72-year-old retired building contractor often has frequented over the last decade at South Shore. Parks staffer Gary Moore said he was responding to a complaint. He took the matter to City Attorney Catherine DiCamillo to evaluate whether it violated the First Amendment. "Anything that can be perceived as a government endorsement of religion and is easily identifiable," DiCamillo explained. If the artwork was displayed during a private function, it would be allowable.

Founding Fathers vs. Marriage?
Quick! How do we conservatives stop activist judges from dabbling in lawmaking and legislating from the bench? The easy answer, according to the U.S. House of Representatives, is do unto others before they do unto you—in this case, violate the constitutional separation of powers before liberals can.

Flashback
Oppose the Marriage Amendment
By Bob Murphy / LewRockwell.com
I still consider the proposed amendment a horrible idea. It gives the government, not the Church, the authority to define marriage. I find it ironic that the same ministers who lament "liberal activist judges" want to grant new powers to the federal government. (After all, nowhere in the Founders' version of the Constitution does it say anything about the definition of marriage.)

Texas Refuses to Recognize Missouri Concealed Gun Permits
ST. LOUIS -- Missouri's concealed gun permits will not be honored in Texas because of concerns that Missouri permits can be issued before a federal fingerprint criminal background check is complete. Texas officials notified Missouri Gov. Bob Holden of the policy on Wednesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in its Thursday editions.

Washington State Gives FBI
Names of Those on Gun-Ban List
OLYMPIA -- The state Department of Social and Health Services is supplying the FBI with names of mentally ill people prohibited from owning handguns. The names of people disqualified by the courts from having guns will be added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, used by police and gun shop owners to screen people. On Tuesday, about 33,000 names were submitted to the registry, said Washington State Patrol Lt. Sean Hartsock.

Flashback
The War on Guns
When anti-gun agitators wish to hack away support for Americans' right to keep and bear arms, they must utter only one word: crime. It's the catch-all, the single basket into which they toss all their rotten eggs. The problem of crime, they say, can be solved if we just get rid of all those danged firearms.

Town Leaders Will Keep Praying At Meetings
Local officials say they won't change the way they pray at public meetings after a federal court ruled against prayers specifying a particular faith at government meetings. The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said prayers that advance a particular religion are unconstitutional. The court concluded that prayer at public meetings is legal only if broadened to include all faiths. The case arose after a Great Falls woman protested her local Town Council's habit of opening meetings with a prayer in Christ's name.

Lawmakers Consider Taxing Motorists by the Mile
SALT LAKE CITY -- Legislators fearing cars might become more fuel efficient, and their drivers pay less in gasoline taxes, are considering ways to tax motorists by the mile. A notion out of Oregon is to equip cars with GPS systems that would keep track of a car's mileage, download it to gas station computers and add the per-mile tax to the fuel bill. Rep. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said that as cars get better gas mileage, "the wear and tear on the highways doesn't reduce. So less gallons are being purchased and more miles are being driven."

Wisconsin Court Rules DNA Can be
Taken From Convicted Criminals
The state Court of Appeals has upheld the constitutionality of a state law that allows blood to be drawn from convicted criminals for DNA samples to be stored in a database for possible use in solving past and future crimes. The law does not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday in the case of a Milwaukee County man, Michael A. Martin, who sought to have his sentence for escape modified. The three-judge appeals court panel also said giving a DNA sample did not make Martin's six-month sentence for the crime more burdensome.

Life Has Gotten Even Shorter in Digital Age
Digital longevity is a contradiction in terms. As consumers eye their aging PCs or pine for the latest camera or cell phone gadgetry, they must worry about the legacy of stuff left behind. Professional and consumer archivists grapple with how to preserve documents, music and images produced by no-longer-relevant machines. At the same time, shoppers worry that the money they spend on a camera today might buy them a more sophisticated one next month as prices fall. There are no easy solutions. But there are key questions, and perhaps some surprising answers.

Posted by Editor at July 29, 2004 05:27 PM