I just sent a friend the following email and I thought I'd post it here. A few points of reference, I'm reading Al Gore's The Assault on Reason and he mentions a treaty in 1797 that the US signed that refers to the US not being a Christian nation. I wanted more info about that. So I looked it up and it is a reference to the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli. For more information see this but here is Article 11:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

I mentioned to my friend that I was a little annoyed that Al Gore misrepresented the original in his quote. My friend asked me to explain and I wrote:
Ok. Maybe "misrepresented" is strong. Gore refers to the treaty and said that it explicitly stated that the USA was not a Christian nation any more so than it was a Jewish or Mohammedan one. The real text doesn't mention Judaism. Nor does it say anything about the USA not "belonging" to any other religion. It only refutes the notion of a Christian nation. In Gore's quote it sounds as if the Founding Fathers were perhaps being pluralistic -- they were acknowledging that the other religions could make claims, just as unwarranted, on the USA soul. The real language of the treaty, however, doesn't acknowledge the presence of these other religions in the US but in Tripoli (and that's just Islam, no reference to Jews). The original text itself is strong enough in its point. Why did Gore have to obfuscate it? I don't want to read the rest of his book having to double-check things but now I am a little less trusting.

This same friend sent me a post from his blog. Interesting timing. Of course the media didn't show us this NAACP GOP SNAFU. I'm honestly not surprised. I am a little surprised that Jon Stewart didn't draw attention to it either. Normally he picks up on things like this and alerts the stoned 20-40yr olds who watch him. It is interesting that my friend's blog also rants about media news coverage. Gore's book deals with this alot. He talks about how we are distracted by OJ, Runaway Bride, Brittany, K-Fed, Paris... but we aren't hearing anything about what our government is doing. The traditional mainstream news outlets are clogging the airwaves with these silly "events" and we don't hear anything of substance. And now we hear about Beckham's arrival to LA. This made me think of when I was recently drawn in by the news media's game:
Beckham. Yes, I do want to go see an MLS game in LA and perhaps it will be Galaxy instead of Chivas-USA. But I don't need to hear or read about him and his Spice. This is precisely why I don't bother watching any news. I was watching TV the other night and they said, "Earthquakes devastate Japanese cities; Tsunamis follow. More at 11." I was sucked in. I stayed up because my friends Steve & Beth are currently in Japan and I thought "Oh crap!" Well, of course, the "story" was really a non-story as they just said that damage wasn't that bad. The pulled me in with fear. I was duped. I suppose I should be embarrassed to admit that.