MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. -- It would be easy to miss among the yucca and Joshua trees of this vast place -- a small plywood box, set back from a gentle curve in a lonesome desert road. It looks like nothing so much as a miniature billboard without a message.
But inside the box is a 6 1/2 -foot white cross, built to honor the war dead of World War I. And because its perch on a prominent outcropping of rock is on federal land, it has been judged to be an unconstitutional display of government favoritism of one religion over another...
"It's just a little cross in the middle of nowhere," said Wanda Sandoz, who with her husband Henry is the cross's unofficial caretaker. Henry built the cross that currently occupies the spot -- there have been three -- and the Sandozes say they are fulfilling a WWI veteran's dying request to look after things.
Hiram Sasser, a lawyer with the Liberty Legal Institute, which represents the Veterans of Foreign Wars and assists the Sandozes, agreed.
"I always say you have to risk life and limb to be offended by this cross," he said.
But don't despair that absurd idiocy is the watchword of the day. There are still a few bright spots in the land of the free and the home of the brave, such as around the flagpole where Old Glory waves in front of the VFW Post in Valley Falls, N.Y.
VALLEY FALLS, N.Y. -- This is a red, white and blue village that is still seeing red after a flag that flew over Iraq was burned by a 21-year-old.
The payback? He was publicly humiliated last Sunday by being duct-taped to the flagpole of Veterans of Foreign War 1938 say he desecrated Sept. 18.
Nick Normile, post commander and Vietnam War veteran, said he's been flooded with calls from media outlets since the events of last week received attention from local TV stations and newspapers. He's been asked to go live on a veterans radio show program from Tennessee, another radio show from Chicago and even received a call from NBC studios in New York City.
But Normile said he's not planning to let the story get any more attention and has declined appearances.
"I'm not trying to be some martyr or hero," Normile said. "I just did what I thought was right."
The 21-year-old appeared intoxicated when he entered the VFW post on the day of the alleged act, Normile said. When the man was refused service for not having a proper ID, he ran out in a fit of anger. He cut the rope of the flag, which had once flown over troops in Iraq, and ignited it with a cigarette lighter.
Two days later, Normile said the man was forced to sit in the sun pilloried for six hours as townspeople gathered across the street for a youth soccer picnic. A sign was hung around his neck detailing what he had done. It recalled the Middle Ages punishment, subjecting him to public humiliation and scorn.
"He'll never disrespect the flag again, I can tell you that," Normile said on Friday.
That'll larn 'im, as we say down South. Maybe we oughta tie a few ACLU lawyers to the rocks in the Mojave Desert and let the buzzards teach 'em a lesson about disrespecting the cross.
And finally, I can't embed the video here, but take a second to click on this link to watch Does God exist? A young German schoolboy uses impeccable scientific knowledge to rebut his professor who argues God does not exist, or that God is evil, two obviously contradictory views.
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