Vintage 1963

 

Fiftieth anniversaries, yes! We have had two very special ones this year. Dr. Who debuted in England, and became a very long running science fiction series, and Madalyn Murry won her landmark case, which she filed in Baltimore, Maryland, to finally rid public schools of Christian prayer, and other overt symptoms of mental illness. The case was actually filed in 1959, but Murry was persistant, and eventually prevailed. She also started the American Athiests.

 

While your blogger is not exactly an atheist, she has a great appreciation for Dr. Who.  Dr. Who not only appeals to the artistic and intellectually inclined among us, but has resisted the sexual innuendo of American advertising, which makes it a wonderful show to share with one's children. Dr. Who also encourages critical thinking and imagination. American Atheists and Dr. Who; two brilliant concepts from 1963.

 

 

Tom Baker as the Doctor, and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier.

 

Civil Rights Reminder For School

School supplies are already being pushed in Walmart. It isn't even August yet. Here in Kansas, something that never gets enough attention in public school is the civil rights issue that was won in the Supreme Court in 1963 by Madalyn Murry, concerning prayer and religion in school.....specifically...that prayer and religion legally do not belong in public school. As long as a public school is, indeed, a public school, and gets funding from the tax dollars of it's community, it cannot lawfully mention religion at all, except during classes that teach about the Inquisition, or about the nefarious influence of the Catholic Church during the last millennium, or about the pedophile priests we have running about these days. Encouraging Christianity at school is actually a federal crime, which Northeast Kansas generally ignores. Many schools will attempt to ignore the law about this in various ways, but it has been the law for fifty years to resist the urge to harass students, especially when favoring one religion over another.

I was a little like this girl, when I was a kid!