The Myth, part IV

Conclusion. Continued from The Myth, Part III

Up until now I’ve concentrated on the Deists, but there were Christians involved in the shaping of our nation. Their influence was muted compared to the ideological contributions of Jefferson, Madison and Adams, who pressed for, and gained popular approval for the formation of a secular nation.

Historian Clinton Rossiter had this to say about the composition of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention and their religious views:

“[T]he gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom the old fires were under control or had even flickered out. Most were nominally members of one of the traditional churches in their part of the country--the New Englanders Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, the Southerners Episcopalians, and the men of the Middle States everything from backsliding Quakers to stubborn Catholics--and most were men who could take their religion or leave it along. Although no one in this sober gathering would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone have dared to proclaim that his opinions had the support of the God of Abraham and Paul. The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in spirit.”[i]

At the constitutional convention, Luther Martin, a representative from Maryland, wanted to include Christian language, saying that "it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism." This proposal was rejected.[ii]

Our constitution was drafted as a secular document with no mention of God anywhere in it. There is only one mention of religion, and that is in the negative. "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Consider then, if the delegates had intended to establish our country as a "Christian nation,” as is claimed by Don McLeroy and so many of his ilk, why would they have inserted a statement like that in and not refer to religion anywhere else?

One would think, considering the weight of evidence, that reasonably intelligent grownups would be able to decipher that if the intention of was anything except the formation of a "Christian nation." If they had intended such, wouldn’t the document they authored have some references to the Bible, Jesus, or anything alluding to the Christian religion? Instead of expressly forbidding a religious test as a condition for holding public office, would they not have required some form of sworn allegiance to Christianity? Were our founders so clueless that they wrote a constitution that ENTIRELY FAILS to mention Christ or the Bible, when their true purpose was to create a “Christian nation?” How can there be any doubt that our founders of intended no such thing?

As further evidence, let us look at a document written during the administration of George Washington – The Treaty with Tripoli. Article 11 of the Treaty makes the fact that this country was not, and was not intended to be a “Christian nation,” specifically stating that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion..."[iii]

The treaty was negotiated by Joel Barlow, approved by George Washington while he was in office, and ratified by the senate under John Adams administration. As Adams signed the treaty, he added this statement: "Now, be it known, that I, John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said treaty, do, by and within the consent of the Senate, accept, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof."

The statement that the United States was not “founded on the Christian religion” was approved by the first two Presidents and the entirety of the Senate should dispel any and all doubts that our founders intended to create a “Christian nation,” or that there was any intent to do so.

Reason 1 – Superstition 0. Game over… or is it?

So what might be the last refuge for the fundamentalists? The logical inductive fallacy, of course.

Premise #1 – If most Americans are Christian, then America is a Christian nation.

Premise #2 – Most Americans are Christian.

Conclusion – America has always been a Christian nation.

Fundamentalists still argue that even if our founders did not purposefully establish our country as a Christian nation, our country was founded by people looking for religious liberty, and our population has always been overwhelmingly Christian, so therefore we are a Christian nation.

These are dubious assumptions. There certainly were colonists fleeing religious persecution in the old world, but history shows these very colonists established theocratic colonies as oppressive or more so than that which they fled. Heretical Quakers were exiled from the colony, and executed if they returned. So called "witches" were condemned and burned on the stake or hanged on questionable evidence. Do modern fundamentalists want a return to that kind of “Christian nation”?

The majority of the colonists were capitalists, driven by the desire for free land and profit. Monetary motives played heavily in their decision to venture into a new world. They very simply wanted to improve their economic status.

Our founders were learned men. Most colonists were peasants. So what about the religious beliefs of the general population? It certainly wasn’t as “Christian” as the fundamentalists would like you to believe – a fact that rational conservatives admit. As noted by Richard Hofstadter, some 90% of colonial Americans were “unchurched in 1790,” that "mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church members than any other nation in Christendom," and noted that "in 1800 [only] about one of every fifteen Americans was a church member."[iv]

Yet another historian, James MacGregor Burns, states that "[t]here had been a `very wintry season' for religion every where in America after the Revolution," and adds that "ninety percent of the people lay outside the churches."[v]

Scientists and historians deal with facts. Theocrats and fundamentalists play with myth. Fact paints an entirely different picture of colonial America in our formative years than the image Don McLeroy, Wendy Lowe and the rest of the gang of revisionists wish you to believe. America was not founded on "biblical principles," and Thomas Jefferson was foremost of the enlightenment philosophers – regardless of what the dogmatists on the Texas State Board of Education wishes our children to believe.

We were formed as a religiously neutral nation, and the Christian assault on that freedom has never ceased. The Fundamentalists are winning, but the voices of reason refuse to surrender.

The church has striven to retard the growth of knowledge and reason since the origin of recorded history. Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, and a host of others have been denied, silenced or murdered in the name of dogma. Our founders were intent on reversing that trend.

Christian nation? Founded on Christian principles? I think not. But compare the historian’s view of the religious beliefs of the constitutional delegates with the radically different picture currently being painted by the fundamentalist members of the Texas State Board of Education. The board, dominated by fundamentalist, right wing, revisionist, theocrats, has unfortunately found the political leverage required to flush truth down the toilet, rewriting recorded history with superstition, fantasy and lies.

The textbook issue is in my part of the world so I have made it my battle. The world is laughing at us, and Texas has become the punch line of editorial cartoons. There are intelligent, reasonable people in Texas, and we’re tired of this crap. We’re fighting back.

You can join me if you want, by visiting the following sites and joining the cause. We’d appreciate any help you can offer. Donations gladly accepted.

Just Educate!

The Thomas Jefferson Movement

P.S. If you still believe that America was founded as a "Christian nation," you're reading the wrong blog.

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[i] Rossiter, C., 1787: The Grand Convention, W. W. Norton & Company

[ii] Kurkland, P. Lerner, R, The Founders’ Constitution, University of Chicago Press

[iii] Miller, H., Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States, ed., Vol. 2, U. S. Government Printing Office

[iv] Hofstadter, R., Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Alfred A. Knopf Publishing

[v] Burns, J.M., The American Experiment - Vineyard of Liberty, Vol. 1, Vintage Books

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The Myth, part III

Continued from part II

Thomas Jefferson received a great deal of coverage in Parts I and II, and for good reason. The gentleman from Virginia is the most published of our founders, and his influence on the formation of our constitutional republic was profound. There is just too much proof of Jefferson's resistance to any religious influence in our constitution to be denied.

It is for this reason the Texas State Board of Education wishes to omit Jefferson from Texas public school curriculum. Theocrats cannot weave the deception necessary to convince children that our country is a "Christian nation" so long as the truth about Jefferson stands in the way.

The assault on religious liberty is ever-present in this country, and began almost a century before the colonies split from King George. Jefferson's resistance, and Madison's as well, are documented fact. So what of the others? Where is truth to be found? In this missive I shall discuss one of them in depth; General George Washington.

We know that some religious sects fled persecution in the old world only to construct oppressive religious-based colonies in America. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by Puritans, Pennsylvania by Quakers, Maryland by Roman Catholics, while the southern states were somewhat Episcopalian. Some established severe laws indistinguishable from those they abhorred in their former homes.

As our founders debated the verbiage of our constitution, fundamentalists worked to influence the process and hoped to couch the language of the document in religious terms. Our founders, cognizant of the history of religious repression, consistently rejected this notion. The attempts to insert Christianity into our government existed in those times, and have never ceased. When George Washington died, the response from the religious crowd was immediate.

The legacy of our first President came under assault by Christians intent on claiming him as one of their own immediately upon his 1799 death. Proving Washington to be a religionist would have been a huge feather in their cap. This effort was based largely on the grounds that Washington had regularly attended services with his wife at an Episcopal Church, and had served as a vestryman in the church.

On August 13, 1835, a Christian activist by the name of “Colonel Mercer” wrote to Bishop William White, who had been one of the rectors at the church Washington had attended. In the letter, Mercer asked if "Washington was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, or whether he occasionally went to the communion only, or if ever he did so at all..."[i]

White replied two days later, that, “In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that Gen. Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant.... I have been written to by many on that point, and have been obliged to answer them as I now do you.”[ii]

In his Annals of the American Pulpit, The Rev. William B. Sprague wrote a biographical sketch of James Abercrombie, the other pastor of the church Washington attended. Sprague quoted Abercrombie as confirming White's reply to Mercer.

One incident in Dr. Abercrombie's experience is especially worthy of record; In an 1831 letter by Abercrombie written to a friend, he pens: "With respect to the inquiry you make I can only state the following facts; that, as pastor of the Episcopal church, observing that, on sacramental Sundays, Gen. Washington, immediately after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation--always leaving Mrs. Washington with the other communicants--she invariably being one--I considered it my duty in a sermon on Public Worship, to state the unhappy tendency of example, particularly of those in elevated stations who uniformly turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President; and as such he received it."[iii]

Abercrombie further explained that he had heard through a senator that Washington had discussed this reprimand with others, and had told them that "as he had never been a communicant, were he to become one then it would be imputed to an ostentatious display of religious zeal, arising altogether from his elevated station.”[iv]

Abercrombie then said that Washington "never afterwards came on the morning of sacramental Sunday."[v] Reverend Abercrombie's stated pointedly, "Sir, Washington was a Deist."[vi]

Writing in the Episcopal Recorder, E.D. Neill refuted the Christian revisionists, stating that Washington "was not a communicant, notwithstanding all the pretty stories to the contrary, and after the close of the sermon on sacramental Sundays, [he] had fallen into the habit of retiring from the church while his wife remained and communed."[vii]

It is apparently true that Washington, for several years, served as a vestryman, as had his father before him. The vestry at that time was also the county court, so in order to have certain political powers, it was necessary for one to be a vestryman.

Thomas Jefferson was a vestryman for a while. This was no admission of faith. Bishop William Meade wrote in an 1857 letter, “Even Mr. Jefferson and [Mr.] Wythe, who did not conceal their disbelief in Christianity, took their parts in the duties of vestrymen, the one at Williamsburg, the other at Albermarle; for they wished to be men of influence.”[viii]

The Rev. Bird Wilson was only a few years removed from being a contemporary of our founding fathers. In a sermon to his flock, Wilson stated that "the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity."

Wilson continued by saying, “When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution.” (Emphasis mine).[ix]

Rev. Wilson, in an interview with a gentleman by the name of Owen, said "I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges him self as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more."[x]

Finally, in 1987, Washington was profiled by historian Clinton Rossiter. Mr. Rossiter writes that, “The last and least skeptical of these rationalists [Washington] loaded his First Inaugural Address with appeals to the ‘Great Author,’ ‘Almighty Being,’ ‘invisible hand,’ and ‘benign parent of the human race,’ but apparently could not bring himself to speak the word ‘God’.”[xi]

Our second President, John Adams was a Unitarian who flatly denied the doctrine of eternal damnation. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, he wrote, "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

In a letter to Samuel Miller on July 8, 1820, Adams expressed unbelief of Protestant Calvinism. "I must acknowledge that I cannot class myself under that denomination."

In "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788], Adams wrote that "[T]he United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”

Later in the same document, Adams says, "[T]hirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."[xii]

In Part IV we shall discuss those among our founders who were Christians, and their contributions to our Constitutional Republic.

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[i] Remsberg, J Six Historic Americans

[ii] IBID, p. 104

[iii] IBID, pp. 104-105

[iv] IBID, p. 105

[v] IBID, p. 105

[vi] IBID, p. 110

[vii] IBID, p. 107

[viii] Meade, W, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1857, I, p. 191

[ix] Remsberg, p. 120

[x] IBID, pp. 121-122

[xi] Rossiter, C, 1787: The Grand Convention, WW. Norton & Co., 1987, p. 36

[xii] Sweeley, J.W., Rights, Liberties, and Social Justice: How America Lost Its Moral Authority, Blue Dolphin Publishing

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The Myth, part II

Continued from part I

In Part I, we discussed the majority religious philosophy of our founders... Deism.

Deism was a philosophy widely accepted by the enlightened intelligentsia of the American Revolutionary era. Many of those who founded this country, especially the revolutionary leaders, can be counted among those philosophers. Certainly there were Christians among our founding fathers, but even the majority of those men recognized, or were convinced of the need for the separation of church and state.

Colonial Deists believed in human reason as the most reliable means of solving social and political problems. They acknowledged a some sort of creator who removed itself entirely from our universe after creating it, never interfering with natural or human affairs. The obvious consequence of these beliefs was rejection of Christian doctrine.

The philosophy of Deism was well described by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason, a book that rankled the theists of the time and caused Paine to be tossed into a French prison. The nation that had once revered Paine as the father of the American Revolution, turned its back on this great philosopher. To this day, many mistakenly believe Paine was atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of Deism. Unfortunately, most Christians do not recognize the difference.

We've discussed Thomas Jefferson in depth, and Jefferson was only one of many early American Deists. Others were George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe. Christian revisionists try to convince us that these Founders and others were Christian, and that they intended to establish this country on "biblical" or “Judeo-Christian principles,” but history simply does not support that view. The overwhelming majority of the men and women instrumental in founding this nation were in no sense Christians… nor theists of any stripe. We shall try to discuss each of our founders to some degree, pointing to evidence refuting these theistic claims.

Early in his first term as President, Jefferson declared his philosophy of church and state separation in a letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptists:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

Before sending that letter, Jefferson asked Attorney General Levi Lincoln to review it. Lincoln was a contemporary of the founders, and he was also a Deist. Jefferson told Lincoln that he considered the letter a means of "sowing useful truths and principles among the people, which might germinate and become rooted among their political tenets."

If this was indeed Jefferson's wish, he was successful. In two cases before SCOTUS, Reynolds vs. the United States (1879) and Everson vs. Board of Education (1947), the Court cited the Danbury letter to be an authoritative declaration of the scope of the First Amendment. Both courts agreed that the intention of the First Amendment was to erect “a wall of separation between church and state.” [1]

James Madison, Thomas Jefferson's political ally and close friend, was as vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs as Jefferson. In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill "establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote his famous Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments in which he offered fifteen reasons why government should not be come involved in the support of any religion. This paper is considered a landmark document in political philosophy, and was cited in the majority opinion in Lee vs. Weisman (1990).

The views of Madison and Jefferson prevailed in the Virginia Assembly in 1789 when the Assembly adopted the statute of religious freedom. The preamble to the bill, crafted by Jefferson, said that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."

The Madison/Jefferson statute was far more specific than the establishment clause of our Constitution, stating: "Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities".

Jefferson realized that legislation enacted by an elected body could be later repealed. For that reason he ended the statute with a statement of contempt for any body that would attempt to negate the statute: 

"And though we well know this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with the powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable, would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right." (Emphasis mine).

The evidence appears irrefutable the neither Jefferson nor Madison were Christian, they intent to found our country on Christian values, and they wished to prevent future lawmakers from compromising the secular nation they helped craft. 

So what about the religious philosophies of our other founders? We will continue the discussion of The Myth in Part III.

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[1] Boston, R, Myths and Mischief, Church and State, March 1992

Martyr to Free Thought

Giordano Bruno was born in 1548 at Nola, Italy, near Naples. Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and was a proponent of the infinity of the universe. He was a contemporary of Galileo, and both of these early visionaries expanded on the Copernican cosmological model, identifying the sun as just another of an infinite number of independently moving heavenly bodies. Bruno was the first to conceptualize the universe as a continuum where the stars are similar to our Sun. His free thinking ways and teachings found rocky ground as his work brought him into collision with orthodox opinion and led him to a heretic's death.

Bruno, named Filippo at birth, assumed the name Giordano upon becoming a Dominican friar.
while in convent he started doubting church dogma, and began professing the necessity of free thought and Christian liberty. It wasn’t long before he found himself in trouble with church authorities. His first sin was possessing and reading two books on the church forbidden list, compounded when he began discussing openly his doubts of the divinity of Jesus. By 1576, the Inquisition began preparing the try Bruno for heresy.

Bruno fled, moving around northern Europe before returning to Italy when offered the Chair of Mathematics at Padua by the Venetian patrician, Giovanni Mocenigo. But in 1592 Mocenigo betrayed him to the inquisition. He was arrested and transferred to Rome in 1593 where he remained imprisoned for seven years.

Bruno argued that his ideas were philosophical, not theological. The Church did not accept this. He was twice given 40 days to recant but did not. After a long trial, Pope Clement VIII ordered Bruno to be sentenced as a heretic. He was burned at the stake on the 17th of February, 1600.

Giordano Bruno's writings and books survive him, and they also survived being placed on the Church’s forbidden list. He lives today as yet another example of how religious zealotry tends to smother knowledge and learning.

Explaining his bent toward free thought, Bruno once wrote "Who so itcheth to Philosophy must set to work by putting all things to the doubt." He was an influence on enlightenment philosophers of the 18^th century, including Thomas Paine, and by his writings helped build the foundation of democratic political philosophy.

"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."

Bruno's earliest work, De Umbras Idearum (The Shadows of Ideas), was published around 1581, followed quickly by Ars Mernoriae (Art of Memory). In these books he observed that ideas are only the shadows of truth… a concept novel in his day, and apparently just as novel today.

In his book De la Causa, principio et uno (On Cause, Principle, and Unity) we find the following prophetic utterance:

"This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death, and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in Nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things."

Bruno thought of the Bible as a book that only the ignorant could take literally. The Church's methods were unfortunate, encouraging ignorance. He wrote: "Everything, however men may deem it assured and evident, proves, when it is brought under discussion to be no less doubtful than are extravagant and absurd beliefs." He coined the phrase "Libertes philosophica," Which can be interpreted “The right to think.”

Giordano Bruno was declared a heretic by the Inquisition and burned at the stake on February 17, 1600; his ashes dumped into the Tiber River. He thus joined the early martyrs for modern science and free thought. Today a monument placed at the site of his execution memorializes the life of this early free thinker.

We seldom hear of Bruno, while others, such as Galileo Galilei, garner much more attention. Galileo very nearly met the same fate, except that he recanted his heresy and spent his final years under house arrest instead. The two great minds were contemporaries, and Galelio must surely have read the writings of Bruno and would have been aware of his death at the stake.

Theocratic dogma has claimed many lives over the centuries, destroyed many curious minds and quashed much discovery. There is no way of knowing just how much additional scientific progress mankind might have accomplished were it not for religious repression. We see this in our history books, and we know that it was wrong.

Why then, after all these hundreds of years, do we continue to allow the repression?

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Monday music

In 1964 a self-titled album by a band with the unlikely name, The AU GO GO Singers, was released by Roulette Records. The AU GO GO Singers got their name from Greenwich Village coffee shop, the Café Au Go Go, a favorite of such musicians as Jimi Hendris and Jerry Garcia.  This is the club where Lenny Bruce was arrested by New York police on obscenity charges.

The band was an auspicious beginning for two musicians who would go on to give us some of the best music of the 60’s and 70’s. Obviously this profound event was overshadowed somewhat by the arrival of those mop-heads from England. The album was the Au Go Go Singers’ first and only release. The sound was akin to that of The Serendipity Singers, or The New Christy Minstrels.

Only two cuts on an otherwise bland album were stand out. First there was the Billy Ed Wheeler tune, High Flying’ Bird, showcasing the soulful voice of Stephen Stills… a voice we would later learn to love in performances by Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Manassas. The album introduced a new talent, singer Richie Furay, who performed the folk ballad, Where I’m Bound.  Richie used the Au Go Go experience to launch a stellar music career.

Stills and Furay met Neil Young the same year the Au Go Go album was released. Just two years later, these epochal musicians would join with bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin to form the band that better represented that era than any other – Buffalo Springfield.

Here is Richie Furay singing my favorite cut from the band’s first album, Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.

Buffalo Springfield lasted only two years, cutting only three albums (four, if you count Retrospective). Furay matured greatly over that time, and his musical interests expanded. In 1969 he and Jim Messina joined steel guitarist Rusty Young, bassist Randy Meisner, and drummer George Grantham to form the country rock band, Poco. Good, early videos are impossible to find, but here is one of Furay in 2004, doing a couple of Poco classics.

In 2009, original members of Poco reunited and played a memorable set at the Indio, California Stagecoach Festival.  Here they are performing their 1969 signature song, Pickin’ Up the Pieces, With Richie Furay sharing the microphone with George Grantham.

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Sunday Funnies

Thanks ORAC

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