versus

So, Illinois is really different than Washington.

In Chicago you can buy liquor IN THE GROCERY STORE. Yes, I could go to the store right now and buy hard alcohol. No going to some lame liquor store (though we have though), and having to go before they close and going out of your way. Now, when I go to the store to buy carrots, gardenburgers and popcorn, I can also buy vodka. Yes, Vodka in the store.

Oh, and we don't have Fred Meyers.

Safeway is Dominick's

Albertons is Jewel.

Butter is shaped differently when you buy it in the store.

There are toll roads in Illinois.

Driving an hour is a really long way to drive.
Unless you're stuck in traffic, and then it's just like Seattle.

Bars can stay open til 4 am.

Public radio doesn't suck in Chicago.

Chicago is two time zones ahead of Washington.

There are more thunderstorms in Chicago.
But it rains less.

There are actually really cool things in Chicago. A world-class art museums. Plays/musicals that run for weeks, a natural history museum with REAL dinosaur bones, and don't forget the international museum of surgical sciences.

BUT....

In Chicago, I can't look up and see a mountain.
In Chicago, I look at Lake Michigan and it looks like the Ocean/Puget Sound, but I can't smell the salt.
When I'm in Chicago, I call people and they are two hours ahead of me.
The sun doesn't set over the water/mountains.
An Asain grocery store has to pretend to be all touristy, instead of just real.
Since democrats are so entrenched, they aren't as friendly to volunteers.

Oh, Chicago, my new city, why do you have to be so different, and yet remind me of my old home?

I happen to agree with the Ninth Circuit court ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. Well, I do believe that if students want to say it, they should be allowed to, but to make it an everyday part of school life makes it very uncomfortable for students who don't want to say it.

Case in point. When I was in 12th grade, I took a photography elective. It fell during the period where we had the pledge of Allegiance. For the first few weeks of the semester, the teacher would be very adament about ensuring that EVERYONE stand up for the pledge. While he didn't make us actually recite it (that would have been really tough), he thought that it was important to "show respect" for the flag, and he also claimed that was the law.

I knew this wasn't the case. I was feeling very disillusioned with the US at the time, and also really chaffing under the wording of the pledge, especially the "under god" part, and I didn't want to stand up...and I also wanted to preserve my rights, as well as those of my class mates.

So, once I looked up the supreme court case: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=319&invol=624 that said that it was unconstitutional to force any student to "show respect" for the flag. And when the time came in class, I remained sitting. The teacher was outraged. I told him my reasoning, and the legal precident, and he continued to claim that it was the law. So, he sent me to the principal's office.

The principal agreed with me and said that I didn't have to stand. The teacher really didn't like ths decision.

Now, prior to this incident, the teacher had said he was nominating me for this student leadership thing. The day after I did this, he told me that he wasn't going to nominate me anymore because he didn't think I was a leader.

He also wasn't very nice to me for the rest of the semeester, and I felt very uncomfortable in that class.

So, as my case illustrates, when the pledge is recited the way that it is in the schools of the United States of America, it still provides a kind of coercion, and puts a lot of pressure upon students who don't share the beliefs of the mainstream to participate and keep their mouths shut. Teachers need to be educated about the fact that the pledge is a voluntary act. However, Even if it continues to be done in a group, as a class, it still serves as a dividing point for students and that's not right.