IN the Jacksonville Journal-Courier of Jacksonville, Illinois we read Judge from landmark First Amendment case speaks at IC. The newspaper’s policy is to allow a link, but we can’t excerpt anything without their permission. No problem. They own their words but they don’t own the news, and we write better than they do anyway.
The news is that John E. Jones III, who wrote the splendid opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, spoke yesterday (17 September, Constitution Day) at Illinois College. The topic of his speech was “Our Constitution’s Intelligent Design.” Nice touch!
The college’s website has an old news item that the speech was scheduled, but it hasn’t yet been updated. See: U.S. District Judge will present Constitution Day address. Assuming we can excerpt from that, they say:
In “Our Constitution’s Intelligent Design,” Jones will use the Kitzmiller v. Dover case as a starting point to discuss the need for all United States citizens to better understand how judiciary operates and the need to have a better informed public on all matters involving government.
[…]
[I]n 2006, Jones was named by Time Magazine as one of its “Time 100,” the 100 most influential people in the world.
We’ll have to turn back to the Jacksonville Journal-Courier because there are no other news stories about the speech. Jones is reported to have discussed the Kitzmiller case, but we’ve already written extensively about that so there’s no need to copy any of the the Journal-Courier‘s precious content. See our series of posts, starting here: Kitzmiller v. Dover: Is ID Science?
Jones also mentioned the death threats he received after that decision. We wrote about that too. See: The Ugly Face of Creationism. Then he mentioned something else we hadn’t known about before. For that we can quote from his entry in Wikipedia to which we linked earlier:
After the ruling was handed down, some pundits immediately attacked it, notably Bill O’Reilly on Fox News accusing Jones of being a fascist and an activist judge.
O’Reilly often does things like that. He’s talented, but arrogant, and he’s amazingly blind to his immense areas of ignorance.
Does the newspaper report anything else of interest? Yes, Jones also talked about the judiciary’s obligation to ignore public opinion and stick to the Constitution, and he laments that so many people aren’t aware of how it all works.
It’s not a bad article. Click over there and take a look if you like. It’s always interesting to read about Judge Jones and the Kitzmiller case.
Hey, that reminds us: Kitzmas is coming! It’s our annual festival in honor of the Kitzmiller decision on 20 December 2005. The anniversary is just 90 days away, so start planning your celebrations.
Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Curmudgeon: “O’Reilly often does things like that. He’s talented, but arrogant, and he’s amazingly blind to his immense areas of ignorance.”
O’Reilly needs to be reminded that 2000 years ago someone died on the cross, and in the last ~240 years ago many others have died, to defend his right to let such breathaking inanity foam from his mouth.
O’Reilly is just Ann Coulter for people who don’t like to read. I love it when he whines about paparazzi and yet he uses the exact same tactics to ambush politicians. Nothing like being hypocritical, is there.
Pundits tend to be annoying because unlike journalists, there is not ethical concerns for a pundit. They pretty well can say anything they want in order to imflame people who allready are nodding their little ditto heads. If there ethics involved then folks like O’Reily, Beck, Limbaugh, and Coulter would be unemployed.
Judge Jones is the type of Republican we need more of.
Yes, but where are they?
Curmudgeon: “Yes, but where are they?”
Judge Jones got to hear the “creationists” – everyone from rank-and-file Biblical literalists like Bill Buckingham to old-earth-common-descent nonliteralist professional activists like Mike Behe – make their best case. In a format that, unlike debates, does not give pseudoscience an unfair advantage. And he had to pay attention for days. Most of the rest of appointed or elected public servants just get a bunch of feel-good, but misleading sound bites from anti-science activists and the sensationalist media. And if they’re elected types they’re not going to say what they think might cost them votes. So even if they think ID/creationism is nonsense they might not admit it. But you know all that.