commemoration

There's a lot of that today.

Today's the 12-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, and 14 years since Waco (which Timothy McVeigh claimed to be some of the inspiration for the OKC Bombing). Also, tomorrow it will have been eight years since Columbine. (A nod toward Steve.)

Not to mention the VA Tech shooting a couple days ago. Everyone is supposed to wear red for that today, and some students are trying to get a candlelight vigil organized for tomorrow (Friday) night at 8 p.m., by the flagpole outside the ASB.

In happier news (from Slate):

The Court's First Time
By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, April 19, 2007, at 5:59 AM ET

Everybody leads with yesterday's Supreme Court decision that upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act passed by Congress in 2003. The 5-4 vote marked the first time the court has upheld a ban on a specific abortion procedure. It was also the first time an abortion law was upheld that did not include an exception for a pregnant woman's health, although it does allow the procedure to save her life. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority and said Congress has the right "to show its profound respect for the life within the woman." Seven years ago, the court struck down a similar Nebraska law with a 5-4 vote, in which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sided with the majority. This time around, her replacement, Justice Samuel Alito, voted to uphold the ban.

The New York Times notes up high that the decision means doctors who perform the banned procedure could face "criminal prosecution, fines, and up to two years in prison." USA Today makes clear "the decision is unlikely to reduce abortions." That's because the abortion method that was banned, which involves partly delivering the fetus, is not the only way to perform a late-term abortion. But, as the Los Angeles Times notes in the second sentence, the real significance is that the "decision clears the way for states to pass new laws designed to discourage women from having abortions." The Washington Post quotes the president of the Christian Coalition of America predicting, "It is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade ... will also be struck down by the court." The Wall Street Journal notes that some see the decision as the first step "in chipping away at the landmark 1973 decision rather than attacking it head on," a strategy Alito proposed while he was an aide to Ronald Reagan.

--

We have a lot to remember and a lot to be thankful for today, I think.