This page is updated and published by me, Dennis Rogers. You will find here my musings on coffee (I'm a home-roaster in training), philosophy (especially epistimological musings), and legal related
stuff. And, of course, any and all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.
No chance to read the voucher decision today, but I was glad to see that Eugene Volokh thought it was the correct decision. Whether vouchers are good or bad education policy is irrelevant regarding the narrow question of their constitutionality.
I think one crucial distinction (again, having not read today's opinion) between the Pledge decision and today's decision is the proximity of state action (aka - degree of government involvement). The 1954 Act inserting "under God" into the Pledge had a specific religious purpose, to the exclusion of other religious beliefs, and it was through state statutes and policies that the religiously motivated legislation was instituted. Vouchers are distributed in a manner entirely neutral to religion, even though through entirely private choice, the money may end up funding private religious schools. However, as Eugene Volokh points out, the income tax exemption for charitable donations is the equivalent to a subsidy, and if Eugene were to donate money to that exact same non-profit school, government funds are essentially still going to the same place. Yet I don't hear anyone screaming for an end to the charitable donation exemption.
Support for yesterday's and today's decisions seem to be divided right down party lines. However, reducing the two cases down to the the legal/constitutional issues and precluding political maneuvering and such, I think both cases have solid legal ground and can coexist peacefully.
And finally, who knew that the Pledge statute also potentially discriminates on the basis of gender?! It was the astute legal analyst Garrett Mortiz (the one person who read to the end of the statute).
4 U.S.C. section 4, states:
The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, ''I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'', should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and render the military salute.
Moritz is pretty sure that the last sentence doesn't pass the intermediate scrutiny test . . .
CORRECTION: Garrett kindly notified me, quite rightly, that there is no gender distinction language in the last sentence of the statute. I should have correctly stated that "Moritz is pretty sure that the second to last sentence may not pass the intermediate scrutiny test."
And in a new turn of events, the Senate voted 99-0 to condemn the 9th Circuit's Pledge of Allegiance ruling today. The members then gathered on the steps of the Capitol to pledge their allegiance "under God."
Did Tom Daschle order this? Is this a form of new legislation? Is the entire 9th Circuit now de-confirmed? Or is it just efficacious timing for some good political pandering?
As everyone now knows, the 9th Circuit declared something unconstitutional today. Merely reading the lead-ins to the stories covering the court's ruling can be a little misleading. According to the lead-in on Fox News, MSNBC, and numerous other news services, the 9th Circuit declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. I suggest, however, that the astute reader should read past the lead-ins to see what the 9th Circuit really did.
The plaintiff, Newdow, did not challenge the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, but challenged the constitutionality of the 1954 Act inserting the words "under God," which even the government admitted was inserted for the purpose of recognizing a Supreme Being. The legislative history bears out the Act's original purpose:
As the legislative history of the 1954 Act sets forth: At this moment of our history the principles underlying our American Government and the American way of life are under attack by a system whose philosophy is at direct odds with our own. Our American Government is founded on the concept of the individuality and the dignity of the human being. Underlying this concept is the belief that the human person is important because he was created by God and endowed by Him with certain inalienable rights which no civil authority may usurp. The inclusion of God in our pledge therefore would further acknowledge the dependence of our people and our Government upon the moral directions of the Creator. At the same time it would serve to deny the atheistic and materialistic concepts of communism with its attendant subservience of the individual.
Newdow had standing to bring this action because, like all citizens of this great country, "parents have a right to direct the religious upbringing of their children and, on that basis, have standing to protect their right."
Newdow is an atheist. And although some may quibble with this theory of mine, atheism is indeed a religious position based on faith, and Newdow has the right to bring his daughter up as an atheist without government interference. If you or I declare allegiance to any particular faith and believe that she ought to be taught otherwise, that is no reason to adopt the machinery of the government to make it so. Per the First Amendment, the government has no more right to create laws establishing atheism as it does to to create laws establishing any other religion.
There are three legal tests that the courts use to determine whether government action violates the establishment clause. I won't belabor a discussion of those tests here, but the 9th Circuit, applying each of the three tests, reached the very plausible legal conclusion that an Act inserting religious language into the Pledge for religious purposes and supporting monotheism, violates the Establishment Clause.
True, the insertion of the words "under God" for religious purposes could implicate the endorsement of any number of religions that believe in the existence of one god. However, the government endorsement of many religions or of one religion would be just as constitutionally infirm. In fact, language establishing theism, in general, would be invalid as it excludes the religious position of atheism.
We don't want government involved . . . . I don't think the theists are going to be glad to have "one nation under no God" inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance.
I completely agree.
It is true that our country, and even the words of our Constitution, have a rich religious history. And I even had it argued to me by an intellectual theist friend of mine that the Establishment Clause was originally meant to prevent the establishment of any religion other than Christianity. This is all fine. The fact that 99 Senators said the Pledge on the Capitol steps today is fine. If any student wants to continue saying the words "under God" when saying the Pledge, that is fine. Students praying in school is fine. Studying and understanding the full extent and importance of this country's religious history and the religious beliefs of our founding fathers is fine. Practicing whatever religion you believe is fine. Doing it on your breaks as a government employee, as a public school teacher, as a public school student, while in a government building is all fine. What is not fine is the use of government machinery to support the establishment of any kind or type of religion to the exclusion of others.
Don't expect the government to help you in your quest to stifle your own religion, to reduce its followers, to make you feel marginalized as a practitioner, to . . . Oh wait, I got that backwards . . .
What I'm saying is: feel free to love this country, feel free to study and teach the rich religious history of this country, feel free to practice and teach the religion of your choice in this country -- in fact, as long as the courts uphold this country's Constitution -- feel free to feel free in this country.
The 9th Circuit declared the 1954 Act and the policy of the Elk Grove Unified School District unconstitutional.
The Pledge of Allegiance was not declared unconstitutional today.
Exciting news! As some of my coffee readers already know, Chang Yue Industrial Corp. of Taiwan will soon be selling their new HotTop coffee bean roaster through its U.S. importer Baratza, LLC. The roaster has been under extensive evaluation by testers here in American for a number of months, with the major flaw in the roaster being the lack of an effective cooling system, and a more minor flaw in the microchip which didn't allow effective calibration of the roast.
These flaws may now be effectively remedied and the HotTop could hopefully be available for sale by the end of the year. According to one of the testers, Mark Prince of CoffeeGeek, (this is hot off the press folks -- these comments are not yet posted to the CoffeeGeek website), the new base, circuit board and microchip have produced great results. Mark states:
New Base: includes a better motor for the cooling tray arm. A redesigned cooling tray (more holes, different stirring arm), and the best part - the back portion of the cooling tray underneath is now mesh (the part under the machine's overhang) and there's a new fan in the unit, bringing the motor count in this machine to 4 at least. The fan looks like a beefed up cpu cooling fan. It blows up, which when described to me in email, worried me a bit because I was worried about flying chaff. (not much a worry, though more chaff is in the completed roast than before). The base is also higher off the ground, to allow for better air draw from underneath . . . .
New circuit board: redone to control the new fan, and to do other magical stuff I have no inkling of.
New microchip: HT has been playing with the roast profiles and the "plus" button. They've extended times on the unit. Previously, anything over 275 grams in this thing and I would not be able to roast to full city, second crack starting. Supposedly with the new mods, I will be able to. . . .
Even with the new fan, this machine is about as close to silent as you can get. The only sounds are from minimal metal on metal contact from the drum rotating, and afterwards, the spinning arms in the cooling tray make a bit of noise. That's IT. It is supremely quiet. You have to have an Alp and this machine side by side to realize it makes the Alp a screaming banshee.
Mark performed various tests and the roaster worked beautifully. With the new modifications, the cooling time is effectively down to 4 minutes ~ the ideal time for beans to cool out of the roaster. A cooling time of much longer than 4 minutes and you'll begin to notice reduced quality in the cup.
I know that Chang Yue and Baratza were attempting to keep the price of the roaster sub-$400. This would definitely be an attractive price for such a high quality, consumer end roaster. But I have a feeling that with the new modifications, the price of the roaster is going to float up to around $450. But let's hope not!
To see some fantastic pictures of the roaster and read one testers thorough comments, check out Espresso! My Espresso!
And continue to look for the updates by Mark Prince on the CoffeeGeek website (also containing a nice photo). He's currently putting the HotTop through some serious abuse and will hopefully have a thorough review posted soon.
Garrett Moritz takes some interesting criticism for bringing to light Sauron and Saruman's Middle Earth economic stimulus package.
Well, even being the economic novice that I am, I did notice an apparent lack of effective trickle-down benefit and a reticence to bring up the topic of fair wages. I wonder if Bombadil had anything to do with this? Who was he anyway?
I still can't believe that this little town here in Montana just hosted 25 bands on 4 stages over the last two days. The music was so good that I immediately dove into poverty, buying cd after cd. But oh how I love new music! There are too many artists to plug, so I have chosen to plug a single acoustic artist whose stage I could hardly leave when she was playing and singing. Unfortunately, she was the host of this particular stage and only sang in between other bands, so I didn't get to hear a whole set. But I heard enough to, you guessed it, buy a cd. I have been listening to it this morning and afternoon ~ it is one of my best music purchases in a long time.
Her name is Nancy Good. She is not originally from Montana, but has lived here for a number of years and still lives here off and on. Click here to go to her web page where she has six songs available for mp3 download. I especially like "I Got News" and "The Thing of it." I highly recommend that you give them a listen.
But even more highly recommended is that you buy her cd's! They are worth it! You can't order online, but you can e-mail her at [email protected] and she will sell them to you directly. They are also available at Hastings, but I don't know if Hastings is just a Montana business or not.
As noted below, I roasted up a Sulawesi Toraja last Monday. Any one who buys coffee beans on a regular basis from specialty coffee roasters should at least find the name of this coffee familiar, even if you haven't tried the coffee itself (it may be labeled Celebes Kalossi).
It is an Indonesian coffee and shares a common quality with other Indonesians (Sumatra, Java, Timor, Papua New Guinea) ~ that of having a thick, heavy body. An Indonesian can have a mouth-feel almost like milk, but are low acid coffees which, to my palette, usually need to be blended with a higher acid coffee to give the Indonesian good balance. Without blending to add some beneficial acidity to the heavy body, a freshly roasted and brewed Sumatra can taste like the flattest, most plain coffee you've ever tasted (somebody is going to send me a mean e-mail for saying that, I just know it). But its body is so thick that you can add as much milk and sugar as you like. Sumatra is a fantastic coffee for many reasons. However, let's get back to the Sulawesi!
The particular Sulawesi that I roasted can be found here (includes a thorough description). I followed the suggested roasting profile:
Roast Time: Did I really forget to write this down? Um, yes. But for this bean it is less of a concern since I decided to roast by sound and not to insert any cooling cycles. I took the roast to a rolling Second Crack (see Roasting Terms) ~ probably about a good 10 to 15 seconds into it. This produced a Full City roast.
Cooling Cycles: (See Roasting Terms) None. Remember, the purpose of a cooling cycle (with the FreshRoast Plus roaster) is to slow the roast time and thus reduce the acidity in particularly high acid coffees. The Sulawesi is low acid to begin with.
Rest: 5 days (doesn't need to rest this long; probably a few hours would be fine -- it just happened to take this long for me to get to it)
Comments: I originally prepared this in a French Press, but keep reading to find out what happened next . . .
I think that this is one of the best Indonesians to drink unblended, that is, without blending with a higher acid coffee (although it is also a great blender). The Sumatrans especially, have an earthy, musty taste that the Sulawesi doesn't share ~ at least not to the degree of the Sumatra. But, however subtle the earthiness of the Sulawesi may be, the one way to be sure to taste it is by brewing the coffee in a French Press as I did yesterday.
Sitting on the porch, starting a new book, and sipping the pressed, unblended Sulawesi, I realized that I was really in the mood for a "cleaner" coffee ~ that is, something with less sediment, like paper filter drip coffee. This is where a little innovative thought came in handy.
(Here comes the new method -----> I decided to re-pour the coffee back into my thermos, but using a manual filter-drip cone, poured the coffee through a thoroughly rinsed paper filter (to remove any paper taste). The coffee quickly drained through as the paper filter removed the sediment. The surprise was that I ended up liking the coffee even better after this process. The coffee had great balance with no bitterness (common problem with paper filter drip). It was basically a press pot taste without the sediment!
As of yesterday, I had only attempted this with the Sulawesi. However, this morning I press pot brewed some Ethiopian Harrar, a much more subtle, high acid coffee with a medium/full body. The subtleness is in the form of wonderful blueberry notes that can only be tasted when the beans are fresh (within 3 days or so of roasting), brewed in either a press pot or a vacpot (additional link), and when roasted light, to a City roast just past the end of the First Crack (Roasting Terms). (Unfortunately, it may be difficult to find a specialty roaster who will roast an Ethiopian this light).
After brewing the Harrar in the press, I poured it directly from the press into my thermos ~ again through a thoroughly rinsed paper filter. I then proceeded to sit down and begin sipping it while writing this particular entry. The results: pouring it through the paper filter did reduce the blueberry notes. They are still perceptible, but probably only by someone who has tasted the blueberry before and knows what to look (taste?) for. The paper also added a slightly perceptible bitterness, but only slight.
Thus, while the Sulawesi was improved by this "press pot/paper filter" method, the Harrar was not improved, other than the complete lack of sediment. But don't get me wrong; the quality of the coffee is still very, very high because of the freshness available to home roasters and press pot brewing. I would put in in par with, or even claim that it is better than the drip coffee you can get in-house from many specialty coffee roasters. And compared to what an electric coffee maker produces, there is simply no comparison. My coffee maker ruined the Harrar altogether.
The press pot/manual drip method is sort of the best of both worlds: the fullness of press pot extraction, the cleanness of paper filter drip.
