Separation of Church and State

Josh — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 06:16:37 +0000

Tonight, while reading up on this whole O’Donnell “Separation of Church and State” thing I came across the Wikipedia entry for the Treaty of Tripoli. This was one of several treaties the United States made in the late 1700′s with the nations of the Barbary Coast and is “cited as historical evidence in the modern day controversy over whether there was religious intent by the founders of the United States government. Article 11 of the first treaty has been interpreted as an official denial of a Christian basis for the U.S. government.”

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext, arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Read that first sentence again, keeping in mind that this document was ratified by the US Senate and signed by President John Adams just shy of 21 years after independence was declared.

Yeah. It seems like the country may have lost its way in the subsequent 213 years.

A Brief History

Josh — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:37:35 +0000

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the history of the Cycloptopus now that “version 2.0″ is out in the wild. Originally conceived for a personal branding project way back in 2006, this little guy has changed quite a bit over the years. Heck, I don’t even think he had a name until about a year ago (and that name is thanks to Mr. Kyle Adams.) I’m a little disappointed that I don’t have the original sketches anymore, but lets take a look at what I was able to dig up.

Version 0.1 This version has the benefit of being more inline with “my illustrative style” at the time. However, I didn’t plan the tentacles very well and as a result a few are stuck in rather haphazardly (a problem that persists for awhile, unfortunately.)

Version 0.5 This version nearly kept me from posting these images altogether. Yikes.

Version 1.0 Ah yes, the standard Cycloptopus for a couple of years. The addition of shading, some re-jiggering of color, and a few other minor design changes made a pretty significant difference. There are still some tentacle issues that I was too naive to see, but hindsight and all that. Fun fact: this design exists on two t-shirts worldwide.

Version 2.0 Thanks to the addition of a necktie, fez, symmetrical tentacles (!), and a new warmer color palette our eight-tentacled friend simply exudes sophistication.

And so concludes this brief seminar. Any questions?

Cycloptopus : Mythical Sea Creature and Internet Web Log » history

Separation of Church and State

A Brief History