Virginia! Motto: The Best 18th Century Money Can Buy

What is it about Virginia? Frequent readers of this blog know the slow, tedious drip of days emptying their lives...er...we mean know that we've visited Virginia on several occasions for a fast foray into hilarity. Now, in most of the country Darwin Day was subsumed in the national celebration of trite cards, overpriced flowers and cheap chocolates known as Valentine's Day, but in the great state of Virgina, legislators took it upon themselves to acknowledge this scientific milestone with a bit of good old American numbskullery. Let's listen in:



Yes, well what can you say to that? "Darwin's theory was used by atheists to explain away god." So, apparently before about 1840 everybody believed in god and the world was mud luscious and puddle wonderful. Right Mr. Jefferson?

Jefferson's severe redaction was probably a retaliatory act, as much as anything, against priests and ministers—"soothsayers and necromancers," Jefferson called them—who had unleashed attacks on his character during the acrimonious presidential election of 1800. Jefferson believed that an authentic Christianity had long ago been hijacked by the Christian Church. The teachings of its founder had become so distorted as to make "one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."

All righty then, Mr. Frederick, in which camp do you pitch your tent?