Word: rulings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Christmas came under sharp scrutiny last week at the U.S. Supreme Court, and some groups got coal in their stockings. In a ruling that confused more Americans than it enlightened, the Justices held that the annual display of a Jewish Hanukkah menorah next to a Christmas tree outside Pittsburgh's City- County building was constitutional; yet in the same decision, they concluded that a Catholic-sponsored creche depicting the Nativity in the county courthouse one block away was not. The tenuous principle governing the decision seemed to be the so-called reindeer rule, suggested in 1984 by the court...
Although Kennedy and company appear to defend religion, many legal scholars continue to maintain that faith is better protected by separation, since doing otherwise forces government to emphasize the secular. It would be better, contends law professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas, for the court to simply rule that "the government shouldn't celebrate religious holidays...
Shamir's initiative was never more than a tentative move toward starting a dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It offered Arabs in the occupied territories the chance to elect representatives to negotiate with Israel a transitional period of self-rule -- a possible beginning if Palestinians were willing to take it. But under the terms of the initiative, the Palestinian representatives could have no overt connection with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Not surprisingly, no Palestinians rushed to embrace the scheme. Still, coaxed by the U.S., the P.L.O. was giving the plan serious consideration...
...live in Britain." Instead, while planning to admit perhaps 100,000 Hong Kong Chinese, London offered to enlist the U.S., Canada and Australia in a last- resort "lifeboat" plan to absorb others in the event of a mass exodus. In the meantime, Britain would hasten the implementation of self-rule and press Beijing for fresh assurances that Chinese troops would stay out of Hong Kong. The colony's Chinese were not appeased. Storming out of the hall where the Foreign Secretary delivered his speech, eight prominent local officials shouted, "Shame, shame...
...When Roger Ailes was asked to help get Bush elected, he applied his paramount rule for taking a job: "The candidate can't be nuts." Ailes figured then and figures today that he found a man cast in the concrete of sanity...