Here is a fact that has apparently been lost in the dustbin of history: our Pledge of Allegiance was created in 1892 as a promotional gimmick for the Chicago World’s Fair celebration in honor of the quadricentennial of Columbus’ arrival in America. It was a big event and the U.S. government made plans for a national Public School Celebration for Columbus Day, 1892.

The editors of The Youth’s Companion, a popular family magazine that was the Readers’ Digest of the late 19th century, became sponsors of the celebration and made it their goal to get every public school in America to raise a flag while students recited a salute — but first, a salute had to be written.

Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister who was forced out of his Boston church for his socialist sermons was assigned to write the Pledge of Allegiance for The Youth’s Companion and the pledge he wrote was recited by an estimated 10 million schoolchildren on Columbus Day, October 12, 1892:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Mr. Bellamy considered using the word “equality” but since many people were still opposed equal rights for women and African Americans in 1892, he decided it would be too controversial.

Other than a grammatical correction — the word “to” was added before “the Republic” — the pledge remained the same until 1924 when the National Flag Conference called for the words “my Flag” to be changed to “the Flag of the United States of America,” in order to ensure that immigrants would understand to which flag they were pledging their allegiance.

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Various other changes were suggested over the years, but none of them were formally adopted. The United States Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance on June 22, 1942 — 52 years after it was originally written.

Following a campaign that was initiated by the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus in 1954, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan sponsored a bill to insert the words “under God,” in order to distinguish the U.S. from the “godless” — and communist — Soviet Union as well as to remove the suggestion of worshiping a flag as a graven image.

“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.”

What was originally a patriotic oath became a public prayer, too. However, the insertion of the words “under God” did not “…[reaffirm] the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future,” as President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1954, nor did it “…constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.” Rather, American society and the U.S. government have become increasingly secular ever since.

I have been playing around with CSS again. Those of you who have been here before may have noticed that the site interface has been re-designed. I do hope that it looks better at 800×600 and 1024×768 resolutions (and in IE) than the old one did.

I have implemented a theme switcher (it’s on the lefthand menu) because I now have more than one theme available. This theme switcher uses a cookie to “remember” which theme was chosen so the site will look the same when a user returns.

The default theme is called Denim because it has denim-like trim. The other theme is called Book because it looks sort of like a book. And there is also a theme called Experimental because that it what it is — and it looks it, too.

Over 50 people were killed and 700 injured on Thursday July 7, 2005 when four bomb explosions ripped through three subway trains and a double-decker bus in what appears to have been a coordinated terror attack during London’s morning rush hour. A previously unknown group, calling itself the “Secret Group of al Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe,” claimed it was responsible in a web site posting in which Italy and Denmark were warned to withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

As is usual in these modern times, the blogosphere immediately went about the business of letting the world know what it thought and how it felt about this terrible tragedy — as well as every other issue it saw as being somehow related. Within minutes of the news breaking, every opinion along the political spectrum was posted, from the extremists who believe that all Muslims should be herded together somewhere and shot (or “nuked”) to the extremists on the other end who think we ought to be understanding and sympathetic toward those who use violence and intimidation as a means of expressing their grievances. Of course, most of the commentary came from the blogosphere’s vast middle and was far more reasonable and moderate than that of the extremists. The point is that a great number of pixels were quickly lit up with a large diversity of opinions.

However, the citizen journalists and bloggers who deserve the applause are those who were in London when terror and tragedy struck and who shared their firsthand experiences in words and pictures. Their stories and photographs (many taken with camera phones and transmitted instantaneously) of the moments following the explosions captured the public’s attention in a way that traditional, mainstream news reporting could not.

These citizen journalists and bloggers enabled the world to view breaking news told from the first person perspective of victims and eyewitnesses so that the world could be almost right there in the midst of it all, seeing not only the horror and tragedy of the evils that man often perpetrates against man, but also the heroism and courage of the first-responders and ordinary citizens who immediately stepped up to the plate to administer first aid to the injured, comfort the traumatized and initiate the first steps in the long and arduous tasks of healing and recovery.

The citizen journalist and blogger reportage of the London attacks have taken that trend to a new level, beyond even that of the coverage of the tsunami last December. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, bloggers posted stories, pictures and videos by the thousands and the Internet buzzed with a huge swarm of hastily edited (if it was edited at all in some cases) news and other information. The blogosphere’s reporting of the London bombings demonstrated how this process could be honed into a dynamic in which raw and minimally-edited data could be edited like mainstream news to fill gaps that traditional news reporting methods cannot.

The BBC and Guardian web sites posted eyewitness accounts only an hour or two after the first bomb exploded. But instead of using unedited stream-of-consciousness blog postings that can tend to ramble on incoherently, they ran brief, edited reports from the people who were actually there right alongside the accounts written by their staff reporters.

The melding of mainstream reporting and citizen journalists/bloggers that was illustrated by Great Britain’s traditional media and blogosphere could change the whole complexion of the “bloggers versus journalists” debate because the bloggers demonstrated how ordinary citizens kept their composure during a traumatic event to share their firsthand experiences with the world and the conventional news people showed how they could blend those reports with their own.

This spirit of cooperation between the MSM and the blogosphere will ultimately lead us to a new media paradigm in which the first accounts of breaking news are reported by the people who are actually experiencing it. Every major event that will happen in the future is going to be an opportunity to test this new relationship between the MSM and the blogosphere. And the whole world will be tuning in to see the news of it as news has never been presented before.

For now, we wait for the next “big story” to present itself, hoping and praying that it will provide us all with some good news to share.

Slingbox, created by Sling Media of San Mateo, California is a brick-sized device that routes live television over broadband to a portable device anywhere in the world with no subscription fees. Several stores were sold out of the $250 Slingboxes the very first day.

Slingbox is an example of place-shifting technology, which is part of a handful of new ventures that are trying to duplicate the success of time-shifting technologies such as TiVo. It attaches to a cable box, satellite receiver, DVR or television set and diverts the signal to a PC or laptop running Slingbox software. There are also plans for Slingbox to eventually transmit to cell phones, PDAs and other portable devices connected to the Internet.

Sling Media and other leading companies in the place-shifting business have already attracted the attention of cable television operators that are interested in the potential of partnering with them because place-shifting technology could work well as an incentive for cable subscribers to purchase broadband services.

Television lovers, technophiles and efficiency freaks are overjoyed at the prospect, but copyright holders are wary of this new technology that threatens them with its potential for copyright abuse and the necessity of filing lawsuits to prevent it. Place-shifting technology is also problematic for copyright holders because it circumvents “proximity control,” restrictions upon the distribution of programming to specific geographic regions and periods of time.

The Internet and other technologies have changed the definitions of proximity as it relates to geography and time and the entertainment industry is going to have to eventually deal with that reality because the natural force of progress slows for no one. If new technologies are making tangible products into intangible products then existing business models need to be reevaluated and evolved so that the concerns of businesses and the rights of consumers can be addressed in a manner that benefits all.

On this Fourth of July, let us remember what took place on this day 229 years ago by reading or re-reading the Declaration of Independence. I even have a printer-friendly version.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Signors

John Hancock