Friday, May 25, 2012

Give Me that Old Time Religion - the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925

Our blog friend 'Muddy' wrote a post noting that on this date back in 1925, the Scopes Monkey trial concluded with a conviction that was later overturned.  It is one more issue where the right wants to go backward, reversing correctly settled law with stupidity, fundamental religious insanity and anti-science legislation. 
from Wikipedia:
 / 35.4949278; -85.012675
Tennessee v. Scopes
CourtCriminal Court of Tennessee
Full case nameThe State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes
Date decidedJuly 21, 1925
Citation(s)None
Judge(s) sittingJohn T. Raulston
Case history
Subsequent action(s)Scopes v. State (1926)
The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school.[1]

However being as this is a Friday beginning a LONG weekend, I can't get out of my mind the Spencer Tracy / Frederick March movie, Inherit the Wind.  There are crowds in the movie singing "Give me that old time religion, the 'Suthron' classic version.  In order to clear that out of my mind, here is a little different, more fun, more irreverent version from the filk tradition.  If you are unfamiliar with filk music, 1. you went to the wrong parties in your misspent youth; and 2.you can still learn, unless you're dead....and they might have something in the files for that eventuality, if you look long and hard enough.

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Because there IS nothing more OLD 'Suthron' than the Scopes Monkey trial the music below just proves how everything old is new again, and that in the South, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  We need a new Tom Lehr, so very, very badly to give perspective to the righties.  We're back to poll tax equivalents; can lynchings and new versions of white supremacists among conservatives be far behind?  Remember! they featured them prominently at CPAC!

The one, the only Tom Lehr!

2 comments:

  1. Hello Dog Gone,
    The first time I heard your version of the "O'l Time Religion" song was when Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell on his book "Power of Myth."

    What a brilliant piece of Enlightenment Journalism Programming!!.....Just like OUR BLOGS!! :-)

    By the way, GOOD LUCK with your legal “B” Slapping of the Extreme Right Wing Nut Job!! There are plenty, NO TOO MANY, mentally sick people who embrace Ultra Religious Conservative aspects and see it as their duty to play Gush Limblob on the blogs sites.

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  2. Thanks EoK! After this weekend, 'watch this space' as they say.

    My local law enforcement and the associated prosecuting attorney for this jurisdiction has been strongly encouraging me to pursue a criminal complaint and a criminal restraining order, based on what they have so far. We actually have a law enforcement officer who specializes in internet investigation. It's awesome! I want to give our legal representative time to act, and parts of the law enforcement file are still in the process of getting to his hands. I've put up with it this long, I can endure it a little longer - the most recent instance was related to this very post!

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