Letter to the Editor: Another suggestion
BY Randy Farran, Tulsa
Sunday, November 25, 2012
11/25/12 at 3:29 AM
I always have to chuckle at the idea of erecting a monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol, considering that one of the commandments condemns bearing false witness against thy neighbor (that is, lying) and the Capitol is a place where politicians congregate.
Reading that the recently erected monument contained misspellings of "maidservant" and "Sabbath" produces a full belly laugh. Perhaps its designers were too busy learning about things like "intelligent design" to worry about learning unimportant things, like, for example, how to spell - or at least how to use SpellCheck. The errors were predictably soon corrected, but I feel they should have remained, serving as a monument to our state's low regard for education.
I have a suggestion to further improve the monument. Next to it erect a statue of a Native American with a sad and confused expression and holding a paintbrush, and on the monument itself underline in red those commandments forbidding coveting thy neighbor's property, lying, stealing, and killing. That way it will become a reminder of how easy it is to disregard the pillars of one's most basic and heartfelt beliefs if one stands to profit by breaking them.
It's too bad that there is no commandment stating, "Though shalt not commit hypocrisy." But then, I suppose people would just break that one as well when it was convenient - or profitable - for them to do so.
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Associated Images:
A Ten Commandments monument
at the state Capitol misspelled of the
words Sabbath as “Sabbeth” and
maidservant as “maidseruant.” The
errors were fixed on Monday.
SEAN MURPHY/Associated Press
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