Posted on 12/22/2004 6:30:04 AM PST by NYer
Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - Is it divine intervention or just a government goof?
The crosses on two original Los Angeles County seals in the Board of Supervisors hearing room were "shining through" decals that were meant to cover them, county officials said Monday.
In fact, the cross is clearly visible directly over the rendering of the San Gabriel Mission on the new seal, which was recently redesigned to omit the controversial Christian symbol.
"It's amazing," said Tony Bell, spokesman to Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. "It's a Christmas miracle. The cross is shining through. (County officials) are talking about replacing it again. We are going to ask them to leave it the way it is."
After $1,800 was spent to replace the large pair of county seals in the hearing room, the small cross from the original seal has begun to "shine through to be visible" in the new seal, Supervisor Don Knabe wrote in a prepared release.
"The cross has resurrected itself on the county seal," Knabe said. "County employees just covered the old seal on Friday afternoon, and, in three days, the original cross has begun to bleed through to be visible again. I don't think we should spend another dollar of taxpayer money to replace the seal to eliminate that cross.
"It is very symbolic that the cross has reappeared on the new seal directly above the new icon of a mission, which does not have a cross," Knabe said. "It is only appropriate."
ACLU spokeswoman Elizabeth Brennan said the incident was unfortunate.
"But they've made a good-faith effort," Brennan said. "It is kind of amusing."
Earlier this year, county workers installed the two six-foot-diameter seals costing $3,800 on the wall directly behind the supervisors' chairs at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.
In May, the ACLU threatened to sue unless the cross was removed. In June, the supervisors took the first of several votes to replace the seal with a cross-less version. The county plans to spend $700,000 to replace the seal on thousands of county buildings, vehicles and park signs, as well as on employee uniforms as they wear out.
Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said officials were considering taking down the two seals and sending them back to the sign shop to find out what went wrong and how they can be fixed.
"It looks just like hell," Janssen said. "They were trying to do it on the cheap, just by plastering another seal over the old ones. And they did it on the wall. They didn't really have a good angle or surface to work with."
Tom Tindall, a Internal Services Department general manager who oversees the sign shop, said he doubts that the faintly glowing cross is a miracle.
"I'm not really clear what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's a graphics problem," Tindall said. "There was relief in those symbols. It's not noticeable in the back of the room, but you can see them when you get closer."
Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said the church would have to view the seals before commenting on whether it's anything more than a graphics problem.
"So much for the best-laid plans," Tamberg said. "The goof is not that they didn't use thick-enough paper on the seal to cover the cross. The goof is that they took the cross off in the first place."
San Fernando Valley activist David Hernandez, who is spearheading a petition drive to collect 314,212 signatures by March 1 to give voters a chance to decide the issue, said it just adds to the "comedy of errors."
"Do we call it divine intervention? There are just some things in life where you can't just make this stuff up."
Antonovich said he planned to bring the issue up at a board meeting in January and hoped to convince his fellow supervisors to call off the $700,000 project to replace the seals until the petition drive is finished.
If anyone wanted to find out if any member of any group was in a bar. They could walk in and yell, "Hey, any Braves fans in here?" So that is how a Mason knows if another Mason is in a bar. You are the first person I ever had to explain that to. Maybe it loses something in print.
Here's a good one.
A priest and a rabbi are sitting next to each other on an airplane. After a while the priest turns to the rabbi and asks, "Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?" The rabbi responds, "Yes,that is still one of our beliefs."
The priest then asks, "Have you ever eaten pork?" To which the rabbi replies, "Yes, on one occasion I did succumb to temptation and tasted a ham sandwich."
The priest nodded in understanding and went on with his reading.
A while later, the rabbi spoke up and asked the priest, "Father, is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?" The priest replied, "Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith."
The rabbi then asked him, "Father, have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?"
The priest replied, "Yes, rabbi, on one occasion I was weak and broke with my faith."
The rabbi nodded understandingly. He was silent for about five minutes, and then he said, "Beats the heck out of a ham sandwich, doesn't it?"
ROTFLMAO!
Shhhhhhhhhhhh.
;-)
That's 'cause there weren't no Braves fans in any bar anywhere for as most of the years the Masons been going to bars .......
That is one of my favorite jokes.
Merry Christmas, pass the Jack Daniels.
And I'm offended by the spirtual aura around the new gals head, and the rainbow that is a clear reference to homosexuality, and the cow that is a pagen worship symbol. How can they get away with this!?
This reminds me of Belshazzar the king in Daniel 5.
" Dan 5:4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
" Dan 5:5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote."
Don't forget, there are English words there, too "county of", as well as Spanish words. That's insensitive to non-speakers of English and Spanish. These insensitive scumbags should get those out of there. I'm gravely, deeply offended. Because of that, I demand in the strongest terms that they change their seal. It should be totally blank, if they insist on having a seal at all (which is itself offensive, because it denotes authority, which is insensitive to anarchists).
I hope they just leave it like it is. They keep replacing it, and it keeps coming back. God has a sense of humor.
I'd be a little worried about a blank seal as that generally shows up as white and that might be offensive to people of color or those that simply don't like white. If they could make it some generally agreed upon blank color, then they may get around this problem.
Anyhow, I am going to call them now with your suggestion. I too am tired of all this insensitivity on their part!!!
And isn't the cow revered in the Hindi religion? Are they promoting Hinduism?
I think they should change the name. How dare they keep the name "city of the angels", city of the fallen angels maybe.
LOL, the City of Angels is a joke.
Thanks for the info, and of course you're right, it is an abomination. What's Spanish for city that is now an abomination to Our Lord? : )
"It should be totally blank, if they insist on having a seal at all (which is itself offensive, because it denotes authority, which is insensitive to anarchists)"
I'm sorry, but you can't have a seal at all. I'm sure you realize that the seal is circular, and in the Merriam Webster dictionary, the first definition of circle is "ring, halo". Now, a halo is religious, is it not? Can't have that, can we.
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