December 2005 Issue

So Help Us Our Guardian Deities

The U.S. Constitution doesn?t mention God or any specific religion. But if it did, it would place the United States in the company of nations like these…

Illustration: Mark Matcho

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AFGHANISTAN “…no law shall run counter to the principles of the sacred religion of Islam…”

ALBANIA “…with faith in God and/or other universal values…”

BAHRAIN “…the Qur’an has been remiss in nothing.”

BHUTAN “Blessed with…the protection of our guardian deities…”

INDONESIA “…the sovereign Republic of Indonesia which is based on the belief in the One and Only God…”

IRELAND “In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred…. Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial…”

NEPAL “Nepal is a multiethnic, multilingual, democratic, independent, indivisible, sovereign, Hindu and Constitutional Monarchical Kingdom.”

NORTH KOREA “Comrade Kim Il Sung was a genius ideological theoretician and a genius art leader, an ever victorious, iron-willed brilliant commander, a great revolutionary and politician, and a great human being. Comrade Kim Il Sung’s great idea and achievements in leadership are the eternal treasures of the nation…”

PAKISTAN “Whereas sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Almighty Allah alone, and the authority to be exercised by the people of Pakistan within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust…”

RWANDA “Trusting in God Almighty…”

SAUDI ARABIA “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution…”

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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