God Bless America

If you're like me you don't have much use for "God Bless America", and you're even more annoyed about the fact that you can't go to a ball game without being assaulted by it when you just want to hear "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at the seventh-inning stretch.

Also like me, but unlike Bradford Campeau-Laurion, you've probably never been grabbed up by the police and hauled away because you had something better to do than sit there while the sheep watching the game with you sing.

There's now good news for Mr. Campeau-Laurion and for your civil liberties: with the help of the ACLU he sued the Yankees and the New York Police, and they've now settled for a cash payment to the plaintiff, attorneys' fees, and a statement from the Yanks that they won't force people to listen to the song if they don't feel like it. (Actually, the settlement says that the Yankees don't have any such policy and don't plan to institute such a policy, but you get the idea.)

So when you go to the game, and you're celebrating the greatest American game, and you hear a song that supposedly celebrates American values, you can be glad that you don't have to shed your civil liberties at the gate.