Happy Veteran's Day

 

     Veteran's Day is observed on 11 November in the U.S.  Posting this interesting piano from the Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, Arizona to mark to occasion.  This is a Steinway "Victory" piano built for our troops in World War II.  It was made so sturdily that it could survive being parachuted into combat zones!  

America the Fun

 

Why can't our Donkey & Elephant be as fun as these guys?         

     Why do these private entities get to consider themselves statesmen and run the country?  Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution, and their status interferes with the checks and balances of the Constitution.                  
                                                            

From Sea to Dark Dead Sea

 

[This poem is about the modern American mindset and its influence upon the Church. It does not reflect a crushing depression on the part of the poetess. Cleary, this is not a new line of thought.]

The Jordan in but never out,
So knowledge takes in me such route
In brackish waters to brood about
The suppression of true freedom's shout---
The Dead Sea.

At lowest point, then, here I sit.
The deepest depression of deep'ning rift.
The deep'ning gloom---and shall it lift?
Integrity's shroud, hides Holy Writ. . .
Apathy.

As just-hatched bird by Nature bred
Lives just to squawk and so be fed
I now by histr'y do so defend
By justified means I reach this end:
The Bland Me.

I lived through day, I lived through night;
I lived through love, I lived through fright;
I turned inside to put to flight
The hopeless failures from crueler sight:
The Dead Me.

Whether by mindless shallowness
Or endless, stale analysis,
In Sophist and in Hedonist
The fear of Feeling here exists:
The fear "to be."

On me they float but can't dive in:
Cannot drown but cannot swim.
Advance in skills. . .Retreat within. . .
A merry-go-round with fatal spin. . .
Technology?!?!

Oh, to be that other sea,
Parted to let young Israel free,
Closed to drown out cruelty,
Fluid with fresh-faced vitality:
The Red Sea!!!

-----C. Marie Byars, 1987

Let Freedom Ring

Downfall of Our Forbears

Pathways

Our society is a little crazy right now.  The internet makes it worse.  Things come across as if our whole society is SJW's (Social Justice Warriors) vs. neo-chauvinists; no gun restrictions at all vs. total banning of guns; unrestricted capitalism vs. full socialism; MAGA vs. laissez faire belief systems; hard core Christian evangelicals vs. atheists; etc., etc. When you get people talking, get them away from labels, there's still a lot of overlap in the directions Americans think this country should go.  There need to be methods to support the consensus areas.

Beyond Dreaming

 

• This MLK Day, how about we do something more than dream it?  How about we live it?  --Marie Byars

My Type of Patriotism

For this 4th of July, this picture describes my patriotism:

#politics

Happy Veteran's Day

 
Here are some patriotic photos you may find moving this Veteran's Day... or any other patriotic holiday. They were all taken in the fall in Northern Arizona. 

Military Guest Lodging
Near Flagstaff, AZ

Old Ft. Tuthill Parade Grounds
Now part of the County Fair Grounds

Korean War Era Jeep
Military Musem, Ft. Tuthill

Commemorative Marker
Aircraft Training Accident, WW2
San Franciso Mountains

Patriot of Another Country

 
    July, of course, celebrates American Independence Day.  Demonstrations of patriotism will abound.  If you wish to see old July 4th related posts on this blog, please choose the "Fourth of July", "patriotism", or "politics" links on the left sidebar (on the desktop version).

     This July, the blog is looking at quotes from a German patriot, Chancellor Otto von Bismark of the old German Empire.  I never used to seek out Bismark quotes because I thought his militarism (which united the Germans under the Prussians) was a big factor in the long-term problems Germany created.   

Caricature of Bismark by William Stolz, d. 1893 (Public Domain)

     However, it turns out there was far more to Bismark than militarism.  Here are some interesting quotes from him:

• That which is imposing here on earth has always something of the quality of the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions but without success, proud and lonely. 
• Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
•  Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.
•  What we learn from History is that no one learns from History.
•  A really great man is known by three signs-generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.
•  Man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer.
•  The life of a man is like a game of chess, which he plays according to his art.
•  Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.
•  A bad plan that is well executed will yield much better results than a good plan that is poorly executed.
•  Love is blind; friendship tries not to notice.
•  Hounds follow those who feed them.
•  I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle.
•  When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.
•  People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
•  Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.
•  Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. 
• A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
•  A little caution outflanks a large cavalry.
•  Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning.
•  Show me an objective worthy of war and I will go along with you.
•  You can do everything with bayonets, but you are not able to sit on them.

                                                               --Otto von Bismark

       Otto von Bismarck in Retirement, 1881
(Public Domain)

Exceptional?

 What's the point in arguing about the term "American exceptionalism?" We're a nation of imperfect people, founded on some amazing ideas of a democratic republic, enshrined in our Constitution. We've done some very noteworthy things; we've done some things that were stupid and even cruel. Accepting all these facets doesn't make us [1] less American, nor [2] less willing to accept or work on problematic parts of our past. Can we unify on this, too?   --Marie Byars

Try a New Tool

 

It's well past time for the "sides" [mostly referring to the culture wars] to think they can use the political system as a sledgehammer to "smash" their opponents into oblivion.  

No one's going anywhere, folks.  You're wasting a lot of energy, a lot of political capital, and a lot of your ability to try persuasion, instead.  --Marie Byars

Luckiest Man Alive

MLB just started up.  Normally, I don't give a lot of attention to sports, first-run movies or basically any entertainment that make the rich richer.  I have one exception:  I follow the Yankees somewhat and buy a little of their gear. This is due to how impressed I was with Pride of the Yankees, the Lou Gehrig story, when I was a kid.

Here's a clip with both the real Lou Gehrig with an animated story behind it.  There is not much of the original speech surviving.  In fact, it had to be crafted from various memories.

The speech was first given at a Fourth of July double header in 1939.

Lou Gehrig, Class Act

 Here's a version that has that short amount of Gehrig footage plus the movie version of his famous speech, starring Gary Cooper:  

Gehrig's 4th of July Farewell Speech

Here are some fun photos as an homage. 

Refreshment

The White River, a tributary to the Salt River in Arizona.  This area lies on the boundary between two Apache Indian Reservations.

Walking, American Style

An American author for this Fourth of July, from one of his lesser-known works:

"He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river... 

No wealth can buy the requisite leisure freedom, and independence which are capital in this profession... You must be born into the family of Walkers...  the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called... but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day... " 

 ---Henry David Thoreau in "Walking", from the Atlantic Monthly, 1862.

Memorialized

The words of the First Amendment, immortalized on the wall of the First Amendment Building, Northern Arizona University.

     Notice what is says about religion:  the government should neither try to create a state religion nor repress citizens' rights to hold their religions.  Both "sides" in the Cultural Wars have it wrong. GLAAD & the LGBT community aren't going away, the Southern Baptists Convention isn't going away.  Evolutionary scientists aren't going away, and creationists aren't going away.  Etc., etc, so we might as well learn how to agree to disagree.

Visa Americana

Here are some inspiring quotes which were inscribed in the pages of my new U.S. Passport book:

"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."  --Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or sect, a party or a class-- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity."  -- Anna Julia Cooper

Declaration

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  --Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, July 1776.

Link to full text of the Declaration of Independence

Anglo/American Humor

Q: When do the Brits celebrate Thanksgiving Day?
A: On the Fourth of July.      

in public domain

Q: How do Aussies get a purse away from a crocodile?
A: Give it a "Yank."

(Considering we pulled their bacon out of the fire in two World Wars & still have far better cuisine, I think we "Yanks" have the last laugh!)