My apologies for not getting this up sooner….. I slept in. Well-needed rest after 6 weeks of constant travel.
Anyway, here is thought number one for 7/11/10:
In 1780, General Cornwallis said of Charlotte, NC that it was a “hornet’s nest” after patriots there harassed his forces during the American Revolution. As a result, Charlotte, now the seat of Mecklenburg County and the largest city in North Carolina, made the hornet its symbol.
In that spirit and given the times we live in, we purchased two new flags for our front porch this weekend.
Secondly, for those of you interested…. after the jump I have printed the FULL FOUR VERSES of our National Anthem — “The Star Spangled Banner”. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, y’all.
The Star Spangled Banner Lyrics
By Francis Scott Key 1814
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Nice. The Gadsden Flag is always a good one. I’ve always been partial to the Gonzales Flag.
BTW, Seems like I recall a promise of more pics of your house.
We’re flying the Star-Spangled Banner and the Bunker Hill white-pine banner.
I am only flying the Stars and Stripes. I am in no mood in flying the California flag after politicians up in Sacremento has screwed up the State so badly in the last 25 years. It isn’t as bad as Mexico but its on its way.
A report from DC on how our young President and his Queen er first lady celebrated Independence Day….
“With first lady Michelle Obama at his side, Obama spoke from a White House balcony overlooking the South Lawn. ”
I pictured it kind of being like Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu’s last day in office….
and the Gulf of Mexico burned.
I look directly at the site of Monticello from my home. Every July 4th we have an amazing naturalization ceremony on the lawn of the President’s home. I have attended dozens of them and been the Master of Ceremony for years. This year, I asked to be relieved as I am in no mood to dwell in the past. The future is too much with me and while I share the joy of our new citizens, I am embittered by the Code Pink and Super Jerks who use the occasion to demean the ceremony.
I have reached the point where I might just go ballistic. I am a great champion of free speech and a champion of dissent, but to trample on a person’s citizenship joy for a cheap shot at progressive nano-statement is, to me, like the proverbial fart in an aqualung. I have reached the age of intolerance and can no longer be responsible for my reactions. Thank God I don’t go armed to the ceremonies.
I was asked by many why I had not presented my usual uplifting cheer and good humor at the ceremonies. I could only reply that the times are too dire for business as usual and that they called for a Patrick Henry to speak with the clarity of a young man willing and able to give his all.
So, this pompous old windbag has had his fill of moderates waiting to see how Obamaism plays out and to see if the “living Constitution” concept makes the Constitution an arcane reference to pre-enlightenment America.
We are on the brink of a world-wide economic depression and our “leaders” have declared that the United States is a has-been and we should get used to it.
Carter created a “misery index” to measure our “malaise.” But Obama has done everything he can to pull the rug out from out from under us. Heck, we don’t even allow the press (what is left of them) to photograph and promote the wildlife damage the oil spill is doing to wildlife in the Gulf. The censorship of the press and the willingness of the press to be censored is tyranny at its worst.
Chris Matthews is not a joke. He is a lunatic run amok, but no mainstream media source will disrupt his rants and tirades, because he is one of them. There was never such a thing as a lonely maggot. They swarm together.
Franklin told the woman: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Happy Fourth of July, if you can keep it.
Not if Obama and the Democrats have anything to say about it! They’re working as hard as they can to turn it into DEpendence day.
I can see both sides of this one. The alternative is that we have hundreds of a-hole “reporters” and photographers stomping around animals already under stress just so they can get spank-bank material and propaganda for the eco-commies.
We didn’t need to see people falling from the WTC to know it happened. We didn’t need the media running around photographing floaters after Katrina either.
This year, I asked to be relieved as I am in no mood to dwell in the past. The future is too much with me and while I share the joy of our new citizens, I am embittered by the Code Pink and Super Jerks who use the occasion to demean the ceremony.
Buck up, friend heliotrope.
Your post made me curious, so I went back and looked up the details of one such event. Prosaic, but a bit dull.
Then I looked at the comments section, and realized something; those people like Rob Tisinai, Evan Hurst, torrentprime, and so forth that are now insisting that we respect the dignity of the office of the President and so forth and refrain from criticizing anything Obama does were in fact doing the exact opposite a mere three years ago.
Now, this is hardly news to any of us. But what I have noticed in the past few months is that the number of people recognizing those incongruities is growing by leaps and bounds. They have caught on to the fact that the Obama Party calls them Nazis for thinking that our immigration laws should be enforced. They are now aware that the Obama Party demands they pay higher and higher taxes while Obama Party leaders “forget” to pay their own. They are realizing that the Obama Party is confiscating their guns on the flimsiest of pretexts while allowing gang members to ride around shooting people, unmolested, because of the color of their skin. They have heard that the Obama Party considers it perfectly acceptable for them to be threatened at polling places by Black Panthers with nightsticks — while their insisting that people only be allowed to vote once, under their correct name, in the district in which they live makes them a vote-suppressing racist.
In short, they have caught a face-full of progressivism, and they don’t like it. Furthermore, they have realized that the person and party they voted for based on hopenchange and a need to “do right” by way of skin color is not only not the person he and they claimed to be, but openly contemptuous of them for trusting him and his party.
The United States is coming back, heliotrope. It just had to be reminded of why it was essential to do so.
And, heliotrope, if you would like an amusing example of why, I would direct you over to a thread on the site I lovingly call Box Turtle Bigots.
Short summary: Timothy Kincaid, perhaps one of the finest examples of an “Obama conservative”, dared to state that gay organizations were putting the interests of outside members of a coalition ahead of the interests of gay individuals and organizations — and was greeted with shouts, huzzahs, and comments like these.
Since nearly all of what you mentioned falls into one small section of Northern Europe (where the hair is fair and skin even fairer), I believe it is your use of your ancestry to release you from your bigoted remark falls apart.
Which makes you a WASP. a WASP who, since their ancestors arrived at the dawn of this great nation, doesn’t need to “pay for” the mistake of having the poem tacked on to the statue of “liberty.”
Now, Kincaid is a gay person first and a rational human being second, so I have no doubt we’ll see his tearful apology for his hatefulness and bigotry tomorrow and his admittance that all the gays and lesbians who called him a racist are right. He’s already backpedaling and spinning that he doesn’t support the Arizona law or enforcement of borders, so it shouldn’t be too much longer.
But most Americans, I daresay, are less concerned by with being loved by racist organizations like La Raza and their gay puppets, so I doubt the Obama Party strategy exemplified on this site of calling anyone who disagrees with them racists is going to pan out as well.
helitrope:
That you have welcomed so many LEGAL immigrants into the country over the years says alot about your character and values. You set a fine example for us all. Thank you.
Strange, while loading the dishwasher an hour ago the same line of Dr. Franklin’s came to mind, “..A republic, if you can keep it.”
Maybe after sitting through three different concert-n-fireworks presentations on the TV it was the insipid music. Instead of Sousa, Cohan, Berlin, Williams, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic…it was three hours of limp soft-pop.
Was that the Macy’s gig? I wanted to watch it and forgot all about it. My mother and I were assisting the Mulberry Wal-Mart with their sales.
BTW, the American flags at Wally World are marked down $5. The poles aren’t though.
Thanks NDT, I was giving in to my dark side. I did not go to the fireworks last night, because I felt it was more a yearly entertainment than a sacred reminder. But this morning I awoke realizing that I had been moping around about the actions of some people and giving in to them.
I went up to Monticello in the morning, but I came home before the event was underway. I just let my misery index take hold. By the time I wrote the comment, I had already treated my “misery” with a stiff dose bottled spirits which resulted in my whining like a baby.
My apologies. Sometimes I am just ready to grab the liberals by the tail and look them straight in their one eyed vision portal and insert a lighted Roman candle suppository working end first.
The Battle Hymn;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwxfqRGHVew&feature=related
(may not be safe for work due to tears…and outraged liberal co-workers)
Check out “Juan and Evita Peron”
http://www.breitbart.com/image.php?id=app-4f7b2273-77e3-4d97-87a0-68ecbd5d2d36&show_article=1&article_id=D9GOIOPO0
Ah, The Battle Hymn of the Republic is the best patriotic song if done right, that is to hard charging music and strong singing. Love the Civil War imagery.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic is to the US what A Mighty Fortress is our God was to the Lutheran Church.
(I say was since the ELCA would likely have issue with:
“Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth is His name, From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.”
Given their stance on those who would kill us and our Jewish brothers.)