Posted on 10/04/2006 5:33:24 PM PDT by MotleyGirl70
The stain on Old Glory
To take God's greatest gift
Of a new human being
And treat them worse than garbage
It's an evil thing
They're made to be loved
For us to have and hold
More precious than diamonds
Or the finest gold
This blight upon humanity
With its frightening toll
Is our national shame
It is staining our souls
EV
All Four Stanzas
By Isaac Asimov
Introductory Note. Unless you're already well acquainted with our "national anthem," this interesting piece by the late Isaac Asimov will be an eye-opener. It was for me. It's especially appropriate at a time when there is much talk of tossing out this difficult-to-sing and difficult-to-comprehend old song in favor of something that better suits Ray Charles' voice. You'll understand the song much better after you read Mr. Asimov's explanation.--Hardly Waite, Gazette Senior Editor.
I have a weakness--I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem.
The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.
I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem--all four stanzas.
This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.
"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff."
I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.
Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before--or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.
More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.
So now let me tell you how it came to be written.
In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.
At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.
Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack. The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England. The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west. The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.
The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D. C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.
On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release. The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.
As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.
As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, tyring to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"
After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defence of Fort M'Henry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called "To Anacreon in Heaven" --a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.
Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key
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, through 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 thro' 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?
"Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer
On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist 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 on 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!
"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure.
In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise.
During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is
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 footstep's 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.
The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n - rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto--"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears.
And don't let them ever take it away.
--Isaac Asimov, March 1991
Great idea. I'll do the same and encourage friends to do likewise. Thanks.
Country Springs Hotel
2810 Golf Road
Pewaukee, WI USA 53072
,,, good one.
You're so right. There's all kinds of different value systems. Not good or bad. Just different.
We got our son from Russia, too! God bless you! When people ask how much it cost, we always say, "Less than our vinyl siding."
These 5000 women had abortions, which means at least 5000 deaths. That's more than 9/11. OBL would be proud of that record I imagine.
The degree of moral responsibility can vary, of course, depending on how much knowledge the woman had of what she was doing, and how much freedom from coercion (e.g. parents insisting on abortion "or else").
I'd caution against using the term "brainwashed" so loosely.
Brainwashing is a method that uses coercive and traumatic techniques such as drugs, sleep deprivation, exposure to heat and cold, hunger, and other physical duress to convince a person to abandon some of their basic beliefs and adopt the beliefs of the indoctrinator.
The term xi nao(Chinese, literally "to wash the brain") was first applied to methodologies of coercive persuasion which the Maoists used in the "reconstruction" of the so-called feudal thought patterns of Chinese citizens raised under prerevolutionary regimes.
Practically nobody in the USA is ever brainwashed. Most of us act with a significant degree of freedom to do what we know is wrong.
I was. It happens.
The Nurturing Network, founded by Mary Cunningham Agee eighteen years ago, is an international charitable organization with over 30,000 volunteer member resources that provide for the practical needs of women facing crisis pregnancy. They specialize in helping high school, college, and University women attain their educational goals and find good jobs.
I feel sorry for this girl if nobody told her about the resources that are out there. I also question why she didn't go looking for resources (there are THOUSANDS of Pregnancy-Aid centers, I daresay there's at least one in every phonebook in the United States and Canada) --- rather than take the irrevocable, destructive step of killing her own unborn child.
So much "this is my story" stuff is just rationalization. Women with children finish high school and college. My God, it happens all the time.
Ms Magazine wants us to think that a woman can handle the Presidency, but can't be expected to handle a pregnancy.
As a counter to this madness may I suggest going to HopeAfterAbortion.com for a different perspective.
I have trouble believing that. Any doctor who advised a patient to do that, or who performed an abortion knowing the patient was doing it based on the belief that her positive triple screen meant she was carrying a Down Syndrome fetus, would be asking for a colossal and losing malpractice suit, followed by career-ending uninsurability, if the patient actually acted on that advice. Just because a doctor tells a patient after a positive triple screen that abortion is an option, does not mean the doctor is suggesting that no further testing needs to be done to make that decision.
The triple screen is like a mammogram, a first-pass screening method. If the mammogram finds a small lump, it makes sense to remind the woman that IF the lump turns out to be cancerous, mastectomy and chemotherapy are options that will likely take care of the problem -- not pleasant options, but options. But no doctor would recommend that the patient go ahead and have a mastectomy, without first doing a biopsy to find out whether the lump actually is cancerous.
I see this type of tactic blowing up in the feminists faces.
I repeat, it happened to me. It was in May, 1989. (By the way, my almost-17-year-old son is just fine, thank you.) If you think there aren't doctors out there that offer abortion on the basis of little or no indication, you're quite mistaken.
Several prominent Pub Presidents started out with cut and dry liberal parents.
Our local Save a Life leader aborted and now tell her story to local churches in how sad it made her. Her testimony is heartbreaking. Conservatives have aborted...
Third and most importantly, we conservatives hold life about party affiliation.
I figure you were just kidding with your post... but this is no laughing matter.
OK, here's the counter-petition: Modern Commentaries blog is collecting signatures of women who had abortions, and regret it.
The heading of the petition will read:
We, the undersigned, believe that life begins at conception, and that the dignity and life of every human being must be respected from conception to natural death. We believe abortion is a grave immoral act and constitutes murder of a human being, and that women and unborn children deserve better. Therefore, we urge our government and representatives to hear our voices as we oppose America's current abortion laws.
BTTT... great news...
This needs a thread of it's own... IMHO...
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