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Posted on 06/10/2002 9:20:29 AM PDT by NC Conservative
DENVER - Poudre High School's decision to play the World anthem for its graduation ceremony sparked an angry reaction from a parent who wanted to hear the national anthem and stirred a dust-up on talk radio this week.
Gail Wagner, whose daughter graduated May 24, wrote a letter to the school principal, the district superintendent and the Denver Rocky Mountain News calling the anthem "an insipid little song about a world of peace and love" and an insult to America.
She said it took the place of the national anthem.
It did not, said Poudre High Principal Sandra Lundt.
Lundt said she was surprised to find the decision scolded on Mike Rosen's KOA talk show and Peter Boyles' KHOW show Thursday morning. Lundt said the Fort Collins school has never played the national anthem at its graduation.
"This was never meant to take the place of the national anthem," Lundt said. "It's an anthem that really celebrates every nation."
Wagner's husband, Fred, and daughter, Erin, also opposed the playing of the world anthem. Erin said she was surprised "The Star Spangled Banner" wasn't played.
"It didn't make much sense," Erin said. "We live in America, so they should have played it. I guess I would say I was offended."
Lundt said the school's senior class council, a group of 15 to 20 students, participated in the decision to play the world anthem. The school's orchestra, band and choir teamed to perform the piece.
The senior class council "was very excited about the opportunity," Lundt said, noting that one of the people who helped promote broader performance of the anthem, Ed Goodman, is a 1973 graduate of Poudre High.
The world anthem was conceived in 1996 and completed by 2000. The idea behind the piece, according to the Web site www.worldanthem.org, is this: "We believe there is a wonderful way to bring a message of hope, healing, peace and unification to all people through the universal language of music ... to give the world a gift, to bring about a symbol for peace and a common spirit of trust toward the idea of one people, one world."
Its creation, even those involved acknowledge, borders on the bizarre. Music from the anthems of every country in the world were combined in a computer. Using musicology software, a blended creation emerged. The same technique was used to produce the lyrics, according to Goodman.
"This is not two bars of 'The Star Spangled Banner,' then a bar of 'O Canada,'" Goodman said.
"It's more like if you took all the melodies, harmonies, rhythms and tempos and somehow were able to average them. ... It's very, very sophisticated; it took years of work to accomplish."
This means, Goodman said, that the piece wasn't composed by any one person or any one nation. "The point of it was to have one song that all nations could share," he said.
The piece has a significant history in Colorado. It was heard for the first time at the Denver Millennium Celebration on Dec. 31, 2000, at the stroke of midnight in conjunction with fireworks, according to historians of the anthem. In November 2001, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra provided the first live performance of the piece.
Goodman said that even Air Force's Band of the Rockies is taken with the piece and arranging its own version. It's slated to be played at an upcoming global peace conference in Croatia and at a ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Peace Corps this summer.
The Wagners are not impressed.
"No matter how much the principal gushed over the privilege of being one of the first to hear this piece performed, we did not feel privileged or find it inspirational, heartwarming or moving," Gail Wagner wrote to the News.
May God help America.
I believe that might no longer be possible.
I am sure of one thing, I will NEVER stand while the World Anthem is being played.
I believe you are right. Anyway, the loss of national sovereignty is coming, and it will be with the permission of the majority of the people.
You've got that right. Its been reported that the 'conservative' Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, when testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee on WTO, back in I belive '94, told the other representatives America would be giving up some sovereignty--a large chunk.
He also said that technically we could get out of the WTO but that we wouldn't because we wouldn't want to be seen as the entity that brought world trade down.
And with that said, he got a lot of representatives to vote for WTO.
And, there was no outcry from the people. Rush was busy getting his followers to accept these things. The libs think that "citizenship of the world" is the way to go. So, no one said anything.
It took them four years to write something that looks like it was cribbed from a package of Dr. Bronner's soap?
Totally agree.
Cannibalism has a "significant history" in California, but you don't see any school principals there celebrating it, do you?
Not yet, anyway.
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