Posted on 09/14/2014 4:44:39 PM PDT by Kaslin
There is apparently no more important story or issue right now at the Politico than Ted Widmer's question about our national anthem: "Is It Time to Ditch the Star-Spangled Banner?" It is currently the lead item at the web site, complete with a huge picture of the American flag. The "beheading by ISIL of a British aid worker" and Wisconsin's court-granted ability to implement voter-ID in the fall elections are both apparently less important. - See more at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2014/09/13/politico-lead-story-it-time-ditch-star-spangled-banner#sthash.B4XsZOqY.dpuf
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
I just sang it, with tears in my eyes, two hours ago with about 1500 other Baltimoreans on Hampstead Hill (now Patterson Park), 200 years later and on the very site of the earthworks dug by Baltimore citizens to defend the city. The British did not expect the city to be heavily defended, after rolling through and burning Washington, and left.
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It must have been so exciting to be there! Links below to some of the events.
11:38 Minutes
Star Spangled Banner As You’ve Never Heard It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxGNQE5ZLA
Published on Jul 6, 2013
The story of how our national anthem came to be.
http://www.starspangled200.com/
https://twitter.com/StarSpangled200
Baltimore celebrates the bicentennial of the Star-Spangled Banner [Pictures]
Blue Angels soar over Baltimore [Pictures]
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/star-spangled-spectacular/bal-blue-angels-pictures-20140913,0,3838612.photogallery
Sousa wrote so many great ones it is hard to pick out a single one. A while back I listened to a bunch of them on Youtube and some of the less well known ones are also great.
This has been a topic of discussion my whole life. IMO, The Star Spangled Banner is uniquely inspiring among the national anthems I’ve heard, and you’d have to out of your mind to ditch it. I do find it a little disturbing that the “drinking song” angle is put forward here, as though it were something we hadn’t heard about. More disturbing is the guilt inducing nugget that is buried there in the fourth stanza, and if this is a serious push, I would expect this to come out front and center at any minute.
ITS TIME TO DITCH Obama AND THE Democrat rats IN Washington
In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!!!!
Purge the toilet called Washington DC...flush with bleach
VOTE!!!!!!!
OY.
Well, we can scrap that, anyway.
Sousa wrote the Kansas Wildcats March for Kansas State University and its athletic teams. It's played at every Kansas State University home football game where I'm a season ticket holder. It's not very good, IMO.
I have a CD of Sousa marches. They are all good pieces.
“I agree. I can’t stand to listen to most contemporary singers, ever since Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston & Co started all that superfluous scale-running and scooping in everything they sang. Now everyone does it,”
Neil Boortz calls it “urban yodeling”
The Star Spangled Banner absolutely, positively should remain our national anthem because of tradition and the surge of emotion it sends through every patriotic American when it’s played or sung as written. No other song has quite that effect. Also, singers of the anthem would be well advised not to try to improve it by their improvisations.
I saw that in-person at a San Diego Padres game. Barr screeched the whole anthem, culminating with a crotch grab at the end. She left the field to a chorus of loud boos. I suppose it was to be taken as funny,
Good version by Anna Case, sung as written. I noticed the date was 1917, I believe well before the song was officially our anthem.
Time to ditch Politico.
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