To call us all as one.
Posted on 06/08/2002 7:42:04 AM PDT by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
By TODD HARTMAN 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.
Debate over anthem surprises principal
Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
June 07, 2002
*PUKE*
Globalization anyone?????
Throughout the country, We sing our praise to GOD, Our bond of love FOR THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA, We Will serve her endlessly.
May we praise god loudly, To fire our hopes and joys, And let us now, Believe in CHRIST AND COUNTRY, Eternally for all.
All the winds, And all the storms, All the passions, WE WILL ENDURE AS WE HAVE IN THE PAST SO SHALL IT BE IN THE FUTURE
Let the earth's PLENTIFUL BOUNTY, Be called upon as we need them as times warrant the use for the good of america and man .
This song we sing, To lead us through the night, To see us through, The trying times, To a future bright.
Throughout the country, We sing our praise to GOD, Our bond of love FOR THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA, We Will serve her endlessly.
Pardon Me but i didnt like the words i think these are better
Isn't it clear to everyone that the NEA, essentially a propaganda organ of the UN and of "Gay Rights", is promoting treason, disloyalty, and disrespect of and for the sovereignty of these United States?? I believe this organization to be the most dangerous in our country today.
A UN "stamp of approval" will no doubt be needed for taking a crap in between classes if the current trend continues.
I agree witht that.
Freepers should declare TOTAL WAR against schools planning to play this insipid theme for Marxist domination.
Big time BUMP,
Yup. Agree.
That's a pretty interesting set of lyrics coming from the guy that eventually morphed himself into Mannheim Steamroller (the "group" that made all that synthesizer Christmas music that Rush Limbaugh plays every day from Thanksgiving to New Year's).
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stewart Mill--The "Peacenicks" drive me crazy!
Just take a stroll through the cemetary at Normandy, France and tell me what you think about those people that sing songs like "World Anthem". Oh, it makes me sick. Sick.
Even though school is out, you should still be able to contact her for a few weeks before she packs up for the summer.
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