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Showing posts with label Independence Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Independence Day. Show all posts

Thursday, July 4, 2019

Poignant Quote of the Day


And check out from where the speaker was.

Image result for stupid trump

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; 
if wrong, to be set right."

--Carl Schurz, 1872, German revolutionary, American statesman, one-time Senator of Missouri (who knew?), 13th Secretary of the Interior.

Let's do this, folks.

Happy Fourth.


Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Quote of the Day -- Independence Day Edition



"Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance." 

--President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt 

With thanks to the Sierra Club for the reminder.

Happy Fourth, everyone.


Happy 4th of July! Independence Day!



On this day, July 4...

--1804, Author Nathaniel Hawthorne, born;
---1826, in one of history's notable coincidences, former U.S. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted;

---1863, Union troops defeated Confederate forces in a battle at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Independence Day was not celebrated in that city for many, many years after;

--1872, - Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States, born;
---1895, the poem America the Beautiful, by Wellesley College Professor Katherine Lee Bates, was published. The poem with music by Samuel A. Ward was published as a song in 1910;

---1939, Lou Gehrig gave his "...luckiest man on the face of the Earth..." speech in announcing his retirement from the New York Yankees;

---1986, more than 250 sailing ships and the United States' biggest fireworks display honored the Statue of Liberty in its 100th birthday year;

---1997, NASA's Pathfinder reached Mars to become the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the planet in more than two decades;

--1998, Malia Obama, daughter of former President Barack Obama, born.

Happy Fourth, everyone! Stay safe! Enjoy!

Source/link:

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

To That America, We Wish Happy Birthday


 

To the country that values citizenry over consumerism, 
that values liberty over enslavement,
that values equal opportunities for all, 
that values the health of one equal to the health of another, 
that learned that separate is not equal,
that put a man on the moon, 
that separated church from state in order that church could be that much more available, 
that helped free the world from Nazi tyranny and 
proudly had women build the machines that did it, 
that invented the blues, 
that overcame pitting brother against brother in order to break the evil of slavery, 
that exported rock and roll, 
that put storytelling on the big screen, 
that gave us Fred Astaire, 
that gave Einstein a home, 
that has a statue in the harbor welcoming the downtrodden, 
that figured out burgers and shakes go so well together, 
that wrote the social contract that has yet to be beaten that begins "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal..." 

....to THAT America, we wish a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!



Sunday, July 2, 2017

On This Day, July 2, 1917---Missouri and National History


Just some of the state and national history our society seems to go out of the way to NOT teach us.


1917 East St. Louis race riot, destruction

This photo ran in the St. Louis Star on July 3, 1917 with the caption: “Where the charred bodies of eight negroes burned in their homes at Eighth Street and Broadway were found today.” The bodies of some Black victims were buried in a common grave, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Others were thrown into Cahokia Creek which ran between downtown and the riverfront railyards. (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Bowen Archives).

Blacks in East St. Louis were beginning to come in from the Southern United States and were taking jobs, yes, at lower wages, from Union members. The white Union members would have nothing of it.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch did a fantastic series of articles on this important time and group of events.




Archive article: 'Several hundred Negroes brought across river'
Keep in mind, too, this East St. Louis event, this massacre, this slaughter, was far from the only one in our nation's history. Here are two more, anyway.



Keeping in mind, too, that the national disgrace that was the "Trail of Tears", where we displaced thousands of Native Americans, from East to Oklahoma, also went through Southern Missouri. In fact, it went right through what is now downtown Springfield. 


I know that, as I went through grade school and high school, at no point during those years was it taught this history, that this abomination went through the Southern part of our state, Missouri.

So yes, let's know our national history.

All of it.

Maybe especially now, this time of year, around our Independence Day when we only remember how good and great we are.


Saturday, July 2, 2016

Happy Independence Day Weekend


This farming family, the Butlers, it seems, have found that singing in their empty silo gives them fantastic acoustics and effects. I and a lot of people agree.



Happy Independence Day. Enjoy your holiday weekend.

Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy 4th of July







Happy Independence Day!


Fight to end campaign contributions.

Quote of the day -- on Patriots and Patriotism





True patriotism isn’t simply about securing our borders from outsiders. 

It's about coming together for the common good. 

True patriotism requires taking on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America going, not finding tax loopholes and squirreling money abroad. It’s about preserving and protecting our democracy, not inundating it with big money or paralyzing it with partisanship. 

True patriots don’t hate the government of the United States. They’re proud of it. 

Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the government, not destroy it. And they don't pander to divisiveness; they don't fuel racist or religious or ethnic divides; they aren't homophobic or sexist. To the contrary: True patriots seek to confirm and strengthen the “we” in “we the people of the United States.”  


Robert Reich




Happy birthday, America


What should be the national anthem and one of its best versions.  

Sing it, brother Ray:






Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Your Congress just stashed yet more money in their pockets yesterday


We just got yet more money dumped into our election system and so, our government, by the wealthy and corporations thanks to the House of Representatives on Monday:


GOP-led House quietly eliminates annual disclosure requirement for lobbyist-sponsored travel


A bit from the article:
On Monday, National Journal reported that the GOP-led House quietly stripped away a key disclosure mechanism for lobbyist-sponsored travel:

It's going to be a little more difficult to ferret out which members of Congress are lavished with all-expenses-paid trips around the world after the House has quietly stripped away the requirement that such privately sponsored travel be included on lawmakers' annual financial-disclosure forms.

The move, made behind closed doors and without a public announcement by the House Ethics Committee, reverses more than three decades of precedent.


What makes this even worse is that, besides seeing to it that representatives just voted themselves yet more "money on the side", they also did this RIGHT BEFORE THEIR INDEPENDENCE DAY VACATION.

It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

Shame on them all, the cowards.

PETITION: TAKE BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS