Happy Independence Day

I shot this last Summer, last year, in St. Louis. It's the Old Courthouse.

Links:  Old Courthouse - Jefferson National Expansion Memorial 

Old Courthouse (St. Louis) - Wikipedia

Saint Louis Historical Old Courthouse

St. Louis African American History

Independence Day

Patriotic Millionaires! On The Daily Show Tonight!

Check out the Patriotic Millionaires tonight on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show at 10 pm:

Happy 4th of July

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:

Happy Flag Day

“What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor--inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing--permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.” 

―-Howard Zinn, American historian, author, playwright, and social activist. from his book

A People's History of the United States: 1492 – Present

American history?

Link:  History: Get Me Rewrite!

It's not just Apple--or GE--not paying taxes

This past week, Apple, Inc. took a beating in Washington and nationally for manipulating very legal tax laws to avoid paying any taxes.

We knew this of GE, General Electric, years ago and we've known other companies also do it but I think it's important to get out there more names of firms who do the same. Herewith, then, is a list of ten of the worst, biggest examples:

It gets worse, too, to an extent. There are companies who game our tax system so totally, WE'RE PAYING THEM TO BE IN BUSINESS, as a nation, you and me (click on picture for easier reading):

It's important to know.

I say again, companies should at least pay a minimum--say a 10% minimum, by law--for access to our markets and so we can keep up our infrastructure, whether they're from here in the US or elsewhere.

Link:  It's Not Just One Bad 'Apple'

Quote of the day, echo from the past

"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation with government have warned the public openly that there are some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage. We all know the part that the cartels played in bringing Hitler to power, and the rule the giant German trusts have played in Nazi conquests. Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."

--Henry Wallace, 1944 excerpted from The Danger of American Fascism, New York Times.

"Can't we all just get along?"

Can't we all just be Americans, stop the name-calling and ugliness and stupidity and address our problems, instead?

Together?

Happy Flag Day

Quote of the day

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair." --H. L. Mencken

The "birthers"

"These people could have personally witnessed Obama being born out of an apple pie, in the middle of a Kansas wheat field, while Toby Keith sang the National Anthem---and they'd still think he was a Kenyan Muslim."  --Jimmy Kimmel, "Jimmy Kimmel Live"

Surely no one doubts this.


Links:   http://politicalhumor.about.com/
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/barackobama/a/Obama-Birth-Certificate-Jokes.htm

Veteran's Day, Part II: "Bring Him Home"

And thank you again.