BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!

Subject: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 10:33 AM

You really stand for a lot, and a lot more than trolls and critics would want you to. Ignore them and live up to your ideals!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 10:37 AM

Thanks. We needed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:04 AM

The "more perfect union" never comes easy, as any couple married for decades knows full well. But it is definitely the bright goal that is worth pursuing. As my sainted father said in 1996, "After two hundred years, it's too soon to quit!".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:34 AM

"God (and Man!) mend thine every flaw..."

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:48 AM

My best wishes to all 'Catters over the other side!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 01:54 PM

Music content:

"... she never hollers cuckoo 'til the 4th day of July."
(singing starts at about 3:30)
(on the video, not on the day!)

Or if you prefer more playing and singing and less talking...

or Doc! (and Merle) (talking to Bert!)

Rap, for me the fun part of the NPR DoI reading was connecting all the voices with faces: clicky.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Kendall
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 01:59 PM

I wish all speakers would learn that the word formidable should be spoken with the emphasis on the first, not the second syllable.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 02:04 PM

For-meee-DAB-luh, Skipper!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 02:51 PM

four-mid-ab-LEE.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 03:31 PM

Gracias. This is timely and pertinent:
***

Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land
Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain

Chorus:
Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all (on us all)

From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too
Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new
Texas and Ohio and the California shore
Tell me, who could ask for more?

CH

Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand

CH

But our land is still troubled by men who have to hate
They twist away our freedom & they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry
We can stop them if we try

CH

---
Phil Ochs, 1963

--------------------

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 03:33 PM

How about in Hispanic soccer announcer style?

FOOOOOORRRRR!!!.....midable

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 03:35 PM

Yes, Happy Independence Day!!

and today , as what our Forefathers, even our parents left us....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 08:57 PM

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:23 PM

America the ugly, America the stupid, America the bully.

The only that was ever good about this country was its roots music and that's it.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:52 PM

Josepp: "America the ugly, America the stupid, America the bully.
The only that was ever good about this country was its roots music and that's it."

Well...and the freedom we have to share it....and criticize it...and of course, Mudcat!!


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:02 AM

Penicillin
Light bulbs
Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, John Houston
the Moon landings
Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Duke
John Irving, Mark Twain
Maine lobstermen, Cowboys, Oregon lumbermen
TexMex, Memphis dry rub, Gumbo
The Interstate highway system
DC3, 707, 747, 787. the space shuttle
Model Ts, mini vans
Microchips, Smart Phones, PC's, Typewriters

Yep, nothing to be grateful for here.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:20 AM

..and the list goes on!!! Actually, this was a Great Country to have been born in!!!......by a long shot!!...Too bad some clowns either want to change it, or own it!

GfS

P.S. Good call Jack!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Bert
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:31 AM

I'm Your Flag Here's a song for all y'all.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:56 AM

Oh, yeah, the interstate highway system. Yeah, I forgot what a fantastic cultural contribution that was to the world. We didn't need all that woodland, fields and meadows anyway. Better to pave them over and pollute the air.

That ranks up there with our other great contribution to culture: gas-fracking. Who needs clean water when you can have natural gas right in your own backyard?

And freedoms--yes--can't forget what a bastion of freedom America was for black people and the Indians whose land we liberated from them. I mean, if those stupid, backward savages aren't going to gas-frack then it was up to us to show them how to get the job done--stupid bastards--they didn't deserve this land. We believe so much in freedom we locked up Japanese-Americans for the crime of being Japanese-Americans. Once the largest group of Asian-Americans in this country, they are now one of the smaller with their numbers deceasing every year since the internment. We believe so much in freedom that we invaded Iraq to free them from the tyranny of their oil reserves. We love freedom so much we abducted people without trial and sent them off to secret locations to be tortured and then ruled that our torture wasn't really torture so they have no right to sue us.

But what is that to landing on the moon? I have yet to see any benefit that came out of that (if we ever really did it which I doubt) but it proves America is great because...well I don't know why, it just does.

And let's not forget that great symbol of American freedom--the atom bomb! What a great day that was when we dropped two of them on a country that had already surrendered--whoops, I'm not supposed to say that--er, I mean, on a country of stupid slant-eyes who wouldn't surrender. And the rest of the world was so struck by our great humanity than none have ever dared to drop another on anybody no matter how evil we have pronounced them to be.

But I did serve this country for 6 years so I guess that gives me a right to be here. Maddening, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 02:59 AM

Hey, if you like somewhere else...go there. No problem!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 03:01 AM

"But I did serve this country for 6 years so I guess that gives me a right to be here." Guest/joesepp

Two questions:

But I did serve this country for 6 years- #1 Why?

"I guess that gives me a right to be here" #2- Why would you want to?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 10:27 AM

////But I did serve this country for 6 years- #1 Why?////

I needed a job.

////"I guess that gives me a right to be here" #2- Why would you want to?////

I was born here. I assure you it was not by choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: gnu
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 11:43 AM

Hope our friends down south had a great day.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 11:53 AM

josepp: "I was born here. I assure you it was not by choice."

Well, then, you have a choice now..to go anywhere you want. Don't hold back!!
Besides, Mudcat is still accessible no matter where you go....except maybe China, Cuba, Russia and possibly any other number of your personnel vacation resorts!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:21 PM

I'll move to one of those places when you move into Guantanamo Bay and tell the prisoners there how lucky they are to in the custody of us freedom-loving Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:50 PM

Penicillin? Discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in St Mary's Hospital, London. So what that doing in Jack's list? Not that josepp is not being a booby, just for a change. But US has enough claims to its own fame without grudging just a bit of external credit where it's due.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 12:59 PM

America does some things really badly, like foreign policy, religion and healthcare. Still there's some stuff I wouldn't be without, like HBO, Super Hero comics and science fiction TV and film! I love the brilliant creativity and lack of cultural snobbery belonging to the American imagination. Where would we be without Philip K Dick for starters?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 03:02 PM

Happy B-day, USA--Great Days Ahead!!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 03:29 PM

"Penicillin? Discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in St Mary's Hospital, London."

Made commercially viable and shippable and capable of long term storage by labs in the US and shipped to the UK in bulk during WWII. Or at least that is what I was taught in Canada.

It is the sort of thing the US has historically been best at.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 03:53 PM

Josepp: "I'll move to one of those places when you move into Guantanamo Bay....(radda-cradda-blozzo-goof-goof)...

Hey, I'm not the one bitching....don't you read your own posts??

Yeah, there's things I don't like about what is going on here...just ask any Native American Tribe member!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 04:03 PM

What Americans do best is discard everything that makes their country and culture great and hang on fiercely with what is utterly loathsome and worthless.

American roots music is the greatest music ever, in my opinion. Evidently, other countries agree because there are few places that haven't incorporated blues, jazz, bluegrass, ragtime, swing, gospel, rockabilly, etc. And while these other countries show a great reverence for this music, Americans forget about it. A while I posted a thread about whether Brits remembered George Formby and the answer was basically, "Of course not." If Formby had been American, WE would have forgotten him and, because he wasn't American, most of us have never heard of him.

Americans basically booted Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bill Haley out of the country. And where did they go? Britain. There is still an Eddie Cochran Society over there last I heard. There has never been one in America and, indeed, most Americans couldn't tell you who he was or name anything he had written or recorded. Yet, we Yanks loved the English bands doing "Summertime Blues" and Come On Everybody" and "Cut Across Shorty".

Blues profoundly changed Britain--profoundly. A couple of years ago, I was playing Muddy Waters in my office and a guy poked his head in and said, "You know, that sounds a lot like Led Zeppelin!" Ya think?

We're great at spawning new, wonderful forms of music and then forgetting about it while the rest of the world raves over it. We're incredibly creative and incredibly clueless simultaneously.

But we hang on like pitbulls to a genre that regards a line like:

"Hit da clubs wi' mah homies lookin' fo' sum ask-shun!
Dancin' on da flo' 'til I look like Michael Jack-son!"

They call this "street poetry." I call it shit but then what else would a grumppy old man do?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 04:06 PM

////Hey, I'm not the one bitching....////

Well, when you don't care how America treats the rest of the world and its own citizens, what is there to bitch about?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 06:28 PM

As far as I know penicillan was invented accidentally by a Scot and then further developed at Oxford for mass production capablity. Financed during WWII by both he British and US govts. Doesn't mean the Americans actually invented it or gave it to the world though. I agree with the other poster. Surely the American shave given so much to the world that they don't need to resort to dodgy claims like that one?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 07:08 PM

This is the story I had heard. Not the full discovery. Credit is deserved for making enough for the Allied forces in time for D-day and the rest of the war. What America has been best at. But not for the whole discovery and use which was indeed a world wide effort.




"The challenge of mass-producing this drug was daunting. On March 14, 1942, the first patient was treated for streptococcal septicemia with US-made penicillin produced by Merck & Co.[28] Half of the total supply produced at the time was used on that one patient. By June 1942, just enough US penicillin was available to treat ten patients.[29] In July 1943, the War Production Board drew up a plan for the mass distribution of penicillin stocks to Allied troops fighting in Europe.[30] A mouldy cantaloupe in a Peoria, Illinois, market in 1943 was found to contain the best and highest-quality penicillin after a worldwide search.[31] The discovery of the cantaloupe, and the results of fermentation research on corn steep liquor at the Northern Regional Research Laboratory at Peoria, Illinois, allowed the United States to produce 2.3 million doses in time for the invasion of Normandy in the spring of 1944. Large-scale production resulted from the development of deep-tank fermentation by chemical engineer Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau.[32] As a direct result of the war and the War Production Board, by June 1945, over 646 billion units per year were being produced.[30]"

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 07:29 PM

Whatever you think of the US, I want you to know that I had a wonderful Independence Day and hope you enjoyed yesterday, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 09:50 PM

Josepp, I agree with you on the music though I might be inclined to choose different artists, but that's a matter of taste..but at the same time there was some really great things to come from the good ol' USA..and yes music!!.....BTW, does that have to include disco and rap???

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 02:03 AM

Always an ambivalence about the US. Indeed, they were instrumental in developing pennicillin, e.g.; but why go from there, Jack, to include it in a list that definitely implies it was one of their discoveries?: a typical American view on the world {& only too typically true of a British failing, moreover: we are adept these days at failing to advantage our pioneering attributes, unlike 200 years ago!}.

BUT, as my late wife Valerie frequently observed, the greatest country in the world, with the most portentous & pompous Constitution predicated on the rights of man an all being created equal, was actually established on a firm base of genocide & slavery.

The last time I wrote that, a while back, Ebbie denounced it as "piffle". But it is, unhappily, not piffle, but an incontrovertible fact which a million repetitions of "piffle' can do nothing to alter.

Love the US just the same, and have always been happy there & hospitably received and treated on my many visits: but it is not a blind love I have for you all.

Know yourselves.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 02:07 AM

"The challenge of mass-producing this drug was daunting." Still doesn't change the fact that it wasn't an American invention. As I said surely there are many things actually invented by Americans so there's no need to resort to dodgy examples

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 04:24 AM

MtheGM: ".....but it is not a blind love I have for you all.
Know yourselves."

Mutual.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 05:06 AM

Thanks, GfS.

At least, I think so!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 01:27 PM

...actually established on a firm base of genocide & slavery.

Let's do a little history, shall we? Hmmm...opium for tea, the Battle of Omdurman, Jallianwala Bagh, Peterloo, Boer internments, Amherst and Bouquet and smallpox blankets, the Acadian deportations, Cecil Rhodes, Charles Cornwallis, Oliver Cromwell, the Highland Clearances, absentee landlords, the Slave Trade Act of 1807 (which abolished the British trade in slaves but not slavery itself -- that wouldn't happen until 1833 or about 300 years after Britain started dealing in and using African slaves)...no, EVERY country in the world seems to have been established on bases of genocide and slavery. Every stinkin' one.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 02:03 PM

MtheGM: "At least, I think so!"

You're welcome....and I agree with you wholeheartedly!!

Love is what this is all about....I only rag on those who put political hogwash in front of their love. ...actually, I rag on the phony propaganda, and its origins, and those who promote it...you've been cool for a long time!!!!

Warmest Regards!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 03:37 PM

I didn't say any particular thing was invented in the USA.

Almost all of the list was not invented in the US. This country didn't invent highways or automobiles for instance. That was just a quick, off the top of my head, list of good things about the US. I think you have made the case that penicillin was discovered by Flemming. But is is a fact that it was first made into medicine by a huge concerted the US government (Yes Tea Partiers, the Government) You might also hve noted that the light bulb was not invented by Edison, simply brought to market by his perseverance and effort. If you choose to dispute any one or two items. I don't think it detracts from the list.

Are we done with this now?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 04:03 PM

I spent a very pleasant Fourth of July with friends and family.

Barbara's cousin, Linda, and her husband, Walt (a retired professor of political science), were visiting for a few days and staying with us. Bernice and her sister Mary, old friends for many years came over, and our upstairs neighbors, Rebecca (who illustrates children's books and works as a docent at the Seattle Art Museum) and Paul (actor, singer, small plane pilot, and hockey player) also joined us. Paul had just returned from the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. He's been doing a lot of Shakespeare lately.

We had dinner, then went in the living room and sat around burpin' and scratcin' until 10:00 p.m., when we went up on one of the balconies of the building and watched the very spectacular fireworks display over Lake Union. Most impressive! A very pleasant day, all in all.

Linda and Walt live in Amarillo, Texas, and they also have a house out near Palo Duro canyon, which is the second largest canyon in the United States (the Grand Canyon is the largest).

As I mentioned, Walt is a retired professor of Political Science, and we had some pretty good discussions while he was here. Among other things, he mentioned the way the word "entitlements" is being warped and distorted by Conseratives. An example of "framing the argument" as delineated by George Lakoff. Walt commented that an "entitlement" is something that a citizen is entitled to by law or established ethical principle.

Conservatives want to end what they call "entitlement programs," making "entitlement" sound like a dirty word. But entitlement by agreed upon ethical principle would include such things as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, or freedom from unlawful search and seizure, and other things guaranteed by the Constitution—the principles on which the country is founded. Or Social Security, for example, which one is entitled to because it was enacted into law, and working people are required to pay a portion of their wages or salary into the program. You pay for it, so you are entitled to it.

So when someone talks about wanting to end "entitlement programs," stand up and roar! Otherwise, you could wind up living in a cardboard box or staring out from behind barbed wire.

Living in Texas, I asked Walt what he thought about Rick Perry. A rather bitter laugh. Then he said, "The last governor Texas had was Ann Richards!"

Don Firth

P. S. Hey, josepp! Take a good, strong laxative. You'll feel better in the morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 04:30 PM

"Liberal" used to be a good thing. And "Moderate", "Democratic," etc etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 05:27 PM

Rap ~~ Yes, true enough, so they were ~ or if not quite so literally so, nobody is blameless, all with their shares of Highland Clearances & Jallianwalla & whatever. But they are not all so self-righteous & conceited and wilfully self-blinding about it. I always think it hilarious that the man who drafted your Constitution actually owned slaves himself, & couldn't see the contradictions in his "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, blah blah blah...life liberty & the pursuit of happiness". Oh, yay, I bet Jefferson's slaves were all happily at liberty!

Still love you all, dammit!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 05:36 PM

What a great idea government by the people was... pity we didn't specify WHICH people, kinda like I think was One Ringy Dingy who said she always wanted to grow up to be somebody, she just should have been more specific?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Independence Day, America!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 05:41 PM

On July 24, 1787 a committee of five (John Rutledge (SC), Edmund Randolph (VA), Nathaniel Gorham (MA), Oliver Ellsworth (CT), and James Wilson (PA)) was elected to draft a detailed constitution. The Convention adjourned from July 26 to August 6 to await the report of this "Committee of Detail". Overall, the report of the committee conformed to the resolutions adopted by the Convention, adding some elements. (Wikipedia)

Tom Jefferson was Minister to France from 1785 to 1789 -- he wasn't even in the country for the Constitutional Convention; he did write the Declaration of Independence and other important documents, however. Note too that three of the five member of the "Committee of Detail" were from northern states -- I won't say non-slavery states as slavery existed at that time even in the North.