RIP: Whitney Houston (1963 - 2012)

Whitney Houston (1963-2012) - Super Bowl XXV (1991) - The National Anthem of the United States

In Tampa. We were living right around the corner from the game basically. Giants versus Bills. Performed with the wonderful Florida Orchestra -- who we had the privilege to watch and listen to so many times, courtesy of my employer at the time, Raymond James (in a stadium that would later bear their name). With the shadow of the first Gulf War hanging over the nation, Whitney Houston takes the stage and just belts one right out the park. Nails the National Anthem like nobody I had ever heard before.

One of the most stirring and memorable renditions of all time. JUST BEAUTIFUL. I can hear it a thousand times and still get goose bumps.

RIP and God Bless Whitney Houston and her family and friends. Such a tragic, senseless loss.

Super Bowl XXV (Pregame) part 3



Another wonderful song, beautifully done.

Whitney Houston- "Battle Hymn Of The Republic"

The Past, Present and future in Politics

The election results are in. There are still votes to be counted and races to be decided, but maybe now is a time to step back, take a deep breath, distance ourselves from the white-hot rhetoric of campaigning and take a look at what has been presented to us. We are at a very important crossroads here in the good old USA.

Take a look at the passion of a Tea Partier, the cool logic and wisdom of a Thomas Sowell, a sobering video from Citizens Against Government Waste and an inspirational acceptance speech by a person who is helping to change the face of the Republican Party, Marco Rubio.

And my other personal favorite Lt. Col. Allen West did win in Florida. He understands the Constitution when it says that the government should "promote the general welfare" not "provide welfare". Therein lies one of the fundamental differences we face today. Listen to this man and tell me you would not line-up beside him or follow him into battle.

GOD BLESS THIS MAN AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

Since it appears to be such a major issue, check the tape of West's acceptance speech as the camera pans the crowd around the 7:45 mark. Check out the racial composition of the crowd and then look again at Allen West. West is a product of the Tea Party. Then tell me if the truth fed to you by some of these knuckleheads in the media isn't just some sort of artifice to divide people rather than bring them together. Oh, and please, just one of you haters from the left please refer to Lt. Col. Allen West as an Uncle Tom or an Oreo. And please do it to his face. And please, Oh God, please let me be there to see it.

Anyway, roll the tapes. Somewhere down the line of this post, I do believe you will be looking at the next President of the United States. God willing, sooner rather than later.

It may have helped to have some of this information before voting but I was a little bit distracted by the Giants recently.

WOW!! THESE PEOPLE SEEM MORE CONCERNED AND PASSIONATE ABOUT THEIR COUNTRY THAN A DANGER TO IT.



http://thedebtweowe.com/a-stunning-rendition-of-the-fourth-verse-of-the-star-spangled-banner

Political correctness dominates America today and we have lost many of the principles that this nation was founded on. If the pilgrims were still alive today, they would be trying to run away from America.

One year, in school we recited this version. For what reason, I don't recall. So I do know the words to this verse by heart. You probably could not recite this version...in a public school today. And there is something fundamentally wrong with that.

And please don't start any of that "I don't see any people of color in that video" nonsense. To that I can only ask one question.

"WELL, WHY NOT?"

A similar variation of the same question crossed my mind around the 7:50 mark of the Allen West acceptance speech video. Some things need to change. Very soon.

I'll let Thomas Sowell explain one of the other "big issues" that some of the "enlightened" ones pretend they understand better than the rest of us.

They spent a good part of the last week or so trying to catch Christine O' Donnell in a Palin-like "gotcha" moment that backfired. It simply displayed either their ignorance of the Constitution or their utter contempt for same, take your pick.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/251250/forgetting-constitution-thomas-sowell

Forgetting the Constitution

The assurance that “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution shows our elites’ ignorance.

Politics is not the only place where some pretty brassy statements have been made and repeated so often that some people have accepted these brassy statements as being as good as gold.

One of the brassiest of the brass oldies is the notion that the Constitution creates a “wall of separation” between church and state. This false notion has been so widely accepted that people who tell the truth get laughed at and mocked.

A recent New York Times piece said that it was “a flub of the first order” when Christine O’Donnell, Republican candidate for senator in Delaware, asked a law school audience, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” According to the New York Times, “The question draw gasps and laughter” from this audience of professors and law students who are elites-in-waiting.

The New York Times writer joined in the mocking response to Ms. O’Donnell’s question, though admitting in passing that “in the strictest sense” the “actual words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the text of the Constitution.” Either the separation of church and state is there or it is not there. It is not a question of some “strictest” technicality.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution about a “wall of separation” between church and state, either directly or indirectly.

For more than a century, no one thought that the First Amendment meant that religious symbols were forbidden on government property. Prayers were offered in Congress and in the Supreme Court. Chaplains served in the military and presidents took their oath of office on the Bible.

But, in our own times, judges have latched onto Jefferson’s phrase and run with it. It has been repeated so often in their decisions that it has become one of the brassiest of the brass oldies that get confused with golden oldies.

As fundamentally important as the First Amendment is, what is even more important is the question whether judges are to take it upon themselves to “interpret” the law to mean whatever they want it to mean, rather than what it plainly says.

This is part of a larger question, as to whether this country is to be a self-governing nation, controlled by “we the people,” as the Constitution put it, or whether arrogant elites shall take it upon themselves to find ways to impose what they want on the rest of us, by circumventing the Constitution.

Judges circumvent the Constitution by reading their own meaning into its words, regardless of how plain and unequivocal its words are.

The Constitution cannot protect us and our freedoms as a self-governing people unless we protect the Constitution. That means zero tolerance at election time for people who circumvent the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Freedom is too precious to give it up in exchange for brassy words from arrogant elites.

NOW THAT'S DANGEROUS. WE HAVE FOLKS IN THE HIGHEST POSITIONS OF POWER IN THIS COUNTRY WHO ARE EITHER IGNORANT OR DERISIVE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

This is the looming danger we face as a nation and all these folks that seek to pit one group against another are diverting our attention from a problem that will fundamentally change our country and make our way of life and our standard of living unrecognizable and unreachable for future generations.

from Citizens Against Government Waste:



The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. - Proverbs 22:7

And now, since it is becoming increasingly apparent that the whole "Hope & Change 1.0" thing was nothing more than a pile of rhetoric, I give you some real hope for some real change looming on the horizon.

MARCO RUBIO ACCEPTANCE SPEECH:




LT. COL. ALLEN WEST, "THE REVOLUTION" SPEECH:



LT. COL. ALLEN WEST ACCEPTANCE SPEECH:

Happy Fourth of July...God Bless America......

A list of my favorite renditions of songs appropriate for this day. Why on earth a song like God Bless America needed an answer from anybody is beyond me. It embodies THE ANSWER.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Kate Smith: God Bless America 1974 Flyers' Stanley Cup




From Wikipedia:

"God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised by him in 1938, as sung by Kate Smith (becoming her signature song).

"God Bless America" takes the form of a prayer (intro lyrics "as we raise our voices, in a solemn prayer") for God's blessing and peace for the nation ("...stand beside her and guide her through the night...").

Woody Guthrie disliked the song, and wrote "This Land Is Your Land", originally titled "God Blessed America For Me", as a response to "God Bless America".[4].

God Bless America
by Irving Berlin 1918, revised 1938

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

---------
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by Ray Charles



From Wikipedia:

"America the Beautiful" is an American patriotic song. The lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and the music composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward. Bates originally wrote the words as a poem, Pikes Peak, first published in the July 4th edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist in 1895. The poem was titled America for publication. Ward had originally written the music, Materna, for the 1600s hymn O Mother dear, Jerusalem in 1882. Ward's music combined with the Bates poem was first published in 1910 and titled America the Beautiful. The song is one of the most beloved and popular of the many American patriotic songs.[1] From time to time it has been proposed as a replacement for The Star-Spangled Banner as the National Anthem.

America the Beautiful
Words by Katharine Lee Bates,
Melody by Samuel Ward

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

-------

My Country "Tis of Thee


Aretha Franklin MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THEE Inauguration Day 2009



From Wikipedia:

"My Country, 'Tis of Thee", also known as "America", is an American patriotic song, whose lyrics were written by Samuel Francis Smith.

Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" in 1831,

1
My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!
2
My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.
3
Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.
4
Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.

--------
STAR SPANGLED BANNER

STAR SPANGLED BANNER, WHITNEY HOUSTON, SUPER BOWL XXV - TAMPA, FL




from Wikipedia

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from "Defence of Fort McHenry",[1] a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the Battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812.

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave![12]

---------

From Mike Gular, The Burning Platform - 4th of July Wisdom

http://theburningplatform.com/blog/2010/07/04/4th-of-july-wisdom/

On being a Christian nation:

“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
George Washington

“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
George Washington

“One of the great strengths of the United States is… we have a very large Christian population – we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
Barack Obama

“You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.”
Barack Obama