As a translator in Japan, I am fascinated by the depiction of a Warrior Yoga place on the cover of Boom Town. The character in the window means “stutter” in Japanese (and most likely Chinese as well). Is there some backstory, or is the character just there as a decoration?
Really surprised at the dig about the USA being spared Charles & Camilla because of the War of Independence because I know GK respects HM Queen Elizabeth II.
More seriously you might as well argue that, without the War, slavery would have been abolished in 1806 or 1833 and not after a terrible civil war.
I allow myself one dig at monarchy per yearr and that was it for this year. The SSB, of course, was in reference to the War of 1812, when the Brits tried to win us back. As for slavery, the Brits remained colonizers and sometimes brutally so for many years to come.
I had Londoners visiting me over the holidays and they had a lot to say about the monarchy, not complimentary, and then I saw a picture of Charles with a chestful of medals and wondered, "What's that for?" and I decided I prefer to live in a democratic republic. And one could argue that the English didn't need African slaves, they had Scots and Irish and Welsh.
I fully realize that this will not be read by the actual GK but by outsourced staff; Regardless, I will start my comment with a quote by Emerson:
To clothe the fiery thought
In simple words succeeds,
For still the craft of genius is
To mask a king in weeds.
Nonsense is nonsense. Fools are fools. Wrong is still wrong. And unfortunately we are still here playing the witness card. I am not trying to mock anyone for I am already a card-carrying fool completely wrong, I only have questions at this point. What happened to those? When did everyone skip that part before we start masking our "Kings" in weeds?
I just wanted to say to GK that his work has made a tremendous impact on my existence. Years ago in San Diego, GK was my 5:45 morning friend. Thank you GK!
Another thought from Emerson, if you folks will allow me:
"And we are now men*, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeting before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors..."
Doesn't this refer to the common good? Like everyone? Not just two paper-thin arguments? Should common good be now referred to as "common good," as if it refers to only one specific side? I fully realize that this may not make complete sense.
*Men: This was written when men ruled the world, sort of. Original thought of source is arguable.
Thanks for the Emerson. I keep meaning to go back and read him, but there's so much of him to read. I especially like the little quatrain. Btw I don't outsource my reading. GK
I so much love reading the comments and even more the response from Garrison. Most of us as you all are well aware are older folks who have watched and listened to and certainly enjoyed "A Prairie Home Companion" from years ago. Some folks like you are very well educated and some like me, not so much. I realized while writing this I can't spell prairie correctly. I want to just use one i. So my education continues.
I do want to address one thing here. I am a white older male so it was hard for me for a long time to understand how having to obtain a picture ID could be a hindrance to voting. But it clearly can be if you are not a white male or female in some communities. Most of us have a car and a computer etc. But even in this day not everyone does. In times past and even now in some places it's a door that has to be opened and is not always a door that can be opened as easily by non white people as by us. Even where ID's were not required, evidence of voter fraud was not uncovered. Generally when recounts were done, the winner ended up with even more votes.
So it does feel like some are trying to fix a problem we really never had. The ballet "dumps" the last administration was most worried about were real votes from large metropolitan areas that didn't favor him so in his own weird way rather than accept reality he had to seed doubt, after all he couldn't loose, he was beyond that, everyone else was a looser in his eyes that didn't agree with him.
That all said, I am glad Garrison reminds us we can't always change things and nothing good comes from worrying about what we can't change. Fortunately, spell checker helps me a lot with one thing I worry about, how to correctly spell words like Prairie!
I am surprised that more is not said about the 5 states that vote by mail, mostly. They have put the absentee ballot argument behind them. Why can’t the rest of us?
After listening to the appended musical entertainment, I have to say that I much prefer Arlo Guthrie's version. Also, I would also recommend "Innocents Abroad". One of the most halarious tales I have ever read. If you can stand on-line reading, it should be available on the internet as it was published before 1935. It can be enlarged to any size you want.
In today's Post to the Host you wrote, "The problem, however, is not about language, it’s about a gentleman who came along and changed the political landscape and there are only two ways of looking at him and the country is divided." To which I must exclaim in a paraphrase of Scarlett O'Hara - "Sir, THAT is no gentleman!"
I always thought Mr. Guthrie was singing, "... on a long southward odyssey," which does make sense - but then again, I also thought the third line of the refrain went, "On a train that's called the City of New Orleans," so what do I know? I just sang it the way I'd heard it, but I'm just a nursery singer. I've always found "City of New Orleans" to be a great lullaby, it would calm my kiddies right down when they were little. It also works on sick dogs, except I would have to sing it over and over to keep our last little guy calm when he was in pain. At any rate, I still love it, no matter how the words go, I've managed to wrap up a lot of memories in that song...
Having recently retired, with my wife, to her hometown of Baltimore, I appreciate your spirited defense of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Old Glory still flies over Fort McHenry, a couple miles from our new home: and a stirring sight it is, even without the rockets’ red glare.
A single verse of a national anthem is about all the singing public can remember. “God Save the Queen” has five verses, “O Canada” has three and “La Marseillaise” has upwards of seven — but one verse, it seems, is a hard backstop for crowds of any nation. That’s a fortunate thing for us Americans, because the third verse of Francis Scott Key’s poem reveals a truly odious racism:
“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.”
Mr. Key was a pro-slavery man. Just a few years before he stood on the deck of that ship and scrawled his first draft, the British Parliament had voted to abolish the slave trade throughout its far-flung Empire. Southern slaveowners like Key were outraged that the British — seeking to recruit a fifth column — had offered freedom to American slaves bold enough to flee their plantations and join up with the redcoats. It was the same sly tactic Abraham Lincoln would later deploy, in signing the Emancipation Proclamation — which, notably, applied only to the Confederate states.
There’s a jaw-dropping contrast between gloating over the terrified death of runaway slaves and lauding “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” but that distinction was evidently lost on Mr. Key. So, it’s a good thing stadium crowds’ attention-spans are so limited. As soon as verse one is ended, it’s time for the kickoff.
The 1931 Congressional act establishing Key’s poem as the national anthem didn’t specify an official text: so it’s an open question whether the slave-catching stanza was ever part of the official song. For better or for worse, reflecting on the forgotten verse reminds us of our complicated, sometimes painful history with respect to racial discrimination: and how, once our better angels have triumphed, the flag is still there.
Thanks for the history lesson, Carl. I didn't know that about Mr. Key, but it's not surprising. I wonder what he meant by "hireling." A servant? A wage-earner? An odd archaic term.
I know… the moment is passed… but I have always considered you a fellow Midwesterner having grown up in the watershed of the Great Lakes… but I am corrected that you’re “just a bit outside” and your rain drains to the Mississippi River. I would think that if I told you I was going “out by the lake”, “out by the lake road”, “out along the lake road”, or “out along the lake road where you used to park with Sally and we found that dead moose when we were driving your dad’s Buick on our weekly odyssey to Altoona” that I’d be understood by a Minnesotan. I’m trying to say “out along” works just fine.
Yes, J. from Canada a train CAN pull out of a place along an odyssey, especially one that’s travelled daily for 150 years. We are very free with our prepositions here on the shores of Lake Michigan with our heavily German influenced subvarient of English.
As to the “old Black Men” it’s a comment on the horrible historic blindness of Americans of the people and things forgotten much the way we’ve forgotten the “City of New Orleans”.
“Don’t you remember me?” In the glory of railroading I was the premier North/South rail line paralleling the Mississippi River, defining the western border of the country and connecting the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Mark Twain wrote about the river that was freight elevator of the country while Steve writes about the glory that was passenger rail. White glove dinner service, wood paneled card rooms, sleeper cabins. Forget the “Mile High Club”. Have you ever made love on a train? The years have gone and now our “babies are asleep”.
Don’t forget how much has changed or not changed. Racism goes on.
Until the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles nothing of note was happening west of the Mississippi except the Slavery proponents were gathering States to gerrymander the vote in Congress after the only important US War. (Those others were European Wars.)
We have forgotten what our country looked like. History calls to us.
Do we even remember the train?
W. Warmuth
“We’ll let the Gophers win a football game every eight years…”
Aboard the Empire Builder train line in Milwaukee, WI, heading toward Seattle passing through Minnesota.
(Please edit my ramblings. I’ve already taken out half)
With regard to the current political polarity - I agree, it does seem like South American operatic drama! I don't know, though, about saying it's something we've never seen in the US. We judge things by what we've experienced in our own lifetimes, don't we?
Just as an example, In Auburn, NY, there's the William H. Seward House. The focus of their presentation is that Abraham Lincoln purposely chose a cabinet of his rivals. [see Prologue Magazine Home > Publications > Prologue Magazine > Prologue | Spring 2006 > An Extraordinary President and His Remarkable Cabinet - An interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin about Lincoln's Team of Rivals Spring 2006, Vol. 38, No. 1 By Ellen Fried]
Lincoln's was a remarkable political choice, at any time. But, considering the antipathy that the South had for Honest Abe at the time, it might have been the single best move he could have made to keep the ailing "Union" together!
I don't know, in truth, if it would help to have more pro-Trumpers involved in our current political scenery. From my limited observations, it seems as if it's a "Rural vs Urban" divide to a great degree. Of course, there are lots of factors: Differences in level of education completed, differences in available economic opportunity, and, definitely, differences in the prevailing local social environment come into play here.
I don't envy Joe Biden, or anyone else who has to stand in the crosshairs of so many people who seem "uninformed" or "ill-informed" these days. I don't have any grand "solutions" myself.
The most I can think of to do is to be considerate and kind to those who have been singled out as the objects of hate by that Former (and let's hope he stays that way!) chief of state! In my daily life, I try to remember "Blessed are the Poor" - and "Blessed are folks who for some reason or other don't seem 'Like Us...'"
In the long run, healing the wounds begins with each of us. The more we can be "Brotherly" (or Sisterly) with "the man (woman) on the street", the more we can model a future society that hopefully will be "One Nation, Indivisible, With Truth and Justice For All!"
Here in London, Ontario, I was introduced to you many years ago when friends in Texas sent a boxed set of cassettes which were and after being updated to CDs have been a source of delight. Your world view is remarkably similar to mine, wanting it to be a simpler, unrushed, gentler place. Two recent commentaries that share something in common did give me pause. Several weeks ago you remarked about American exceptionalism, a phrase that rankles pretty much everyone in the rest of the world. We are all citizens of the world living within boundaries many of which are purely arbitrary. Each nation develops in its own way and has its own exceptionalities and insularity. Citizens of the United States seem to project theirs as special, superior, and their blatant broadcast of this has given them, when in foreign lands, as “Ugly Americans”. Samuel Johnson’s definition of patriotism is true for all nations.
Please nderstand that this is not a Canadian diatribe: while historically we have taken a somewhat smug satisfaction in our difference from our southern neighbour recent shameful events show that we too are infected with divisive and infective stupidity,
Your defence of the Star Spangled Banner could use a bit of historical and sociological context. Britain was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of the Seven Years War, was embroiled rightly or wrongly in Asia, was politically divided both in the populace and ruling parties (sound familiar?) which in this period switched numerous times resulting in conflicting orders to the army in America and while technically there was peace with France tensions were high between them. Clearly the colonies were more ready for independence than the British were resolved to hold them. So the bellicose resistance to government is commemorated and established as tradition in the anthem.
More disturbing are the final lines - “the land of the free” which has not only the highest percentage of incarcerated persons but the highest number of imprisoned, even of nations with much greater populations. And then “the home of the brave”, where 46% of all civilian owned firearms are in the hands of Americans, 120.5 per 100 population about twice the rate for second place Falkland Islands. A nation is only as good as its citizens and it must be difficult to reconcile one’s pride in a country in which 42555 citizens died by gunfire in 2020.
Need I mention the most powerful armed forces in the world? “ Home of the scared and paranoid” doesn’t scan particularly well.
It’s true what you said about “America the Beautiful” praising things in common with other countries but that is unifying with the rest of the world and most important it contains that invocation, “God give us grace”.
May you long continue to bring joy, wisdom and laughter to all those who love what you have to offer.
Thank you for your ironic response to the man who wanted to pick apart Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans.” I fell in love with the original recording before I heard Arlo Guthrie’s version, which I find cluttered and unlistenable. It should be noted, however, that Goodman once introduced the song saying that Arlo “saved my ass” by recording it. My enduring image of Steve is on a stage on the banks of the Charles River, 1977, gleefully singing “Red, Red Robin.”
As a translator in Japan, I am fascinated by the depiction of a Warrior Yoga place on the cover of Boom Town. The character in the window means “stutter” in Japanese (and most likely Chinese as well). Is there some backstory, or is the character just there as a decoration?
Bill Lise @ long-time fan reconnecting.
The author was unaware. I will ask questions.
Really surprised at the dig about the USA being spared Charles & Camilla because of the War of Independence because I know GK respects HM Queen Elizabeth II.
More seriously you might as well argue that, without the War, slavery would have been abolished in 1806 or 1833 and not after a terrible civil war.
I allow myself one dig at monarchy per yearr and that was it for this year. The SSB, of course, was in reference to the War of 1812, when the Brits tried to win us back. As for slavery, the Brits remained colonizers and sometimes brutally so for many years to come.
Still abolished slavery by 1833 though. Just saying…
I had Londoners visiting me over the holidays and they had a lot to say about the monarchy, not complimentary, and then I saw a picture of Charles with a chestful of medals and wondered, "What's that for?" and I decided I prefer to live in a democratic republic. And one could argue that the English didn't need African slaves, they had Scots and Irish and Welsh.
Well it’s good then that we’re both happy with our respective heads of state. God bless America.
I fully realize that this will not be read by the actual GK but by outsourced staff; Regardless, I will start my comment with a quote by Emerson:
To clothe the fiery thought
In simple words succeeds,
For still the craft of genius is
To mask a king in weeds.
Nonsense is nonsense. Fools are fools. Wrong is still wrong. And unfortunately we are still here playing the witness card. I am not trying to mock anyone for I am already a card-carrying fool completely wrong, I only have questions at this point. What happened to those? When did everyone skip that part before we start masking our "Kings" in weeds?
I just wanted to say to GK that his work has made a tremendous impact on my existence. Years ago in San Diego, GK was my 5:45 morning friend. Thank you GK!
Another thought from Emerson, if you folks will allow me:
"And we are now men*, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeting before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors..."
Doesn't this refer to the common good? Like everyone? Not just two paper-thin arguments? Should common good be now referred to as "common good," as if it refers to only one specific side? I fully realize that this may not make complete sense.
*Men: This was written when men ruled the world, sort of. Original thought of source is arguable.
Thanks for the Emerson. I keep meaning to go back and read him, but there's so much of him to read. I especially like the little quatrain. Btw I don't outsource my reading. GK
I so much love reading the comments and even more the response from Garrison. Most of us as you all are well aware are older folks who have watched and listened to and certainly enjoyed "A Prairie Home Companion" from years ago. Some folks like you are very well educated and some like me, not so much. I realized while writing this I can't spell prairie correctly. I want to just use one i. So my education continues.
I do want to address one thing here. I am a white older male so it was hard for me for a long time to understand how having to obtain a picture ID could be a hindrance to voting. But it clearly can be if you are not a white male or female in some communities. Most of us have a car and a computer etc. But even in this day not everyone does. In times past and even now in some places it's a door that has to be opened and is not always a door that can be opened as easily by non white people as by us. Even where ID's were not required, evidence of voter fraud was not uncovered. Generally when recounts were done, the winner ended up with even more votes.
So it does feel like some are trying to fix a problem we really never had. The ballet "dumps" the last administration was most worried about were real votes from large metropolitan areas that didn't favor him so in his own weird way rather than accept reality he had to seed doubt, after all he couldn't loose, he was beyond that, everyone else was a looser in his eyes that didn't agree with him.
That all said, I am glad Garrison reminds us we can't always change things and nothing good comes from worrying about what we can't change. Fortunately, spell checker helps me a lot with one thing I worry about, how to correctly spell words like Prairie!
I am surprised that more is not said about the 5 states that vote by mail, mostly. They have put the absentee ballot argument behind them. Why can’t the rest of us?
Dear Roughwater,
You have to keep an eye on spellcheckers. For example, "looser" instead of "loser". Beware!
Dear Garrison,
After listening to the appended musical entertainment, I have to say that I much prefer Arlo Guthrie's version. Also, I would also recommend "Innocents Abroad". One of the most halarious tales I have ever read. If you can stand on-line reading, it should be available on the internet as it was published before 1935. It can be enlarged to any size you want.
Thanks for the tip and I shall have a look.
In today's Post to the Host you wrote, "The problem, however, is not about language, it’s about a gentleman who came along and changed the political landscape and there are only two ways of looking at him and the country is divided." To which I must exclaim in a paraphrase of Scarlett O'Hara - "Sir, THAT is no gentleman!"
I always thought Mr. Guthrie was singing, "... on a long southward odyssey," which does make sense - but then again, I also thought the third line of the refrain went, "On a train that's called the City of New Orleans," so what do I know? I just sang it the way I'd heard it, but I'm just a nursery singer. I've always found "City of New Orleans" to be a great lullaby, it would calm my kiddies right down when they were little. It also works on sick dogs, except I would have to sing it over and over to keep our last little guy calm when he was in pain. At any rate, I still love it, no matter how the words go, I've managed to wrap up a lot of memories in that song...
Garrison,
Having recently retired, with my wife, to her hometown of Baltimore, I appreciate your spirited defense of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Old Glory still flies over Fort McHenry, a couple miles from our new home: and a stirring sight it is, even without the rockets’ red glare.
A single verse of a national anthem is about all the singing public can remember. “God Save the Queen” has five verses, “O Canada” has three and “La Marseillaise” has upwards of seven — but one verse, it seems, is a hard backstop for crowds of any nation. That’s a fortunate thing for us Americans, because the third verse of Francis Scott Key’s poem reveals a truly odious racism:
“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.”
Mr. Key was a pro-slavery man. Just a few years before he stood on the deck of that ship and scrawled his first draft, the British Parliament had voted to abolish the slave trade throughout its far-flung Empire. Southern slaveowners like Key were outraged that the British — seeking to recruit a fifth column — had offered freedom to American slaves bold enough to flee their plantations and join up with the redcoats. It was the same sly tactic Abraham Lincoln would later deploy, in signing the Emancipation Proclamation — which, notably, applied only to the Confederate states.
There’s a jaw-dropping contrast between gloating over the terrified death of runaway slaves and lauding “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” but that distinction was evidently lost on Mr. Key. So, it’s a good thing stadium crowds’ attention-spans are so limited. As soon as verse one is ended, it’s time for the kickoff.
The 1931 Congressional act establishing Key’s poem as the national anthem didn’t specify an official text: so it’s an open question whether the slave-catching stanza was ever part of the official song. For better or for worse, reflecting on the forgotten verse reminds us of our complicated, sometimes painful history with respect to racial discrimination: and how, once our better angels have triumphed, the flag is still there.
Carl Wilton
Thanks for the history lesson, Carl. I didn't know that about Mr. Key, but it's not surprising. I wonder what he meant by "hireling." A servant? A wage-earner? An odd archaic term.
Steve Goodman and the City of New Orleans
I know… the moment is passed… but I have always considered you a fellow Midwesterner having grown up in the watershed of the Great Lakes… but I am corrected that you’re “just a bit outside” and your rain drains to the Mississippi River. I would think that if I told you I was going “out by the lake”, “out by the lake road”, “out along the lake road”, or “out along the lake road where you used to park with Sally and we found that dead moose when we were driving your dad’s Buick on our weekly odyssey to Altoona” that I’d be understood by a Minnesotan. I’m trying to say “out along” works just fine.
Yes, J. from Canada a train CAN pull out of a place along an odyssey, especially one that’s travelled daily for 150 years. We are very free with our prepositions here on the shores of Lake Michigan with our heavily German influenced subvarient of English.
As to the “old Black Men” it’s a comment on the horrible historic blindness of Americans of the people and things forgotten much the way we’ve forgotten the “City of New Orleans”.
“Don’t you remember me?” In the glory of railroading I was the premier North/South rail line paralleling the Mississippi River, defining the western border of the country and connecting the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Mark Twain wrote about the river that was freight elevator of the country while Steve writes about the glory that was passenger rail. White glove dinner service, wood paneled card rooms, sleeper cabins. Forget the “Mile High Club”. Have you ever made love on a train? The years have gone and now our “babies are asleep”.
Don’t forget how much has changed or not changed. Racism goes on.
Until the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles nothing of note was happening west of the Mississippi except the Slavery proponents were gathering States to gerrymander the vote in Congress after the only important US War. (Those others were European Wars.)
We have forgotten what our country looked like. History calls to us.
Do we even remember the train?
W. Warmuth
“We’ll let the Gophers win a football game every eight years…”
Aboard the Empire Builder train line in Milwaukee, WI, heading toward Seattle passing through Minnesota.
(Please edit my ramblings. I’ve already taken out half)
With regard to the current political polarity - I agree, it does seem like South American operatic drama! I don't know, though, about saying it's something we've never seen in the US. We judge things by what we've experienced in our own lifetimes, don't we?
Just as an example, In Auburn, NY, there's the William H. Seward House. The focus of their presentation is that Abraham Lincoln purposely chose a cabinet of his rivals. [see Prologue Magazine Home > Publications > Prologue Magazine > Prologue | Spring 2006 > An Extraordinary President and His Remarkable Cabinet - An interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin about Lincoln's Team of Rivals Spring 2006, Vol. 38, No. 1 By Ellen Fried]
Lincoln's was a remarkable political choice, at any time. But, considering the antipathy that the South had for Honest Abe at the time, it might have been the single best move he could have made to keep the ailing "Union" together!
I don't know, in truth, if it would help to have more pro-Trumpers involved in our current political scenery. From my limited observations, it seems as if it's a "Rural vs Urban" divide to a great degree. Of course, there are lots of factors: Differences in level of education completed, differences in available economic opportunity, and, definitely, differences in the prevailing local social environment come into play here.
I don't envy Joe Biden, or anyone else who has to stand in the crosshairs of so many people who seem "uninformed" or "ill-informed" these days. I don't have any grand "solutions" myself.
The most I can think of to do is to be considerate and kind to those who have been singled out as the objects of hate by that Former (and let's hope he stays that way!) chief of state! In my daily life, I try to remember "Blessed are the Poor" - and "Blessed are folks who for some reason or other don't seem 'Like Us...'"
In the long run, healing the wounds begins with each of us. The more we can be "Brotherly" (or Sisterly) with "the man (woman) on the street", the more we can model a future society that hopefully will be "One Nation, Indivisible, With Truth and Justice For All!"
Dear Friend ( or at least I feel that way)
Here in London, Ontario, I was introduced to you many years ago when friends in Texas sent a boxed set of cassettes which were and after being updated to CDs have been a source of delight. Your world view is remarkably similar to mine, wanting it to be a simpler, unrushed, gentler place. Two recent commentaries that share something in common did give me pause. Several weeks ago you remarked about American exceptionalism, a phrase that rankles pretty much everyone in the rest of the world. We are all citizens of the world living within boundaries many of which are purely arbitrary. Each nation develops in its own way and has its own exceptionalities and insularity. Citizens of the United States seem to project theirs as special, superior, and their blatant broadcast of this has given them, when in foreign lands, as “Ugly Americans”. Samuel Johnson’s definition of patriotism is true for all nations.
Please nderstand that this is not a Canadian diatribe: while historically we have taken a somewhat smug satisfaction in our difference from our southern neighbour recent shameful events show that we too are infected with divisive and infective stupidity,
Your defence of the Star Spangled Banner could use a bit of historical and sociological context. Britain was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of the Seven Years War, was embroiled rightly or wrongly in Asia, was politically divided both in the populace and ruling parties (sound familiar?) which in this period switched numerous times resulting in conflicting orders to the army in America and while technically there was peace with France tensions were high between them. Clearly the colonies were more ready for independence than the British were resolved to hold them. So the bellicose resistance to government is commemorated and established as tradition in the anthem.
More disturbing are the final lines - “the land of the free” which has not only the highest percentage of incarcerated persons but the highest number of imprisoned, even of nations with much greater populations. And then “the home of the brave”, where 46% of all civilian owned firearms are in the hands of Americans, 120.5 per 100 population about twice the rate for second place Falkland Islands. A nation is only as good as its citizens and it must be difficult to reconcile one’s pride in a country in which 42555 citizens died by gunfire in 2020.
Need I mention the most powerful armed forces in the world? “ Home of the scared and paranoid” doesn’t scan particularly well.
It’s true what you said about “America the Beautiful” praising things in common with other countries but that is unifying with the rest of the world and most important it contains that invocation, “God give us grace”.
May you long continue to bring joy, wisdom and laughter to all those who love what you have to offer.
Ken Browne
Well put, Ken.
Dear Garrison,
Thank you for your ironic response to the man who wanted to pick apart Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans.” I fell in love with the original recording before I heard Arlo Guthrie’s version, which I find cluttered and unlistenable. It should be noted, however, that Goodman once introduced the song saying that Arlo “saved my ass” by recording it. My enduring image of Steve is on a stage on the banks of the Charles River, 1977, gleefully singing “Red, Red Robin.”