Posts tagged USA
Amplexi et Osculi
Celebrating the ongoing life
Tear. Down. This. Wall.
12 June, 1987.
Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Monument, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America.
A MONUMENT FOR THE SOLDIERS
by James Whitcomb Riley
A MONUMENT for the Soldiers!
And what will ye build it of?
Can ye build it of marble, or brass, or bronze,
Outlasting the Soldiers’ love?
Can ye glorify it with legends
As grand as their blood hath writ
From the inmost shrine of this land of thine
To the outermost verge of it?
And the answer came: We would build it
Out of our hopes made sure,
And out of our purest prayers and tears,
And out of our faith secure:
We would build it out of the great white truths
Their death hath sanctified,
And the sculptured forms of the men in arms,
And their faces ere they died.
And what heroic figures
Can the sculptor carve in stone?
Can the marble breast be made to bleed,
And the marble lips to moan?
Can the marble brow be fevered,
And the marble eyes be glazed
To look their last, as the flag floats past,
On the country they have saved?
And the answer came: The figures
Shall all be fair and brave,
And, as befitting, as pure and white
As the stars above their grave!
The marble lips, and breast and brow
Whereon the laurel lies,
Bequeath us right to guard the flight
Of the old flag in the skies!
A monument for the Soldiers!
Built of a people’s love,
And blazoned and decked and panoplied
With the hearts ye build it of!
And see that ye build it stately,
In pillar and niche and gate,
And high in pose as the souls of those
It would commemorate!
[This poem became the rallying cry to build the Soldiers and Sailors Monument now located on the Circle in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana]
Memorial Day tribute from rare.us
Kill It With Fire
[ reposted by way of Usaian, from www.crowndot.com ]
“It can only be killed by fire while awake and by using the Rite of Exorcism if found in its grave during the day.”
— Vampire Universe: The Dark World of Supernatural Beings That Haunt Us, Hunt Us, and Hunger for Us, Jonathon Maberry. Kensington Publishing Corp:
New York, 2006. p 16-17, from the Wikipedia article on Vampire folklore by region (South Slavic belief).
At the end of World War II, Hitler’s body was burned, pulverized, and flushed into the sewers. Nazi symbols were destroyed and banned. Men like Eisenhower forced German citizens to face the atrocities they had actively or passively allowed. “Never again,” they said.
They can never all be found and exorcised while asleep. The evil is always active while seeming dormant. We are the ones who sleep.
But the evil continues. Its undead hunger wakes.
“I think that September 11 ought to be made a day of mourning everywhere in the West. After all, it will undoubtedly be a day of celebration all across the Dar-al-Islam.
“We ought never to forget. Never, until the focus of this filthy plague is a hole in the ground, sowed with salt. Never, until Islam is one with the worship of Moloch and Baal. Never, until we can say, ‘Mecca delenda est”.”
— Gerard Vanderleun, What I Saw: Notes I made on September 11, 2001 from Brooklyn Heights, re-posted at American Digest 11 September, 2012.
There is that evil that can only be killed by fire.
“I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the elfstone, Dunadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly.”
— Aragorn, in Return of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien.
Tolkien knew that isolationism did not work — regretted the fact, but admitted it; sometimes the Men of the West have to travel to the gates of Mordor because that is the right thing to do.
North Korean “President” Kim Jong Un threatens nuclear mayhem — and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel tells reporters on 10 April 2013 that Korea is “skating very close to a dangerous line.” Hagel does not appear to be preparing use of a big Pacific Theater flame thrower to Kill It With Fire. His ilk seem to be off on another Carteresque episode of Why-do-they-hate-us and Is-this-Kim-crazy? Um, guys? When the man has the loaded gun pointed at you? Then it really doesn’t matter why he wants you dead or whether he is sane. Kill It With Fire.
Every time.
Find it. Kill it. Burn it. Pulverize it. Flush it. Again.
Traveling toward “X”. Stuart Chase, 1942. More at Crowndot.com
On 8 March 2013, Commodore Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor, signalling the beginning of what has become (after the, um, speed-bumps in the middle of the last century) a cozy era of Pacific Rim trade.
(wikipedia photo)
Platelet Theory
About 40 years ago I had an accident with a power tool. An immortal and infallible teenager working for a general contractor who did home remodels, I got into a shoving match with a bottom-of-the-line Skil brand 6” circular saw. The dull blade bound up, kicked back, bounced off my torso, and back into my left hand. This was going to require stitches.
As it turned out, no tendons or bones had been terribly damaged. Many stitches and many years later, it’s good as new, plus the added features of having a Wizard Grade lightning-shaped scar on the second knuckle of my left thumb, plus the ability to predict rain 36 hours in advance. (Don’t ask me how it works, but I can feel it.)
But here’s what I want to focus on today: on the way to the Emergency Clinic, the bleeding stopped.
In a battle between skin and steel, skin always loses. Blood will flow. But the instant the bleeding starts, it also starts to stop. At least the body attempts to stop the loss of blood. Clotting agents being present in sufficient number, and absent high pressure arterial bleeding, the bleeding will stop.
Here’s the point. One platelet cannot stop the bleeding. But a whole bunch can. At least they can do their microscopic damnedest to stop it.
What I’m really talking about is Gun Control.
What good can one armed citizen do against the might of a tyrannical government? That question is used to pooh-pooh the idea that Joe Citizen’s right to keep and bear arms was spelled out in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States because Joe just might have to do something to stop a Government Gone Wrong. One armed citizen — what good can that do? Might as well turn all those guns in and trust to the benignity of the controlling power. What good can one armed citizen do when the bloodletting starts?
What good can one platelet do when the bleeding starts?
We The People act in unison to defend as well as originally to create these United States. And yes the fact that the people are free to keep and bear firearms is important every day, whether called into action or not. Only by being extremely numerous and widely spread can the body politic be adequately protected by these platelets of freedom.
[ originally posted at my other place, crowndot.com ]
The Tertium Kid: An Act for the Better Securing the Government, By Disarming Papists - 1695
The first of the Penal Laws imposed by Britain on the Roman Catholics and other non-Anglicans in Ireland forbade sending one’s children abroad to be educated (you can read the text Here.)
A second law, passed the same year (1695), made it illegal for for any “papist within the meaning of this act” *** to own any sort of weapons, unless they would give up their religion.
This Act became more and more stringent until 1755. I present the first part here, for your education and enjoyment:
7 Will III c.5 (1695):
An Act for the better securing the government, by disarming papists:Sec. 1. All papists within this kingdom of Ireland shall before the 1st day of March, 1696, deliver up to some justice of the peace or corporation officer where such papist shall dwell, all their arms and ammunition,…
This is a Read The Whole Thing kind of article. Tertiumkid concludes:
This was the sort of thing our Founding Fathers did not want to have happen.
And so, thanks to them, we have this instead:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It is not fashionable to remember history, but it is worthwhile.
Loki vs. The Old German Man, from The Avengers
