Neddy's Palaver

Vanquished, Vanished

Come, come, come …
Let us ponder the America of our memories:
We sang like the birds of the field; we sang of freedom;
When we sought opportunity, we found it awaiting us.
America was a dream, a vision of seekers;
America was a dream that lasted ten score and thirty years.
The dream that was America encountered the anarchy of liberty;
And was felled by the anarchy of immorality.
We beg forgiveness of our founders, our fathers;
We weep for the blood they shed for us.
The America that was their dream is now our master.
Freemen no longer, we are serfs to toil land that is not ours.
We live the lives of the slaves of old, lives of quiet desperation;
We beat our breasts in despair knowing we sold our posterity into bondage.
We still pray, but not to God; We still sing, but not of freedom.
We tell tales to our children and they laugh,
For, as we recollect our remembrances,
Our children hear fairy tales of long, long ago.
We talk to those who sacrificed for freedom,
And they ask: “Did we win or did we lose?
Was God with us or were we against God, in those days?
Was freedom worth the blood we spilt?
Or was freedom but a mysterious nothing,
A mere longing of our souls?”
We will soon go away too, we who have the memories.
When we are gone, will seekers ever dream that dream again?

Look out Loudoun and Fauquier Counties! The big enchilada that is Fairfax County is about to take over your horsey status as “Horse Country.” A movement is underway to banish horse-less carriages in favor of more horses, bicycles and walking in Fairfax County, Virginia.

In future, beginning July 2009, Fairfax County residents seeking admission to their own taxpayer funded park-lands, must pay a fee if they arrive in a “horse-less” carriage, but no fee if they arrive riding a horse. This is blatant discrimination against non-equine modes of transportation. Why is Fairfax County trying to become horsey Fauquier County? If one employs a horse-less carriage instead of a horse to transport oneself, why should the horse be favored in entering into government owned parks.

Do horses pay taxes to Fairfax County? I do not know. I do not own a horse, because Fairfax County will not allow me to stable one upon my minuscule Fairfax County property. But Fairfax County does allow me, for now at least, to keep a horse-less carriage on my property, and I do know that my horseless carriage indeed pays taxes to Fairfax County.

I demand to be allowed to keep a horse, so that I can get into Fairfax County’s parks without paying a penalty.

Read today’s WaPo for this latest revelation about Fairfax County’s Plan to charge its own tax-paying residents to enter publicly own parks.

If you are interested in fighting Fairfax County’s City Hall on this “additional” tax on horse-less carriages, read PatCleary.com.

Who Was

• The first president born in a log cabin?
• The first president nominated by a political party?
• The first president to ride on a railroad train?
• The first president victimized by an assassination attempt?
• The only president to find himself an orphan and an only child at the age of fourteen.
• The only president to have been a prisoner of war?
• The only president to have killed a man in a duel.
• The last president who was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

Hint, Hint; They were all the same person. The answer is at http://tinyurl.com/djt7q6.

I found this musical creation so beautiful that I had to learn more about it and its meaning. I found it on an album at Amazon, which I just ordered: The Irish Tenors / McNamara, McDermott, Kearns, Tynan.

This is what I discovered about the song entitled “Grace.” Give a listen. (The Video)

“As we gather in the chapel here in old Kilmainham jail,
I think about these past few weeks; Oh, will they say we failed?
From our school days they have told us we must yearn for liberty,
Yet all I want in this dark place is to have you here with me.

[Chorus]
Oh Grace just hold me in your arms, and let this moment linger,
They’ll take me out at dawn and I will die.
With all my love I’ll place this wedding ring upon your finger,
There won’t be time to share our love for we must say goodbye.

Now I know it’s hard for you my love to ever understand,
The love I bear for these brave men, my love for this dear land,
But when Padraic called me to his side down in the G.P.O.
I had to leave my own sick bed, to him I had to go.
[Chorus]

Now as the dawn is breaking, my heart is breaking too,
On this May morn, as I walk out, my thoughts will be of you.
And I’ll write some words upon the wall, so everyone will know,
I loved so much that I could see His blood upon the rose.”

Joseph Mary Plunkett was an Irish nationalist, poet and leader and planner of the 1916 Easter rising. It was largely his plan that was followed in 1916, which ended in a military disaster. Plunkett was held in Kilmainham Jail and faced court martial. Hours before his excecution by firing squad, at age 28, he was married in the prison chapel on 4 May 1916, to his sweetheart Grace Gifford, a Protestant convert to Catholicism.

Grace remained loyal to the republican movement while earning a living as a commerical artist.She voted against the treaty which divided Ireland and during the civil war she was imprisoned in Kilmainham jail for three months. She died in 1955.

Fly your flags this week, September 16th through 23rd, in tribute to the United States Constitution. This coming week is Constitution Week.

“The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution encourages you to celebrate Constitution Week, September 17 through 23. This year commemorates the two hundred twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America. In 1955, the DAR began the tradition of celebrating Constitution Week by successfully petitioning Congress to set aside this week annually to officially observe the oldest document still in active use that outlines the self-government of a people.” ( www.dar.org, September 2007)

This photograph is from “My Picasa Albums.” It is of Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, which was built in the 1920s by the Daughters of the American Revolution as a tribute to the U.S. Constitution. In 1928, the Daughters of the American Revolution began work on a building as a memorial to the United States Constitution. They commissioned John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial, to design a concert hall. DAR Constitution Hall is the only structure erected as a memorial to the Constitution of the United States of America. DAR is the largest women’s patriotic organization in the world, with over 165,000 members in all fifty states and eleven foreign countries.

• Honoring the Constitution
• Constitution Week 2005
• Constitution Week II

The image, Constitution Hall, was originally uploaded to the Internet by barneykin. It was posted here by Neddy of .

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You too can be an White House Intern.

An application and additional information about the program can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/wh-intern.html.

We are still in the celebration of “Constitution Week“. What have your students learned and what do you know about the Constitution which governs us? The National Constitution Center released a survey of 600 students which shows that constitutional knowledge among the young is quite deficient. However, the students are learning something and that something seems to be pop culture. Some of the questions covered these subjects:

1. Name the city where the Constitution was written? (25.5% of students correctly answered Philadelphia.)

1a. What city has the zip code 90210? (75.2% of students knew the answer to that question.)

2. How many senators serve in the U.S. Senate? ( Only 21.2% of respondents answered correctly that it was 100.)

2a. How many members are there in the music group “Hanson?” (81.2% knew the correct number.)

3. What are the first three words of the Constitution? (Just about one third, 35.5% of the respondents could answer “We the people“.

3a. 71.2% of students know that “www” is the first three letters of most Web site addresses.

4. Who is considered the father of the U.S. Constitution? (Only 1.8% of respondents know that it is James Madison, a 36-year-old Virginian.)

4a. Who is considered the father of Microsoft? (58.3% of students answered that it was Bill Gates .

5. What does the Fifth Amendment protect? ( 25% of the respondents knew that it protects against double jeopardy, self incrimination, right to a grand jury, due process, and/or compensation for private property taken for public use.)

5a. What does “The Club” protect? (63.7% knew that it protects against car theft.)

6. Name the three branches of government? (41.2% of respondents answered correctly.)

6a. Give the names of the Three Stooges. (59.2% knew their names.)

Tracked at basil’s blog Covered Dish Picnic.

Today, September 17th, begins Constitution Week. FLY YOUR FLAG ALL WEEK! The first day of Constitution Week is “Citizenship Day“.

By joint resolution of August 2, 1956 (36 U.S.C. 159), the U.S. Congress designated the week beginning September 17 and ending September 23 of each year as “Constitution Week” in recognition of the historic importance of the Constitution and the significant role it plays in our lives today.

In commemoration of the signing of the Constitution and in recognition of the importance of active, responsible citizenship in preserving the Constitution’s blessings for our Nation, the Congress, by joint resolution of February 29, 1952 (36 U.S.C. 153), designated September 17 as “Citizenship Day.”

All citizens who profess to love America and revere its Constitution should have its Preamble memorized and seared upon their hearts.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

A Knight’s Blog wishes you a “Happy Constitution Day” and discusses more about it. Tracked at Wizbang’s Carnival of Trackbacks XXIX, Outside the Beltway’s “Sunday Drive” and Mudville Gazette’s Open Post.

“ … no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

What wise men were our patriot forefathers who created the Constitution to govern our land. No religious inquisitions were to be held to determine a person’s fitness to hold political office. Although the nation was founded by a majority of Christian Protestants, they insured that Quakers, Catholics, Jews, deists, agnostics and atheists would not be excluded by writing Article VI, Clause 3, into the Constitution of the United States.
Linked at basil’s blog Lunch: 8/10/05 and Right Wing Nuthouse.