Neddy's Palaver

In the mid 1600s, the Catholic BRENT family sailed across the Potomac from Maryland to Aquia, Virginia and settled at the Colony of Brenton. This was the first Catholic settlement in English Virginia. When the BRENTS were colonizing Maryland, Giles BRENT had done just as John ROLFE, who had married an Indian princess at Jamestown. BRENT’s bride was a 12-year-old student or ward of his spinster sister Margaret BRENT, who was operating a school for the Piscataway children. When GILES claimed almost all the land of the Maryland Colony due to his marriage to the Piscataway chief’s daughter, he got himself, and his BRENT sisters, into a dangerous situation with the Lord Baltimore government. The BRENTS were forced to cross the river and live in Virginia.

Margaret BRENT was America’s first suffragette, but few have ever heard of her. She was an outstanding, accomplished women. She acted as Lord Baltimore’s attorney, and in fact was probably running the government of the colony. She was able to own property, because she never married, and she even demanded the right to vote. It was denied of course, but the Marylanders did bestow upon her the title of “Gentleman” Margaret BRENT. After the move to Virginia, she seemed never quite so powerful, probably because of her “out of favor” Catholic religion.

This plaque is at the Crucifix Monument on the east side of Jefferson Davis Highway, at Telegraph Road, in Aquia, Virginia.

The United States is a warrior nation. It has ever been thus. We cannot continue to exist as a nation without our warriors. War seems to be an embedded particle of all human DNA. We instinctively aim to protect what is our own and we seemingly yearn to project our power and beliefs to others. An ancient Chinese militarist, Sunzi (Sun Tzu), first wrote of the art of war six hundred years before the birth of Christ (600 BC). The technology of war has changed considerably since then, but war, which Sunzi described as evil, seems the same as always. “The Art of War” is a Chinese military treatise written twenty six centuries years ago by a Chinese General. It is composed of thirteen parts, each of which covers one aspect of warfare. Sunzi’s explanations have been long considered as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. “The Art of War” has had a great historical influence on military planning and has also been successfully applied to business and managerial strategies.”

Once again in our American history, we are at war. Help yourself understand what we are about by listening to “The Art of War” by Sunzi, 600 BC, recorded by Moira Fogarty at LibriVox.org:

• 1 Laying Plans - 2 Waging War
• 3 Attack By Stratagem - 4 Tactical Dispositions
• 5 Energy - 6 Weak Points and Strong
• 7 Maneuvering - 8 Variation in Tactics
• 9 The Army on the March - 10 Terrain
• 11 The Nine Situations
• 12 The Attack By Fire - 13 The Use of Spies

• The e-text book at Gutenberg
• Wikipedia - Sunzi or Sun Tzu
• Wikipedia - Lionel Giles, the English translator
• Wikipedia - The Art of War

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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“On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive, Who remembers that famous day and year….” ~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

In honor of this day and the many American patriots who fought for freedom during the years of the American Revolution, I have created a slideshow of some of those patriots’ graves: Patriots of ‘76.

If you would like to listen to appropriate music while viewing the Patriots’ Graves slideshow, click this little arrow to hear America’s Liberation Song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, and then open the slideshow in a new tab or page. It is music that expresses the spirit that once motivated America, “a giant filled with a terrible resolve, unleashed against tyrants and oppressors.” It was performed at the funerals of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, and at the memorials for the victims of September 11th in Washington, New York and London. This version is sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the language style of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible.

Come Again No More
Life in America’s early days was not quite as easy as it is today.

“There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears,
Oh, Hard times come again no more.“

Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) was one of America’s most prolific and best songwriters, leaving behind more than 300 songs of many varieties. As he aged, Foster focused on writing nostalgia songs with feelings of lost youth, home, family, and friends. Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” (published 1855) falls into that category. The basis for the melody was a tune that Stephen Foster had heard as a small child in an Negro church in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania.

Foster was writing of the “hard times” in America, prior to the Civil War. He sang this particular song quite often in his latter days, which proved tragically prophetic for Foster as when he died on January 13, 1864, at the age of 37, he had only 38 cents to his name.

Hard Times, Come Again No More” has always been one of my favorites, bringing tears to my eyes as I think of the “hard times” endured by my family who trod this Virginia soil during the era after the War Between the States. This song is performed by vocalist Thomas Hampson and instrumentalist Craig Rutenberg. It is from the Library of Congress, courtesy of the Van Cliburn Foundation, Cliburn Concerts and the Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth, Texas.

Thank you WaPo for remembering our greatest American, George Washington.

Fleshing Out a Founding Father - washingtonpost.com

Mount Vernon Additions Provide New Entree to George Washington’s World

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; Page A01

A decade ago, the people who run Mount Vernon noticed many of their visitors knew little more about George Washington than that he was the country’s first president.

Beginning Friday, visitors there will be able to learn much more about him in two new buildings. On their way to the historic mansion, they’ll pass through an orientation center where they will get history about Washington and his home (one short film is narrated by game show host Pat Sajak). And on their way out, they will pass through an extensive museum and education center.

On this Patriot Day, 2006, does anyone still remember Pearl Harbor? I am one who was living at the time, but much too young to remember what was going on. However, September 11th, 2001, happened a few days after my sixtieth birthday and I remember it well. Relive those days of yesteryear when America was attacked in 1941, by listening and thinking of the differences “Between Americans” then and now on this day of remembrance of the Attack Upon America.

During wartime, some give all, some give some, and some are left to tell their tales. Lola was blessed to return home from World War Two and her tale is now published on the Internet: “Lola Was a Soldier”.

Lola was one of those courageous young American women who signed on for volunteer service as a soldier during World War II. She participated in the European and North African theaters of the war. Amazing young women like Lola served and sacrificed for freedom. Younger generations need to be reminded of the incredible wartime contributions of the people who went before them. Lola’s name is entered at the Woman In Military Service For America Memorial where she is a charter member.

Lola Anderson was but a young woman during wartime when she observed the poster of Uncle Sam pointing his finger directly at her, saying “I want you for the U.S. Army”. She signed up, and she says that in those days in the Army, there was NO “hurry up and wait”, as she was quickly trained and sent out to do her duty, as her patriotic forebears had done in earlier times. Lola is Lola (Anderson) Peach, a member of Fairfax County Chapter, NSDAR, of Vienna, Virginia.

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The image, World War Two Soldier, was originally uploaded to the Internet by barneykin. It was posted here by Neddy of .

On 8 June 1783, General George Washington, upon his disbanding of the Continental Army, addressed a missive to the governors of the thirteen orginal states. Here is what the “Father of His Country” wrote:

“Now I make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection, that He would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens and the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, Sir, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant. George Washington.”

The words quoted above are said to be inscribed on a bronze tablet adjoining the Washington pew in Saint Paul’s chapel in New York City. Someone please, remind me again about the debate over “separation of church and state”.

Cross posted at “Blogging the Revolution”.

Overture of 1776 ~ is a great piece of modern music (18mb MP3), written for the United States Military Academy, by composer Thomas C. Duffy of Yale University. LISTEN while perusing this site. Overture 1776 was composed in honor of West Point’s bicentennial and was premiered there on 25 August 2002. The composer created a work of American music to replace Tchaikovsky’s Overture of 1812, as he believed it time that a great nation had its own music to celebrate American Independence, rather than music depicting the Russians versus the French. Using the Overture of 1812 as his model, he created a piece depicting the struggle between the British and the American colonials, including fireworks and cannons. The old tune God Save the King, now known to Americans as My Country ‘Tis of Thee, is countered by Chester, the anthem of the American Revolution, and the country’s unofficial national anthem until 1931. He includes other contemporary tunes such as Yankee Doodle, The White Cockcaid (played by the Acton, Massachusetts Militia as they marched to the Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775), and the World Turned Upside Down (played by the British as they surrendered to George Washington). This is true American music, celebrating and honoring the music of the Revolutionary period and of those patriots who secured our liberties and who built our country so long ago.