Friday.....America.....The Beautiful

I must have a natural affinity for England and the British people. I love rain and wind. I don't know how to cook. It might just be that my two favorite movies of all time are Chariots of Fire and The Winslow Boy, which were set in early 1900s England, and Amazing Grace (about William Wilberforce), Master and Commander, Mrs. Miniver and Gunga Din (see December 27, 2008) are not too far behind. Hitler had sweet talked a number of European countries only to invade them within six months but Winston Churchill saw through Nazi promises. If you look through pictures of Churchill in his fifties... for just the right one, and maybe have a beer or two first, you can almost... see a slight resemblance in Rush Limbaugh, but you don't need the beer to see the similarities in discernment, for Churchill saw what Nazi Germany was up to while everyone else was worried about offending them and Limbaugh takes his cigar out of his mouth on weekdays long enough to give a similar warning. By the way, I recommend another movie, Albert Finney as Winston (he was John Newton in Amazing Grace) in The Gathering Storm. Whether at home, or in factories, or in any one of their military posts around the world, the British were a model of stiff upper lipped determination and were to be greatly admired, but here is the rub, and the only thing that makes this believable is human nature itself; Churchill was not ready to celebrate after the war for he was concerned about the intentions of the Soviet Union and was turned out of office in the 1946 elections! A year later, in a speech given in Missouri, he gave the world the term Iron Curtain. One might protest that Churchill made a number of mistakes in his life of leadership but he was a giant when history called for one as George W. Bush was one for eight years! Returning to the Brits, as courageous and defiant as they were against Hitler, they took up residence in Vanity Fair after the war and have since permitted unguarded immigration to paralyse them and jeopardise their security and future. We have to learn from this here in America. We know of those who built this nation. They were in the pulpits, pews and courts, on the farms and in the cities, under pilgrim, tricorn and coonskin hats, Civil War Kepis, Cavalry hats, helmets and berets. They cooked and sewed and drove rivets. They wore blue and gray, G. I. brown, navy white, air force blue, jungle camo and are now wearing desert camo. At this very moment I'm listening to XM Radio and Ray Charles version of America The Beautiful is playing. It is an amazing rendition and you probably can find it on YouTube. I think that I'll abruptly finish this blog with some of those lyrics written by Katharine Lee Bates over a century ago:

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!