A history lesson

Got a minute? Well, actually, about fourteen minutes. If so, here is a crash course in the founding of the United States of America and the origins of Thanksgiving. Spoiler alert: It's not the version that Texas school children will be reading about in their new social studies textbooks. Moses doesn't bring the Constitution down, fully written, from Mt. Sinai. 

"Who won the Civil War?"

These are college students in Texas, USA. This is just sad.



I'm speechless. Really...just speechless.

Poetry Sunday: Highwayman

I've had this song rattling around in my brain for the last couple of weeks, so it's time to get it out! Maybe if I share it with you as my poem of the week...

It's an old Jimmy Webb song that was very popular back in the day. That day was the late '70s, early '80s. It was recorded by a number of artists, including Webb himself in 1977, but the most popular cover of it was probably that done by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson in 1984.

It's an unusual lyric about reincarnation - not a subject that is often written about in a pop lyric - but for those of us who believe that nothing is ever really destroyed but only changed, matter into energy or energy into matter, it is very meaningful.

     Highwayman

      by Jimmy Webb

I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and 
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..

As a bonus, here is that most famous cover of the song, in a performance recorded in 1990.

Cash and Jennings are gone now, of course. And yet they are still around...and around...and around...  

Let it Go(T)

Ah, you've been so good this week, you deserve a treat. How about a mashup of a popular song and a popular TV show? It's really pretty much on point.

I'm sure you remember the song from the movie "Frozen" that won the Oscar for best original song in a movie from 2013. That's right - "Let it go."

And even if you don't watch it on HBO or read George R.R. Martin's books, you are probably at least aware of "Game of Thrones."

So, how about we put them together and come up with a new winner?

WARNING - If you haven't watched season four through the third episode or if you haven't read The Song of Ice and Fire through book three: There be spoilers here!

Happy faces

We're going into the Labor Day weekend after a week of hot air filled with blatant lies swirling around Tampa. Hurricane Isaac may have done a lot of damage in Mississippi and Louisiana, but Hurricane Romney/Ryan has certainly done more damage to our body politic. Not to mention the truth.

Oh, well, let's forget all of that for the moment. We need something to make us smile. And here it is. If this doesn't make your edges of your lips twitch upward, there's probably no hope for you.



Happy Labor Day weekend! Be safe.