The western was the first and perhaps the most popular genre ever produced in both movies and on television. The very first movie made for theaters was a fifteen minute oater called The Great Train Robbery in 1903. William S. Hart and Buck Jones made westerns popular in the silent era, and Harry Carey and Tom Mix topped a plethora of cowboy actors in the 1920s, both leading the transition into talkies. Many future stars, including Clark Gable, got their start in westerns. Gable's first credited role was in a William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy) cowboy picture called The Painted Desert, in which he played a very grumpy bad guy.
In 1930 John Wayne was given his first starring role in The Big Trail. It was a monumental production about the Oregon Trail, but because the movie studio used a new widescreen format called 70 mm Grandeur Film, the movie flopped. Theaters were unwilling to change to the widescreen because of the cost and the uncertainties of the onset of the Great Depression. With few exceptions, such as The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper in 1936, Westerns were relegated to B movie and weekly serial productions through most of the 1930s.
Then John Ford, the greatest of all western movie directors, took John Wayne, by this time a B movie western staple, and not only made him a star but elevated the western to A level status in Stagecoach. From the 1940s through the 1970s westerns again dominated the screen, and no actor more personified the genre than Duke Wayne, who rode the western to superstardom.
Along came television and again the most popular form of entertainment was the western. There were at least 91 different western shows on TV in the 1950s, beginning with Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger in 1949, and extending on into the 1960s. The longest running TV drama until Law and Order was Gunsmoke, which was on the air from 1955 to 1975. TV westerns still dominated the early 60s, but by the end of the decade most of them were gone. In 1970 there were only eight western shows left, and four of those would not be around in 1971. Two others would be gone in '72, and Bonanza, after the death of Dan Blocker (Hoss) would only limp through its fourteenth and final season in 1973.
In the '70's only eighteen new westerns appeared on TV, most of which didn't make it through one season. The most successful was Michael Landon's Little House on the Prairie, which lasted nine years from 1974 until 1983. Clint Walker made several made for TV western movies, but the best of all of these '70s productions were two mini-series, Centennial, and James Arness's How the West Was Won. In the '70's cop and detective shows dominated the airwaves, and in the '80s prime-time soaps eclipsed everything in popularity.
Several attempts through the years to bring back the western failed to gain strong followings, although there were some quality programs such as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and on the Silver Screen blockbusters like Silverado, and Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider. Nowadays if you want to watch a good western you have to go back to the good old days to find them. Fortunately in the DVD age they can be found. There are also western channels on cable and satellite TV, and a lot of programs can be found on the internet for free on such websites as Youtube.
The reason for the decline in the popularity of the western may have been that after twenty years of saturation every night on TV the story lines had become monotonous and people grew tired of them. In 1971, however, there was one new western that potentially had the appeal to revive interest in the genre. Alias Smith and Jones hit the screen in January as a mid season replacement and was an immediate hit. It was an unlikely tale about two outlaws trying to go straight and the predicaments they went through in order to get amnesty from the governor of Wyoming. The addition of occasional humor to a somewhat serious/somewhat tongue-in-cheek drama gave the show a light-hearted air that resonated with the viewing audience and in the fall it was back for a second season.
Smith and Jones starred two young, good-looking guys who meshed so well together you might have thought they were close brothers. In fact, Pete Duel and Ben Murphy who played Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, alias Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones, had a chemistry that Murphy would later say was just luck. They worked together well but did not socialize off the set. Roger Davis had become friends with Duel previously when they had worked on another TV pilot. Both Davis and Murphy greatly admired Duel's talent and ease as an actor.
Before Smith and Jones, Duel had been in two TV series, Gidget, in which he co-starred with Sally Fields, and Love in the Afternoon with Judy Carne. He had also made numerous guest appearances on different TV shows before he was picked for the part of Hannibal Heyes. His resonant baritone voice was perfect for the role of a "silver-tongued" manipulator who could talk his way out of any situation. Ben Murphy had fewer credits to his record, but Kid Curry, the fastest gun in the west, would be the biggest role he would ever play. After Smith and Jones he starred in two short-lived series and appeared in episodes of numerous other programs. Roger Davis got his start in a World War 2 drama called The Gallant Men in 1962. Later he would appear in two Dark Shadows movies as well as the soap opera. His greatest claim to fame may have been that he was the first husband of Charlie's favorite Angel, Jaclyn Smith. (She was also his first wife.)
The show moved smoothly into its second season and continued its success until tragedy struck on December 31, 1971. Few people knew that there was a dark side to Pete Duel. In spite of all of his good looks, success, and fame, he brooded over his life and conditions in the world. He felt like he had to do something to make it a better place, and that somehow he wasn't doing enough. He often suffered from fits of depression. In 1968 he campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president, but came away disappointed when McCarthy lost. He also had a problem with alcohol and began to despair when he lost his driver's license for a drunk driving accident he caused that injured two women. As his drinking became worse he became despondent for not being able to break the addiction. Then in the early morning hours of New Year's Eve, after an argument with his girlfriend, he got drunk, put a gun to his head and killed himself.
The producers of the show, uncaring, money greedy mongrels that they were, called Roger Davis that very morning to take Duel's place as Hannibal Heyes and continued working without even taking a moment to mourn Duel's passing. Davis and Murphy tried, but there wasn't the chemistry that had developed between Murphy and Duel. In all fairness to Davis, nobody could have filled the role once Pete Duel had established it. They continued to finish the second season and start a third, but the show's popularity died with Pete Duel, and so did any real chance (if there actually was one) of reviving the 1950s and early '60s popularity of the TV western.
Recently I came across Alias Smith and Jones on Youtube, all fifty episodes. I'm about half way through. Most of them aren't that good of quality, but it has been fun watching and remembering some of the episodes I watched 43 years ago. In 1971 it was my favorite show on television. I still remember how saddened I was when I heard the news about Pete Duel on the radio. It still saddens me to this day. I suppose it was one of the things that kind of marked a passing for me from a time of teenage innocence to the realities of life. Six weeks earlier, a friend of mine since the first grade, Dean Mosier, had been killed in a motorcycle accident, but Duel took his own life. It added perspective. Life is short and can be taken in a heartbeat, and all the fame, money, women, and success in the world can't bring peace to a troubled heart. Neither can drowning your sorrows in alcohol.
It also saddens me that the western movie genre has mostly disappeared from our culture today. Oh there are still westerns from time to time, but none like those simple old programs of half a century ago that often taught real values of decency and family, character and integrity, and sometimes even Christian principles. Today's movies dwell in computer generated unrealities filled with potty-mouthed dialogues and actions that are generally indecent and teach nothing of merit. How far we have come!
Interesting that the decline of the western sort of coincided with the removal of God and the Bible from public schools and discourse in the early '60s. Just a thought, but could it be that there is a connection?
Oh for the days of Smith and Jones.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Another Vietnam
I seldom found myself agreeing with Ted Kennedy while he was alive. In fact, I don't think I ever agreed with him on anything. But there is one thing that he said that I am now finding I at least partially agree with. Back in 2004, in typical liberal fashion, after voting for the invasion of Iraq, he turned on President Bush and opposed it. On April 16, he said, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."
Actually, it didn't become Bush's Vietnam. After the war effort stalled due to lack of sufficient troops, and after the 2006 Republican shellacking in the midterm elections, Bush authorized a troop surge that effectively destroyed most all Al Qaeda resistance in Iraq and stabilized the country. In spite of the criticism he still receives, it turned into a great Bush success.
Then Obama got hold of it. He pulled our troops, which were helping keep the peace and training the Iraqi army, out before Iraq was ready, and shamelessly took credit for ending the war. But hardly had our troops returned home before Al Qaeda started moving back in, suicide bombings began shaking Baghdad again, and now ISIS controls a large part of the country.
In response Obama has called for limited air strikes against ISIS, and began redeploying troops as military advisors in Iraq. At first it was 375, then 400 more, eventually a deployment of over 1500, and today it was announced elements of the 82nd Airborne are being sent, bringing the total number of "boots on the ground," which Obama promised would never happen, to over 4,000. This is exactly how Lyndon Johnson ramped up the war in Southeast Asia, and then kept the American military from winning it by directing the war from the White House.
Ted Kennedy was right in one respect. Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Only it's not George Bush's, it's Obama's.
Actually, it didn't become Bush's Vietnam. After the war effort stalled due to lack of sufficient troops, and after the 2006 Republican shellacking in the midterm elections, Bush authorized a troop surge that effectively destroyed most all Al Qaeda resistance in Iraq and stabilized the country. In spite of the criticism he still receives, it turned into a great Bush success.
Then Obama got hold of it. He pulled our troops, which were helping keep the peace and training the Iraqi army, out before Iraq was ready, and shamelessly took credit for ending the war. But hardly had our troops returned home before Al Qaeda started moving back in, suicide bombings began shaking Baghdad again, and now ISIS controls a large part of the country.
In response Obama has called for limited air strikes against ISIS, and began redeploying troops as military advisors in Iraq. At first it was 375, then 400 more, eventually a deployment of over 1500, and today it was announced elements of the 82nd Airborne are being sent, bringing the total number of "boots on the ground," which Obama promised would never happen, to over 4,000. This is exactly how Lyndon Johnson ramped up the war in Southeast Asia, and then kept the American military from winning it by directing the war from the White House.
Ted Kennedy was right in one respect. Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Only it's not George Bush's, it's Obama's.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Morning in America
To steal a theme that was used when Reagan was reelected president in 1984 (Morning in America), for the first time in six years it felt good to wake up Wednesday morning and say I'm an American. Unlike Michele who was never proud of her country until BHO was elected, I was never more ashamed of my country when he was voted in, with the possible exception of the second time he was voted in. It has nothing to do with racism as I think my life story will prove. You can go back and read my posts from the time BHO announced he was running, from the first time he said that we live in the greatest country in the world and he wanted our help to change it, and I basically predicted the disaster he would set upon us. Not that I'm a prophet. Any thinking, intelligent person could have seen it coming.
Unfortunately, about 40% of Americans were brainwashed by the promises of the false "messiah," who was going to be making their house and car payments for them, and the swing voters in the middle were driven left by the inept McCain campaign and inability of the Republicans to field a half decent candidate who could articulate their policies. It also didn't help that W. had become increasingly unpopular with an unending war that he couldn't figure out how to win, and budget deficits so high that the country had never seen anything like it. In a sense, the Republicans had more reason to blame Bush for the 2006 and 2008 election fiascos than Obama had to blame him for his (Obama's) poor economic recovery.
Even though the 2010 midterm elections "shellacked" the Democrats, weak Republican leadership in the House and a fractured Republican Party in the Senate did little to really hold up Obama's agenda. Then the 2012 campaign, in which Romney decided apparently to act like a gentleman and not challenge Obama on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and other scandals that he could have nailed him with (after he ran a bitterly dirty campaign against Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination), showed the unique ability once again of moderate/RINO Republicans to snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory.
When conservative talk show hosts like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, and Fox News analysts started predicting a big win for Republicans again in this midterm, my immediate thought was I hope they don't blow it again. Obamacare last year, and ISIS last spring should have been the complete undoing of Obama, but because of Republican lack of resolve (other than Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the Senate, and Trey Gowdy in the House) he essentially got off the hook. But the people it seems were beginning to wake up. Obama's approval rating dropped in the polls down to around 41%. It looked like another Democrat shellacking was in the making, but then Obama's approval ratings went back up to around 45% or higher. I was more than a little concerned.
But as ISIS grew from J.V. to Varsity, James Foley was beheaded by terrorists and BHO played golf, Marine Sgt. Tamoressi sat in a Mexican jail while BHO did nothing after making such a big deal of trading five terrorist leaders so as not to leave traitor Bowe Bergdahl behind, and then did nothing while he assured us ebola would never reach our shores and it did, his poll numbers dropped again to 40% or below. A Republican victory in this election looked like a sure thing, but then the poll numbers started showing very close races all across the country within one or two points, and the liberal media started predicting better times ahead for Democrats.
When Republicans started projecting at least six Senate victories, I started to get a little nervous. Could we throw it away again at the last minute? Then liberal pundits started talking about how the Senate campaigns weren't that important because BHO could still veto any bill a Republican controlled Congress could send him, and besides, the governorships were more important, and they were predicting big Democrat victories. Early on election day when Democrat Tom Wolf was quickly projected to win the governor's seat in Pennsylvania from the Republican incumbent, and Scott Brown couldn't seem to catch Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and other races were reported as being dead heats, I started to wonder if Republicans weren't being a little too optimistic.
Then within the first hour or two a pattern started to emerge. Ed Gillespie came out of nowhere to lead Mark Warner in Virginia, and even though he eventually lost by only one percent of the vote, it was a race nobody had even considered would be close, and an indication that people, even in Democratic strongholds, were beginning to show their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. Apparently Democrat candidates had seen it coming. They didn't want BHO campaigning for them. But BHO wasn't about to be left out. Since they didn't want him, he made it clear that even though he wasn't running, the campaigns were all about his policies. Thank you BHO. Your snooty-nosed pride, which wouldn't let you become irrelevant, was the best campaign ad the Republicans could have asked for. It made it clear what was at issue in the election, and the country absolutely repudiated everything you stand for.
Other than the Tom Tillis - Kay Hagan race in North Carolina, most of the races weren't even close. In the end the Republicans picked up seven Senate seats, and will likely get two more, and fourteen House seats and will likely get two more, as well as a net gain of three governorships including those in uber-liberal states Maryland, Massachusetts, and Obama's home state of Illinois. In Wisconsin, a state where liberal unions had spent tens of millions campaigning against Republican Scott Walker, and which was reported as being a statistical tie when the polls opened, Walker trounced his Democrat opponent sparking speculation that he might even be a presidential candidate in 2016.
A resounding Republican victory, and although all Republicans are not strong conservatives, the mood of the country is so much against BHO's agenda on the border, immigration, ISIS and Obamacare, that even John Boehner is now sounding like a Tea Party representative. So what's going to happen?
Did you see BHO's press conference? He's defiant. He heard us, he said, and he also heard the two-thirds of voters who didn't vote, as if they were all his supporters. No doubt they aren't, but he'll claim that as his mandate to do whatever he wants. He's going to do something about immigration before Christmas whether he has the support of Congress or not. He's ready to consider any proposals the Republicans have and sign them if he agrees with them. We've heard that how many times in the last six years? And he's never considered a single Republican proposal. In fact, Harry Reid has over 350 Republican passed bills in the House waiting to be voted on in the Senate, which he refuses to act on, and BHO refuses to prompt him on it.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next two years. The false messiah has been exposed for the emperor with no clothes that he is. The best I think Congress will be able to do is keep BHO in check and prevent him from anymore illegal executive orders, such as what he is promising to do on immigration. I think that Boehner's comments and the letter from several Senators warning him not to do it, is a good sign. But we'll see. The Republicans have had a penchant for throwing away their advantages just when it looks like they are in position to get the country back on the right track.
Will they throw it away again, or will they in the next two years prepare the way for a presidential candidate who will reclaim America's prestige and position of power in the world? We need a return to constitutional limited government and the bill of rights, but more importantly, a hunger for a return to the God of our Forefathers. We'll see. In the meantime, it feels good to wake up in the morning and be able to hope that there is new promise for America's future.
Unfortunately, about 40% of Americans were brainwashed by the promises of the false "messiah," who was going to be making their house and car payments for them, and the swing voters in the middle were driven left by the inept McCain campaign and inability of the Republicans to field a half decent candidate who could articulate their policies. It also didn't help that W. had become increasingly unpopular with an unending war that he couldn't figure out how to win, and budget deficits so high that the country had never seen anything like it. In a sense, the Republicans had more reason to blame Bush for the 2006 and 2008 election fiascos than Obama had to blame him for his (Obama's) poor economic recovery.
Even though the 2010 midterm elections "shellacked" the Democrats, weak Republican leadership in the House and a fractured Republican Party in the Senate did little to really hold up Obama's agenda. Then the 2012 campaign, in which Romney decided apparently to act like a gentleman and not challenge Obama on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and other scandals that he could have nailed him with (after he ran a bitterly dirty campaign against Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination), showed the unique ability once again of moderate/RINO Republicans to snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory.
When conservative talk show hosts like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, and Fox News analysts started predicting a big win for Republicans again in this midterm, my immediate thought was I hope they don't blow it again. Obamacare last year, and ISIS last spring should have been the complete undoing of Obama, but because of Republican lack of resolve (other than Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the Senate, and Trey Gowdy in the House) he essentially got off the hook. But the people it seems were beginning to wake up. Obama's approval rating dropped in the polls down to around 41%. It looked like another Democrat shellacking was in the making, but then Obama's approval ratings went back up to around 45% or higher. I was more than a little concerned.
But as ISIS grew from J.V. to Varsity, James Foley was beheaded by terrorists and BHO played golf, Marine Sgt. Tamoressi sat in a Mexican jail while BHO did nothing after making such a big deal of trading five terrorist leaders so as not to leave traitor Bowe Bergdahl behind, and then did nothing while he assured us ebola would never reach our shores and it did, his poll numbers dropped again to 40% or below. A Republican victory in this election looked like a sure thing, but then the poll numbers started showing very close races all across the country within one or two points, and the liberal media started predicting better times ahead for Democrats.
When Republicans started projecting at least six Senate victories, I started to get a little nervous. Could we throw it away again at the last minute? Then liberal pundits started talking about how the Senate campaigns weren't that important because BHO could still veto any bill a Republican controlled Congress could send him, and besides, the governorships were more important, and they were predicting big Democrat victories. Early on election day when Democrat Tom Wolf was quickly projected to win the governor's seat in Pennsylvania from the Republican incumbent, and Scott Brown couldn't seem to catch Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and other races were reported as being dead heats, I started to wonder if Republicans weren't being a little too optimistic.
Then within the first hour or two a pattern started to emerge. Ed Gillespie came out of nowhere to lead Mark Warner in Virginia, and even though he eventually lost by only one percent of the vote, it was a race nobody had even considered would be close, and an indication that people, even in Democratic strongholds, were beginning to show their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. Apparently Democrat candidates had seen it coming. They didn't want BHO campaigning for them. But BHO wasn't about to be left out. Since they didn't want him, he made it clear that even though he wasn't running, the campaigns were all about his policies. Thank you BHO. Your snooty-nosed pride, which wouldn't let you become irrelevant, was the best campaign ad the Republicans could have asked for. It made it clear what was at issue in the election, and the country absolutely repudiated everything you stand for.
Other than the Tom Tillis - Kay Hagan race in North Carolina, most of the races weren't even close. In the end the Republicans picked up seven Senate seats, and will likely get two more, and fourteen House seats and will likely get two more, as well as a net gain of three governorships including those in uber-liberal states Maryland, Massachusetts, and Obama's home state of Illinois. In Wisconsin, a state where liberal unions had spent tens of millions campaigning against Republican Scott Walker, and which was reported as being a statistical tie when the polls opened, Walker trounced his Democrat opponent sparking speculation that he might even be a presidential candidate in 2016.
A resounding Republican victory, and although all Republicans are not strong conservatives, the mood of the country is so much against BHO's agenda on the border, immigration, ISIS and Obamacare, that even John Boehner is now sounding like a Tea Party representative. So what's going to happen?
Did you see BHO's press conference? He's defiant. He heard us, he said, and he also heard the two-thirds of voters who didn't vote, as if they were all his supporters. No doubt they aren't, but he'll claim that as his mandate to do whatever he wants. He's going to do something about immigration before Christmas whether he has the support of Congress or not. He's ready to consider any proposals the Republicans have and sign them if he agrees with them. We've heard that how many times in the last six years? And he's never considered a single Republican proposal. In fact, Harry Reid has over 350 Republican passed bills in the House waiting to be voted on in the Senate, which he refuses to act on, and BHO refuses to prompt him on it.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the next two years. The false messiah has been exposed for the emperor with no clothes that he is. The best I think Congress will be able to do is keep BHO in check and prevent him from anymore illegal executive orders, such as what he is promising to do on immigration. I think that Boehner's comments and the letter from several Senators warning him not to do it, is a good sign. But we'll see. The Republicans have had a penchant for throwing away their advantages just when it looks like they are in position to get the country back on the right track.
Will they throw it away again, or will they in the next two years prepare the way for a presidential candidate who will reclaim America's prestige and position of power in the world? We need a return to constitutional limited government and the bill of rights, but more importantly, a hunger for a return to the God of our Forefathers. We'll see. In the meantime, it feels good to wake up in the morning and be able to hope that there is new promise for America's future.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Voter Fraud
Has anybody ever noticed that whenever there are allegations of voter fraud like the electronic voting machines changing votes, that the changed votes are always for Democrats?
Remember the hanging chads in 2000 that almost all turned out to be Democrat votes? Or the ballots forgotten in automobile trunks that turned up days late in Minnesota and turned out to be just enough Democrat votes to throw the election to Al Franken? And now we haven't even reached election day and early voting machines in multiple places are changing Republican votes to Democrat again. Democrats, the same people who in 2008 declared that Republicans didn't have a monopoly on God (we never said we did, and we obviously do not considering a lot of Republicans), and then in 2012 booed God out of their convention. These are people with no scruples, no probity, no moral character, and not only no monopoly on God, but very little, if any, knowledge of God, and no conscience about stealing elections. And then they piously get insulted if you challenge their integrity (Remember BHO in the 2012 debates with Romney?).
You can be sure that if the Democrats hold control of the Senate, they will probably have stolen the elections they needed.
Remember the hanging chads in 2000 that almost all turned out to be Democrat votes? Or the ballots forgotten in automobile trunks that turned up days late in Minnesota and turned out to be just enough Democrat votes to throw the election to Al Franken? And now we haven't even reached election day and early voting machines in multiple places are changing Republican votes to Democrat again. Democrats, the same people who in 2008 declared that Republicans didn't have a monopoly on God (we never said we did, and we obviously do not considering a lot of Republicans), and then in 2012 booed God out of their convention. These are people with no scruples, no probity, no moral character, and not only no monopoly on God, but very little, if any, knowledge of God, and no conscience about stealing elections. And then they piously get insulted if you challenge their integrity (Remember BHO in the 2012 debates with Romney?).
You can be sure that if the Democrats hold control of the Senate, they will probably have stolen the elections they needed.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Clint Walker
I'm a son of the west, born and raised in Denver, Colorado. I love the mountains, the wide open spaces, and especially the canyon lands in Utah and Arizona. My favorite place in the whole world is Monument Valley.
I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. My favorite TV shows were the oaters, the horse operas. All my brother, Steve, and I ever wanted for Christmas was cowboy hats and six guns. It was our youngest brother, Randall, however, who got to join the Westernaires horse riding club and become the real cowboy. He was in the cavalry in the James Arness How the West Was Won series in 1978.
As far back as I can remember, every Saturday morning was Roy Rogers. It was a special moment in 1997 when we passed through Victorville, California and stopped at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. Just as we were about to leave Roy came through the lobby riding on a golf cart and we got to shake his hand. My son, Jonathan, was just two years old then and he stood in awe looking up at this real live cowboy. Do you know who that is? I asked him. John Wayne, he replied. I had a full sized John Wayne poster on the wall in our basement so he was already aware of him.
My dad loved westerns and I loved westerns. In fact, westerns is about the only thing I remember watching in my childhood. In our house every Friday night after dinner we watched Have Gun, Will Travel followed by Gunsmoke. Paladin and Matt Dillon were almost household names. My favorite, though, came on Monday nights. Warner Brothers had a rotating series called The Cheyenne Show. Three programs, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and Bronco alternated every Monday night. Bronco and Sugarfoot were okay, but my cowboy hero was the big tall guy who played Cheyenne, Clint Walker.
Clint Walker was born in Illinois just before the Great Depression. He had a twin sister, Neoma. They grew up in a conservative midwestern family, and he grew strong and big working along the Mississippi River. He would eventually reach 6'6" tall with a 36 inch waist and a 52 inch chest. With jet black hair and blue eyes, his face was finely chiseled and his looks were perfect. Not only was he the biggest guy around, he was the hands down handsomest.
He joined the Merchant Marines at age 18 at the end of World War 2, then worked as a longshoreman in Los Angeles, finally moving his family to Las Vegas, where he had a security job in the Sands Hotel. He had a great baritone voice, and somewhere along the line a movie actor, Van Johnson, suggested he should be in the movies. He went back to L.A. where an interview was arranged with Cecil B. DeMille, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He had a couple of small roles in movies, including being the Captain of the Guard in The Ten Commandments. He actually had speaking lines in the movie but they were cut out because he stole the scenes from a very proud, and apparently very jealous of being outshone, Yul Brynner. Then he was invited to test for a western series at Warner Brothers. They immediately liked him, bought his contract from DeMille, and in September 1955 he had the lead role in the first hour long TV western. Cheyenne was an immediate hit. It put Warner Brothers on the TV map. For eight seasons it was a top 20 rated show, three times in the top ten. For awhile Clint Walker was the biggest thing in Hollywood, not just in size, but in popularity as well.
His acting ability is often described as being wooden and very stiff. If you watch the first two or three seasons of Cheyenne that's probably a good description. But I don't think Walker is given enough credit by the critics. He essentially walked off the street and became an almost overnight star. He had no acting experience, no resume to go on to indicate he had any acting ability. He was learning as he went. If you compare his acting in his later Cheyenne episodes you see a real transformation into a quality performer. He started making movies in the late 1950s as well, and in those he was very good. Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly and Gold of the Seven Saints were all B rated films, but Walker's acting in each of them is top notch.
In the mid 60s he reached his zenith as an actor. He had tired of the same monotonous story lines in Cheyenne, and with contractual disputes he left it behind, but from 1965 to 1969 he was in some very highly rated movies including None but the Brave with Frank Sinatra, Night of the Grizzly, and The Dirty Dozen. Night of the Grizzly was his best starring role, and probably the best movie he ever made. (He actually wrote the script.) He seemed to be in demand then making several television appearances, including two on The Lucy Show where he proved himself to be very good at comedy. In 68 and 69 he was busy making several films including The Great Bank Robbery, Sam Whiskey, and More Dead Than Alive.
After a meteoric rise to fame and a decade at the top, his career started to decline at the end of the 60s. The Dirty Dozen was probably the biggest movie he was ever in, and he didn't have a major role. By the 70s he was back in television with a series, Kodiak, that lasted only one season, and several made for TV movies, mostly westerns, but he did branch out. In Cry Wolf he plays a very convincing psychotic bad guy opposite Peter Graves. In 1972 he went to Spain to make Pancho Villa with Telly Savallas, in which he has a very funny scene with Ann Francis. Francis was also in More Dead Than Alive. It's too bad they didn't make more movies together because they seem to have played well off each other.
It was also in 1972 that he had a near life-ending accident while skiing. He fell and one of his ski poles actually pierced his heart. It was only because of a doctor who recognized him and wouldn't give up working on him that his life was spared.
It's always been a puzzle to me why he wasn't more in demand in the 70s and on into the 80s. He hadn't lost his looks any, and from what I've seen, his ability as an actor grew from those wooden early days to some quality emotional performances. In Yellowstone Kelly he actually shed tears when his young protege is killed by Indians. He did again when his wife is killed in Deadly Harvest (which may have been the worst movie he ever made but not because of his acting).
It may be because of his conservative values and that he was very picky about the roles he accepted. He refused to do anything with gratuitous sex, excessive swearing, or bloody graphics. He rarely if ever said a foul word in his films. That kind of standard doesn't get you very far in Hollywood anymore, if it ever did. In the 80s he was making cat and dog food commercials on The Family Channel. Nowadays he runs his own website, Clint Walker: the Big Guy Himself, with his wife, Susan, selling his movies, and he makes appearances at western TV autograph shows.
My brother, Randall, met him in Branson when he was working there in a show in 2005. He had a friend who was named Clint after Clint Walker, and the two of them had a chance to talk to him for awhile when there were no crowds. Walker advised them to do good, clean, wholesome, family oriented entertainment rather than the sexually provocative stuff. In fact, that is evident in the movies and TV shows he made.
In Cheyenne there are many shows where reference is made to the Bible and Christian values. In one episode he recovers a gold cross stolen long ago from a Catholic Church and insists it must be returned to respect the church. Talking with an orphaned boy in another episode he tells the boy he has read the entire Bible. And in an episode with James Coburn, he is arrested on trumped up charges, but when they take his gun and wallet, they allow him to keep a small Bible he has in his shirt pocket, after laughing at him for having a Bible. When bail is set he pulls the money out of the Bible where he had it hidden and tells Coburn, "There's a lot of interesting things in the Bible. You ought to read it sometime." Night of the Grizzly is probably one of the best family films ever made. Twice in the movie the family gathers around the table while Walker says grace for the meal. In real life he's also a patriot. Back in about 1982 he made a pro-Second Amendment infomercial for The National Rifle Association. (That's actually what convinced me to join the NRA!) He spoke out against communism in the day and he holds strong conservative positions still.
Everybody knows what a great John Wayne fan I am, but before there was John Wayne, there was Clint Walker. And honestly, if there were more Clint Walker movies to rave about, I would be raving about them. His personal character and morality is much more Christian in nature than that of John Wayne (although that doesn't make me any less of a Duke fan!).
Clint Walker was my first and longest cowboy American hero. When I took a Creative Writing class in college we had an assignment to write a short story. I wrote a western about a mysterious frontiersman named Walker. I knew of Clint Walker long before I knew of Bobby Richardson. Richardson is my number one hero, and on my Bobby Richardson page I made the comment that if there is anybody I could meet before I die, I would want it to be him. Well, I haven't updated that page yet, but last year I met him, as is shown by the picture on the blog. Today I would say if there is anybody else in the world that I would like to meet before he dies or I do, it would be Clint Walker.
Looking back at my life one of the things that still makes Cheyenne so appealing to me are the lyrics of the song. They seem to describe me. I wandered through a number of things before settling in the military, and then I didn't get married or settle down until I had traveled the world and was 36 years old. And now I'm a missionary still following the winds of God's call to various parts of the world. I don't suppose I'll ever really settle down until I'm in heaven.
God bless you, Clint Walker. Thanks for wonderful memories.
Cheyenne, Cheyenne,
Where will you be camping tonight?
Lonely man, Cheyenne,
Will your heart stay free and light?
Dream, Cheyenne, of a girl you may never love;
Move along, Cheyenne, like the restless clouds up above.
The wind that blows, that comes and goes, has been your only home,
But will the wild wind one day cease and you no longer roam?
Move along, Cheyenne,
Next pasture's always so green.
Drifting on, Cheyenne,
Don't forget the things you have seen.
And when you will settle down, where will it be?
Cheyenne, Cheyenne.
I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. My favorite TV shows were the oaters, the horse operas. All my brother, Steve, and I ever wanted for Christmas was cowboy hats and six guns. It was our youngest brother, Randall, however, who got to join the Westernaires horse riding club and become the real cowboy. He was in the cavalry in the James Arness How the West Was Won series in 1978.
As far back as I can remember, every Saturday morning was Roy Rogers. It was a special moment in 1997 when we passed through Victorville, California and stopped at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. Just as we were about to leave Roy came through the lobby riding on a golf cart and we got to shake his hand. My son, Jonathan, was just two years old then and he stood in awe looking up at this real live cowboy. Do you know who that is? I asked him. John Wayne, he replied. I had a full sized John Wayne poster on the wall in our basement so he was already aware of him.
My dad loved westerns and I loved westerns. In fact, westerns is about the only thing I remember watching in my childhood. In our house every Friday night after dinner we watched Have Gun, Will Travel followed by Gunsmoke. Paladin and Matt Dillon were almost household names. My favorite, though, came on Monday nights. Warner Brothers had a rotating series called The Cheyenne Show. Three programs, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, and Bronco alternated every Monday night. Bronco and Sugarfoot were okay, but my cowboy hero was the big tall guy who played Cheyenne, Clint Walker.
Clint Walker was born in Illinois just before the Great Depression. He had a twin sister, Neoma. They grew up in a conservative midwestern family, and he grew strong and big working along the Mississippi River. He would eventually reach 6'6" tall with a 36 inch waist and a 52 inch chest. With jet black hair and blue eyes, his face was finely chiseled and his looks were perfect. Not only was he the biggest guy around, he was the hands down handsomest.
He joined the Merchant Marines at age 18 at the end of World War 2, then worked as a longshoreman in Los Angeles, finally moving his family to Las Vegas, where he had a security job in the Sands Hotel. He had a great baritone voice, and somewhere along the line a movie actor, Van Johnson, suggested he should be in the movies. He went back to L.A. where an interview was arranged with Cecil B. DeMille, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He had a couple of small roles in movies, including being the Captain of the Guard in The Ten Commandments. He actually had speaking lines in the movie but they were cut out because he stole the scenes from a very proud, and apparently very jealous of being outshone, Yul Brynner. Then he was invited to test for a western series at Warner Brothers. They immediately liked him, bought his contract from DeMille, and in September 1955 he had the lead role in the first hour long TV western. Cheyenne was an immediate hit. It put Warner Brothers on the TV map. For eight seasons it was a top 20 rated show, three times in the top ten. For awhile Clint Walker was the biggest thing in Hollywood, not just in size, but in popularity as well.
His acting ability is often described as being wooden and very stiff. If you watch the first two or three seasons of Cheyenne that's probably a good description. But I don't think Walker is given enough credit by the critics. He essentially walked off the street and became an almost overnight star. He had no acting experience, no resume to go on to indicate he had any acting ability. He was learning as he went. If you compare his acting in his later Cheyenne episodes you see a real transformation into a quality performer. He started making movies in the late 1950s as well, and in those he was very good. Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly and Gold of the Seven Saints were all B rated films, but Walker's acting in each of them is top notch.
In the mid 60s he reached his zenith as an actor. He had tired of the same monotonous story lines in Cheyenne, and with contractual disputes he left it behind, but from 1965 to 1969 he was in some very highly rated movies including None but the Brave with Frank Sinatra, Night of the Grizzly, and The Dirty Dozen. Night of the Grizzly was his best starring role, and probably the best movie he ever made. (He actually wrote the script.) He seemed to be in demand then making several television appearances, including two on The Lucy Show where he proved himself to be very good at comedy. In 68 and 69 he was busy making several films including The Great Bank Robbery, Sam Whiskey, and More Dead Than Alive.
After a meteoric rise to fame and a decade at the top, his career started to decline at the end of the 60s. The Dirty Dozen was probably the biggest movie he was ever in, and he didn't have a major role. By the 70s he was back in television with a series, Kodiak, that lasted only one season, and several made for TV movies, mostly westerns, but he did branch out. In Cry Wolf he plays a very convincing psychotic bad guy opposite Peter Graves. In 1972 he went to Spain to make Pancho Villa with Telly Savallas, in which he has a very funny scene with Ann Francis. Francis was also in More Dead Than Alive. It's too bad they didn't make more movies together because they seem to have played well off each other.
It was also in 1972 that he had a near life-ending accident while skiing. He fell and one of his ski poles actually pierced his heart. It was only because of a doctor who recognized him and wouldn't give up working on him that his life was spared.
It's always been a puzzle to me why he wasn't more in demand in the 70s and on into the 80s. He hadn't lost his looks any, and from what I've seen, his ability as an actor grew from those wooden early days to some quality emotional performances. In Yellowstone Kelly he actually shed tears when his young protege is killed by Indians. He did again when his wife is killed in Deadly Harvest (which may have been the worst movie he ever made but not because of his acting).
It may be because of his conservative values and that he was very picky about the roles he accepted. He refused to do anything with gratuitous sex, excessive swearing, or bloody graphics. He rarely if ever said a foul word in his films. That kind of standard doesn't get you very far in Hollywood anymore, if it ever did. In the 80s he was making cat and dog food commercials on The Family Channel. Nowadays he runs his own website, Clint Walker: the Big Guy Himself, with his wife, Susan, selling his movies, and he makes appearances at western TV autograph shows.
My brother, Randall, met him in Branson when he was working there in a show in 2005. He had a friend who was named Clint after Clint Walker, and the two of them had a chance to talk to him for awhile when there were no crowds. Walker advised them to do good, clean, wholesome, family oriented entertainment rather than the sexually provocative stuff. In fact, that is evident in the movies and TV shows he made.
In Cheyenne there are many shows where reference is made to the Bible and Christian values. In one episode he recovers a gold cross stolen long ago from a Catholic Church and insists it must be returned to respect the church. Talking with an orphaned boy in another episode he tells the boy he has read the entire Bible. And in an episode with James Coburn, he is arrested on trumped up charges, but when they take his gun and wallet, they allow him to keep a small Bible he has in his shirt pocket, after laughing at him for having a Bible. When bail is set he pulls the money out of the Bible where he had it hidden and tells Coburn, "There's a lot of interesting things in the Bible. You ought to read it sometime." Night of the Grizzly is probably one of the best family films ever made. Twice in the movie the family gathers around the table while Walker says grace for the meal. In real life he's also a patriot. Back in about 1982 he made a pro-Second Amendment infomercial for The National Rifle Association. (That's actually what convinced me to join the NRA!) He spoke out against communism in the day and he holds strong conservative positions still.
Everybody knows what a great John Wayne fan I am, but before there was John Wayne, there was Clint Walker. And honestly, if there were more Clint Walker movies to rave about, I would be raving about them. His personal character and morality is much more Christian in nature than that of John Wayne (although that doesn't make me any less of a Duke fan!).
Clint Walker was my first and longest cowboy American hero. When I took a Creative Writing class in college we had an assignment to write a short story. I wrote a western about a mysterious frontiersman named Walker. I knew of Clint Walker long before I knew of Bobby Richardson. Richardson is my number one hero, and on my Bobby Richardson page I made the comment that if there is anybody I could meet before I die, I would want it to be him. Well, I haven't updated that page yet, but last year I met him, as is shown by the picture on the blog. Today I would say if there is anybody else in the world that I would like to meet before he dies or I do, it would be Clint Walker.
Looking back at my life one of the things that still makes Cheyenne so appealing to me are the lyrics of the song. They seem to describe me. I wandered through a number of things before settling in the military, and then I didn't get married or settle down until I had traveled the world and was 36 years old. And now I'm a missionary still following the winds of God's call to various parts of the world. I don't suppose I'll ever really settle down until I'm in heaven.
God bless you, Clint Walker. Thanks for wonderful memories.
Cheyenne, Cheyenne,
Where will you be camping tonight?
Lonely man, Cheyenne,
Will your heart stay free and light?
Dream, Cheyenne, of a girl you may never love;
Move along, Cheyenne, like the restless clouds up above.
The wind that blows, that comes and goes, has been your only home,
But will the wild wind one day cease and you no longer roam?
Move along, Cheyenne,
Next pasture's always so green.
Drifting on, Cheyenne,
Don't forget the things you have seen.
And when you will settle down, where will it be?
Cheyenne, Cheyenne.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Ian R. K. Paisley
Saturday one of the truly great statesmen and truly great preachers of our time passed from this life into the presence of the Lord. Dr. Ian R. K. Paisley was a giant of a man, both in physical stature and in political as well as spiritual influence on a world wide stage. Very deliberate in both speech and action, he packed three lifetimes into one as the pastor of the Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, a Member of the British Parliament, and a Member of the European Parliament. He was a man who stood in the gap unafraid to fight political or ecclesiastical battles, and was a force to be reckoned with for over fifty years.
Dr. Paisley was a tall, barrel-chested man with a voice that thundered when he spoke. No one who ever heard him came away unaffected. He was a compelling man, you either liked him or you didn't, but there was no middle ground. He was a leader in the Fundamentalist movement and a defender of the absolute authority of the Scriptures without compromise. In 1951, at the young age of 25, he founded the Free Presbyterian Church movement in Northern Ireland. He became involved in Ulster politics often taking to the streets to organize protests, and had such a huge following that when arrested and jailed for an illegal assembly in 1968, thousands took to the streets to protest his imprisonment. Upon his release the attendance at his church doubled.
He was a tireless campaigner against the Irish Republican Army and in 1970 won a seat in the Stormont Parliament in Belfast, and became a member of the British Parliament. In 1973 he founded the Democratic Unionist Party to oppose the Ulster Unionist Party, which had controlled Ulster politics since 1922. In 2005 the DUP overtook the UUP as the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland. In 1979 Paisley won an overwhelming vote to the European Parliament where he gained a reputation for standing up for all of his constituents regardless of their religious affiliation. Never far away from controversy, however, he was once forcibly removed from the Parliament for repeatedly interrupting the speaker and declaring Pope John Paul II to be the Antichrist.
As a preacher he was every bit as tireless defending the fundamentals of the Christian faith. It was my privilege to have heard him speak many times on the campus of Bob Jones University. He was popular among the students and never disappointed. He also had a sense of humor that he carefully crafted into his messages. He once said that when he came to BJU he always picked passages that included a verse eight because he said, "I know how you like to hear me pronounce 'A-yet.'"
Paisley was a staunch Calvinist, while Bob Jones repudiated the Calvinist doctrine. It did not affect the enduring friendship between Paisley and the Joneses. He was invited to speak shortly after the new Founder's Memorial Amphitorium was opened on the BJU campus in 1974. The auditorium seated 7,000, and had a huge speaker system over the platform, but bugs in the system often caused it to buzz on and off when someone was speaking. While Paisley was preaching in a chapel service it began to buzz. He stopped, looked up, and then said, "It sounds like bees in the tulips." If you know anything about Calvinism you'll understand the joke, but it went over the heads of many of us that morning who were not Bible majors. When the Internal Revenue Service had revoked Bob Jones University's tax exempt status in 1980, Paisley mentioned that they both had similar problems. We had our IRS, while in Northern Ireland they had their IRA.
I met him personally only one time. I was walking passed the Fine Arts Building on the campus just as he came out of the door of a guest apartment on the side of the building. He greeted me and enjoined me in conversation for a couple of minutes. In spite of his stature he was not too important to take time to talk to a nobody student like me. In our brief encounter he learned that I had a class with his daughter, Rhonda, who was also a student. With a sly smile he winked at me and asked me if I had asked her out yet. "No," I said, "but I like her Irish accent." "Ah, yes," he said and laughed.
As a speaker he was always purposeful and methodical, almost as if he had intentionally chosen every word to give his messages the greatest impact. He was a master at pause and effect in his style. In the pulpit he would pray at the beginning of each message and he always ended the prayer by saying, "To this end I take, thank God He undertakes ... for me. Amen and amen." His messages were never simple devotionals, they were theological landmarks, which he skillfully presented in a clear, simple and understandable manner. At Bible Conference in 1993 he preached the greatest message I have ever heard from 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, keying on verse 24. He began by examining the arguments of unbelievers against God, and then totally destroyed them with Scripture.
"The Jews say, 'if only God would give us a sign.' Ah, but that's exactly what He did," Paisley said softly. "He gave them a sign in the form of the Son of God," he continued, his volume level rising. Then he roared, "Who is He? He is none other than Chrrrist, the power ... of God, ... and Chrrrist, the wisdom ... of God." I will never forget the thunderclap of his voice as he raised his right arm and rolled the "r" in Christ, and then raised his left arm as he did it again. I bought a tape of the message and played it over and over until I wore it out. One thing that was always evident in his messages was the absolute exaltation of Christ.
Politically, Dr. Paisley seems to have softened his tone in his later years, even agreeing to a compromise arrangement with Gerry Adams and his Sinn Fein organization, the IRA terrorists, in order to bring peace to Northern Ireland. But as long as he had breath, he still preached Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God. Fundamentalism has lost a great warrior, but he would be disappointed if we were to mourn his passing. Speaking of death he once said, "If you hear in the press that Ian Paisley is dead, don't believe a word of it. I'll be more alive than ever. I'll be singing as I sang never before."
And so he is.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
The Star Spangled Banner
Two hundred years ago today one of the defining moments in American history took place at a star-shaped fort on the Patapsco River near Baltimore, Maryland. The British had invaded the United States and for a few weeks after they had captured Washington City, the future of America as an independent nation was in the balance. At Fort McHenry the British found an immoveable obstacle and the independence of a nation was secured. What is most remembered about the battle, however, is a poem written by a lawyer describing the battle and the anxious anticipation of the outcome.
Internet legends are notorious for stretching the truth, or just outright deception, and sometime ago one appeared claiming that the soldiers defending the fort literally gave their lives stacking their bodies up to hold the flag in position when the flagpole had been damaged. Recently somebody made a YouTube video of the battle purporting to have done extensive research in the preparation, and only embellishing it with a little dialogue. It is heart stirring and patriotic sounding, but it is all false. It is only a regurgitation of the phony story that has been floating around the Internet. The truth of the Battle of Fort McHenry is far different, and it is wildly patriotic without the deception of the Internet legend.
It begins with the British Empire. One of the enigmas of world history is how the tiny island nation of England became the largest empire in terms of both territory and influence that the world has ever seen. Protected by the natural barriers of the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and the North Sea, the British isles have not been successfully invaded since the Normans under William the Conqueror landed on its shores in 1066. The Normans were French and for centuries England claimed the northern part of France as its own possession until at end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 they were driven off the continent.
The English then turned to the sea and after defeating the mighty Spanish Armada in 1588, became the greatest maritime power in the history of the world. In spite of its small size, well trained and equipped British armies occupied and built a colonial empire that stretched from Canada to the Cape of Good Hope, across Africa and the Middle East to India, Malaya, and Singapore, and into the South Pacific to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. In 1707 Scotland united with England and Wales to create the United Kingdom, which Ireland then joined in 1801. For over three hundred years Great Britain dominated world affairs. From 1688 to 1763 the British fought four wars with the French, Spanish and Austrians, collectively known as the French and Indian Wars, in which they were victorious in every one.
The British then virtually stood alone against Napoleon as he conquered Europe in the early 1800s, and at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 Lord Nelson's victory over the French fleet effectively ended France's standing as a sea power. But there was one thorn in the British side, the Declaration of Independence and thirteen American colonies becoming the United States of America after defeating the British in the American Revolution. The Americans owed part of their success to the support of the Marquis de Lafayette and the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse.
The British were looking for a way to get back at their former colonies and began stopping American ships on the high seas and impressing American seamen into the British Navy to fight the Napoleonic Wars. The practice had been going on for years when it reached a breaking point and in 1812 President James Madison called for a declaration of war against Britain. The United States entered the War of 1812 on the side of the French. The war has sometimes been called the Second American War for Independence, because the British came back to their former colonies with the intent of retaking them.
After two years the outcome was still in question when Napoleon's mighty army collapsed in 1814 after a disastrous campaign in Russia. Sixteen thousand British troops were then sent from Europe to Canada to drive south in a pincer move to join a British army led by General Robert Ross moving north up the Chesapeake Bay. After defeating an American army at the Battle of Bladensburg, the British occupied Washington City and burned many government buildings including the White House, and in the process took a Washington doctor, William Beanes, prisoner. Beanes had found some British stragglers looting, arrested them, and took them to the British garrison, whereupon he was promptly arrested. As President Madison was fleeing the city, his wife, Dolly, famously rescued America's founding documents, the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Ross then embarked his army on Navy ships, which sailed down the Potomac and back up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. Baltimore was a port city with shipyards that the British believed were outfitting and supplying privateers. Determined to capture and destroy the port, the British landed Ross and his army of about 4,500 men at North Point to the east of Baltimore on September 12, 1814, and then sailed 19 ships up the bay to the Baltimore harbor.
A Georgetown lawyer, Francis Scott Key, was asked to help secure the release of Dr. Beanes. At Baltimore he met Colonel John Skinner, a government prisoner exchange agent. They approached the British flagship HMS Tonnant under a flag of truce on September 5, and were treated to dinner with Rear Admiral George Cockburn and General Ross. The release of Dr. Beanes was agreed to, but in the process Key and Skinner had overheard the British battle plans. They were forced then to remain on board with Beanes until the campaign was over.
Ross marched his army toward Baltimore until he ran into a small force under Brigadier General John Stricker, whose purpose was to delay the British advance while the Americans dug in and prepared for an attack at the city. Ross was killed in the skirmish, and his army sat out the night in a rainstorm before advancing on the city on the 13th. At the gates of the city, however, the British found 12,000 well-entrenched American troops and withdrew to North Point.
Fort McHenry sat at the end of a peninsula between two branches of the Patapsco River. The Northwest Branch, which passed to the north of the fort, led into Baltimore harbor. The Middle Branch passed to the south, and also had two smaller forts up river, Covington and Babcock, to support McHenry. McHenry was commanded by Major George Armistead who had a compliment of about one thousand men. Armistead's nephew, Lew Armistead, would give his life leading Pickett's Charge at the third day of Gettysburg forty-nine years later during the American Civil War. The fort was named for James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution, whose son John fought in the battle.
The bombardment of Fort McHenry began on the morning of the 13th. The British had guns, mortars and rockets that could reach the fort from over two miles away. McHenry had only twenty short-range guns and was unable to return fire in the early hours of the battle. Believing the fort had been damaged, Admiral Cockburn moved his fleet in closer for more effective fire, but when in range, Armistead's guns replied so furiously that Cockburn had to move back out of range. The bombardment continued all day and into the night when rain began to fall.
Armistead ordered a small rain flag raised during the storm and through the night the light from the streaking rockets and exploding bombs cast a glow over the fort revealing the flag. By morning nearly 1800 projectiles had been fired at the fort. The most intense moment came when a mortar, a large canon ball launched in an arc to fly over the walls and explode within the fort, landed near the powder magazine. Providentially, it did not explode. The magazine was in an exposed, unprotected area of the fort, so the troops went to work moving the powder and shot to covered, secure areas.
After dark the British loaded 1200 men into small boats and rowed up the Middle Branch to put troops ashore behind the fort. After safely landing they fired several signal rockets to alert the fleet, but the rockets gave away their position. Heavy fire from Forts Covington and Babcock forced the troops to withdraw with severe losses.
As dawn began to break on the 14th, twenty-five hours after the bombardment began, the rain stopped and Armistead ordered a 30 x 42 foot battle flag raised to show the fort was still standing. Four U.S. soldiers had been killed and 24 wounded, including Private William Williams, a run-away slave, who died two weeks later.
Eight miles away at North Point, Key, Skinner and Beanes had remained on the deck of the ship and watched the bombardment through the night. In the morning the guns fell silent as the rain stopped and a fog rolled over the bay. Not knowing the outcome they apprehensively waited. Then as the rising sunlight burned away the fog they saw the huge battle flag waving defiantly in the breeze. McHenry had not surrendered. Suddenly inspired, Key began to write out the story in verse on the back of an envelope.
In New York the British fleet on Lake Champlain had been defeated at the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11, and the division of troops from Europe were ordered back to Canada. Peace talks were already underway in Europe, but the British, wanting to punish their former colonies, would be disappointed. These two losses strengthened the U.S. position and led to the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on December 24. Two weeks later on January 8, 1815, not knowing that the war was officially over, the British suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. The British would recover their pride six months later with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, but the Americans had secured for the second time their independence from Britain and their right to be free.
Key published his poem originally as The Defense of Fort McHenry. Later it took on its more popular name, The Star Spangled Banner. It was not until 1931, however, that a resolution from Congress officially made it our National Anthem. Sung to the lively tune of an old drinking song, it is a rousing hymn that begins and ends the first verse with a question. The first reveals the suspense of impatiently waiting through the night to find the outcome upon which the fate of the nation rested. It describes the intensity of the rockets and bomb blasts lighting up the flag and proving it still flew.
The second question is timeless. Does it still wave today? Is it still the proud banner once respected and admired around the world? Are the American people still free? Is America still the home of the brave?
Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
It became one of baseball's first traditions to sing the anthem before games, and then the idea spread to other sports and events as well. There were actually four verses written, but only the first and last are regularly sung, and most often only the first. The last verse assures the listener that America will always rise to causes that are just, and praises God in heaven, in Whom we trust, for preserving the nation by His power. With that trust in God the flag will continue to wave in triumph over the land.
Oh thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes, and the wars desolation.
Blessed with victory and peace may the heaven rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just
And this be our motto, In God is our Trust.
And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
We can proudly say today that yes, it does still wave, we are still free, and we still have brave heroes giving their lives on battlefields around the world to preserve our liberties. But considering the direction the government has gone in recent years, the moral decay of the culture, and the war on Christianity within our own country, one has to wonder whether or not the next generation will be able to say, "Yes it does still wave and we are still free."
Internet legends are notorious for stretching the truth, or just outright deception, and sometime ago one appeared claiming that the soldiers defending the fort literally gave their lives stacking their bodies up to hold the flag in position when the flagpole had been damaged. Recently somebody made a YouTube video of the battle purporting to have done extensive research in the preparation, and only embellishing it with a little dialogue. It is heart stirring and patriotic sounding, but it is all false. It is only a regurgitation of the phony story that has been floating around the Internet. The truth of the Battle of Fort McHenry is far different, and it is wildly patriotic without the deception of the Internet legend.
It begins with the British Empire. One of the enigmas of world history is how the tiny island nation of England became the largest empire in terms of both territory and influence that the world has ever seen. Protected by the natural barriers of the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and the North Sea, the British isles have not been successfully invaded since the Normans under William the Conqueror landed on its shores in 1066. The Normans were French and for centuries England claimed the northern part of France as its own possession until at end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 they were driven off the continent.
The English then turned to the sea and after defeating the mighty Spanish Armada in 1588, became the greatest maritime power in the history of the world. In spite of its small size, well trained and equipped British armies occupied and built a colonial empire that stretched from Canada to the Cape of Good Hope, across Africa and the Middle East to India, Malaya, and Singapore, and into the South Pacific to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. In 1707 Scotland united with England and Wales to create the United Kingdom, which Ireland then joined in 1801. For over three hundred years Great Britain dominated world affairs. From 1688 to 1763 the British fought four wars with the French, Spanish and Austrians, collectively known as the French and Indian Wars, in which they were victorious in every one.
The British then virtually stood alone against Napoleon as he conquered Europe in the early 1800s, and at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 Lord Nelson's victory over the French fleet effectively ended France's standing as a sea power. But there was one thorn in the British side, the Declaration of Independence and thirteen American colonies becoming the United States of America after defeating the British in the American Revolution. The Americans owed part of their success to the support of the Marquis de Lafayette and the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse.
The British were looking for a way to get back at their former colonies and began stopping American ships on the high seas and impressing American seamen into the British Navy to fight the Napoleonic Wars. The practice had been going on for years when it reached a breaking point and in 1812 President James Madison called for a declaration of war against Britain. The United States entered the War of 1812 on the side of the French. The war has sometimes been called the Second American War for Independence, because the British came back to their former colonies with the intent of retaking them.
After two years the outcome was still in question when Napoleon's mighty army collapsed in 1814 after a disastrous campaign in Russia. Sixteen thousand British troops were then sent from Europe to Canada to drive south in a pincer move to join a British army led by General Robert Ross moving north up the Chesapeake Bay. After defeating an American army at the Battle of Bladensburg, the British occupied Washington City and burned many government buildings including the White House, and in the process took a Washington doctor, William Beanes, prisoner. Beanes had found some British stragglers looting, arrested them, and took them to the British garrison, whereupon he was promptly arrested. As President Madison was fleeing the city, his wife, Dolly, famously rescued America's founding documents, the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Ross then embarked his army on Navy ships, which sailed down the Potomac and back up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. Baltimore was a port city with shipyards that the British believed were outfitting and supplying privateers. Determined to capture and destroy the port, the British landed Ross and his army of about 4,500 men at North Point to the east of Baltimore on September 12, 1814, and then sailed 19 ships up the bay to the Baltimore harbor.
A Georgetown lawyer, Francis Scott Key, was asked to help secure the release of Dr. Beanes. At Baltimore he met Colonel John Skinner, a government prisoner exchange agent. They approached the British flagship HMS Tonnant under a flag of truce on September 5, and were treated to dinner with Rear Admiral George Cockburn and General Ross. The release of Dr. Beanes was agreed to, but in the process Key and Skinner had overheard the British battle plans. They were forced then to remain on board with Beanes until the campaign was over.
Ross marched his army toward Baltimore until he ran into a small force under Brigadier General John Stricker, whose purpose was to delay the British advance while the Americans dug in and prepared for an attack at the city. Ross was killed in the skirmish, and his army sat out the night in a rainstorm before advancing on the city on the 13th. At the gates of the city, however, the British found 12,000 well-entrenched American troops and withdrew to North Point.
Fort McHenry sat at the end of a peninsula between two branches of the Patapsco River. The Northwest Branch, which passed to the north of the fort, led into Baltimore harbor. The Middle Branch passed to the south, and also had two smaller forts up river, Covington and Babcock, to support McHenry. McHenry was commanded by Major George Armistead who had a compliment of about one thousand men. Armistead's nephew, Lew Armistead, would give his life leading Pickett's Charge at the third day of Gettysburg forty-nine years later during the American Civil War. The fort was named for James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution, whose son John fought in the battle.
The bombardment of Fort McHenry began on the morning of the 13th. The British had guns, mortars and rockets that could reach the fort from over two miles away. McHenry had only twenty short-range guns and was unable to return fire in the early hours of the battle. Believing the fort had been damaged, Admiral Cockburn moved his fleet in closer for more effective fire, but when in range, Armistead's guns replied so furiously that Cockburn had to move back out of range. The bombardment continued all day and into the night when rain began to fall.
Armistead ordered a small rain flag raised during the storm and through the night the light from the streaking rockets and exploding bombs cast a glow over the fort revealing the flag. By morning nearly 1800 projectiles had been fired at the fort. The most intense moment came when a mortar, a large canon ball launched in an arc to fly over the walls and explode within the fort, landed near the powder magazine. Providentially, it did not explode. The magazine was in an exposed, unprotected area of the fort, so the troops went to work moving the powder and shot to covered, secure areas.
After dark the British loaded 1200 men into small boats and rowed up the Middle Branch to put troops ashore behind the fort. After safely landing they fired several signal rockets to alert the fleet, but the rockets gave away their position. Heavy fire from Forts Covington and Babcock forced the troops to withdraw with severe losses.
As dawn began to break on the 14th, twenty-five hours after the bombardment began, the rain stopped and Armistead ordered a 30 x 42 foot battle flag raised to show the fort was still standing. Four U.S. soldiers had been killed and 24 wounded, including Private William Williams, a run-away slave, who died two weeks later.
Eight miles away at North Point, Key, Skinner and Beanes had remained on the deck of the ship and watched the bombardment through the night. In the morning the guns fell silent as the rain stopped and a fog rolled over the bay. Not knowing the outcome they apprehensively waited. Then as the rising sunlight burned away the fog they saw the huge battle flag waving defiantly in the breeze. McHenry had not surrendered. Suddenly inspired, Key began to write out the story in verse on the back of an envelope.
In New York the British fleet on Lake Champlain had been defeated at the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11, and the division of troops from Europe were ordered back to Canada. Peace talks were already underway in Europe, but the British, wanting to punish their former colonies, would be disappointed. These two losses strengthened the U.S. position and led to the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on December 24. Two weeks later on January 8, 1815, not knowing that the war was officially over, the British suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. The British would recover their pride six months later with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, but the Americans had secured for the second time their independence from Britain and their right to be free.
Key published his poem originally as The Defense of Fort McHenry. Later it took on its more popular name, The Star Spangled Banner. It was not until 1931, however, that a resolution from Congress officially made it our National Anthem. Sung to the lively tune of an old drinking song, it is a rousing hymn that begins and ends the first verse with a question. The first reveals the suspense of impatiently waiting through the night to find the outcome upon which the fate of the nation rested. It describes the intensity of the rockets and bomb blasts lighting up the flag and proving it still flew.
The second question is timeless. Does it still wave today? Is it still the proud banner once respected and admired around the world? Are the American people still free? Is America still the home of the brave?
Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
It became one of baseball's first traditions to sing the anthem before games, and then the idea spread to other sports and events as well. There were actually four verses written, but only the first and last are regularly sung, and most often only the first. The last verse assures the listener that America will always rise to causes that are just, and praises God in heaven, in Whom we trust, for preserving the nation by His power. With that trust in God the flag will continue to wave in triumph over the land.
Oh thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes, and the wars desolation.
Blessed with victory and peace may the heaven rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just
And this be our motto, In God is our Trust.
And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
We can proudly say today that yes, it does still wave, we are still free, and we still have brave heroes giving their lives on battlefields around the world to preserve our liberties. But considering the direction the government has gone in recent years, the moral decay of the culture, and the war on Christianity within our own country, one has to wonder whether or not the next generation will be able to say, "Yes it does still wave and we are still free."
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Let's Take America Back
Speaking to a crowd of union members at the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit on Labor Day, Vice President Joe "the Plagiarizer" Biden said, "It's time to take America back."
I'd like to know from whom? Or from what? This is the same thing the Democrats were saying in 2008 when Obama was running for president. Led by Michael Moore it became almost a leftist chant. "We want our country back," they shouted.
In 2008 the question was the same. From whom? Or from what? The leftist anti-God, gay-loving, abortion worshipping America the Democrats were clamoring for then had never existed. Leftist morality, or should I say immorality, and godless values had been slowly strangling America since at least the 1960s when God was thrown out of our public schools and government institutions. Abortion, which has always been an abomination to anyone with a conscience and love of humanity, suddenly became a woman's right to choose in 1973, and since then nothing has been the same. Jimmy Carter gave us big government and feckless leadership, and after a revival of real American values in the 1980s, Bill Clinton gave us a playboy nonchalant skepticism for anything truthful or righteous. W started out well, but after six years of an unending strategy in the War on Terror that refused to recognize Islam as the enemy, and his unwillingness to control the national debt resulting in even bigger government, there was a resurgence of the Democrat Party in 2006 leading to the election of Obama in 2008.
Now we have feckless disdain for the Constitution, as well as America, sitting in the White House. We have a president with a weak-kneed inability to make command decisions, combined with an arrogant, deliberate disregard for the truth, absolutely devoid of any character, probity or righteousness. We have a bigger government than ever, and a national debt that is spiraling out of control to heights we never even dreamed of. We have surrendered our morality to a homosexual agenda seeking to destroy marriage and the family, we have a gun control lobby that argues that even if we save one life it is worth it, while the same people push for government paid abortions on demand to the tune of 4,000 a day, without regard for the lives of mothers lost or damaged from botched abortions (which are not minimal), not to mention the babies slaughtered. In Obama we have Carter, Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson all wrapped up in one package.
Moore and the leftists didn't take their country back, they stole it from true patriotic Americans and remade it into a new one. We are no longer the country our Founding Fathers created or envisioned.
So the question is, what America is Biden talking about? Is this an admission that Obama's radical left wing American destroying polices are wrong? Is he unhappy with the moral sewer Obama has taken us into? Is he unhappy with the disrespect and disregard we are given by Putin, North Korea, Iran, and just about everybody else in the world? Is he saying we need to take America back to where it was before Obama? Is that W's America? Reagan's America? How about Clinton's America?
At least Clinton had the sense to get before the public and apologize for his failures. Obama blames Bush. Is Biden tired of playing second fiddle to the Nero in the White House?
It is time to take America back alright. Back to the principles and vision of the Founding Fathers and lawful government under the Constitution. Back to the God of our Fathers.
Democrats tend to ridicule and mock anyone espousing the Founders' vision as unprogressive and going back to a primitive time where women were chattel and abortions were performed in back alleys. Neither of these are true, and no true conservative wants to take away the gains women, or minorities, have made that are constitutionally lawful, such as voting and equal opportunity. But a women's right to choose abortion and homosexual marriage are not constitutional rights. Neither is it progressive to continue a political, economic, social or military agenda that is driving America to the ash heap of nations.
"We all want progress," C.S. Lewis wrote, "but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."
So is this what Biden is talking about? Or was his meaning a little more focused like getting back to the days when corrupt union bosses controlled labor? Or is this just another of his monumental gaffes, like the paper he plagiarized to get his college degree?
Maybe it's time conservatives started clamoring, "Let's take America back." The November elections are a good place to start.
I'd like to know from whom? Or from what? This is the same thing the Democrats were saying in 2008 when Obama was running for president. Led by Michael Moore it became almost a leftist chant. "We want our country back," they shouted.
In 2008 the question was the same. From whom? Or from what? The leftist anti-God, gay-loving, abortion worshipping America the Democrats were clamoring for then had never existed. Leftist morality, or should I say immorality, and godless values had been slowly strangling America since at least the 1960s when God was thrown out of our public schools and government institutions. Abortion, which has always been an abomination to anyone with a conscience and love of humanity, suddenly became a woman's right to choose in 1973, and since then nothing has been the same. Jimmy Carter gave us big government and feckless leadership, and after a revival of real American values in the 1980s, Bill Clinton gave us a playboy nonchalant skepticism for anything truthful or righteous. W started out well, but after six years of an unending strategy in the War on Terror that refused to recognize Islam as the enemy, and his unwillingness to control the national debt resulting in even bigger government, there was a resurgence of the Democrat Party in 2006 leading to the election of Obama in 2008.
Now we have feckless disdain for the Constitution, as well as America, sitting in the White House. We have a president with a weak-kneed inability to make command decisions, combined with an arrogant, deliberate disregard for the truth, absolutely devoid of any character, probity or righteousness. We have a bigger government than ever, and a national debt that is spiraling out of control to heights we never even dreamed of. We have surrendered our morality to a homosexual agenda seeking to destroy marriage and the family, we have a gun control lobby that argues that even if we save one life it is worth it, while the same people push for government paid abortions on demand to the tune of 4,000 a day, without regard for the lives of mothers lost or damaged from botched abortions (which are not minimal), not to mention the babies slaughtered. In Obama we have Carter, Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson all wrapped up in one package.
Moore and the leftists didn't take their country back, they stole it from true patriotic Americans and remade it into a new one. We are no longer the country our Founding Fathers created or envisioned.
So the question is, what America is Biden talking about? Is this an admission that Obama's radical left wing American destroying polices are wrong? Is he unhappy with the moral sewer Obama has taken us into? Is he unhappy with the disrespect and disregard we are given by Putin, North Korea, Iran, and just about everybody else in the world? Is he saying we need to take America back to where it was before Obama? Is that W's America? Reagan's America? How about Clinton's America?
At least Clinton had the sense to get before the public and apologize for his failures. Obama blames Bush. Is Biden tired of playing second fiddle to the Nero in the White House?
It is time to take America back alright. Back to the principles and vision of the Founding Fathers and lawful government under the Constitution. Back to the God of our Fathers.
Democrats tend to ridicule and mock anyone espousing the Founders' vision as unprogressive and going back to a primitive time where women were chattel and abortions were performed in back alleys. Neither of these are true, and no true conservative wants to take away the gains women, or minorities, have made that are constitutionally lawful, such as voting and equal opportunity. But a women's right to choose abortion and homosexual marriage are not constitutional rights. Neither is it progressive to continue a political, economic, social or military agenda that is driving America to the ash heap of nations.
"We all want progress," C.S. Lewis wrote, "but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."
So is this what Biden is talking about? Or was his meaning a little more focused like getting back to the days when corrupt union bosses controlled labor? Or is this just another of his monumental gaffes, like the paper he plagiarized to get his college degree?
Maybe it's time conservatives started clamoring, "Let's take America back." The November elections are a good place to start.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Robin Williams
It's a sad thing when someone reaches a point of such depression and helplessness that they see only one final way out. In Robin Williams's case it seems particularly sad since in a movie he made called World's Greatest Dad, he makes the comment, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." I was surprised, however, at how much attention his death received on the news channels. For 24 hours it was almost the only thing on Fox. You would have thought the whole world had stopped while they paid homage.
My introduction to Robin Williams was on the TV sitcom, Mork and Mindy. He made such a splash and was so funny, that I still remember the first time I saw the show. It was around Christmas 1978, and I was on my way home to Denver from college in Springfield, Missouri. I traveled with my roommate, Terry Andrews, to his home in Wichita, and stayed several days before heading on. One night there we watched this new sitcom about Mork from Ork. It was unbelievably and ridiculously hilarious.
I watched the show whenever I could over the next couple years, but when I saw a stand-up comedy act Williams did on some other program I turned him off. The routine was a vile, profane mockery of Christianity and the Bible. I got the impression he was an atheist. Now the news reports are that he grew up Episcopalian, so maybe not atheist, but his attack on the Word of God and fundamental Christian doctrines such as the Virgin Birth made it pretty clear that he did not believe the Bible in the least.
The only movie I've watched of his since then was Night at the Museum. He played a very heart-warming role as Teddy Roosevelt and I enjoyed the movie. It's unfortunate, I suppose, because from all I'm reading and hearing on the news he played some very good roles and he was as good as a serious actor as he was a comedian. Then there are his visits to entertain our troops, and his respect for them and To the Colors, which interrupted one of his performances. Testimonials tell of how generous he was, how many people he helped, and how he was a friend to everyone he passed on the street or anywhere else. Fame had not gone to his head. He was as humble and kind and generous as a human being could be.
I guess I didn't really appreciate his talent after that comedy routine, but he apparently was an incredible person and I think maybe it's a shame that more people don't share his outrageously humorous look at life. One poignant thing that Williams's death reveals, however, is that for all of his humility, all of his kindness, his generosity, his friends and family, all of his laughter, his fame and fortune, none of it was enough to overcome the depression that led him to his permanent decision. His successful achievements, public acclaim, material wealth, and all that comes from the world, could not drive away the dark shadows in his mind and bring him peace. Peace in the world, as well as peace in the heart, is only found in the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, the very one Robin Williams so irreverently scorned.
My introduction to Robin Williams was on the TV sitcom, Mork and Mindy. He made such a splash and was so funny, that I still remember the first time I saw the show. It was around Christmas 1978, and I was on my way home to Denver from college in Springfield, Missouri. I traveled with my roommate, Terry Andrews, to his home in Wichita, and stayed several days before heading on. One night there we watched this new sitcom about Mork from Ork. It was unbelievably and ridiculously hilarious.
I watched the show whenever I could over the next couple years, but when I saw a stand-up comedy act Williams did on some other program I turned him off. The routine was a vile, profane mockery of Christianity and the Bible. I got the impression he was an atheist. Now the news reports are that he grew up Episcopalian, so maybe not atheist, but his attack on the Word of God and fundamental Christian doctrines such as the Virgin Birth made it pretty clear that he did not believe the Bible in the least.
The only movie I've watched of his since then was Night at the Museum. He played a very heart-warming role as Teddy Roosevelt and I enjoyed the movie. It's unfortunate, I suppose, because from all I'm reading and hearing on the news he played some very good roles and he was as good as a serious actor as he was a comedian. Then there are his visits to entertain our troops, and his respect for them and To the Colors, which interrupted one of his performances. Testimonials tell of how generous he was, how many people he helped, and how he was a friend to everyone he passed on the street or anywhere else. Fame had not gone to his head. He was as humble and kind and generous as a human being could be.
I guess I didn't really appreciate his talent after that comedy routine, but he apparently was an incredible person and I think maybe it's a shame that more people don't share his outrageously humorous look at life. One poignant thing that Williams's death reveals, however, is that for all of his humility, all of his kindness, his generosity, his friends and family, all of his laughter, his fame and fortune, none of it was enough to overcome the depression that led him to his permanent decision. His successful achievements, public acclaim, material wealth, and all that comes from the world, could not drive away the dark shadows in his mind and bring him peace. Peace in the world, as well as peace in the heart, is only found in the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, the very one Robin Williams so irreverently scorned.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Muslim Contributions
If you know American history, which Obama apparently does not, you are probably as frustrated as I am every time you hear his asinine comments about Muslims building America. It's something I've been thinking of writing about, but then I came across this article by Robert Spencer. I couldn't say it any better than this with one exception. In item number four on slavery Spencer equates the Bible with the Koran in condoning slavery. The two cannot be compared. The Bible view of slavery is more along the lines of servanthood. The slave, or servant, is to be treated humanely, and there is always a time limit on how long the individual can be kept, so that he is not perpetually a slave. It should also be noted that it was Christians who were behind the abolitionist movement. That could be a longer discussion for another time, but for now, thank you Mr. Spencer for a very delightful as well as insightful article.
Five Ways Muslims Have Contributed to ‘Building the Very Fabric of Our Nation’
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch
August 2, 2014
Last Sunday, in his message congratulating Muslims on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, Barack Obama wrote: “Eid also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy.” That’s right: he said “many achievements and contributions.” I could only think of five. Maybe you will be able to think of some more.
5. Getting us here in the first place
This one predates the United States as a nation, but without it, the United States would not exist. Every schoolchild knows, or used to know, that in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America while searching for a new, westward sea route to Asia. But why was he searching for a new route to Asia? Because the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453 closed the trade routes to the East. This was devastating for European tradesmen, who had until then traveled to Asia for spices and other goods by land. Columbus’s voyage was trying to ease the plight of these merchants by bypassing the Muslims altogether and making it possible for Europeans to reach India by sea.
So the bellicosity and intransigence of Islam ultimately opened the Americas for Europe – and made the United States possible.
4. Slavery
Slavery is condoned in the Qur’an as well as the Bible, and has been taken for granted throughout Islamic history, as it was in the West until the advent of the great abolitionist movements in the U.S. and Britain. The opening of the transatlantic slave trade provided Muslim slave dealers in Africa with a lucrative new market – one that they cheerfully and energetically exploited.
One consequence of this has been claims by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S. that the first Muslims in the U.S. were slaves imported from Africa. This, of course, feeds the sense of victimhood that CAIR so assiduously cultivates for the political power that it offers, but it cuts in the other direction as well: not only the slaves, but the slave traders who sold them to Europeans and Americans who brought them to the New World were Muslims, operating in accord with the sanction of slavery given by Muhammad and the Qur’an.
Arguably, then, if it weren’t for the Islamic slave industry on the African continent, there would have been no slavery in the New World, and none of the attendant national traumas that reverberate down to this day. This means, of course, that one way that Muslims have contributed to building the very fabric of our nation is by setting in motion the chain of events that led to ongoing racial tensions in the U.S., and ultimately to the election to the presidency of Barack Obama.
3. The Marines
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…” The line from the Marines’ hymn commemorates the Marines’ actions during the First Barbary War (1801-1805), the first war the United States fought against Islamic jihadists. The war came about because President Thomas Jefferson refused to accede to the Barbary states’ demands for tribute payments – demands made in accord with the Qur’an’s dictum that the “People of the Book” must be made to “pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). The Barbary pirates, also acting in accord with Islamic law regarding the kidnapping, enslaving and ransoming of non-Muslims, were seizing American ships and enslaving the crews, demanding exorbitant ransoms for their release.
The Marines put a stop to all that, and the line from the Marines’ hymn shows how pivotal their actions on the Barbary coast were to forming the Marine ethos. So for the Marines, too, we have Muslims to thank.
2. A drastically weakened economy
Osama bin Laden explained that he mounted the 9/11 jihad terror attacks in order to weaken the American economy. In October 2004 he exulted: “Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost — according to the lowest estimate — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al-Qaeda defeated a million dollars.” Then there are the further billions lost since 2004, and the billions wasted on the nation-building misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan – such that if he were alive today, bin Laden could look with satisfaction on an America with a severely weakened economy, high unemployment, and no imminent prospects for genuine recovery.
We experience the effects of this every day in a thousand ways, large and small – in an America that is poorer, uglier, meaner, more dangerous, less productive and less efficient than it was on September 10, 2001. A veritable contribution to the fabric of our nation indeed.
1. The TSA
Once romantic and even glamorous, air travel today is an uncomfortable, uncertain, unpleasant, inhospitable, cramped affair involving intrusive and inefficient security procedures that annoy and humiliate travelers. At least everyone is humiliated equally. Passengers are poked, prodded, threatened, herded like cattle, beleaguered with delays, and treated as if they were criminals in a politically correct attempt to avoid focusing on the true source of the problem.
Meanwhile, the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security are two new bloated and ever-growing bureaucracies, further draining the already depleted American taxpayer.
And that, surely, is the crowning contribution that Muslims have made to “building the very fabric of our nation” as it stands today.
Five Ways Muslims Have Contributed to ‘Building the Very Fabric of Our Nation’
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch
August 2, 2014
Last Sunday, in his message congratulating Muslims on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, Barack Obama wrote: “Eid also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy.” That’s right: he said “many achievements and contributions.” I could only think of five. Maybe you will be able to think of some more.
5. Getting us here in the first place
This one predates the United States as a nation, but without it, the United States would not exist. Every schoolchild knows, or used to know, that in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America while searching for a new, westward sea route to Asia. But why was he searching for a new route to Asia? Because the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453 closed the trade routes to the East. This was devastating for European tradesmen, who had until then traveled to Asia for spices and other goods by land. Columbus’s voyage was trying to ease the plight of these merchants by bypassing the Muslims altogether and making it possible for Europeans to reach India by sea.
So the bellicosity and intransigence of Islam ultimately opened the Americas for Europe – and made the United States possible.
4. Slavery
Slavery is condoned in the Qur’an as well as the Bible, and has been taken for granted throughout Islamic history, as it was in the West until the advent of the great abolitionist movements in the U.S. and Britain. The opening of the transatlantic slave trade provided Muslim slave dealers in Africa with a lucrative new market – one that they cheerfully and energetically exploited.
One consequence of this has been claims by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S. that the first Muslims in the U.S. were slaves imported from Africa. This, of course, feeds the sense of victimhood that CAIR so assiduously cultivates for the political power that it offers, but it cuts in the other direction as well: not only the slaves, but the slave traders who sold them to Europeans and Americans who brought them to the New World were Muslims, operating in accord with the sanction of slavery given by Muhammad and the Qur’an.
Arguably, then, if it weren’t for the Islamic slave industry on the African continent, there would have been no slavery in the New World, and none of the attendant national traumas that reverberate down to this day. This means, of course, that one way that Muslims have contributed to building the very fabric of our nation is by setting in motion the chain of events that led to ongoing racial tensions in the U.S., and ultimately to the election to the presidency of Barack Obama.
3. The Marines
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…” The line from the Marines’ hymn commemorates the Marines’ actions during the First Barbary War (1801-1805), the first war the United States fought against Islamic jihadists. The war came about because President Thomas Jefferson refused to accede to the Barbary states’ demands for tribute payments – demands made in accord with the Qur’an’s dictum that the “People of the Book” must be made to “pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). The Barbary pirates, also acting in accord with Islamic law regarding the kidnapping, enslaving and ransoming of non-Muslims, were seizing American ships and enslaving the crews, demanding exorbitant ransoms for their release.
The Marines put a stop to all that, and the line from the Marines’ hymn shows how pivotal their actions on the Barbary coast were to forming the Marine ethos. So for the Marines, too, we have Muslims to thank.
2. A drastically weakened economy
Osama bin Laden explained that he mounted the 9/11 jihad terror attacks in order to weaken the American economy. In October 2004 he exulted: “Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost — according to the lowest estimate — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al-Qaeda defeated a million dollars.” Then there are the further billions lost since 2004, and the billions wasted on the nation-building misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan – such that if he were alive today, bin Laden could look with satisfaction on an America with a severely weakened economy, high unemployment, and no imminent prospects for genuine recovery.
We experience the effects of this every day in a thousand ways, large and small – in an America that is poorer, uglier, meaner, more dangerous, less productive and less efficient than it was on September 10, 2001. A veritable contribution to the fabric of our nation indeed.
1. The TSA
Once romantic and even glamorous, air travel today is an uncomfortable, uncertain, unpleasant, inhospitable, cramped affair involving intrusive and inefficient security procedures that annoy and humiliate travelers. At least everyone is humiliated equally. Passengers are poked, prodded, threatened, herded like cattle, beleaguered with delays, and treated as if they were criminals in a politically correct attempt to avoid focusing on the true source of the problem.
Meanwhile, the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security are two new bloated and ever-growing bureaucracies, further draining the already depleted American taxpayer.
And that, surely, is the crowning contribution that Muslims have made to “building the very fabric of our nation” as it stands today.
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