This is what Memorial Day is all about: Eric Bogle singing songs of World War I (Click the link for another from two years ago). I met Eric Bogle in Northport, Maine a few years ago, and his buddy John Munro, while they toured the US singing bawdy songs of Australia and sobering ones of war. [...]
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Eric Bogle: No Man’s Land
Posted in History, Music on May 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
RMS Titanic, 100 years later
Posted in History, Maritime, Music, Religion on April 15, 2012 | 1 Comment »
It’s well-known that as the Titanic was sinking, the popular hymn “Nearer my God to Thee” was being sung and played by those still aboard. I’ll post below from the movie “Titanic” the scene that illustrates this. No voices, only a string quartet, but it’s nicely done. If you like stringed music, and want to [...]
It’s over, for now
Posted in History, Political on December 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
It really began in 1991 (or 1990, if we count Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait), but the current phase began in 2003 because we could. Let this be the end of it. Timeline: U.S. Troops in Iraq (source: BBC News) March 2003 – Operation Iraqi Freedom begins with a “shock and awe” assault on Baghdad, [...]
The day after…
Posted in History, Maritime, Political on December 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The New York Times, December 8, 1941: Click once or twice to enlarge.
“The day…”
Posted in History, Maritime, Political on December 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The president’s address, 70 years ago today:
When the camera turned away
Posted in History, Religion, Visual art on September 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
By now, on this tenth anniversary, you’ll have seen countless images of planes, towers, smoke, emergency responders, rubble—and heard audios of sirens, loudspeakers, screaming, speeches. You may have become weary and wish it would all go away, that the media would stop capitalizing on the disaster and let us heal. So I won’t post another [...]
RMS Titanic, 99 years later
Posted in History, Maritime, Music on April 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Probably the symbolic end of 19th Century Europe, and an omen of the World War that came two years later, changing it all forever. To the tune of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major: .
A voice crying in the wilderness
Posted in Bill of Rights, History, Political, Religion on January 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.” [Isaiah 40:4-5---and referred to [...]
We shall overcome – MLK speech
Posted in Bill of Rights, History, Political, Religion on January 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I don’t mean this as a rebuttal to Governor LePage’s remark of last week to the NAACP. Purely coincidental. It’s a national holiday, the birthday of a great man, and it follows Joan Baez perfectly. Some blog posts just write themselves. .
What is that American G.I. doing with that Zippo lighter?
Posted in History, Political, Religion on October 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Morley Safer, the CBS News correspondent, once asked an innocent yet dangerous question of a government official: “What is that American G.I. doing with that Zippo lighter?” The reference was to images in a report that he had done while in Viet Nam in 1965. The report showed American soldiers burning a village to the [...]
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
Posted in History, Music, Political on May 28, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I always choke up when I hear this song. Eric Bogle is one of my favorite folk singers, for many years and for good reason. His style of social protest, war protest and bawdy humor (alternately, unabashedly) can be sobering as well as cathartic. And the humor serves as much-needed comic relief. Who else could [...]
