The Star Spangled Banner

So, with all the kindness I can muster, I give this one piece of advice to the next pop star who is asked to sing the national anthem at a sporting event: save the vocal gymnastics and the physical gyrations for your concerts. Just sing this song the way you were taught to sing it in kindergarten straight up, no styling. Sing it with the constant awareness that there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watching you from bases and outposts all over the world. Don't make them cringe with your self-centered ego gratification. Sing it as if you are standing before a row of 86-year-old WWII vets wearing their Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and flag pins on their cardigans and you want them to be proud of you for honoring them and the country they love not because you want them to think you are a superstar musician. They could see that from the costumes, the makeup and the entourages.  Sing The Star Spangled Banner� with the courtesy and humility that tells the audience that it is about America , not you.

Mark Corallo is the owner of Corallo Media Strategies, Inc, an Alexandria, Virginia Public Relations firm

U.S. Capitol Tour with David Barton

Caring

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once
Talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the

Contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was:

A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old Gentleman's' yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, 'Nothing, I just Helped him cry.'

Clotheslines

A clothesline was a news forecast
To neighbors passing by.
There were no secrets you could keep
When clothes were hung to dry.


It also was a friendly link
For neighbors always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.


For then you'd see the "fancy sheets"
And towels upon the line;
You'd see the "company table cloths"
With intricate designs.


The line announced a baby's birth
From folks who lived inside -
As brand new infant clothes were hung,
So carefully with pride!


The ages of the children could
So readily be known
By watching how the sizes changed,
You'd know how much they'd grown!


It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.


It also said, "Gone on vacation now"
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare!


New folks in town were scorned upon
If wash was dingy and gray,
As neighbors carefully raised their brows,
And looked the other way . . ..


But clotheslines now are of the past,
For dryers make work much less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody's guess!


I really miss that way of life
It was a friendly sign
When neighbors knew each other best
By what hung on the line!

APHORISMS

APHORISMS


A CONCISE SAYING EMBODYING A GENERAL TRUTH, OR ASTUTE OBSERVATION.

THE TERM WAS FIRST USED IN THE APHORISMS OF HIPPOCRATES, ONE OF THE EARLIEST COLLECTIONS.


1. The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.

2. Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.

3. If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense at all.

4. Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.

5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you're in deep water.

6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?

7. Business conventions are important. They demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.

8. Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?

9. Scratch a cat and you will have a permanent job.

10. No one has more driving ambition than a teenage boy who wants to buy a car.

11. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 am – it could be the right number.

12. No one ever says "It's only a game" when their team is winning.

13. I've reached the age where 'happy hour' is a nap.

14. Before reading the fine print – understand that you're not going to like it.

15. The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.

16. In about 40 years, we'll have thousands of little old ladies running around with body piercings and sagging tattoos in strange places… (And rap music will be considered the Golden Oldies!)

17. Money may not buy happiness – but I’d rather cry in a Cadillac than in a Yugo.

18. Always be yourself; the people who matter don’t mind and the ones that mind don’t matter.

19. After 60, if you wake up and nothing hurts – check your pulse.

20. Life may not be tied with a bow … but it’s still a gift.

Stave off Globalism: Reinvigorate Constitutional Principles

Stave off Globalism: Reinvigorate Constitutional Principles

Fitness By Marilyn
http://www.fitnessbymarilyn.com
Independent AIM Member - Marilyn Wilson Murray

Gods of the Copyright Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

By Rudyard Kipling

1919

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its ice field, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, they promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four --

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

*   *   *   *   *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man --

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began --

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mice,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire --

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!