Happy Independence Day!
Decatur Metro | July 4, 2013
First a bit of less-often quoted Jefferson…
“not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.”
Then a little John Adams. (Wish I could publish the actual handwritten letter, but instead I’ll settle for linking to and quoting from it.)
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.
Then maybe some beat poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti…
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
And finally a little bit of anonymous verse…
I’ve got a rocket
In my pocket;
I cannot stop to play.
Away it goes!
I’ve burned my toes.
It’s Independence Day.
Happy 4th all!
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Favorite Fourth of July music? I’m listening to NPR and a chorus doing Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land… and really enjoying it. Clairemont did an expedition around the song one year, complete with parents playing the guitar and students singing. Good times.
Thanks DM. I was afraid you would let our most famous day and document pass without notice, much as downtown Decatur seems to have done, with very few reminders of the importance of the past on view this morning. I was taking Gracie Mae for a walk earlier today and while in front of McKinnys Apothecary, a young couple and baby stroller across the street were looking at me and smiling, possibly because I was wearing a DHS ROTC summer camp shirt that has a large American flag in the front. I waved and yelled, “Happy Fourth of July!” My voice boomed off the high rise apartment buildings. They seemed startled but waved back.
Back to the Declaration. When I was teaching, the students were always amused that I could recite the first few lines from memory. There was a time when students memorized much of the document. Today they are more likely to “critically analyze and compare” the Declaration with other founding documents from around the world. Do our students learn to cherish the Declaration in anyway similar to our parents and grandparents generation?
Back in April, I help chaperon twenty DHS students with Close Up in Washington, D.C. On our last day in D.C., I took ten students to the National Archive to see the Declaration, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights (the other ten went to Georgetown in search of famous cupcake stores). We were in the Rotunda about 45 minutes, enough time for me to point out key phrases in all three documents to smaller groups of students, maybe two per group. After the last group was finished, I turned to see three students in the back of the hall, sitting on the floor with their legs stretched out in front of them. Before I could intervene, a security guard told them to stand up. “Don’t you understand where you’re at? This place is like a temple for our most sacred ideals”. The students seemed shamed and embarrassed enough that I decided to stand nearby and not intervene. Maybe they learned a lesson that will last a lifetime.
Happy Independence Day everyone. May God continue to bless the City of Decatur, the great state of Georgia, and the United States of America.
I can recite most of the Gettysburg Address because our middle school Vice Principal was feeling creative and made me memorize it instead of giving me detention.
And how lucky you are! What a gift he gave you.
If you like The Address, and are a word geek like me, you might enjoy episode 12 of the podcast, Lexicon Valley. They parse The Address for about 30 minutes, compare it to the usual oratorical style of its time, and spend a good five minutes simply talking about the choice of the word, “proposition.”
(Warning: the first five minutes of the episode are spent discussing a vulgarity, but you can fast forward through that.)
http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/06/lexicon_valley_lincoln_s_gettysburg_address_as_greek_funeral_oration.html
Thanks!! Ooooh…vulgarity, you say?
Yes, they are a no holds barred linguist podcast and are often rated “explicit.”
Here’s a worthwhile 5-minutes exercise for all of us.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/what-if-you-had-to-earn-american-citizenship/309398/
Score of 52/citizenship with distinction. Guess I can stay.
Score of 64, also with distinction. I didn’t know what all those white guy justices look like. Kudos to immigrants who do! And, embarrassingly, I mixed up the lines from the Gettysburg address and the Declaration of Independence. Shows that memorization in adolescence doesn’t last. Maybe if I’d understood what I was memorizing….
I’ll bet Mr. B gets 100! Maybe 110 given all his volunteering and other service!
Only a 67. Must have missed that damn fool on the Supreme Court. Have to wonder what the top score is. Hope you had a great Fourth!
“Only a 67. Must have missed that damn fool on the Supreme Court. Have to wonder what the top score is. Hope you had a great Fourth!”
How could you misidentify Clarence Thomas?
I got a 65 but only counted voting in 10 elections the past 10 years–each one I was too lazy to recollect & count would have been worth a point. I’ve only missed one chance to vote in my entire life (forgot a special election one summer).
There are no pictures of supreme court justices on the actual citizenship test. A question that might be asked would be “who is the chief justice?”
I became a citizen last month, and the real citizenship quiz is much easier. There’s a set of 100 questions, from which the interviewer randomly draws 10. Some of them are very easy: “Who is the president of the United States?” and “What happened on September 11, 2001?” are among them. If you get six correct, you pass. I suspect that the “random” drawing is rigged so that everyone gets a few easy questions.
The Atlantic quiz is clever, but if you’re interested in the real test, you can find it here:
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.2f0cb9a8ddc86a6d856fed10526e0aa0/?vgnextoid=9d61772a45c6a210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD
Having once “taught the test”, I heard from former students that the most important part is the interview. The interviewer wants to see evidence that the applicant understands what is being asked. Not always easy for students who don’t speak English as a first language.
Mixed up a couple of civic texts and mixed up Kennedy, Alito, and Kennedy. 61, but that whole how many times did you vote question was a swag. I’ve voted every time I could, so how many would that be in the last 10 years? 10 minimum, but primaries, run-offs, etc is just a guess.
Always love the reading of the Declaration of Independence on NPR! Puts a lump in my throat every year!
Happy Independence Day, DM peeps!