An 1823 William Stone facsimile of the “Declaration of Independence” — a document that is still more of an ideal than a reality.
Whenever there’s a civic holiday coming up, the recessional hymn at our church is always “America the Beautiful.” We in the choir usually sing all four verses, and we always get a round of applause at the end — for us, for the country, maybe both.
I’ve never liked the song. It’s no “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which I find far more melodic and moving. But lately my antipathy toward “America the Beautiful” has taken on deeper meaning.
Read MoreYou have to hand it to President Donald J. Trump. He really knows how to commemorate an occasion with a bang. On the anniversary of the Haitian earthquake and Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Trumpet decided to let the world know that people are not to be judged by what King called “the content of their character” but by what one witty Washington Post poster called “their country of origin.”
Trump apparently told Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Durbin – who thought they were at the White House to negotiate the bipartisan immigration “bill of love” that “Apprentice” Trump spoke of Tuesday when he was trying to disprove the lunatic persona portrayed in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” – that we don’t need people from Haiti, El Salvador and “s---hole” countries in Africa. No, what we need is immigrants from places like Norway. ...
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