{"id":21419,"date":"2011-07-03T22:31:05","date_gmt":"2011-07-04T04:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=21419"},"modified":"2011-07-03T22:31:05","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T04:31:05","slug":"the-national-anthem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/03\/the-national-anthem.html","title":{"rendered":"The National Anthem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Parade<\/em> magazine<\/a> once again raises the issue of whether “The Star -Spangled Banner” should (as it has been since 1931) be the national anthem, or if we should choose something else. They even have a poll.<\/p>\n

It’s useless.<\/p>\n

Despite a plentitude of reasons why “America the Beautiful” should be the national anthem, the chances of a change happening are zilch.<\/p>\n

Occasion<\/strong>: AtB is based on a poem by a woman. It is intrinsically wussy and unworthy. On the other hand, TSSB is based on a poem by a man, about a battle, in a war. There are bombs and rockets involved. And even though we lost the battle (the fort stayed intact, but Washington was burned), you just can’t beat a war song for a national anthem. Even if the folks we were fighting are now on our side.<\/p>\n

Subject Matter<\/strong>: AtB is all about beautiful stuff, mountains and plains and the like. Clearly it’s hippy, eco-freak garbage that probably references Al Gore and Global Warming in one of its verses. TSSB, on the other hand, involves, as noted above, a war! With bombs! And rockets! And flags!<\/p>\n

Utility<\/strong>: Sure, everyone complains about TSSB’s singability (and about the insane license various singers take with it to make it about a personal performance, not about the nation). But, really, how many kids are growing up learning AtB any more? And, yeah, even if we’re not singing it personally, we hear TSSB all the time at baseball games, football games, NASCAR races, and every other sporting event that relies on a national anthem to make it a suitably patriotic occasion. <\/p>\n

Reason<\/strong>: If you’re going to change something, you have to have adequate reason. In this case, why would you get rid of a song that generations of folks have sung (or had sung at them), even if nobody can sing it and nobody knows about the events it describes? I mean, did you miss the part where I mentioned it has ROCKETS and BOMBS and FLAGS? <\/p>\n

That’s America, dadgummit! And don’t you forget it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parade magazine once again raises the issue of whether “The Star -Spangled Banner” should (as it has been since 1931) be the national anthem, or if we should choose something else. They even have a poll. It’s useless. Despite a plentitude of reasons why “America the Beautiful” should be the national anthem, the chances of … Continue reading “The National Anthem”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays","category-politics-law","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/american-flag.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38481,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/15\/de-godding-the-national-anthem.html","url_meta":{"origin":21419,"position":0},"title":"De-Godding the National Anthem","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Aug-13 9:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I will confess my love of church-state separation does not get into a particular tizzy because the 4th verse of \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" is pretty theistic. In part that's because I suspect about 0.1% of the population actually knows the 4th verse of Keyes' poem. \u00a0In part because the idea\u00a0of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26110,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/06\/mitt-the-national-anthem-and-american-exceptionalism.html","url_meta":{"origin":21419,"position":1},"title":"Mitt, the National Anthem, and American Exceptionalism","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Feb-12 2:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The weird thing about Mitt's mistatements about the origins of, and American uniqueness in, putting hand over heart during the national anthem is that it's relatively trivial on the face of it, but shows such an annoying disregard for facts (or for research). It's weak tea jingoism ... which, now\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134878,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/01\/samantha-bee-trump-national-anthem-brouhaha.html","url_meta":{"origin":21419,"position":2},"title":"Samantha Bee on Trump and the National Anthem brouhaha","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Oct-17 11:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The usual good stuff from Samantha. A couple of additional notes (beyond what I've written elsewhere on the matter): 1. There seems to be an unacknowledged conflict between the same people saying ... \"I tune into sports to watch sports, not politics, so these athletes expressing political views is really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/24nfl-web2-1503499946941-master6751.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/24nfl-web2-1503499946941-master6751.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/24nfl-web2-1503499946941-master6751.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":132302,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/14\/the-fetishization-of-the-national-anthem.html","url_meta":{"origin":21419,"position":3},"title":"The Fetishization of the National Anthem","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Dec-16 7:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"For all that the US seems to be anthem-happy, apparently people in India are even more gung-ho. Now a new Indian Supreme Court ruling requires the anthem to be played before every movie (which sounds silly, but why is it sillier than before every football game?), and people are being\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130942,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/23\/whats-your-national-anthem-about.html","url_meta":{"origin":21419,"position":4},"title":"What's your national anthem about?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Jun-16 2:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A survey of the subjects of national anthems. Fun. Not Sports: A Color Coded Map of Every National Anthem\u2019s Subject | All My Sports Teams Suck Apologies in advance for not staying in my lane, but this one truly had a sporting origin. While sitting and watching the UEFA 2016\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135401,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/21\/nfl-looks-way-side-step-anthem-protest-issue.html","url_meta":{"origin":21419,"position":5},"title":"NFL looks for a way to side-step the anthem protest issue","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Nov-17 7:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Prior to 2009, you didn't see all the players at NFL games standing the sidelines during the national anthem for prime time games. Prior to that year, NFL players in such games stayed in the locker room, though on Sunday afternoon games the players were out on the sidelines. [1]\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/NFL-anthem-protest.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}