The Long-Awaited Day
is Now at Hand.
Be of Good Courage.
 |
| Woodcut by Rockwell Kent |
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our [army’s] dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest [patriots].
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made [so strong], show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry “God for [Romney, and our Founding Fathers!]”
~ § ~
~ Shakespeare, King Henry V
(lightly emended for the purpose of this Election Day, November 6, 2012)
HERE is what I want to see on my television screen!
ReplyDeleteI did go out on a limb and make THIS PREDICTION yesterday.
The wife and I fired our volleys for Romney last week.
ReplyDeleteIt's in the hands of the people now...
Here's my EJECTION DAY Report:
ReplyDeleteWELL, It's DONE. Hallelujah!
I, of course, voted for Romney with more enthusiasm than I thought I'd ever be able to muster. His calm, level-headed, sweet-natured performance since the debates began has honestly won me over.
Naturally, I would almost prefer to vote for Beelzebub, if he were on the ballot, than do ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to advance a second term for OGODNO, who is the absolute WORST.
The day began badly. It's pouring rain here -- a really hard driving rain -- but I went out anyway, despite the dangers of driving with impaired vision under such circumstances.
Well, guess what? The usual polling place, where I've voted for the past fourteen years, has been ELIMINATED. I never received anything warning me about it in the mail. However, two very nice men -- one a noticeably senile white man, the other a middle-aged, very bright, agreeable black man -- told me where I could go to vote.
I was scared to death that I'd never be able to find a new location in the hard driving rain, since I drive partly by "radar" and "sonar" even under optimal weather conditions anyway, but I managed to get there after first pulling into two wrong driveways, and mirabile dictu found a spot in the crowded parking lot, stumped quickly through the rain with my cane, and found -- much to my surprise and delight -- that no one was ahead of me at my part of the alphabet registration tables.
So I got processed immediately, found an open polling station right away where I was able to SIT DOWN, thank God. I took my time, read everything carefully, and about twenty minutes later had filled in all the blanks.
This year's ballot is the longest and most complex in our state's history with eleven proposed amendments to the state constitution, and a raft of local judges and "committee chairmen," to choose between. Kind of a bother
After all that was over I went to the machine supposed to tabulate our ballots, tried to insert the two sheets one by one as directed, and guess what? The machine REJECTED the ballot.
SO, I had to put the offending sheets of paper in a "secrecy sleeve," and wait with my rejected ballot till someone could come and repair the machine.
Fortunately, luck was with me, and this only took about fifteen minutes, so everything was put right, and I was soon on my way.
Out in the parking lot, however, it was a different story. Some idiot in control had officially BLOCKED what-should-have-been the exit, so everyone trying to get out of the place was forced to backtrack in a perilously narrow space, and tangle with INCOMING traffic, which by then was pouring in thick and fast.
Surprisingly, it didn't go all that badly -- no fender benders -- no fist fights -- no one pulled a knife -- no one even screamed and yelled, or cursed out loud, as a matter of fact -- and miraculously I was back home snug as a bug in a rug less than an hour-and-a-half after I'd first left the driveway.
Now, I await the returns with both eagerness and trepidation -- like most of us, I imagine.
~ FreeThinke
I thought you'd be mourning Elliott Carter's passing, FT.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you were treated like royalty, FT. Even Joe Biden had to wait in line to vote, but that may have just been posturing for a photo op.
ReplyDeleteHere's an opinion from the sunny north by Ezra Levant that I think nails what is at stake in the election ... not that I want to ruffle any feathers here:
ReplyDelete"What if Barack Obama is re-elected president of the United States tonight? What will the next four years be like?
It’s not hard to guess. His campaign slogan is “Forward.” Which means he’s not about to back down on his policies. He’s going to go deeper.
“Forward” happens to be a call to arms for socialist movements around the world. It is not an insult to call Obama’s policies socialist. It is an observation. Five years ago, the thought that the U.S. would nationalize two of the three big automakers would have been called socialist. The de facto nationalization of the entire health care industry — one-seventh of the U.S. economy — would have been called socialist.
In Obama’s America, government picks winners and losers in industry, replacing competition and freedom with command and control, replacing entrepreneurs with lobbyists and political cronies.
It’s not just that Obama is socialist; or that he has never been in the real world of business or job creation. It’s that he’s positively hostile to those who do create jobs.
It’s one thing to tax businesses. It’s another thing to morally condemn them, as Obama did when he departed one day from his Teleprompter, telling business owners “you didn’t build that,” that they exist only by the grace of government, not the other way around, that government is the centre, and that citizens are clients of it, not masters of it.
It’s that hostility, as much as any actual policies, that’s holding back the U.S. economy. Who would build a new factory, or a new mine, or a new company, with Obama re-elected? Because if you didn’t build your own business, then you don’t own it, and Obama can take it — through taxes or regulations.
In one of the presidential debates, Mitt Romney outlined a basic test for government spending: Is any expenditure worth borrowing money from China? Obama has yet to find his limit, and America’s debt and tax load will continue to grow.
Foreign affairs are just as scary.
Obama treats America’s friends like enemies and America’s enemies like friends. Alone amongst modern presidents he has not visited Israel during his presidency.
But it’s not that symbol that matters — it’s the substance, a palpable hostility to Israel and its prime minister, and an unlimited appeasement of the region’s menace, Iran, and a quiet acceptance of the radicalization of the Arab world through the misnamed Arab Spring.
And if Obama has found excuse after excuse to do nothing to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program these past four years, why would he do something in the next four? Would the president who literally bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia lift a finger to protect Israel from Muslim nukes?
Obama has abandoned liberated Iraq, is abandoning Afghanistan and has long ago abandoned the war on terror — even though it has not abandoned him.
So desperate is he to pretend that it’s over, that for two months he and Hillary Clinton claimed the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by 300 al-Qaida terrorists on the anniversary of 9/11, was simply a grassroots demonstration against an obscure movie on YouTube.
In a second term, what will Obama cede to Iran? To al-Qaida? To China? Obama was caught on tape telling Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister, to pass on a message to Vladimir Putin to be patient — that after Obama’s re-election, he’ll be able to be more “flexible.”
America is resilient. But four more years of Obama will change that country deeply — and not for the better."
Elliott Carter dead at ONE-HUNDRED THREE.
ReplyDeletePoor man! His career was a farce. All of his music was stillborn.
Yet another piece of evidence that helps prove the adage:
ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG.
Thanks, Waylon. The article is welcome, but it does not tell us anything we haven't known since Ogodno became a national figure.
ReplyDeleteI can smell Marxists miles away. Their stench is not only unmistakable, it's overpowering. I've had to fight nauseous headaches all my adult life because of it. (;-s
Appreciate your visits, Waylon. Wish you lived in the states, so you could help swell our ranks.
~ FT
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