Welcome To Freedom for US Now!
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Ode To An Oak Tree
By Jim Mullen
Standing stately on greenback hill
Among the yellow daffodil,
An oak tree sways its country charm,
Guarding a run-down rustic farm.
There I grew from lad to man
And crafted every special plan,
Lying under that massive tree
That fed my thoughts and nurtured me.
I heard the whisper of quaking leaves
Passing secrets to every breeze,
Made friends with nature, earth and sky..
Saw laughing spring, heard summer cry.
From autumn red to winter white,
At sacred dawn and secret night,
We welcomed rain and tasted snow
And watched the honeysuckle grow.
I learned enough of nature’s law
To know the freeze will always thaw.
There’s time to rest and time to fly,
A time to live, a time to die.
When clouds are set and rain must fall,
It doesn’t matter much at all,
If mood is gloom like darkest night,
A little time will glean the light.
I learned of life in nature’s field
And saw how wounds were quickly healed.
But when unfurled, that final scroll
Gives our rewards and takes its toll.
That oak tree calls me, still today,
To share my thoughts and drift away,
On white clouds piled to Heaven’s door.
An oarsman bid to come ashore.
I think when life has passed from me
There is no place I’d rather be,
Than buried ‘neath that tall oak tree
To feed the one who nurtured me.
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To a Teacher Children look with wonderment at the world beyond the mere reflection of their own environment. A teacher lights a candle in the darkness, glowing for a lifetime in the minds of children. They will forever use the tools given to them - and remember the confidence instilled in them -by the encouraging words of a teacher. The teacher leaves a legacy, forming a nexus from generation to generation. They prepare each for life's journey by expanding the minds and the entire world of children. Because you care...because you teach...people look at the world through softer, wiser eyes.
By Jim Mullen
They reach eagerly to grasp the caring hands of those who teach.
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OLD AGE
By Jim Mullen
It must have been last night, when I grew old
This morning in the mirror, I saw this image unfold.
First I thought, “It’s the mirror”, but to my chagrin
Saw crows’ feet, wrinkles and sags in my skin.
‘Course I’ve noticed lately, some other signs,
With every “git-up” my “git-up” declines.
My body I’ve observed, is misfitted and bent.
Vision’s all fuzzy, I read with a squint.
Hair is graying, and getting thin on top.
The spirit says go, but the body yells stop.
Chest muscles slipped and fell to my waist.
Joints are all rusty and teeth need replaced.
Yesterday, I was young with a mind that could think,
Looked life in the eye and would never blink,
Attacked life with a bounce and flying wits,
Now, just tying my shoes gives me awful fits.
I walk in the kitchen, look around in despair,
Forget what I wanted, just stand there and stare.
And sex...I hate to tell you how hard that’s grown
It’s easier now, to just hold hands, and moan.
That candle of time I’ve burned at both ends…
Sometimes in the middle, but you know what, friends?
If I could do it all over, I’d change just two things…
Take better care of my body and have a few more flings
Now, I know age, is a relative theme
But a good night’s sleep and a steady stream
Are two things that would make me brim.
Oh, and Lord, could you throw in a good BM?
Videos
For the greatest political speech in history
Ronald Reagan, 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs
Charlton Heston's speech
"...From my cold dead hands..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ju4Gla2odw
Judge Andrew Napolitano
on Natural Rights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n2m-X7OIuY
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Ronald Reagan Quotes
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.
I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.
The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.
Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.
No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
Obama videos
"Electric prices would necessary skyrocket"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSZ62xiD4M
Obama video on "Spreading the wealth around"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoqI5PSRcXM
Obama and Acorn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFSY2dnTSZQ&feature=player_embedded
Flip Flops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbRRd1tWbKo
Gun Control Treaty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9X2VbhSH9o
Shocking confession
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0DrXEFZSZk&NR=1
Public Option Will Destroy Private Insurance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk&feature=PlayList&p=0E44EE926E18B358&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=79
River Sunset
By Jim Mullen
Heavy breath of noon-day
slows as evening calls
Today’s gasp is shallow
Another night befalls.
A silver slice of moon
Reclines in graying sky
Just waking up in time
to bid the sun good-bye.
That disappearing sun
Because he hurried so
Dropped some precious gold-dust
In water here below.
Wavering crested waves
Lift colors from the flow
Roll them in sheaves of gold
To set the bank aglow.
Two robins take to flight
Express their last adieus
Skimming cross the water
Dispatching evening news.
Shadows fall from treetops
And spatter on the ground
Weave a web of darkness
Till’ all the night is bound.
Strains of tiny creatures
Erupt in song of night
Fireflies lighted candles
Flicker in dimming light.
Each creature takes its place
Almost like they rehearse
Things are right till morning
Then all the roles reverse.
Flanders Fields At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month - World War I, the first modern war, was over. It was called Armistice Day until changed to become VETERAN"S DAY. Please pause awhile to reflect.... In Flanders Fields IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow We are the Dead. Short days ago Take up our quarrel with the foe: Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime. As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient. It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it: "I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days.... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done." One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut.. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain. The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry. In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook. A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave." When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read: "The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene." In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:
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