AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL

 Someone cared enough to ask why I didn't like the Coke Super Bowl commercial, which featured AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL, sung in many languages over video of scenes from many countries. (Unlike someone else, who called me being offended a "hate parade". )  This is my reply, with some editing:

America, The Beautiful is a song that was written for this country in English by an American who was inspired by a train trip and seeing many of our landmarks on the journey. While America, The Beautiful is not our offical national anthem, (The Star-Spangled Banner is) it is unofficially, our national hymn.  And, in fact, it came very close to replacing The Star-Spangled Banner several times since it was written a little over 100 years ago. I would feel the same way if they had chosen our national anthem or one other song, America (My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing). They used many languages and scenes from around the world in that commercial.  It's an American song, for Americans and should be sung in English.  To do what they did with a song that is part of our national identity, shows a huge lack of respect for this country!

To give an opposite example:  I learned the national anthem of France, La Marseillaise.  I learned it in French, and while I know the English translation, I would not sing it in English, as that would be disrespectful to France and her people.

If the argument is that this country is a melting pot of people from many nations, that is true.  However, if people come here to stay, they should embrace our culture and language, while keeping some of their own.  If they don't want to be citizens, why are they here?  My children's great-grandparents came here from Mexico to make a better life for themselves and their children.  Some of their children were born in Mexico and some here in the States.  My children's' grandmother (my mother-in-law) was born in Colorado.  They became citizens and tried to learn English, though they didn't speak it well, they could make themselves understood.  They made sure all seven of their children learned English.

Now, if Coke had made a slightly different commercial, I would have LOVED it.  If they had used a different song, such as We Are The World, for example, and shown all the same scenes and each line in a different language, that would have been amazing!  I would have embraced it as a wonderful illustration of the things that make us different, also show us how we are all the same.   We are all part of humanity!  I would have even loved itif they had used It's A Small World!  (Which I haven't much liked since I got stuck on that ride years ago and the volume was very loud!)

Adventures of being (almost) blind

I happen to like cinnamon toast. I usually have a cinnamon/sugar mixture in a container made for shaking parmesan cheese onto food, so I can just shake it onto buttered toast.  I was out yesterday so I mixed up some more.  To do this, I have a ziplock bag, add granulated sugar and some ground cinnamon and mix it up before pouring it into my shaker.  As I was putting the container of cinnamon away, I noticed it didn't look quite right so I looked a little closer.  Whoops!  Did anyone else realize that ground cayenne is almost the same exact color as cinnamon?  That's something I won't forget soon!!! Luckily, I hadn't yet mixed it up in the bag, so I did my best to get all the cayenne out, without throwing out all the sugar.  Somehow, I just can't throw it all out. I guess I have a bit of Scotsman frugality, which would be terribly offended by the waste of a cup of sugar. So, until this batch is gone, my cinnamon toast will have a little bite to it. :)

Stormi Sky a Comin - 02-03-2014

My little Pomeranian, Stormi, is 3 1/2 lbs of adorable and has plenty of personality.
This is what she did today:

My housemate exercises almost every morning to a Zumba DVD or to a dance party game on her Wii.   Stormi adores her and loves to spend time with her, so I let her stay while I went to take ibuprofen for my headache.   When I came back, my housemate told me that Stormi had sat on the floor behind her and watched for a while. Then she noticed that Stormi was copying her moves as she stepped and spun.  At first I thought it must be a coincidence and Stormi didn't do it on purpose, until my housemate proceeded to do her moves from this morning. At first, Stormi just watched, but after a moment, she started to do the same moves. She was totally dancing with my housemate. We're going to try to get her on video soon if she keeps dancing along.