IT'S THE FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!!!

There it is...Old Glory. It's a symbol that I can't be owned by a Pharaoh or a Sun King, that I'm the author of my life's script.



This video (above) is from 1938, three years before America entered WW2. The song is by Irving Berlin. I like the preamble, which you never hear nowadays.



Geez, Red's reading of the Pledge says it all.



Woody wrote this as an answer to God Bless America. I don't think that song really required an answer, but you can't argue with the beautiful result. Woody expands on Berlin's lyrics about the country's natural beauty.



I like the opening title of the recent John Adams miniseries. The composer and art director might have settled for a Ken Burns-type treatment of Revolutionary War paintings and no one would have complained. Instead they wisely chose to illustrate with music and graphics that which is hard to put into words about that time.



Wow! Giametti was a great John Adams!

I like the way the series showed Adams as a tireless worker and blunt idealist who nevertheless had very little personal appeal. Franklin had to request that Congress withdraw Adams from the French court because he was alienating the French.

Poor Adams doesn't write often to his wife back in the States and she misinterprets it as neglect. When they're finally reunited he admits that the true reason for silence was that he failed in every undertaking in Europe. He was tortured by the thought that his life amounted to nothing and that he was an obstacle to his country and not an asset.

The show was produced by HBO who might be expected to emphasize only the negatives about America but the show doesn't come off that way. Even Adams' failures in the film showed greatness of heart. It was easy to imagine that he exerted a benign influence on his peers, even if they didn't realize it at the time.