Saturday, April 20, 2013

Wall Street Journal today, great reading and a Tribute from Britain to a Great Leader!


PEGGY NOONAN: Britain Remembers a Great Briton – WSJ

By PEGGY NOONAN- DECLARATIONSApril 18, 2013, 7:37 p.m. ET
Mrs. Thatcher is with Wellington and Nelson now.
London
The funeral of Margaret Thatcher was beautiful, moving, just right. It had dignity and spirit, and in that respect was just like her. It also contained a surprise that shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was a metaphor for where she stood in the pantheon of successful leaders of the 20th century.
The Right Honourable The Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, LG, OM, FRS—so she was called on the front page of the service program—was a great lady, and the greatest peacetime prime minister of England in the 20th century. She unleashed her nation’s economy, defeated selfish bullies who before her had always emerged victorious, and stood with the pope and the president against Soviet communism. The main project of her career was to advance the cause of human freedom and individual liberty. As David Cameron’s education minister, Michael Gove, noted the other day, she saw economics not as a science but as one of the humanities. It wasn’t about “immutable laws,” it was about “the instincts and values” of human beings, their sense of justice and rightness. She was eloquent, stirring and had tons of guts. And of course she was a woman, the first British prime minister to be so. She made no special pleading in that area and did not claim to represent what we embarrassingly call women’s issues. She was representing England and the issues British citizens faced. She did not ignore her sex and occasionally bopped political men on the head with small, bracing recognitions of their frailty. “The cocks will crow, but it’s the hen that lays the eggs,” she said. She noted that if you want anything said get a man but, if you want something done get a woman. All this she uttered in a proud but mock-stern tone. She was no victim. An oddity of her career is that she was routinely patronized by her inferiors. It seems to have steeled her.
image
Zuma PressA supporter of Margaret Thatcher holds a banner outside St. Clement Danes church in London.
A supporter told me in London of her frustrations with staff. She said once to her aides: “I don’t need to be told what, I need to be told how.” Meaning I have a vision, you have to tell me how we can implement it. That stayed in my mind. Politics now, in England as well as America, is dominated by politicians who are technicians. They always know how to do it. They just don’t know what to do.
Thatcher’s funeral was striking in that it was not, actually, about her. It was about what she thought it important for the mourners to know. The readings were about the fact of God, the gift of Christ, and the necessity of loving your country and working for its betterment. There were no long eulogies. In a friendly and relatively brief address, the bishop of London lauded her kindness and character. No funeral of an American leader would ever be like that: The dead American would be the star, with God in the position of yet another mourner who’d miss his leadership.
The pageantry, for an American, was most moving. The English as always do this brilliantly but I wonder if they understand—they must, but it’s not something they acknowledge—that when they bring out and put forward their splendor they are telling the world and themselves who they are and have been. Leading the procession into St. Paul’s was the lord mayor of London, in velvet coat, breeches and buckled shoes. On his coat he wore Sir Thomas More’s gold chain of office, taken from him before he was killed in the Tower. Imagine a nation that puts such a man to death, contemplates it, concludes in the end it was wrong, and now proudly displays the saint’s chain at its greatest events. When I saw it I thought of a recent trip to the Vatican. Touring its archives, we were shown one of its proudest possessions: a letter from Galileo.
Things change. Time changes them. Great nations, and institutions, rethink. But only if they’re great.
It mattered that the funeral was in august and splendid St. Paul’s, mattered that Thatcher’s coffin, placed under the great dome, stood directly over the tombs of Nelson and Wellington in the crypts below. (Marcus Binney in the Times said conservatives will note the above; happy to oblige.) This placing of Thatcher with the greats of the past, and the fact that the queen and the crown prince came to her funeral, as they have for no prime minister since Churchill in 1965, served as an antidote to British television coverage surrounding her death.
It was terrible. They could not in any sustained way mark her achievements or even show any particular respect. All they could say was that she was “divisive and controversial,” although sometimes they said “divisive and—well, really divisive.” Anchors reported everything as if from a great distance, with no warmth; they all adopted the cool, analytical look they use when they mean to project distance. But as Tony Blair’s aide Peter Mendelsohn, speaking at the think tank discussion at which Mr. Gove appeared, said, “to decide is to divide.” He was quoting Mr. Blair.
And the more decisive, the more divisive.
In the past week left-wing political groups held death parties, all heavily reported, and threatened to demonstrate at the funeral. The head of the London police seemed to invite them to come. (Less important, but worth mentioning: The White House embarrassed itself by not sending a delegation of high-level current officeholders. Did the British notice? Oh yes. It’s another way they think we’re slipping.)
All this—the media, the left—had the effect of telling people: you’ll look stupid if you speak in support of Thatcher, you’ll look sentimental, old. And it may be dangerous to attend the funeral—there could be riots!
I wonder if certain people pushed this line so hard so that the day after the funeral they could report no one came.
So then, the surprise that was a metaphor.
At the end of the funeral they all marched down the aisle in great procession—the family, the queen, the military pallbearers carrying the casket bearing the Union Jack. The great doors flung open, the pallbearers marched forward, and suddenly from the crowd a great roar. We looked at each other. Demonstrators? No. Listen. They were cheering. They were calling out three great hurrahs as the pallbearers went down the steps. Then long cheers and applause. It was electric.
England came. The people came. Later we would learn they’d stood 30 deep on the sidewalk, that quiet crowds had massed on the Strand and Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill. A man had held up a sign: “But We Loved Her.”
“The end is where we start from.” That is T.S. Eliot, whose “Little Gidding” she loved. When they died, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher were old and long past their height of power. Everyone was surprised when Reagan died that crowds engulfed the Capitol; people slept on sidewalks to view him in state. When John Paul died the Vatican was astonished to see millions converge. “Santo Subito.”
And now at the end some came for Thatcher, too.
What all three had in common: No one was with them but the people.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, rest in peace.
via Britain Remembers a Great Briton – WSJ.com.

President Bush's Opening Pitch at Yankee Stadium After 9-11 [High Quality]

We are all in this together, sometimes the use of words helps to change perception....think about this......  
We deserve to protect our own safety, is it really gun control, or is it to consider a mass murderer as an enemy of the people an enemy combatant...  We know there are reasons people do crazy things, but why feel different about Hitler, than you do for a single man or a few men that kill 3,000 people, or attack a school, or a theater, or a gathering of people listening to a politician. 
We need to change our perception... whatever causes mass murder and mayhem, we owe it to our first responders to honor them first, not the killer/s.....We have a new world and a different war....on our own shores....Gun control will not be the answer to this...it is how we perceive it that will help to change it..
When children are taught, mass murderers are committing an act of war against our people, they are considered traitors and enemies of the people, the perception of the act starts to change.
Then , what do I know....it just appears sensible to call it what it is.....
http://youtu.be/bxR1tZ08FcI

Friday, April 19, 2013

Maceo Parker plays Marvin Gaye "Let's Get It On"

 Maceo Parker April 22-25 at the Blue Note in New York City, if you happen to be in the area...
 
 
http://youtu.be/JawQn7gKdJo

Thursday, April 18, 2013

What now my Love - Aretha Franklin & Frank Sinatra

This caught my attention on Siriously Sinatra....think you might like it too...

Steve Tyrell - A Kiss to Build a Dream On

Steve Tyrell Everyone is talking about Steve Tyrell, hope he comes back to Palm Beach, The Colony Hotel again next winter, we all enjoyed listening to his show...

Sunday, April 14, 2013

An Army at Dawn, just beginning the trilogy...love it!

I found out that I could read the story on my i-pad, once I purchased it on my Kindle.  So, I switched over and re read a page.  The prose struck me...maybe you will enjoy it to..
"The dawn was bright and blowing.  Angels perched unseen on the shrouds and crosstrees.  Young men, fated to survive and become old men dying abed a century hence, would forever remember this morn, when an army at dawn made for the open sea in  a cause none could yet comprehend.  Ashore as the great fleet guided past, dreams of them stepped, like men alive, into the rooms where their loved ones lay sleeping."

A glimpse of great prose writing that flows like poetry to me.

QUORA, THE NEXT BIG EVENT ! GREAT SITE

I could not copy to my accelerator, so I could place a page in my blog.  go to the site, log in and have some fun...you can choose many categories.

Results for "literary quotations"

Arsène Hodali, Jazz Juner — 
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buz...
 
(more)
L (Luis) Figueroa, Read some of the Great... — "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." John Milton 
(more)
Brandon Sheline, by day, Brando by night. — One of my favorite examples (may or may not be literary?) I found from the religious satirical documentary "Religlious" with Bill Maher. During the end of the documentary, several quotes from prominent historical figures flash on the screen and one popped up from John Adams… 
(more)
Casey Horton, Small Business Owner — Well, let's think about it for a minute.  And I may ramble because I am writing as I think.  'First Temptation is Last 

Phil Steel, Painting in the Pyrenees...October 18-25..

Our friends +Joan Steel and +Phil Steel... with their annual summer creative painting school...know anyone that wants to get away and learn to paint?



For artists, music lovers, 
and those who love a very special getaway!
20`13 patton workshop 01

 

We are getting better in updating our website :

                          www.philipssteel.com. 


You will see some new information and  new images being offered for purchase.

When you see a painting you would like to have please call me, Joan, at 772-465-8322,  or 772-489-1156., summer and winter. Gallery phone number is 207-244-5918  

 
We are finalizing the list of guest artists who will be showing their paintings and sculpture in the gallery summer 2013.  We have a few openings for artists who have not shown in our gallery before.  Would you like to recommend an artist?

 

New Workshops:

Aside from the spectacular workshop planned in the Pyrenees, Phil will again be teaching at Wooden Boat in Brooklin, ME. next  August. 

This winter he is giving instructions, Monday afternoon in the gallery.

  
For information, please contact me by e-mail or phone. (772-489-1156 or 207-244-5918  e-mail: philsteelartist@gmail.com
Thanks for taking your time to read about our world of art.  We value your patronage and imput..

  

Joan Steel