The Royal Song of the Day for Thursday, September 1st is “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier” by Leo Feist. You can find the lyrics to this song in the Rise Up Singing songbook, on page 160.
Continue reading I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier: Royal Song of the Day 9/1/2011
“Study War No More” is the Royal Song of the Day. It’s a classic (well, make that a “traditional”, identified as a Black Spiritual). And, the song can be found in Rise Up Singing on page 163.
Here is a youtube video of Mahalia Jackson singing “Study War No More“:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nASMNYM8tn8] Continue reading “I ain’t gonna study war no more”: Peace Song for 7/19/2011
Duchess Susanna writes: It amazes me the way that some people will go out and buy exactly the same dress, in exactly the same color, that Duchess Catherine (aka Kate Middleton) wore somewhere. For my own sense of independence and dignity, I would at least want to pick a different color. Though, the exact ones modeled by the princess are the exact ones that get sold out and crash websites.
The idea of all of these women strolling around Great Britain and the United States in the same dress reminded me of what my departed friend, Susan Blake, called “the monoculture”. And, it reminded me of the Malvina Reynolds song “Little Boxes”. The song “Little Boxes” is The Royal Peace Song of the Day. It is can be found on page 2 in Rise Up Singing. (Favorite campfire song book of The Duke and Duchess of Peace.) Continue reading Royal Peace Song of The Day: “Little Boxes” made of ticky tacky
Well…Here is a list of entertainment for regular royals, and people who are bought into corporate culture: professional sports; Polo; royal watching; high fashion; expensive concert tickets of corporate entertainers; shopping for the mirage of freedom (aka the instructions of certain politicians after 9-11).
Now…Here is a list of entertainment options for people seeking peace and justice: local sports (or, even better yet, non competitive games); family watching; sustainable fashion; local music; making your own music; and shopping in a spirit of fair trade and sustainability.
Though, if you must do some “royal watching”, please watch The Duke and Duchess of Peace. Continue reading What do peaceful people do for fun? (Intro to Royal Song of The Day at Peace Couple)
Duchess Susanna writes: As someone who values freedom and liberty, I am particularly upset to think that Will and Kate – who are from another country – entered our country without the choice/threat of a full body scanner or an aggressive pat-down by the TSA. I would like to hear more about what kind of measures that they had to endure to travel to The United States, versus what American citizens have to endure when leaving or entering their own country.
On the other hand, I do not wish anyone to have to endure the danger of a dose of radiation administered by a low-level security worker, or a pat-down which is practically sexual abuse. So, I would rather ask that none of us have to endure those bad TSA choices, rather than actually wishing the bad things on Duchess Catherine. Still, that dilemma is part of the problem with politics. If the media and government propagandize certain people to seem like nice, sweet, heroes, then it is hard to wish those people ill, even while their indulgence comes at your expense. Continue reading Prince William and Duchess Catherine: How the other half live…
Duke Augustus: The corporate media have been in an absolute tizzy over every stitch of clothing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been wearing while blithely passing along all their military boosterism. They have even exposed Kate Middleton’s preferred choice of undergarments.
Now we are going to be inundated with more information about Kate & Will’s unmentionables then we would ever want to know. As Prince William and Duchess Catherine fly into the United States today, they will meet up with this country’s first line of defense, the TSA.
And we are not just talking a cancer-causing full body scan here. Remember Prince William is not only a foreign national, he is a member of a foreign military. The military he belongs to has a history of violent attacks upon US citizens and fomenting insurrection within the Unites States. In addition, Prince William has just spent the last week trolling along the US border, and boasting of his country’s military exploits.
Prince William is a TSA profiler’s dream. If he, and his entourage, don’t get pulled off the customs line for a full body search, then the whole Homeland Security Department should be fired.
Duke Augustus: My attention was caught by an opinion piece in The Hindu titled Tagore and the idea of Cooperation which started with a quote from Nobel-Prize-winning Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore:
“Today, economic power has been captured by a small minority. But it has acquired this power only by accumulating the productive power of others. Their capital is simply the accumulated labour of a millions of working people, in a monetized form. It is this productive power that is the real capital, and it is this power that latently resides in every worker …” — Samabayaniti/The Co-operative Principles, 1928.
As the piece goes on to explain: Continue reading Tagore, Yeats, Neruda & Cooperatives