ON THE AVENUES: I'm a citizen of the universe, but I can't take a photo to save my life.

While lounging at Pints&union on a recent Saturday afternoon I found myself chatting with estimable local photographer David Modica. Upon returning home to the lair and glancing at the mound of old travel slides waiting to be scanned and digitized, it occurred to me how much a practiced lensman like David could have achieved in the East Bloc during the late 1980s.

However a second thought arrived quickly on the heels of the first, this being the vague memory of conditions on the ground that rendered an already poor photographer like me even worse at shutter's snap -- this in addition to my prior observation that when you're carrying enough cheap slide film to last through a six-month trip, there does not exist the luxury to squeeze off dozens of shots from which to select the best.

Of course there’s no point denying that my wretchedness as a photographer was exacerbated by a reticence to be intrusive by pointing my camera at people who might conclude this well-heeled foreigner was seeking unflattering angles. Americans tended to be well-received within the communist perimeter at the time (a Polish man once told me the only person more popular in his country than Pope John Paul II was Ronald Reagan), but matters could get complicated if they thought you were laughing at them, as opposed to commiserating with them.

I've forgotten something else during the subsequent three decades of post-communist life. There was a certain measure of self-imposed restraint felt by many visitors based on advice in then-popular travel books to the effect that visiting a “police” state meant risking problems if you photographed taboo objects or potentially embarrassing social conditions.

As an aside, friends always used to ask me if it felt dangerous to holiday in the Eastern European worker’s paradise, and I'd say no, quite the contrary; it felt very safe if the word “safety” were to be defined by the absence of violence directed against us as tourists – as opposed to pervasive bullying by the government against people living there.

In fact while abroad in 1989 I was pickpocketed, drugged and robbed, and also had my credit card stolen -- in France, Spain and Austria, respectively, not Czechoslovakia, East Germany or the Soviet Union. The one time I can recall feeling disconcerted while traveling was in 1985 when soldiers with machine guns were posted on street corners throughout Istanbul, Turkey -- a capitalist country, by the way -- because there’d only recently been a military coup. Too much Midnight Express, I suppose, although it proved to be a delightful stay otherwise.

Being a westerner in a communist country meant that one way or another, we were supplying the regime with much needed hard currency, whether via an official change bureau or by means of the helpful conduit of a black marketer. Either way, like water running downhill, “real” western money was destined to find its way to the government in the end. Acordingly, we were encouraged to spend it.

Still, there were behavioral boundaries. Only the universally adored Australians could get away with rowdiness without apparent consequence. It’s just a gift they seem to have. Addressing photography, I can remember being told not to take pictures of people waiting in line to buy things, a common sight in the USSR (less so elsewhere in the Bloc). Military installations were verboten, too, along with other locales and buildings of strategic significance, with the precise definition being left to the government’s whim.

Much of this was bluff, and yet it could be daunting. Did hospitals count? Sports stadiums? Breweries? There was no way of knowing. Once in Moscow we happened upon a tangled pile of exposed film on the ground. It was very easy to imagine it being yanked from a camera, even if we didn’t witness the policeman in the act.

How would the gatekeepers have reacted to a tourist with a camera documenting the exterior of the central prison in Prague just down the street from where I stayed in 1989 with the family of my friend, where Vaclav Havel had been incarcerated for what proved to be the final time only a couple months before I arrived? I knew what the building represented, but I left it alone. The simple point is that I didn't want to risk it, and we can add a high degree of self-editing in terms of shot selection on top of my other inhibitions.

Besides, I was born to take lousy pictures and to live vicariously through the practiced eye of artists like Modica. Had he been along for the ride, he’d have found a way to capture the essence.

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There’s a quote I’ve been trying to locate for years.

At this point I’m forced to concede the words I recall may or may not have been spoken, even if I continue to insist they were uttered by the track and field star Edwin Moses during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

It was a hideous spectacle, the Games of the XXIII Olympiad. Good intentions notwithstanding, the modern Olympics have been politicized from the very start, as I suspect they also were in ancient Greece. Apart from the year 1984 serving as a convenient pretext for rereading of George Orwell’s novel of the same name, it also was an election year and the very pinnacle of the Cold War, Reaganism and Thatcherism.

Not unexpectedly the Hollywood filmmaker David Wolper was enlisted to “produce” the Olympics for global television, with every last movie gimmick trick from the arsenal of the Ben Hur generation in La La Land duly deployed and exaggerated for patriotic effect. Unfortunately for the RayGunners, all this mind-boggling garishness was not witnessed in person by the Warsaw Pact nations; they all boycotted the Olympics except for Nicolae "Conducator" Ceausescu’s Romania, for which the US State Department happily rewarded the dictator with enough slack to oppress his own people for another five years.

At some point amid the propaganda extravaganza Moses won yet another medal and was interviewed by a fawning broadcaster, who was no doubt scandalized to hear the athlete comment that he considered himself a citizen of the universe – or something like that.

I can’t actually prove Moses said it, but no matter. If he did not, someone else did, and either way it was a light bulb moment for me. I’d long been arguing about the impossibility of “proving” irrational religious beliefs, but it suddenly became clear that mankind’s enduring instinct for sectarianism and tribalism, amplified to deafening pitch with the inception of the modern nation state’s industrialized toolmaking, predates religious superstition. Religion is a mere symptom, not the disease.

Consequently, for me this notion of mindless patriotism in the sense of publicly demonstrating one’s “love” of country in knee-jerk, childlike ways is pure nonsense, every bit as much as the blind worship of objects, whether they come in the form of a saint’s toenail, a totem or a flag. Humans have brains, and it might be helpful to use them on occasion. Love might be a many splendored thing, but it’s better directed at other humans and not debatable abstractions that serve primarily to reinforce existing power structures.

That’s because we’re humans first. I was born the same way those guys on the “other” side were, and ultimately I’ll die in precisely the same fashion as someone from Tibet, Chile or South Africa. The rest of it is sheer serendipity, and should be regarded as such. Surely we have better things to do with the brief time we have.

Yes, “go back to where you came from” has returned to the news cycle.

Sentiments like this always have been primeval screams favor an abysmally ignorant point of view, especially as they pertain to “love” of a nation state founded on the basis of welcoming humans from elsewhere to come slaughter and enslave the ones already here.

It’s even less defensible from the perspective of humanity as a whole, although in this as in most all similar circumstances, the eternal imperatives of capital accumulation, and the concurrent preservation of wealth and privilege for the few, depend on the reinforcement of arbitrary divisions.

The disease isn’t limited to Americans, although we seem to be in the process of perfecting it. It’s neither a Republican nor a Democratic affliction, as it flourishes across the political spectrum. When you rant at another human being to conform to your precepts or else get the hell out, the sound you’re hearing off in the distance is the One Percent laughing uproariously all the way to the bank. The fewest with the most simply adore the ease with which you are distracted.

Some readers are red-faced: But what about our brave men and women in the military, fighting to preserve our freedom?

Well, wouldn’t it be great if the deprived weren’t compelled by threat of violence to preserve wealth and power by killing others who are in precisely the same predicament?

Since the dawn of civilization wars have been fought by humans who quite honestly are chosen to die for someone else’s money, property, status and religion, not their own. Violence is an abomination at any level of the human experience, but it doesn’t get much worse than when it is amalgamated and wielded at the nation state’s massive economy of scale.

I respect the soldiers quite a lot -- so much so that I’d like to join with other fellow humans to determine ways of making their sacrifices less predictably common. If this requires a certain redirection of pitchforks, all the better.

Today’s column closes with the thoughts of Jason Williamson, one half of the Sleaford Mods, an English punk band.

“Racism is not the answer to your misery or feelings of alienation. It just isn’t. It never was. It’s just one of the many tools to keep you locked in a small room for the entirety of your life. Thank you. Look after each other. If you can.”

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Recent columns:

July 11: ON THE AVENUES: Trieste, New Albany and the meaning of nowhere.

July 4: ON THE AVENUES: The 2019 remix, "You want some fries with your redevelopment?"

June 27: ON THE AVENUES: Mourning (and alcohol) in America, circa 1984.

June 18: ON THE AVENUES: Let's lift our voices for another verse of "Talking Seventh Inning Blues."

ON THE AVENUES: Let's lift our voices for another verse of "Talking Seventh Inning Blues."

On the Avenues will move back to Thursdays, beginning next week.

World Cup soccer star Megan Repinoe's principled decision to refrain from singing the "The Star Spangled Banner" prompts one of those questions we ask the friendly 800-lb gorilla in the corner.

In short, why do we play the national anthem before a sporting event, but not prior to opening the doors at a frilly boutique, muffler shop or dive bar?

Imagine the plight of the 24-hour mini-mart, forever unable to to find an opportunity to play the national anthem, and settling instead on an endless loop of Lee Greenwood songs.

The 800-lb gorilla isn't finished.

Why do we insist on patriotic rituals attendant to the airing of the anthem alongside overt displays of nationalism merely to sanction throwing a football and shooting hoops, not to mention taking slap shots?

(As an aside, these questions were of relevance long before Repinoe chose silence and football’s Colin Kaepernick took a knee.)

According to writer Richard C. Crepeau in an essay from the mid-200s, the answer is that rote patriotism featuring "The Star Spangled Banner" became a feature of baseball games during World War II.

In 1940, with the fighting underway in earnest and America becoming more conscious of the possibility of war, there was increased talk of the need to hear the national anthem before all baseball games. This was suggested by The Sporting News in June, while at the same time the president of the International League called for the anthem to be played in U.S. league cities, as was already being done in Canadian cities. By 1941, the practice of playing the anthem before sporting events had achieved nearly universal status. At some games the pledge of allegiance was added, and, by 1941, "I Am an American Day" became a feature at major league parks.

It would be nice to say that all of this was due to pure patriotic expression, but of course much of it was created by PR-conscious owners who wanted to make sure that no one would question the patriotism of athletes who played games during World War II while others went off to serve their country. Four years of war, followed by the Cold War and the emergence of the American Empire, solidified the practice and made it into a national ritual.

Since September 11, 2001, another ritual has come into fashion in baseball. Nowadays the seventh inning stretch often is devoted to a commemorative performance of “God Bless America,” for which I’ll soon be suggesting an alternative with less proselytizing. As a long-ago Internet analyst once wrote:

“‘God Bless America’ rings a false note now, as it did when the song was first written (by Irving Berlin, 1939). Woody Guthrie, wrote the song ‘This Land is Your Land’ in 1940 after hearing Kate Smith sing ‘God Bless America’ one too many times.”

But first, since I’m perfectly willing to be the iconoclast in this particular hometown locker room, another question: Is it really necessary to bring religious devotion into the seventh inning stretch?

Or: Where is the imperative for a deity to “bless” America in the first place, quite apart from sports?

Perhaps a better question is this: If we deploy societal peer pressure to encourage a conditioned response by requiring people to participate in a ritual intended to remind them of a noteworthy event, aren’t we trivializing the event?

Shouldn't folks remember on their own?

To be sure, the events of September 11 are an indelible memory for current generations. Furthermore, and on a far less savory note, the invasive logic of the security state arising in America since 2001 has affected our lives more deeply than we realize.

Still, active memories of 9-11 will fade, just as recollections of human slavery's toll, the efficacy of vaccination and a merits of a living wage have disappeared into the mists of rear-view mirrors.

In my world, instead of mandating participation in sing-alongs during sporting events, a better way of understanding history’s lessons is to take an interest in historical facts. Some sweet day we all may rise as one from the bleachers, precariously cradling ours beers and brats, and listen as local actors and television luminaries read relevant passages from Howard Zinn.

Too few of us can sing well, anyway.

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At this point the hackles of some readers surely are popping to life: “What -- don’t you love your country?”

Well, this depends on what the meaning of “love” is.

Speaking only for myself, I cannot regard the word “love” as a concept applicable to one among many nation-states into which I was serendipitously deposited by the fickle finger of fate. Rather, during my adult life the extent of my personal attachment to the concept of the United States of America has been conducted in a cerebral way, not in terms of blind allegiance.

(I do love my wife, but each year at tax time my feelings take a back seat to hard mathematics and fluency in bureaucratese; lacking both, I immediately hand the dossier to my accountant to be assured it's done right.)

Somewhat amazingly my teachers succeeded in convincing me that to be an American bears an intimate connection with an intellectual process, not an emotional one. I accept that a philosophy of governance came first, this being a rational undertaking incorporating thoughts, ideals and the historical record, not misty eyes, the fevered thumping of a chest or identification with a piece of cloth.

At the same time, my acknowledgment of this political construct does not imply acceptance of its imperfections. As Tina Turner might have asked, “what’s love got to do with it?” The Constitution as a document is a starting point, and it is to be regarded as a work in progress, not another gilded icon to be revered sans examination with a critical lens.

Because how could the nation's founders have devised perfection when Walt Disney had yet to be born?

All of these considerations matter owing to one’s personal conscience, and the minute we seek to align the conscience of the many individuals into the potential blunt instrument of the one, it’s time to be vigilant.

A brief survey of history reveals that soldiers on all sides have consistently marched off to war in the patriotic belief that God is on their side, and when one considers the catastrophic results of war, it should be obvious that this equation is irreparably skewed, as is any other pertaining to the abstract entity of nationhood -- especially as such abstractions come from hearts and not heads.

My views in this context understandably aren’t mainstream. I think love for other persons can be crazy, blind, binding and inexplicable. Beyond that, brains are there to be used, not lobotomized.

There weren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, were there?

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Returning to what it means to be a baseball fan, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is the only patriotic song we've ever needed. For decades a staple of the seventh-inning stretch at ballparks large and small, from California to the New York island, this music was most delightfully defined by the late Harry Caray’s boisterous press box version.

Baseball possesses its own sort of quasi-religious faith; if not, why would Baltimore Orioles fans buy a single ticket in 2019?

For me the substitution of “God Bless America” for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is like inserting an advertisement for organized religion where it doesn't belong, whatever the variety.

Of course I’ve nothing whatever against the old-school songwriter Israel Beilin (Irving Berlin), who died a famous, feted American in 1989 at the age of 101, this wonderful and welcoming country having provided a beacon to his family of immigrants escaping nasty pograms in Tsarist Russia.

Among Berlin’s hit songs I prefer “Cheek to Cheek” or even “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to “God Bless America,” in which Berlin appealed directly to a simple love of country with groundless theism, prideful chest-thumping and a mawkish sentimentality, neither of which suits my cosmopolitan (read: cynical) internationalism.

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Conversely, if we simply must have a 7th-inning tune other than the historically correct one, why not sing “This Land Is Your Land,” Woody Guthrie’s far superior response to Berlin?

Why not sing it instead of the national anthem?

“This Land Is Your Land” is sublimely ecumenical, addressing the natural and human wonders of America without resorting to the divisiveness of those many supernatural elements.

I suppose the drawback is that when it comes to the imperative of emotional manipulation required by engorged corporate capitalists, Guthrie’s work isn’t as simplistic as Berlin’s schmaltzy paean to blind obedience.

Better yet, we might all wear “This Machine Kills Fascists” t-shirts whilst happily harmonizing from the third base side. It is through Guthrie’s legacy that this phrase has become immortalized. For many years my former brewing company used “These Machines Kill Fascists” as our motto, alongside a graphic of brewing vessels, and even today, with me being long gone from NABC, I never tire of telling the story of its origin.

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-1967) was an iconic American folksinger. He was born in Oklahoma and came of age during the twin pre-WWII crises of national economic collapse (the Great Depression) and regional environmental catastrophe (the Dust Bowl).

Musically inclined from childhood, Guthrie followed the westward drift in pursuit of work, eventually landing in California alongside numerous other Okies. In doing so, he played a living, breathing part in novelist John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” and as a direct result of what Guthrie experienced during these troubled times in America, his political views evolved in progressive, leftist directions.

Many of Guthrie’s subsequent songs -- he wrote thousands -- chronicled the hardships of ordinary people, expressing empathy for their lot and support for what he saw as curatives: Worker rights, unionizing, and racial and gender equality.

Guthrie eschewed the feel-good and the flag-waving, both so often deployed to mask deprivation and trivialize injustice. His annoyance with “God Bless America” spoke to this feeling.

For all of Guthrie’s leftist tendencies, he remained a staunch patriot as well as a firm, committed believer in the potential of America, albeit a more idealistic and hopeful vision of the American experiment, one not defined entirely by wealth and privilege. The Second World War put his beliefs to the test, and he responded admirably.

It is instructive to remember that during World War II, the United States (a democracy -- of sorts) aligned with a hereditary monarchy (Great Britain) and the USSR’s Communist gulag against the military aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan. Such was the greater threat posed by fascism.

Guthrie viewed his music as an integral part of the war effort, and so he scrawled “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his acoustic guitar, meaning that music and ideas were as much weapons against fascism as guns and bullets. Guthrie enlisted in the Merchant Marine, and whenever performing, he used his own machine, one that he considered vital in killing fascists.

The same phrase was written on machinery in factories throughout the United States, as those millions of people in America’s industrial work force made a similar point: The person operating the machine that makes the supplies used to defeat fascism are helping to kill fascists, too.

Co-opting religious imagery to further the imperatives of a war machine driven by wealthy elites, or returning to the egg and reminding us that “we the people” might yet resemble universalism and in self-governance?

I appreciate Irving, but I vote for Woody -- now and always.

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As a postscript, the lyrics.

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

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Recent columns:

May 28: ON THE AVENUES: Challenges are forever, but downtown New Albany's food and drink purveyors keep on keeping on.

May 21: ON THE AVENUES: "Pints&union, where the classic beer hits keep right on pouring."

May 14: ON THE AVENUES: Where do we go from here?

May 6: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Ghosts within these stones, defiance in these bones (2018).

Megan Rapinoe and the National Anthem: Because "compulsory expressions of freedom are always the most compelling."

Photo credit.

Bluegill contributed these words back in 2014. They're an antidote to hegemony in all its oppressive varieties.

A short story of passing in the street.

I don't recite the Pledge of Allegiance, stand for the National Anthem, or recognize prayer as sponsored by public institutions. When a funeral procession crosses my path, though - and it happens quite a bit when you live down the street from a funeral home - I stop what I'm doing, take off my hat if I'm wearing one, and stand in silent solidarity until it passes. That's not nationalism, militarism, or theocratic hegemony. That's someone's family, and we all have those.

An essay called "The Sports Song of Patriotism" by Richard C. Crepeau may or may not be accessible on-line, but here's an excerpt that reveals how the national anthem came to be de rigueur at sporting events.

First, it is important to note that there was no official national anthem until the 1930s. During World War I, however, President Wilson declared the "Star Spangled Banner" the unofficial national anthem, and the intense display of public patriotism during this period led to it being played on many public occasions.

It is generally accepted that its first appearance during a sporting event was the 1918 World Series. To demonstrate major league patriotism, baseball teams had the players march in formation during pre-game military drills while carrying bats on their shoulders. During the seventh-inning stretch of game one, when the band spontaneously began to play the "Star Spangled Banner," the Cubs and Red Sox players stood at attention facing the centerfield flag pole. The crowd sang along and applauded when the singing ended.

Given this reaction in Chicago, the "Star Spangled Banner" was played during the seventh-inning stretch for the next two games. When the Series moved to Boston, the great theatrical Red Sox owner Harry Frazee pumped up the show biz: He brought in a band, and the song was played before the start of each game.

When the war ended, the song continued to be played, but only on special occasions when a band was present — such as opening day, special holidays or the World Series. On opening day in Washington, D.C., it was played before the president of the United States, and local politicians in other cities learned to participate in the events.

The "Star Spangled Banner" was finally declared the official national anthem in 1931. Even though by 1934 some ballparks had public address systems, it still was not played at every game. The coming of war in the late 1930s changed all of that. During the 1939-40 National Hockey League season, the Canadian anthem was played at games in Canadian cities as Canada was already at war. Then the practice spread to Madison Square Garden and from there it was transferred from hockey to baseball.

In 1940, with the fighting underway in earnest and America becoming more conscious of the possibility of war, there was increased talk of the need to hear the national anthem before all baseball games. This was suggested by The Sporting News in June, while at the same time the president of the International League called for the anthem to be played in U.S. league cities, as was already being done in Canadian cities. By 1941, the practice of playing the anthem before sporting events had achieved nearly universal status. At some games the pledge of allegiance was added, and, by 1941, "I Am an American Day" became a feature at major league parks.

It would be nice to say that all of this was due to pure patriotic expression, but of course much of it was created by PR-conscious owners who wanted to make sure that no one would question the patriotism of athletes who played games during World War II while others went off to serve their country. Four years of war, followed by the Cold War and the emergence of the American Empire, solidified the practice and made it into a national ritual.

This begins us to an athlete who won't sing the national anthem. Why on earth this matters to anyone is an abiding mystery to me, but here we are. Individual conscience is just that: our own, each of us. The reasons for mandated public displays of private truthfulness elude me, although my best guess is that they're all about power.

Megan Rapinoe Is Right to Not Sing the Anthem, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Megan Rapinoe won’t kneel for the anthem any longer. Now the right wants her to sing it as well.

The right is in a lather over US Women’s National Team forward Megan Rapinoe’s standing for the national anthem… but not singing. I wish I were joking. The sputtering anger across certain websites and social media is connected to Rapinoe’s efforts to keep a mild promise. Rapinoe used to kneel during the anthem as a way, in part, to express solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. But that wasn’t the only reason. She said in 2016, “Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties. It was something small that I could do and something that I plan to keep doing in the future and hopefully spark some meaningful conversation around it.”

Then the US Soccer Federation had itself a good old-fashioned hissy fit. First, it issued a statement demanding that everyone on the team must stand for the anthem. Then it took the extraordinary step of codifying a policy requiring players to stand. Yes, compulsory expressions of freedom are always the most compelling.

At the time, Rapinoe begrudgingly agreed to respect the diktat, although she also made a point to call it “cowardly,” saying, “We can actually have a conversation, instead of just telling me that it’s a privilege to pull on the jersey. Like, of course it’s a privilege for me to pull on the jersey. Part of that privilege is representing America, and representing America is representing all of America.”

That includes representing the part of America that America refuses to represent: the America being herded into internment camps and the America being denied basic civil and human rights under this venal administration.

Rapinoe did, however, also promise that while she would stand for the anthem, she would not in fact sing. She told Yahoo Sports, “I’ll probably never put my hand over my heart. I’ll probably never sing the national anthem again” ...

Learning how to kneel: "Over the past century, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and baseball have become inextricably wed."

It wasn't necessary for Colin Kaepernick to take a knee to dissuade me from watching football. Whatever waning interest remained was jettisoned some years back when the appalling extent of brain injuries and crippling physical impairments finally started being reported.

The NFL's lies and cover-ups since then sealed the deal. By all rights, we should be protesting the nature of the sport itself, but as for those other protests currently compelling white America to boycott modern gladiators:

(Psst -- it's not about the flag or the military, and it never has been.)

If you're saying to yourself, well, I never protest, and when I do it is done tastefully, so as to be inoffensive to others ... you just might be revealing yourself as a privileged societal cog unable to fathom injustice.

Would you have participated in the American Revolution?

If so, on which side?

So much for football. I've always been a baseball fan, anyway, and I was proud as proverbial punch when Bruce Maxwell, a catcher for my beloved Oakland A's, became the first major leaguer to take a knee. He comes from a military family, and his military family gets it.

The bigger question for me is this: How did the tradition begin of the national anthem being played before sporting events?

It goes back a century, to 1918 and the Great War, which did more than another single event to inaugurate and define the parameters of American "patriotism" as we now (usually unthinkingly) accept it -- and also gave us Prohibition, among other intrusions.

America's forgotten past: "It is worth reviewing how World War I turned out so much worse than the experts and politicians promised."

 ... Wilson acted as if the congressional declaration of war against Germany was also a declaration of war against the Constitution. Harvard professor Irving Babbitt commented in 1924, “Wilson, in the pursuit of his scheme for world service, was led to make light of the constitutional checks on his authority and to reach out almost automatically for unlimited power.” Wilson even urged Congress to set up detention camps to quarantine “alien enemies.”

This entertaining 2011 account tells the rest of the story.

The song remains the same: Over the past century, "The Star-Spangled Banner" and baseball have become inextricably wed, by Luke Cyphers and Ethan Trex (ESPN The Magazine)

THE FIRST THING to remember is that it's a battle song.

The most memorable lines involve rockets and bombs, and the lesser-known verses conjure "the havoc of war" and "the gloom of the grave."

The second thing to remember? It's a taunt, a lyrical grenade chucked at a defeated opponent. "See that flag still flying, the one you tried to capture?" it famously asks the British. Then it answers: "Scoreboard."

That's why, in a country that loudly lauds actions on the battlefield and the playing field, "The Star-Spangled Banner" and American athletics have a nearly indissoluble marriage. Hatched during one war, institutionalized during another, this song has become so entrenched in our sports identity that it's almost impossible to think of one without the other.

Our nation honors war. Our nation loves sports. Our nation glorifies winning. Our national anthem strikes all three chords at the same time.

On Thanksgiving week, "It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism."

There was a good discussion of this topic at Fb two weeks ago.

There are a couple of billion people in the world, and most of them are NOT trying to come here, although by all rights they SHOULD, given that we're the greatest country, and an obvious magnet ... and once we've established ourselves as greatest, it wouldn't be hospitable not to welcome everyone. But it doesn't work like that. Why?

The writer Bromwich offers a variant of something I've always maintained: If a guy stands up in a tavern and begins boasting about his greatness, it is regarded as an impolite imposition. Do it in a stadium, and we're all supposed to stand, chant and sing.

It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism, by David Bromwich (TomDispatch.com, via The Nation)

To believe that our nation has always been exceptional requires a suppression of ordinary skepticism and a belief that calls for extraordinary arrogance.

... On the whole, is American exceptionalism a force for good? The question shouldn’t be hard to answer. To make an exception of yourself is as immoral a proceeding for a nation as it is for an individual. When we say of a person (usually someone who has gone off the rails), “He thinks the rules don’t apply to him,” we mean that he is a danger to others and perhaps to himself. People who act on such a belief don’t as a rule examine themselves deeply or write a history of the self to justify their understanding that they are unique. Very little effort is involved in their willfulness. Such exceptionalism, indeed, comes from an excess of will unaccompanied by awareness of the necessity for self-restraint.

And then there's this:

Drinking Progressively: Let's make it Tuesday evenings, beginning on November 25.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Talking Seventh Inning Blues (2010).

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Talking Seventh Inning Blues.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor. Today's July 4 rewind was originally published in November, 2010, and is dedicated to the Floyd County Health Department.

“‘God Bless America’ rings a false note now, as it did when the song was first written (by Irving Berlin, 1939). Woody Guthrie, wrote the song ‘This Land is Your Land’ in 1940 after hearing Kate Smith sing ‘God Bless America’ one too many times.” -- Democratic Wings

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For a baseball fan, the only patriotic song that really matters is “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” for decades a staple of the seventh-inning stretch at ballparks large and small, from California to the New York island.

Unfortunately, the purloining of this sacred tradition commenced shortly after 9-11, reaching a predictable nadir during the annual playoffs and World Series, which prompted an exciting, new activity in my heretical household: Scrambling to be first to thumb the mute button, thus sparing us yet another performance of “God Bless America.”

I’ve nothing against the songwriter Irving Berlin, whose family escaped pogroms in Tsarist Russia by immigrating to America. It’s just that in appealing to what Berlin perceived as the common American’s simple love of country, he was prone to overt chest-thumping and mawkish sentimentality, neither of which suits my cosmopolitan internationalism.

Why can’t we sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at the game, and save the Pat Robertson Bible College advertisement for his cable empire, where it belongs?

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Conversely, if we must have a 7th-inning tune other than the historically correct one, why not sing Woody Guthrie’s far superior response, “This Land Is Your Land”?

It is sublimely ecumenical, addressing the natural and human wonders of America without resorting to the divisiveness of those many supernaturals. I suppose the drawback is that when it comes to the imperative of emotional manipulation required by moneyed corporate capitalists, Guthrie’s work isn’t as misty-eyed as Berlin’s schmaltzy paean to blind acceptance.

Better yet, we might all wear “This Machine Kills Fascists” t-shirts whilst happily harmonizing from the bleacher seats.

It is through Guthrie’s legacy that the phrase has become immortalized. For what seems like years, my company has used “These Machines Kill Fascists” as our motto, alongside a graphic of brewing vessels, and I never tire of telling the story of its origin.

Guthrie (1912-1967), the iconic American folksinger, was born in Oklahoma and came of age during the twin pre-WWII crises of national economic collapse (the Great Depression) and regional environmental catastrophe (the Dust Bowl).

Musically inclined from childhood, Guthrie followed the westward drift in pursuit of work, eventually landing in California alongside numerous other Okies. In doing so, he played a living, breathing part in novelist John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” and as a direct result of what Guthrie experienced during these troubled times in America, his political views evolved in progressive, leftist directions.

Many of Guthrie’s subsequent songs – he wrote thousands – chronicled the hardships of ordinary people, expressing empathy for their lot and support for what he saw as curatives: Worker rights, unionizing, and racial and gender equality. Guthrie eschewed the feel-good and the flag-waving, both so often deployed to mask deprivation and trivialize injustice. His annoyance with “God Bless America” spoke to this feeling.

For all of Guthrie’s leftist tendencies, and in stark contrast with the way that today’s right-wingers typically malign them, Guthrie remained a staunch patriot as well as a firm, committed believer in the potential of America, albeit a more idealistic and hopeful vision of the American experiment, one not defined entirely by wealth and privilege. The Second World War put his beliefs to the test, and he responded admirably.

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It is instructive to remember that during World War II, the United States (a democracy -- of sorts) aligned with a hereditary monarchy (Great Britain) and the USSR’s Communist gulag against the military aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan. Such was the greater threat perceived in fascism.

Guthrie viewed his music as an integral part of the war effort, and so he scrawled “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his acoustic guitar, meaning that music and ideas were as much weapons against fascism as guns and bullets. Guthrie enlisted in the Merchant Marine, and whenever performing, he used a machine that he considered vital in killing fascists.

The same phrase was written on machinery in factories throughout the United States, as those millions of people in America’s industrial work force made a similar point: The person operating the machine that makes the supplies used to defeat fascism are helping to kill fascists, too.

With “These Machines Kill Fascists,” my company honors Guthrie. As machines, the brew kettles, mash tuns and fermenters we use to make craft beer are our weapons against fascism in the beer world, where there are aggressive multi-national industrial brewers such as AB-InBev (as when shopping at Wal-Mart, your Bud money goes overseas, folks), and smaller, local, anti-fascist entities like us.

One of them better symbolizes Guthrie’s view of the American Dream.

If one cares to read more into it, interpretation surely is a privilege whenever listening to song lyrics. Speaking personally, my leftist proclivities are well documented, although at the same time, while historical accuracy demands that we use the phrase as originally rendered, I’d probably prefer killing “fascism” rather than “fascists.” Beyond that, I remain convinced that daily craft beer production indeed kills fascists.

Drinking some of it never hurts, either.

“Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.”

It's a thinking man's game ... and country, for that matter.

After listening to Patti LaBelle brutalize "The Star Spangled Banner" last night prior to Game 4 lf the World Series in Philly, I got to wondering how the tradition originated.

Why do we play the national anthem before a sporting event, and not (for instance) prior to opening the doors at the pub?

Is it just because the pub is socialist?

Why indulge in an overt display of nationalism in order to sanction the throwing of a football or the shooting of a basket?

The explanation I eventually on-line found strikes me as plausible.

The Sports Song of Patriotism, by Richard C. Crepeau.

First, it is important to note that there was no official national anthem until the 1930s. During World War I, however, President Wilson declared the "Star Spangled Banner" the unofficial national anthem, and the intense display of public patriotism during this period led to it being played on many public occasions.

It is generally accepted that its first appearance during a sporting event was the 1918 World Series. To demonstrate major league patriotism, baseball teams had the players march in formation during pre-game military drills while carrying bats on their shoulders. During the seventh-inning stretch of game one, when the band spontaneously began to play the "Star Spangled Banner," the Cubs and Red Sox players stood at attention facing the centerfield flag pole. The crowd sang along and applauded when the singing ended.

Given this reaction in Chicago, the "Star Spangled Banner" was played during the seventh-inning stretch for the next two games. When the Series moved to Boston, the great theatrical Red Sox owner Harry Frazee pumped up the show biz: He brought in a band, and the song was played before the start of each game.

When the war ended, the song continued to be played, but only on special occasions when a band was present — such as opening day, special holidays or the World Series. On opening day in Washington, D.C., it was played before the president of the United States, and local politicians in other cities learned to participate in the
events.

The "Star Spangled Banner" was finally declared the official national anthem in 1931. Even though by 1934 some ballparks had public address systems, it still was not played at every game. The coming of war in the late 1930s changed all of that. During the 1939-40 National Hockey League season, the Canadian anthem was played at games in Canadian cities as Canada was already at war. Then the practice spread to Madison Square Garden and from there it was transferred from hockey to baseball.

In 1940, with the fighting underway in earnest and America becoming more conscious of the possibility of war, there was increased talk of the need to hear the national anthem before all baseball games. This was suggested by The Sporting News in June, while at the same time the president of the International League called for the anthem to be played in U.S. league cities, as was already being done in Canadian cities. By 1941, the practice of playing the anthem before sporting events had achieved nearly universal status. At some games the pledge of allegiance was added, and, by 1941, "I Am an American Day" became a feature at major league parks.

It would be nice to say that all of this was due to pure patriotic expression, but of course much of it was created by PR-conscious owners who wanted to make sure that no one would question the patriotism of athletes who played games during World War II while others went off to serve their country. Four years of war, followed by the Cold War and the emergence of the American Empire, solidified the practice and made it into a national ritual.

I began this essay by noting that Patti LaBelle brutalized the national anthem last evening. By this observation, I’m not implying that she did a grave disservice to the song in the sense of treading atop a revered symbol of Americanism. Rather, I believe she fouled it musically. For me, that’s enough. It’s equally hard for me to imagine a serviceable version of the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” played with accordion and spoons … though Weird Al’s probably done it.

Since September 11, 2001, another ritual has come into fashion in baseball. The seventh inning stretch, once defined by Harry Caray’s boisterous version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (arguably baseball’s real national anthem) is now taken up more often than not by another standing observance as “God Bless America” is performed.

Is it necessary to bring devotion into the seventh inning stretch? Why must there be a God to “bless” America? But a better question is this: If you require people to participate in a ritual so that they’re reminded of an event, aren’t you trivializing the event?

I’d venture to say that for current generations of living Americans, the events of September 11 are an indelible memory. To be sure, someday that memory will fade, just as the memory of slavery has disappeared from the rear view window of far too many conservative apologists. Either way, is being required to listen to a song during a baseball game do anything at all to explain what actually happened, and what it means?

At this point, a reader somewhere is asking, “What – don’t you love your country?”

Depends on what you mean by “love.”

I don’t use the word “love” to describe my thoughts about a country into which I was serendipitously deposited by the fickle finger of fate. My personal attachment to the concept of the USA as a nation has been conducted in a cerebral way for more years than I care to remember, and not in terms of blind allegiance.

That’s because my teachers actually succeeded in convincing me that to be an American bears an intimate connection with an intellectual process, not an emotional one. A philosophy of governance came first, and it is a rational undertaking that incorporates thoughts, ideals and the historical record, not misty eyes, the fevered thumping of a chest or identification with a piece of cloth.

To me, all of this matters because of conscience. A brief survey of history reveals that soldiers on all sides consistently march off to war in the patriotic belief that God is on their side, and when one considers the catastrophic results of war, it should be obvious that this equation is irreparably skewed, as is any other pertaining to the abstract entity of nationhood, especially as such abstractions come from the heart and not the head.

My views in this context aren’t popular. At the same time, I wouldn’t legislate these rituals out of existence. My job is to persuade you.

That’s the very essence of being American, isn’t it?