Obama Derangement Syndrome rears its ugly head

MoonHowler

Gasp!  Shriek! Faint!  Obama [spittle flies forth] has taken any mention of God out of the Gettysburg Address!  That proves it!  Obama is a Muslim socialist.  Calm down., Calm down!  The right wing media, (wing ding media) is all a buzz over the dissing of God by the Socialist in Chief.

Here is one of the gentler gasp and shouts from nationalreview.com:

President Obama cut God out of his recitation of the Gettysburg Address.

In a recorded recitation uploaded to YouTube on November 9, President Obama read the address in its entirety. However, when it came to the line “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,” the President left out the words “under God.”

Obama’s omission occurs at the 1:35 mark.

The video was used by PBS to create a montage of celebrities and all living presidents reciting the address. Obama’s omission is not included in that video.

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Virginia’s psychological disabilities and some good, healthy introspection

MoonHowler

After the massacre at Virginia Tech there was great promise that Virginia would reform its mental health system.  There was great promise that we would never get caught with our proverbial pants down again and we would march forth to improve our psychiatric faciltities and access to treatment.  Nothing much as happened.  Like all searing scars, great promises are made and they rarely amount to a hill of beans.  Such was the case with the Old Dominion.

Washingtonpost.com:

Deeds was apparently stabbed by his 24-year-old son, Gus, on Tuesday. Gus, who then shot himself to death, had been given a psychiatric exam the previous day but was released because of an inability to locate a psychiatric bed in remote and rural Bath County.

The elder Deeds, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2009, was airlifted to a hospital in Charlottesville, where he is in fair condition after being treated for stab wounds.

This incident has spurred immediate discussion of Virginia’s attitude regarding the mentally ill – namely, that they are a proper and obvious target for funding cuts when it comes time to squeeze budgets. From 2005 to 2010, according to a report last year by the Treatment Advocacy Center, Virginia eliminated 15 percent of its public psychiatric beds. It has just 17.6 beds per 10,000 people, 40 percent of a target of 50 beds per 10,000 recommended by professionals, according to Sy Mukherjee of ThinkProgress.

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“The Address”

MoonHowler

The Gettysburg Address–so short but deep. Does it really define what America was? Does it describe what America really is?

Out of all the American  speeches, all the inaugural addresses, all those special sentences and phrases that just seem to jump out of some of the speeches that have been given over the years, what makes The Gettysburg Address so special?

Is there a particular phrase or sentence that grabs you? Is the speech over-rated? Why is it important and what has preserved it during the past 150 years? How come the Gettysburg Address wasn’t given, then tucked away in the archives, only seen and studied by historians? Did brevity add to its uniqueness and make the speech more memorable?  Was it the austerity of the event–the dedication of the Gettysburg Battlefield that makes this almost poetic bit of prose so recognizable?

What speeches have you had to learn and under what circumstances? Does memorizing help us really understand the content of a speech better?  Why are students required to memorize different speeches and sections from literature?

Discussion.  Your thoughts on the matter, please.