NFL Stopped Playing National Anthem Before Games: 'Politics Should Stay out of Sports'?
"The latest move by the NFL, however, could be its boldest yet," SpaceXMania reported.
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Hello out there in politics land
Scruffy has a message for you.
America is the land of free. And the home of the brave.
Those two concepts are joined at the hip. Don't ever forget it.
Maybe you thought the Star Spangled Banner was just a song. How many of you know the true story?
It was 1814, two years into the War of 1812. Things weren't going so well. The British had just torched Congress and the White House. Now they were laying siege to the Port of Baltimore, the deepest harbor in Chesapeake Bay.
Francis Scott Key was a lawyer from DC, and he had a doctor friend named Beanes who had just been arrested in his home by the British, and taken prisoner aboard one of their ships - because he was helping some stragglers find food, so they wouldn't starve.
To help his friend, the young lawyer Key obtained a letter of sanction from President Madison himself, then traveled 40 miles to the scene of the battle so he could personally plead with the British commander for Beanes' release.
He secured the release, but at the last minute was prevented from leaving the ship because he had overheard some battle plans. The British were going to bomb Fort McHenry that night, and if it fell it was all but over for the US.
The fort had a small flag flying at sundown, a 17 x 25 foot storm flag, but Key couldn't see it at night. All he could see were 1500 rockets exploding near the fort. He was forced to watch the entire battle from on board the British ship.
On the morning of Sept 14 1814, Key got up on deck and the first thing he did was look over at Ft McHenry, expecting to see a British flag or no flag at all. Instead, the storm flag had been replaced by a gigantic 30 x 42 foot American garrison flag, which survives to this day.
The flag had 15 stars and 15 stripes, it was made by hand by Mary Pickersgill and some of her friends. Today it's on display in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian.
Key began writing a poem to capture his thoughts, on the back of an envelope he had in his pocket. He finished it 3 days later, and it was immediately published.
And that, my friends of all persuasions, is the history.
Don't ever let anyone tell you our National Anthem is racist. Key was a slaveholder, as were most well to do Americans at the time, but over the years he freed 4 of the 7 slaves he inherited, and eventually joined the American Colonization Society, whose mission it was to buy slaves for the express purpose of setting them free.
When the shit hits the fan (which it will), remember that we have more in common than the differences that divide us.
Left right or indifferent, America is the land of the free.
And the home of the brave.
Sources:
The Star-Spangled Banner - Wikipedia
The U.S. national anthem | USAGov
Discover the history behind the Star-Spangled Banner, and how it became America's national anthem. Listen to the music and read the lyrics.
www.usa.gov
