God Bless America



Kate Smith

A prayer for all of America

In 1938, with war in Europe becoming more and more eminent, Irving Berlin, who was Jewish, and a first-generation European immigrant, felt it was time to revive a song he had written back in 1918. That song was “God Bless America.” He had written it while serving in the U.S. Army, but set it aside because it didn’t fit well with the “Yip Yip Yaphank” style he was pushing for. Things were different in 1938 and Berlin decided to revive the song on Armistice Day as a “peace song.” The version I have for you today is the very first recording of God Bless America as sung by Kate Smith. Berlin wanted his newly revived patriotic love song to bring together the nation. And as you will see from the video he was successful. There was even talk about making his song our national anthem, but the “Star Spangled Banner” had longevity on its side. So sit back and listen to Kate Smith bleed out the most beautiful rendition of God Bless America you will ever hear.

The first singing of "God Bless America"

Song Lyrics

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,

Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

God Bless America,

Land that I love.

Stand beside her, and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans, white with foam

God bless America, My home sweet home

God bless America, My home sweet home.

I look forward to hearing your comments on this post. I am intristed in knowing how this song makes you feel. Do you think we should have made this our natioal anthem? Why?

Change our Fiscal Nightmare

Practice fiscal responsibility in your own home first.

A sign we should all take to heart

Why in your home first

Anyone can go to a rally and hold up a sign that says “Hold the Pork” or “Stop the Spending.” But it is all for nothing if you don’t start in your own home. As a country that is governed by the people for the people it is no wonder our politicians see fit to use our hard earned money the same way we do. The average American is up to their eye balls in dept, and yes I am just as average as the next person. Like most families mine is only a month or two away from insolvency. The days of overspending and cheep credit are over. But we have the chance now to learn from our past mistakes and make the next recession a little easier by not repeating them. If we want to enact a lasting change in the way our government handles finances we must set the example for our children who will one day mature into our future leaders. We need to take charge of ourselves, learn from our mistakes, pull up our boots, get out of dept and stay that way. There are people who don’t need this advice because they are already practicing what they preach. To them I say thank you and promise the rest of us will catch up soon. I challenge you to get caught up and to live within your means. I challenge you to start putting away for the next rainy day. And I further challenge you to get your children involved in the process so they can see the fruits that are possible when a family goes through things together.

Ideas on implementation

·         Get your monthly bills together make a schedule of payment.

·         Go over what you owe and pay things off one at a time.

·         Find out what you can do without for now.

·         Get a second job to speed things up.

·         Unplug any electronics not in use.

·         Make sure the whole family is involved.

·         Start saving even if it’s only one dollar a month.

·         Get rid of all junk spending.

·         Save up for anything smaller than a car.

·         Reward yourself with a little something every now and then.

How my family is bringing fiscal responsibility into our home

As a new business owner that hasn’t seen a real profit yet I find my family finances are getting tighter by the day. My wife and I owe nearly $50,000.00 in student loans, we have creditors calling for money that doesn’t exist and to make things worse we have a new son that needs all the things a baby needs. We are staying afloat but barely. The thing that really makes our financial position hard on us though is the fact that it is completely our fault. If we hadn't been living as though rough times could never happen to us we would be enjoying ourselves much more now. My wife and I until recently were both secretly very worried about what the future had in store for us. That is until not too long ago when we decided to sit down together and start talking about it. We got together on the floor in our living room with all our bills. We had a huge pile of opened and unopened bills from doctors, creditors, utility companies, service providers and any number of other types. The first thing we did was get rid of all the duplicates and suddenly our stack was much smaller. Then we made two piles, one for monthly bills and the other for things that could wait. We made a schedule of all our incoming and outgoing money and then started seeing what we could do without. After looking at our bank statement we realized we ate out far too much, we didn’t need all the services we were paying for and I needed to keep my eyes closed when in line at the checkout. That was only the first step and I’m not fool enough to think everything is smooth sailing for here on out, but I know that with a whole lot of discipline and an equal amount of time we can dig out together. It’s going to take teamwork on both our sides and a commitment to learn new habits in order to enact a lasting financial change. But we're up to the challenge. are you?

Please feel free to leave your comments on this post. I look forward to any input you might provide. Also feel free to give me ideas how I can improve on this post.   

Irresponsible Motives

Politics and Journalism at there Worst

A short rant

As edited by Joseph Greene

I told myself that I was not going to blog about the shooting in Arizona because I didn’t want to give the shooter any more attention than he is already getting. But I feel it is important to point out why the need for getting your news from more than one place is so important. I received a deplorable picture in an email last night that had been printed in a local newspaper. It was so appalling that I will not put it on my blog. You can see however that I’ve taken the liberty of photo shopping the picture so as to change its Message. I believe our freedom of speech is a very important God given right and do not normally make a big deal about these things.  But it is not the speech that I think hurts. It is the willingness to use any tragedy no matter how horrific as a launching pad for hurtful rhetoric 

and finger pointing. The left and the right are both trying hard to make it look like the other party is somehow responsible for the actions of a lone lunatic. But I say to you now that deaths of six people and the wounding of 14 others was a result of one man who acted on his own. I beg of you as friends and patriots to look past their public posing and finger jabbing. Look past a silly comic in the local newspaper and see what they are really up to. Because most politicians, while largely ineffective, are sure not to let a good tragedy go to waste. And the one thing we tend to     lose more of in these situations is our freedom.   



As edited by Joseph Greene

Please feel free to leave your comments. I appreciate any input or insight you may have.