All aboard...the Wabash Cannonball,,,for America

This is one really great video of old steam locomotives, and a great song, perfect for America's birthday. Turn up the volume for a great ride.

It's not just a "holiday"

"Holiday" seems almost sacrilegious for July 4.

We go to the lake, barbecue, watch fireworks, hear speeches, go to parades,  relax on a day off. Al least many of us do, except for those working in stores that are still open, serving fast food and more, and in hospitals, or police or fire departments.
Is this what July 4 means?
It didn't to them, signing a document that was treasonous, that was obnoxious, that had the odds stacked against it. Rebel at the most powerful country in the world? Sure.
I can't imagine the courage and foresight of those who gathered in Philadelphia that sweltering hot day, 237 years ago.
But today we celebrate our freedoms in ways they could not conceive. How can you even write something meaningful about what they did, how far-reaching it was, how fortunate we've been since then to keep their vision alive? I guess they'd be pleased, that their ideas have endured.
We live in mediocre times, with mediocre leaders not worthy of their stature, no matter the lofty speeches and self-serving interests of almost all the politicians. And we are still the envy of most of the world. 
Rebellion is alive in the world today, in countries too numerous to mention. Let's salute that spirit, that yearning, by simply thinking about their words, words  that would cause havoc even in America today. 
It was no "holiday" for them when they signed it. It shouldn't be for  us either. I dare you to read it and think about America today.

The Declaration of Independence:

"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

"Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Into myth, blood & tears, 150 years-- Gettysburg

A mile away, across open fields into deadly fire, the men in gray stepped forward, into death and myth, 150 years ago

North Carolina looks at the objective.

You can't stand there and wonder how...
how men could have stepped into that open field, a mile away from a ridge where other brave Americans waited to kill you.
But they did, 12,500 of them, in butternut and gray, edged from the woods of Seminary Ridge at 2 p.m. 150 years ago. It's known as Pickett's charge, though Pettigrew's division also charged.
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, after two deadly days of fighting, with stalemate, the Army of Northern Virginia attacking the Army of the Potomac.
The line they formed as about a mile long. On Cemetery Ridge, the Union soldiers gasped in admiration, and perhaps in fear at what they knew was coming, and in determination not to yield. 
Today, monuments to the Union units, identified by states, line the top of Cemetery Ridge. Where the Confederates massed a mile away on Seminary Ridge, monuments to those states stand.
As a child, I was taught the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was Lincoln's favorite song. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'd like to believe it. Even as a southerner, I think it captures the emotions of that day and time so well. So turn up your volume and listen to this first clip of the Presbyterian choirs singing the song at the recent Westminster church tornado music benefit.

They first stepped forward out of cover in the trees, lining up for the charge.

The monuments do not hint at the bravery, the horror, the sadness of the day. They do help tell the story, and testify to the importance of this battle in American history. If you've not been there, even with the traffic, there's a huge sense of quietness across the fields.
The star-crossed battle flag was not the national flag of the Confederacy, but created so it was easily identified. The real Stars and Bars looked too much like the Union flag from a distance. At least one shell torn flag, under which men died that day, is on display in the park visitor center and museum. Today, the flag has become almost a racist symbol, and I detest those fanatics who have made it so.

Then  they began walking, in butternut and gray. 

The farther they went, the more died

At first, the Federals gasped at the mile long sight, and then they waited as artillery took its toll.

They reached the wall, but that was all they could do.

This is as far as they got that day,
briefly breaching the rock wall, but in not enough force to carry the day. It was the Confederacy's "High Water Mark," and the day the Union survived.
I can't look at these photos, walk the fields, and think about this day without tears.
If you don't get it, I'm sorry, because this battle is part of our American blood.

Some go this close. One of every four killed here was from North Carolina

one hour after it started, almost 6,000 Confederates had been killed or wounded. Pickett lost 3,000 of his division alone. They straggled back to their lines, greeted by General Lee. It was his army's first defeat, and the charge was "Lee's mistake." Told to reform his division, Pickett told Lee, "General, I no longer have a divison."
Union general Meade also made a mistake, by allowing the Confederates to retreat back to Virginia beginning July 4, and prolonging the Civil war for another two bloody years. That's why for years, July 4 was a subdued holiday in the South. You couldn't escape the memories.

Fifty years later, survivors of Pickets charge marched over the ground again.

There are thousands at Gettysburg today, and reenactments as well. I'm thankful for those, because they can give us a sense of the humanity involved, in living color, rather than old black and white photos.
But reenactments aren't new. For years, veterans gathered there to remember, to honor, including these aging Southerners in 1913. For some great photo coverage of this year's re-enacments, check the photos from the Baltimore Sun. Battle photos

More than 6,000 casualties in less than an hour.

Lincoln was right. We can never forget what these men did here. The men marched into death and history, and myth, that continues today.
Pause at 2 p.m. Eastern time today, and in silence, remember, and salute. Here's another clip of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Graves of unknown Union soldiers at Gettysburg, killed 150 years ago in the first three days of July.

Lots more facts about the battle of Gettysburg

The art "month"--unfinished business

Intermission music at Reduxion during Tom Jones
(Turn up the volume, for this and the closing video)

My "art month" spanned more than just June, starting in late April. What astounds me is how much interesting things there are going on in this city and state. I took photos and videos of much of this, and

I meant to write about it all. I only managed to post about Frank's watercolor lessons--closest to the heart, I guess. I think I could have written full time on this month, but writing also wears me out.

The other lesson we keep talking about is how much we drive downtown. It's getting close to time to move.

Herb Ritts--Madonna

• Oklahoma City Museum of Art--Photorealism exhibit, late April
• Herb Ritts photography, Beauity and Celebrity, late May.
• Reduxion Theatre's Tom Jones, late May
• Frank Francese workshop, early June
• First Friday at Paseo, art  and music, early June
• Prix de West at Cowboy Hall of Fame, art and demonstrations and lectures,  mid-June
• Visited Woolaroc, Gilcrease, Cowboy Hall and Fred Jones Jr, Working on Western art story, all of June
• Faith Hope Love art and musical benefit fund raiser at Westminster Presbyterian Church, with opera, Amazing GGrace, bagpipes, Leona Mitchell, Thomas Studebaker, Jeffrey Wells and more, late June
• Painted, and wrote. 
• Missed poetry readings at Beans and Leaves, and Mark Zimmerman's night photography class exhibit opening downtown. 
• Following is a clip of Jeffrey Wells. I'm not a fan of opera, but I am now.

Gettysburg...the story told anew, animated

Thanks to the Civil War Trust, a 15 minute film tells the story of America's deadliest, and most heroic and important battle.
Remember, "the brave men, living and dead...."
Get some tissue.
Gettysburg recreated