CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Merry Christmas

Happy Hanukkah

Hanukkah began at sundown and continues for 8 days.

Paul Greenberg explains Hanukkah's heritage of hope. Writing in the Washington Times in December 2003, Greenberg asks what does this eight-day celebration celebrate? His answer, Hanukkah isn’t about ancient military victories, Hanukkah celebrates miracles and hope.

The central metaphor of all religious belief — revealing light — now blots out all the imperial intrigues and internecine warfare. And that may be the greatest miracle of Hanukkah: the transformation of that oldest and darkest of human activities, war, into a feast of illumination.

The historical message changes from age to age. The past we choose to remember may be the best reflection of any present.

But if there is one constant message associated with this holiday, it can be found in the weekly portion of the Prophets chosen to be read on the Jewish Sabbath. And over the centuries, the scripture for the Sabbath of Hanukkah has remained unchanged: Zechariah 4:1-7, with its penultimate verse:

"Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

Happy Hanukkah!

Remember the signers of the Declaration of Independence

Texas Republican Congressman Ted Poe remembers the signers of the Declaration of Independence:

We were so blessed to have such courageous founders.

John McCain on Independence Day and the Iranian protests

"The world must never doubt where we stand in the liberation struggles of our time." - Senator John McCain

In today's weekly Republican address, Senator John McCain speaks on Independence Day and the Iranian protests:

"We are strong and prosperous because we are free, not the other way around."

Full transcript of Senator McCain’s remarks:

Hi, I’m Senator John McCain.

Today, we celebrate our independence, declared 233 years ago, achieved through the trial of a long and difficult war, and preserved through the years with the blood and sacrifice of millions. It’s an occasion for Americans to reunite with family and enjoy a mid-summer holiday with picnics and barbeques, ballgames and golf, and other recreation.  

Our appreciation for what happened on a hot summer day in Philadelphia all these years ago is often limited to a fleeting, warm feeling about an ancient generation of Americans who, against great odds, stood up to a powerful oppressor, and claimed their natural right to liberty. This is an accurate but incomplete understanding of the revolution begun that day. For written on that piece of yellowed parchment is not only the bold assertion that thirteen former British colonies were and forever would remain free and independent states, but also the once radical idea that history has a right side and a wrong side, and that Americans stood and would always stand on the right side.

The signers put their names and ransomed their lives to a universal, not just a national ideal; that all human beings everywhere, not just Americans, not just the mostly well-off white men gathered in Philadelphia for the occasion, ‘are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’  

We’ve not always been true to that ideal, and the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. Slavery, Jim Crow, the disenfranchisement of women were betrayals of the principles enshrined in our founding documents, and had to be conquered before we could claim without qualification to be firmly on the right side of history. But we overcame our faults, corrected our mistakes and in the unfinished story of our Republic, we continue our progress toward ‘a more perfect union.’ And, in the struggle to do so, we have achieved greatness.

Our wealth and power, unequaled by any nation before or since, are not the cause of our greatness. Our ideals have made us great. We are strong and prosperous because we are free, not the other way around. We have marched, in fits and starts, toward the right side of history and have ascended to a most exalted station in the affairs of mankind – ‘leader of the free world.’ It’s a great tribute to us, but also a great responsibility.

We share a kinship of ideals with every man and woman on earth who struggles for their God-given rights. The world must never doubt where we stand in the liberation struggles of our time. We stand with those who risk the anger of tyrants and their lives for the proposition that just government is derived from the consent of the governed; that all people are entitled to equal justice under the law.

Today, we stand with the millions of Iranians who brave batons, imprisonment and gunfire to have their voices heard and their votes counted. They do not ask us to arm them or come to their assistance with anything other than public declarations of solidarity, and public denunciations of the tyrants who oppress them. We have a moral obligation to do so.

There are those among us who warn that a strong and unequivocal declaration of moral support for Iranians would be used by the cruel regime in power there to convince their subject people that the United States is behind the civil unrest they have attempted to hide from the world. But the regime will make that claim no matter what we say or do. Do they really believe Iranians don’t know why they’re protesting and who is oppressing them? Do they think Iranians whose votes were discarded, whose voices have been ignored, whose lives have been threatened by the regime they wish to be rid of will think America has put them in that position; that the CIA caused a brave and idealistic young woman to step out of her car to join their protest, only to be instantly murdered by the henchmen of the regime?

Iranians know the truth. They know who is oppressing them and why. It’s a government that governs without their consent, which beats them, imprisons them and threatens their lives to preserve its own hold on power, and not to resist some imagined foreign enemy.  

They are not fools, these brave and determined Iranians. They are on the right side of history, and the cynics among us, who think them fools, are on the wrong side. Liberty and justice will someday be theirs. Let us hope they will have reason to remember then, who their friends were in their struggle for freedom.

This is John McCain, wishing you a happy and meaningful Fourth of July.

Happy Independence Day

Chronology Of Events:
June 7, 1776 to January 18, 1777

1776
June 7 -- Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, receives Richard Henry Lee's resolution urging Congress to declare independence.

June 11 -- Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston appointed to a committee to draft a declaration of independence. American army retreats to Lake Champlain from Canada.

June 12 - 27 -- Jefferson, at the request of the committee, drafts a declaration. Jefferson's clean, or "fair" copy, the "original Rough draught," is reviewed by the committee.

June 28 -- A fair copy of the committee draft of the Declaration of Independence is read in Congress.

July 1 - 4 -- Congress debates and revises the Declaration of Independence.

July 2 -- Congress declares independence as the British fleet and army arrive at New York.

July 4 -- Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in the morning of a bright, sunny, but cool Philadelphia day. John Dunlap prints the Declaration of Independence.

July 5 -- John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, dispatches the Declaration of Independence to the legislatures of New Jersey and Delaware.

July 6 -- Pennsylvania Evening Post of July 6 prints the first newspaper rendition of the Declaration of Independence.

July 8 -- The first public reading of the Declaration is in Philadelphia.

July 9 -- Washington orders that the Declaration of Independence be read before the American army in New York.

July 19 -- Congress orders the Declaration of Independence engrossed (officially inscribed) and signed by members.

August 2 -- Delegates begin to sign engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A large British reinforcement arrives at New York after being repelled at Charleston, S.C.

1777
January 18 -- Congress, now sitting in Baltimore, Maryland, orders that signed copies of the Declaration of Independence printed by Mary Katherine Goddard of Baltimore be sent to the states.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
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 the 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 the 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 Rules 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.

FOR 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 and 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.

HE 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 British 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.

As you celebrate Independence Day please remember those who have and are sacrificing so much to ensure our independence.

Originally posted July 4, 2004.

Happy Easter

He Is Risen.

From the Revised Standard Version of the Bible:

Matthew 28

1: Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. 2: And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. 3: His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. 4: And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5: But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6: He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7: Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I have told you." 8: So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

 

Mark 16

1: And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2: And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3: And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?" 4: And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large. 5: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. 6: And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. 7: But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you."

 

Luke 24

1: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. 2: And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3: but when they went in they did not find the body. 4: While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; 5: and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6: Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7: that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise." 8: And they remembered his words, 9: and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

 

John 20

1: Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2: So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 3: Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. 4: They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; 5: and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6: Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, 7: and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. 8: Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9: for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10: Then the disciples went back to their homes.

11: But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; 12: and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13: They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 14: Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15: Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 16: Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rab-bo'ni!" (which means Teacher). 17: Jesus said to her, "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." 18: Mary Mag'dalene went and said to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Image: Ambrogio di Stefano Bergognone (ca. 1460-1523),  Christ Risen from the Tomb (c. 1490), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Originally posted March 23, 2008.

Today is President Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday

The following video was produced for last year's GOP Convention:

My RedState colleague, Warner Todd Huston, has written a wonderful tribute to Lincoln. He quotes from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates:

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

But it wasn’t just slavery he was against. He was also against the idea that blacks were chattel and had no human rights. He also said the following in this passage recorded during the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates:

“… I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man.”

Read the whole thing.

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I hope you took some time today to think about the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. America is a better place because of his efforts.

On the threshold of his presidency, President-elect Obama invoked the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as summoned fellow Americans to join him in service as tens of thousands flocked to the nation's capital to celebrate Obama's inauguration as the first black president:

"Tomorrow we will come together as one people on the same Mall where Dr. King's dream echoes still."

You can watch Dr. King's famous "I have a dream" speech in the following video:

Hung Over?

Did you overdo your New Years celebration?

Are you suffering from headache, upset stomach, achy, fatigued, and just feel like crap?

You have probably heard of various hangover cures - vitamin B, aspirin, antacids or coffee. Barbara Snow has posted top 10 hangover cures. In the following video Terry Condon of New York City's Gallagher's Steak House, suggests five things you can do to help "fix" a hangover:

Sorry, experts say theses “cures” are all bogus. Only time cures a hangover.

According to Columbia University's Go Ask Alice Site, combining alcohol with aspirin can irritate the stomach, and using alcohol with acetaminophen over the long term can damage the liver. Vitamin B is thought to reduce tiredness, but no studies have shown that it cures a hangover. While antacids are generally harmless, alcohol left over in your body may actually make them less effective at relieving nausea, the Alice site says. And while coffee may help with headaches and pep you up, it can upset your stomach and worsen the dehydration caused by alcohol.

Dr. Howard Worman, an associate professor of medicine, anatomy and cell biology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and specializes in alcohol's effects on the liver. Dr. Worman advice is to avoid the cause of the hangover:

"Probably the most important cure is preventive: Don't drink too much," Worman says. "People should always drink in moderation and not put themselves or anyone else in danger. If you're going to get that sick, you're going to feel it the next day, and there's not too much you can do about it."

Who knew? Must be great to be an expert. Bottom line - you’re going to have to tough it out.

Happy 2009

The new year was welcomed with fireworks displays from Auckland to London to Mexico City to Moscow to New York to Paris to Rio de Janeiro:

Is it Happy New Year or good riddance to 2008?