Tag Archive for Boy Scouts

Sex: Not Just the Catholic Church

December 19, 2018 Comments Off on Sex: Not Just the Catholic Church

This is NOT a defense of the sexual abuse by Catholic priests. We’re  very aware of their unconscionable crimes because priests are the ones getting most of the press. This is a warning that sexual abuse of children and adults and its cover-up is prevalent in many positions of authority. Here are only two.

Boy Scouts of America: This organization has 2.7 million kids and one million  volunteers. Before 1994, they had reports of approximately 2000 cases of abuse . Between 1992 and 2012, the courts ordered the BSA to release files that they were keeping secret. Only 1000 were revealed between 1965 and 1985. The courts now have 1800 out of 6000 files, with the others being kept secret by the BSA for “confidentiality” concerns.  Note that these numbers include only the boys who actually reported their abuse.

Police Officers: Here’s the list compiled by the Bowling Green State University–not including federal officers–of police officers arrested for sex crimes 2005 – 2013: 636 forcible fondling; 405 forcible rape; 219 forcible sodomy; 98 indecent exposure; 58 sexual assault with an object; 186 statutory rape. That totals 1,602 in eight years. Have these been covered up or simply dismissed within their ranks? We don’t know. All we know is that we haven’t heard of that many cases. And, again, the numbers reflects only the people who actually reported their abuse.

The point is, it’s not clergy (of any denomination) or youth leaders (BSA or any others) or police. It’s a society in which sexual crimes are far too abundant and too often covered up, leaving a trail of victims scarred for life. Plus a multitude of good people tarred with the same brush as the offenders in their job-categories.

It’s past time of blaming organizations and get down to fixing a society which is horrified by the abuse yet does little to change the attitudes and laws that keep these degrading, demeaning,  life-altering, emotional scars forming.

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Blessing America and the Fat Lady

September 2, 2015 Comments Off on Blessing America and the Fat Lady

Here’s an interesting bit of history—the origin of “God Bless America.”  I’ll never sing or hear it the same way again.  (Thanks to Jim Knudsen for sending me this.)

Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time and said that when he and a million other guys first heard her sing God Bless America on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes as they wiped away a tear or two.

Here are the facts: The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of God Bless America. But before you watch it, you should know the story behind the first public showing of the song.

The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we’d have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans.

This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers.  No entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith. Kate was also large—“plus size,” as we now say–and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her: It ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Kate
Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the brightest star of her time.

Kate was also patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer Irving Berlin, who also wrote White Christmas, and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song. He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before, in 1917. He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.

This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time and starts singing. After the first couple of verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie You’re In the Army Now. At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it’s Ronald Reagan.

To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry… and for many generations of Americans to follow.  Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you’ll enjoy it and treasure it even more. Many people don’t know there’s a lead-in to the song, because it usually starts with “God Bless America.”

The video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, “You’re In the Army Now.” At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it’s Ronald Reagan.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TnQDW-NMaRs%3Frel%3D0

 

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