Martin Meenagh blog

The River's Daughter in Missouri

Even now, at this time of pain and corruption in the republic, the rivers roll. Such is the sweetness of some American culture, particularly this reimagined song of a poor man dreaming of his woman, and the hope that things may right themselves before time is too late. The singer is a Norwegian with a voice to make you weep, although if you prefer the fine cigar that is Paul Robeson, in 1936, you can find him here, and for more merlot mellow tastes, Tennessee Ernie Ford gives his rendition here.

The image is of Fort Lincoln, on the Missouri. Just to be balanced, given the song.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

William Orpen There are four major Christian traditions, which are of course Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian and Coptic. Some sects and cults also exist, like the Moonies or Anglicanism. Yet in some bizarre way this weekend, protestant contributions to something other than the seizure of churches have been making their way into my consciousness. I suppose that the first indication of this trend was a reflection in an old copy of Gibbon that he actually became cultured because of Calvinism. Packed off to Switzerland because he went Catholic at an otherwise boring Oxford, Gibbon fell in love with Suzanne Cuchod, and with Greek because of instruction from a Calvinist mentor. It's an odd thing--I keep coming across indications of Calvinists who could have fun, though they doubtless thought that they would pay for it later, and whose political intelligence was second to none. Althusius springs to mind, for instance. But then what am I thinking, I thought to myself? I've sat on balconi...

Dublin's New Land War There are some lessons for free market ideologues, not the least of whom is Guido Fawkes (a blogger whose posts I like a great deal), in what is happening in Ireland. You'll recall that NAMA plan . It was a plan to set up a National Asset Management Authority, a bit like McCain's 'toxic bank scheme' in 2008. The idea is that the state could buy, transfer and underwrite toxic mortgages, and move those assets to a new body. The banks would also support the new body minimally, leaving themselves free to lend and to rebuild their balance sheets without being nationalised. State payments for the new assets would move money to the banks, and put a floor under losses. Many of those who hate and despise the idea of government actually asserting control over things it pays for liked this idea. It was contrasted to Gordon Brown's 'cash for shares' deal, and to Barack Obama's 'subsidy plus levy' plans. When accompanied by a bank-f...

Those Pesky Militia O cohors militiae. O successores. O vos imitatores. O dulcis electe. O victoriosissimi. O cruor sanguinis. O vis aeternitatis. O splendidissima gemma/Hodie aperuit. O victoriosissimi. O virga ac diadema. Caritas abundant. Ave Maria. O frondens virga. O viridissima virga; Annuntietur. Latuit. O virgo. Benedictus sis tu. Iam laetaris. Christe Patris excels If Hildegard of Bingen doesn't get you going, I don't know what will. Last year, as the summer heated the cage that western societies have become for so many, the militia movement in the United States revived , at least according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre . The Militias were last in the news in the nineties, when for many they incubated violent 'conspiracism' about the American government. I was never really that convinced. America has a perfectly legal tradition of militias; in fact, the only times when it has been genuinely called into question and limited was when socialists and psuedo-i...