America the Beautiful

This is a picture coming over Emory Pass Summit between Silver City and T or C. I snapped this yesterday on a campaign marathon trip. This picture is why I think our national anthem should be America the Beautiful instead of the Stars Spangled Banner, which is not very pretty, talks about war, and is now being fought over about language. The idea behind it, of course, is wonderful but I have always felt it was unsingable. Compare it with America the Beautiful which is about America's great lands, resources and brotherhood.

We had our regular coffee today at Starbucks and the group was kind of surprised about the Journal's placement of the story on whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish. It was the banner story, while Bush saying there should be no windfall profits tax on the oil industry was below it. One of the regulars said, "Rove strikes again."

Who cares what language is used in singing the anthem? This is just another way of taking peoples minds off the real problems in this country, like the Iraq war, tax cuts for the rich, climate change, and health insurance. This is the way you end up in silly debates that degenerate into hate speech. In this case, against Hispanics. Why does the media fall for this crap?

Anyway, we had a great two day campaign swing through Socorro, Las Cruces, Deming, Silver City and then a long drive to Santa Fe for a fundraiser for Governor Richardson. Hundreds of miles and lots of nice people. Accompanying on this trip was Jon Knudsen of the Blog Duke City Fix and Alblogguerque.....He was doing a story on a typical campaign swing. We took time for a bloggers coffee in Las Cruces. This in Jon on the left and Heath Haussamen of New Mexico Politics in Las Cruces. Heath is a reporter for the Las Cruces Sun News and he has started a very good Southern New Mexico Blog on Politics.

When we got to the Governor's fundraiser last night in Santa Fe the Governor told Jon Knudsen that he has been a regular reader of these blogs and feels it is a whole new way for people to get information and news. He is right about that! Jon was impressed that the Governor takes time everyday to read these. Any good elected official or politician is doing this because they get a wider range of viewpoints than the would from traditional media outlets.


Finally, this is a great group of kids who are working with a charter school in Silver City. They are members of the Youth Conservation Corps and they are working on trails and facilities in and around Silver City. They were really pretty sharp kids. I would love to see the land office fund more of this YCC work in an effort to keep kids in school and get their diplomas. It is a great mix of activities for smart kids like these.