The Elkhart County Historical Museum Art

 There is some interesting art at the Elkart History Museum, from Native American portraits to artwork of negotiations with the White forces, to portraits of the Civil War.  There is also stained glass and other decorative art.  

Tecumsah

Garden Quilt part of the Elkhart County exhibit

decorated little library

stained glass

quilt

Movie Review: Death of a Nation (2018)

The Death of a Nation (2018)  This is a movie from Dinesh D’Souza.  He is a conservative film producer.  He compares the Trump Presidency with that of Abraham Lincoln.  In both cases the public, or the Democratic Party was unwilling to accept the election results.  With Abraham Lincoln this lead to a fractured nation.  With Trump it has led to a political party doing everything they can to delegitimize a presidency. 

One of the big themes is the use of a Hitler strategy.  If you tell a lie enough eventually people will start to believe it.  The “Big Lie” is that the Democrats have been the party of racist, slavery and the Ku Klux Klan.  Ku Klux Klan was an arm of the Democrat Party.  The Democrat Party fought for slavery.  Woodrow Wilson screened the movie Birth of a Nation, which lead to a rebirth of the Klan through the U.S. rather than just the deep South.  It was Republicans who passed the Civil Rights laws, with Southern Democrats opposing.  And no, the parties did not change sides.  The Southern Democrats did not join the Republican Party.  Richard Nixon sponsored Affirmative Action.  And President Trump has unemployment among African Americans lower than it has ever been.

When Abraham Lincoln talked about slavery, he talked about people being forced to work, and then someone else taking their efforts to feed themselves.  The Democrat Party continues to be the party of taking wealth from those that work, to give it to others. 

An interesting story of resistance to the Nazi regime is presented.  Sophia School opposed the Nazi tactics, and published a newsletter which she and others distributed.  She called Hitler a liar.  She was caught and executed for her resistance. 

This movie is very disturbing to me.  I was antsy in my seat.  I keep trying to think why conservatives are often labeled as racists or bigots.  This does not make sense to me.  D’Souza calls this the “Big Lie” but I do not think this explains enough. 

As for myself my loyalties have shifting from being more liberal to being conservative.  Being a social worker that doesn’t quite add up; but I think conservative philosophies, “work for what you get” is more in line with my thinking. 

This production is very likely bound for documentary apathy.  However I think it deserves a view.  

Words I Like: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Sometimes less is more; as proven by this famous speech given by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the military cemetary at Gettysburg 19 November 1863.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln: The Poet

I didn't know Abraham Lincoln was a poet, but I started watching the movie "Young Abraham Lincoln" and there was a bit about a first love, with Ann Rutledge.  There are different versions of the story, but there is a poem attributed to him, supposedly when he was depressed after she succumbed to typhoid:

The Suicide's Soliloquy

Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never know;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from our your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!

Abraham Lincoln

It is known that Lincoln suffered from bouts of depression.  He also had a sense of humor, and sometimes made fun of himself and his name.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln,
His hand and pen:
He will be good but
God knows When.

Abraham Lincoln

 

Abraham Lincoln Is My Name

Abraham Lincoln is my nam[e]
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast and speed
and left it here for fools to read

Abraham Lincoln

 

Lincoln also wrote poetry while he was in the White House

Verse On Lee’s Invasion Of The North

Gen. Lees invasion of the North written by himself—

In eighteen sixty three, with pomp,
and mighty swell,
Me and Jeff’s Confederacy, went
forth to sack Phil-del,
The Yankees the got arter us, and
giv us particular hell,
And we skedaddled back again,
And didn’t sack Phil-del.

Abraham Lincoln

 

You can find additional Lincoln poems here: 

http://www.poemhunter.com/abraham-lincoln/