In the News 02/03/2012

Groundhog Day isn't such a big deal up here, for obvious reasons.  We gained 5 minutes and 21 seconds of daylight today.  We now have nearly eight hours of daylight!  Ya-hoo!

The cold weather pattern finally broke, just as everyone was getting really cranky.  My choir students were practically comatose last week.  We had a Chinook wind for a couple of days and it warmed up to 38 and things (like the ice- and hard snow-packed roads) started to melt but it cooled off to 20. 

"Big Miracle", the story of the rescue of three grey whales trapped in the ice in Barrow in 1988, opens this weekend to good reviews.  It stars Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, and Ted Danson.  The real story is in the Anchorage Daily News today. http://www.adn.com/2012/02/02/2297759/1988-barrow-whale-rescue-the-real.html 

The uplifting thing about this family movie is it brought the Inupiaq community, Greenpeace, Arco, Soviets, the military, local musicians, ice fishermen from MN, and a chainsaw distributor together for the rescue mission.

One of the most dangerous section of the Iditarod sled dog race was dropped.  The mileage is the same, race officials are careful to point out.  The area known as The Steps, which contains steep switchbacks will be bypassed.

We have gotten so much snow today, Anchorage drivers are being told to stay off the roads so plows can get to work.  It is eerily silent out there. 

The Anchorage Daily News gardening expert, Jeff Lowenfels is getting desperate requests for green things growing from his readers.  His suggestion is to start sweet peas.  I speculate we still have the tough months of February and March and possibly April too to get through before it warms up some.  There is so much snow in the back yard it is going to be a pond when it melts and there is no place for the water to go.  There is no grass back there, only carpets of stellaria media. It takes a big imagination to picture a green and lush back yard just now.

Alaskan Superbowl food suggestions in the paper include fresh cod ($5.99/lb), oysters (10.95/12), Manila clams (6.95/lb), and rockfish (10.99/lb).  I think we are just going to have the usual standard fare of wings, maybe chili, the lad wants chicken quesadillas, and deviled eggs.  I think we have a bag of frozen shrimp too.  I am still not feeling up to snuff, so we want convenience, although everything is home-made and not processed. 

Bush teaching was evaluated and found wanting recently.  Despite the curriculum changes in an effort to accommodate all Native youth and the ongoing progress made in educating and keeping potential staff, notably by Bering Straits School District, the challenges continue.   

The Olive Garden has finally opened a branch here in Anchorage!  I was told by the manager's husband not to go til April 'when all the bugs had been worked out'.  Later I found out from colleagues equally excited by the appearance of the chain, 'they' had built to Lower 48 standards instead of AK.  Pipes froze, then burst, and they had a big mess. 

Super Bowl 2012 and The Star Spangled Banner

Gearing up for the game on Sunday.  It is a big deal here - and everywhere else. 

Kelly Clarkson will be singing The Star Spangled Banner, and Madonna will be performing during the halftime show singing Vogue and Like a Virgin and two other selections.

The SSB is a notoriously difficult piece to sing.  It spans an octave and a fifth.  Since it is acapoco, singers have to be really careful not to start too high or else they will wipe out on the high notes at the end.  Also, the lyrics in poem-form were written in 1814 and sadly, most of us don't have all those words in our vocabulary, making it even more confusing to sing.  Rampart?  Gleaming?

 Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics the morning after he was released from captivity during the Battle of Fort McHenry in The War of 1812.  Key was detained by the British as he had heard the British plans to bombard the fort.  Throughout the night, as he heard rocket fire and exploding bombs and in the bowels of the enemy's ship, he anguished because he had no idea who was winning.  As the dawn came, he saw our flag still proudly flying.   

So it is an honor to the singer who sings the words correctly, in the right key, with the right spirit.  I think our anthem reflects my teaching motto perfectly.  You have to be fearless to sing it.  My favorite rendition is sung by Whitney Houston who blew the crowd away with her 1991 "Welcome Home Heroes" concert in Norfolk, VA.

May Kelly Clarkson be fearless and brave on Sunday and long live the Patriots!

Here are the five verses:

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation. Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust;" And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner", transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862

Additional Civil War period lyrics

In indignation over the start of the American Civil War, Oliver Wendell Homes added a fifth stanza to the song in 1861 which appeared in songbooks of the era.

When our land is illumined with liberty's smile,
If a foe from within strikes a blow at her glory,
Down, down with the traitor that tries to defile
The flag of the stars, and the page of her story!
By the millions unchained,
Who their birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,
While the land of the free is the home of the brave.