Author: FF

Watch our most ambitious video. A conservative calendar has more days printed in black than in red letters.  Fortunately, the days of tragedy and loss are remembered as much for the heroism of those who defended the right–Lee at Gettysburg, Leonidas at Thermopylae, the Scots at Culloden.  No day in our history shines more brilliantly in black than the fall of Constantinople in 1453. If you enjoyed this and want to see more, please subscribe at the Gold Level.  If you are already a Gold subscriber, please consider moving up to Charter, and if you are already in that elite...

George Frideric Handel; say the name and Messiah immediately comes to mind–it is as if Messiah were synonymous with its composer; and there is hardly a city large enough to have a community chorus that does not perform Messiah in some shape or form annually during the Christmas “season.”  But Handel was approximately as prolific in total output as his contemporary JS Bach. Messiah is perhaps Handel’s single greatest composition, but he wrote many other fine, worthy works.

Then why should men on earth be so sad, Since our Redeemer made us glad, When from our sin he set us free, All for to gain our liberty? ~ from the “Sussex Carol These four lines capture the essence of Christmas celebration. Those puritanical Christians (or even non- Christians) who would squelch the celebration, miss the point: “our Redeemer made us glad!” In a previous posting (“Not Christmas Yet”) I may have seemed a little Scrooge-y, but I believe that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every a purpose under heaven.” And that means that...

By the time he went on leave during the late fall of 1943, Bong had 21 aerial victories and was wearing captain’s bars.  Back in Wisconsin, at a Superior State Teachers College homecoming, he met the girl of his dreams, Marge Vattendahl.  When he returned to New Guinea in January 1944, he had his ground crew decorate the nose of his P-38 with a large photograph of Marge.  It was the last thing seen by many a Japanese pilot.   By early April he had added four mo