Free Republic

On June 2nd, 1989， 100,000 people went to Tienanmen Square. One reason for the crowd was a statue called the Goddess Of Democracy. Its pose was modeled on the Statue Of Liberty but its face was Chinese. Democracy can be a babe. Do we understand her？ Walt Whitman was elegant in writing of democracy and religion: “Even in religious fervor there is a touch of animal heat. But moral conscientiousness, crystalline, without flaw, not Godlike only, entirely human, awes and enchants forever. Great is emotional love, even in the order of the rational universe.” “In the faces of men and...

Walt Whitman was born on this date in West Hills, New York, in 1819, 204 years ago. Few can touch him for the greatness he achieved in his use of the English language. Wikipedia states: "Art historian Mary Berenson says, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ..... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." " Here are some of Whitman's own words which I believe justify Berenson's assessment. “I too am not a bit tamed, I too...

Walt Whitman spent half his life writing and revising “Leaves of Grass,” his epic poem of a young man’s journey of self-discovery in a young country, America as it grows into a democracy. Whitman was 35 years old when he self-published the first edition of “Leaves of Grass” in 1855, and he was still adding to it when he died in Camden, New Jersey on March 26, 1892, at the age of 72.

Queen Victoria would not always be considered the best symbol of genuine progress and democracy in every conversation. But a half naked statue of her in Melbourne, Australia, serves as a reminder that many of the city's forebears were far more open minded than the narrow prudish leftist mob rule which persecutes some of the most talented men here now for their heterosexuality and other reasons such as refusing to be vaccinated and being a highly successful catholic leader. A. Robert Doyle, the longest serving Mayor of Melbourne was driven from office by allegations, which he denied and which witnesses...

Rutgers University-Camden will remove a statue of the famous poet Walt Whitman from the center of campus as a result of activists’ petitions and a recommendation from a committee of scholars. The statue of Whitman, featured prominently in the front courtyard of Camden’s Campus Center, will be “relocated to a historically relevant site on campus and contextualized,” interim Chancellor Margaret Marsh recently announced in an email to students and employees. That new location has yet to be announced by campus officials.

Freedom is amazing because, unless you are God, it is impossible to know exactly what it is and where it will take you. (See the micro-movie in the link for how this has happened to me today: from street art to Whitman to Virgil to God knows what next.) Is this the most important American presidential election for freedom since 1964? Nobody knew then that the presidential careers of two two-term presidents (Nixon - debatable as a two-termer? - and Reagan) would have a re-beginning in Nixon's case and a beginning in Reagan's case. As I see it, this happened...

Late last century, when the internet was much younger, some very talented people helped me with a profoundly cross cultural album that could only ever work if it was done in a spirit of freedom. I tried to write the words to express that myself but in the end I couldn’t. I had to borrow words and revise them for the context from Walt Whitman. Where else could I look when I needed to talk about new frontiers of freedom. God Bless America.

On July 18, 2016, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa will open the new MOOC Whitman's Civil War: Writing and Imaging Loss, Death, and Disaster. This free open online course will embark upon a journey through Walt Whitman's writings on the American Civil War. Through Whitman's lens, we will explore how writing and image can be used to examine war, conflict, trauma, and reconciliation - in Whitman's time and today. Join us! This MOOC will be taught by longtime friends and collaborators Ed Folsom, Whitman scholar and University of Iowa Roy J. Carver Professor of English; and...

“Year of meteors! Brooding year!” -Walt Whitman A remarkable astronomical event also occurred over the northeastern United States 153 years ago today on the night of July 20th, known as the Great Meteor Procession of 1860. And with it came a mystery of poetry, art and astronomy that was only recently solved in 2010. A meteor procession occurs when an incoming meteor breaks up upon reentry into our atmosphere at an oblique angle. The result can be a spectacular display, leaving a brilliant glowing train in its wake. Unlike early morning meteors that are more frequent and run into the...

The University of Iowa’s first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, is open for enrollment. The six-week course, which runs Feb. 17 through March 29 and is organized by the UI International Writing Program (IWP), offers participants everywhere the opportunity to read, consider, and discuss Whitman’s epic poem through video lectures, live breakout sessions, and moderated online discussions. The course is free and open to anyone with an Internet connection. To enroll, visit: courses.writinguniversity.org/info/every-atom. Every Atom will be co-taught by Whitman scholar Ed Folsom and International Writing Program Director Christopher Merrill. Folsom is the...

The documents shaped "Democratic Vistas," Whitman's seminal 1871 analysis of American democracy that is arguably his greatest work of prose. Casting a skeptical eye on the nation's character and values while sharing a vision for an ideal democratic society, "Vistas" remains one of the most penetrating examinations of American society ever written. The newly discovered documents "were crucial for (Whitman's) writing of one of the most important meditations on the meaning of American democracy," Price said. "They're also vital for understanding Whitman's late poetry. Anyone writing about the latter parts of his career is going to want to figure out...

Helen Thomas, who was caught on video saying the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine (Israel)" is going to be the speaker at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD on June 14, 2010. Thomas also was a speaker at a 2006 fundraiser for the pro-Hamas, pro-Islamofascist terrorist "peace" group Code Pinko. According to WTOP radio, where I first heard of this speech this afternoon, the principal was "aware" of the controversy but knows of no plan to cancel her speech.

Hush'd be the camps to-day, And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons, And each with musing soul retire to celebrate, Our dear commander's death. No more for him life's stormy conflicts, Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. But sing poet in our name, Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly. As they invault the coffin there, Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse, For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

On May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, New York. Many believe that Whitman was America's greatest poet and that his Leaves of Grass is the most influential poetry volume in American literature. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Whitman's poetry "celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual." But that celebration was not limited to his poetry. It is also reflected in the all-but-overlooked prose he penned during an extensive career as a journalist and editor. Anyone who writes of individual freedom must consider the role of government, and Whitman was no exception. His views were well...