Video from the "Guns Across America" rally here in Madison, Wisconsin today.

Here's some edited video showing the crowd and the signs. In the middle there is a prayer, and at the end is the national anthem. Once y...

It's not easy to be this bad.

An 11-year-old girl sings what some consider the worst version of the National Anthem ever (to an audience of 22,000). Here 's the Chri...

A new Obama ad and a new Romney ad.

I'm getting these via Paul Constant at Slog, who says this about the Obama ad: Holy fucking shit. This is the most brutal attack ad I...

"Friends, Romans, countrymen..."

This amused me. Cowboy style. I ran across it because I was looking for the text to the famous Mark Antony speech, which I'd been forc...

Tax Day oratory.

If you're wondering how the crowd was harangued at the Tax Day rally here in Madison on Saturday, I haven't processed any good video...

When Mennonite pacifists meet "the stereotypical God-and-country Midwestern" patriots.

There's a current controversy about playing the nation anthem at Goshen College, a Mennonite school in Indiana. There, the tradition wa...

A grand performance of the national anthem in Madison... and a complaint about it.

Jessica Courtier in the Capitol Times, describing the program that opened the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s new season: Forgoing the usual ce...

I find toast-botch too painful to mock.

What if you gave a toast and nobody raised their glass with you, because they were in the middle of a solemn ritual that you had thought was...

Did the anti-Tea Party protesters boo the national anthem at the Madison rally yesterday?

I'm seeing some assertions about this on blogs and in YouTube videos, and it's wrong  if not unfair and deceptive. I don't have...

Homecoming Saturday.

The UW Marching Band began playing at 7 a.m. this morning. Insistent drumming and trumpeting permeates the neighborhood. I love the national...

It's too cold for people to sit outside at State Street Brats.

But it was very pretty passing by just as the Backstreet Boys were singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" to open the World Series. So...

Live-blogging night 2 of the Republican Convention.

5:22 Central Time: Just setting up the post. Let's watch! 5:31: Ugh. CNN is still going over and over the hurricane. Would they be makin...

Another debate? Oh, okay. Let's watch.

But, first, the national anthem. I've never seen a debate begin like that. UPDATE #1: McCain recirculates the same phrases over and over...

"Last week, the city commemorated 'Queuing Day,' an event held on the 11th of every month because the date symbolizes an orderly line."

The city in question: Beijing. Volunteers wearing satin Queuing Day sashes shooed rush-hour commuters into lines at busy subway stations, wh...

How the candidates fare in the YouTube marketplace of ideas.

The statistics are right there for everyone to see. We don't care much about the official campaign videos they are dumping over there. ...

Before the radio show.

In the studio waiting for the show to start, I open the little notebook that I brought to keep track of the material. To pass the time, I ph...

Hear Hillary sing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Actually, I think it's pretty cute: Yeah, she sings badly, but she never said she could sing well, and bad singing is an American (Idol)...

Golden Globes!

Hey, watch the Golden Globes with me! Comment away. I'll be adding to this post, with each update indicated by a number. 1. And they sta...

"The Star-Spangled Banner"/"Nuestro Himno."

Is it wrong to sing the national anthem in Spanish? (Listen to it here .) When President Bush says "I think people who want to be a ci...

"American Idol" -- Austin.

1. A Trini Lopez wannabe: "Lemon tree very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to whea...