An Appalachian Country Rag

"As Americans, ours is a legacy of bold independence and passionate belief in fairness and justice for all. For generations, this intrepid spirit has driven women pioneers to challenge injustices and shatter ceilings in pursuit of full and enduring equality. During Women's History Month, we commemorate their struggles, celebrate centuries of progress, and reaffirm our steadfast commitment to the rights, security, and dignity of women in America and around the world...."--Valerie Jarrett, WH 3/2/2012

Whitney (8/9/63-2/11/12)
(Midi below: Unbreak My Heart)

Made in the USA by American citizen/taxpayers

For clear background to read text throughout ACR, run cursor over graphics display.

I WANNA TRY ACR'S NEW HI-SPEED PEOPLE-MOVER -- THE ' CONTENT DYNAMO (with FREE Teeny-TV, Roust-About Radio and TechnaToyz)' -- TO TRAVEL NOW AROUND THE SITE.... YES!
... maybe next time

November 24, 2011

" By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation. Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor-- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness...."--George Washington, 3 October 1789

Air Force Flying Skull insignia - Click for vet's daughter's memorial poem or Click below for Del Jones' tribute poems

Veterans Day
11/11/11

10/31/2011 -- All Hallows Eve

Jobo TN Haunts & Happenings Pix

THE THEME FOR ACR'S WINTER 2011-2012 UPDATE IS
"HOLY DAYS ARE HOME MADE!"
Click graphic below for Historic Jobo TN Folk Art Village

For clear background to read text throughout ACR, run cursor over graphics display.


once there were lilacs

delicately and gently
spraying the entrance
with their  exotically heady fragrance.
Like the tops of mountains,
they've been lopped off
by "practical" aliens,
the profoundly impoverished "wealthy," 
who can't discern or
enjoy the everyday poetic beauty
and natural sensuality of
being brushed softly by lilacs
 in their comings and goings
and disregard their regular viewing of 
 fruitlessly fractured and ugly dead stumps
on their insentient ways
in their unmemorable
and unheralded daze.
--jH

Due to practical exigencies of disability adjustment and rehabilitative recovery (see Gloria! and Mandala), this site will be updated only sporadically, at best, in the future. It is, however, as it stands a complete and extensive art installation of Appalachian culture, history and talent for freely-accessible use as a dependably accurate regional reference and recreational resource. It has been an adventurous and elucidating endeavor in development and, hopefully, in reception and participation to be maintained indefinitely as a kind of cyberspace museum reflective on 15 years of internet and inter/national evolution.Th-that's all, folks. -- jh

8/22-23 -- free Libya!
"On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the people of Libya on today�s historic declaration of liberation. After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise...."--USA President Barack Obama, 10/23/2011

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
from one of America's most original small towns

Join Historic Jonesborough Days, July 2-3, 2011

Jonesborough Tennessee
"First capitol of The Mountain Empire"

||**|| ||**|| ||**|| ||**||

WE THE PEOPLE

LIVE streaming

Wanna know what's going on in "The People's House"?
Sign up for an e-mail with day-to-day schedules, photos and links to everything from live streaming of White House grand performances by the best worldwide to daily blogs of top administration officials to Bo's latest mischief and meanderings to First Family special fun-serious projects
Daily Snapshot

! GET HEALTHY -- STAY HEALTHY !

get ready to

Check with your local Registrar
as to the next time and place

(SKIP ALL THIS. I WANNA GO TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS NOW)

(Forget that. I just wanna go to the next page. Is there one?)

(YES! CLICK HERE.)

I'm bored. Is there anything fun to do here?
YES! Scroll to the bottom of this page
or of the TOC, Site Scene or (for a real visual adventure because all the colors and the whole design change each time) Acrylics & Etcetera, Mandala Meditations, Baubles and Bubbles Sound & Light Show, American Folk and/or Our Music section pages. Find the little chick pecking on the ground there and hit the "Press Me" button on its left to watch background colors change right before your very eyes and as many times as you feel like pressing the button and watching that. (If you're still bored, you could go to the TOC page and check out 'Country Talk' or even 'Backwoods Recipes'). Or explore the United States of Appalachia/The Mountain Empire through an extensive in-depth on-line Map & Tour of its delights and highlights.
Note: If videos are "stuttering," let them play through one time (to get the data in memory for technophiles) and then choose "Replay" for a continuously smooth stream.

SERVE AND SUPPORT

"My country,' tis of thee,/ sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;/ land where my fathers died,/ land of the pilgrims' pride,/ from every mountainside let freedom ring!/ My native country, thee,/ land of the noble free, thy name I love; / I love thy rocks and rills,/ thy woods and templed hills; / my heart with rapture thrills, like that above./ Let music swell the breeze,/ and ring from all the trees sweet freedom's song;/ let mortal tongues awake;/ let all that breathe partake;/ let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong./ Our fathers' God, to thee,/ author of liberty, to thee we sing;/ long may our land be bright/ with freedom's holy light;/ protect us by thy might, great God, our King."
-- America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee) by Samuel F. Smith, 1808-1895

United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Oath taken by federal Vice Presidents, Senators and Representatives
"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

(Click on Flag or We the People for National and Constitutional history)

"The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."
-- Marcel du Champ
"Here appears definitely the goal toward which the different arts are tending, the place where they will meet perhaps: the future city of the spiritual life, to be built by them [the Impressionsists], of which poetry, as the state of the soul, would be the commanding gesture, music the atmosphere and painting the marvellous decoration."
-- Achille Delaroche, "Concerning the Painter Paul Gauguin from an Aesthetic Point of View," as quoted in Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals, translated by Van Wyck Brooks
"...for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor."
-- Micah 4:12
"L'Chaim!"
-- traditional Jewish toast meaning "To Life!"

Graphic: Winged Victory: Liberty Enlightening the World
from Index of Acrylics by Jeannette Harris
New York's Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France who'd provided formidable assistance during our 1776-1781 War of Independence to free ourselves from British colonial rule, is a 151-foot statue of a woman holding a book and a torch on-high -- "One of the colossal sculptures of world history, the Statue of Liberty has greeted millions from other lands who crossed the ocean in search of freedom, opportunity, and is a symbol to the world of those ideals of liberty upon which our nation and form of government were founded."

Video above: French National Anthem, La Marseillaise, in celebration of rugby win for France at games played in Africa November 13, 2009

"Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,/
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,/
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-- from The New Colossus, engraved at the statue's bottom,
poem by Emma Lazarus, 1883

Click for A Country Rag with Section Sidebar

The Internet Site of
Appalachian Life and Art

"A jewel on the web" since April 1996

Click flashing rabbit logo above for "A Country Rag" with Section Sidebar, recommended,
or

Click gold ACR, Inc. banner below for full-screen version

downloadable ACR logo, flying eagle crest

UPDATED FOR FALL 2011-WINTER 2012

"You see, in many ways, Appalachia isn't what it used to be. We have lost more than 1 million acres of land, along with 1000+ of miles of our once pristine streams, and 90% of our traditional coal jobs to mountaintop removal mining. This barbaric practice has reduced much of our home to rubble, and further damaged our perennially struggling local economies. The jobs are gone. The people are leaving. The water is toxic. And they are blowing up the mountains themselves.
"But the face of Appalachian resistance to 'Big Coal' is changing. Not only are we seeing unprecedented national and international media like NPR, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal run with stories about the Appalachian people's struggle to end mountaintop removal, but we are seeing 100s of online activists and bloggers participate in helping us spread the word through the iLoveMountains Bloggers Challenge.
"Each week there will be featured blogs, activists, videos, facts, photos and more...."
-- Appalachian Voices

"... On phosphorous wings the phoenix floated/ The fires froze and the sea was hushed/ And when I tried to speak, the sun imploded/ And the war will wage in my guts/ Till the Devil bites the dust,/ I never saw him losin' a race, but I think he must/ ..."
-- The Phoenix composed by J. Sill and most recently recorded by Marianne Faithfull, Easy Come Easy Go

rag n. 1. old, worn clothes 2. a newspaper 3. a composition in ragtime
-- chew the rag [Slang] to chat

Appalachian river in winter, click for 'Namaste' short story

Exotic Listings Jenny's made of earth and sky
and she knows more than she knows.
She's a butterfly
in a flowered thong,
a song that washes
passing boats
with the husks
of swaying straw,
a fiddle bending to her tune
and a dance that slithers wide.
She's a renaissance that rises
on the wild fields of your mind,
a chord that sweet seduces
from the mystery
of her laughing woman-child.
(1997)

Cenantua There's a rush, a rumbling in the wind
as we stumble on this old trail.
Greening branches thicken over us.
They crosshatch our path.
In leafy folds, winged creatures watch.
Through pools of moss, snakes writhe.
When tumbling rocks crash like our dreams,
we'll pick up a shard
and fashion a brazier for warmth and rest.
The air is cool and gentle at the crest
and the land cascades in startled wonder
from the sky.
(1983)

Accuweather

SES by search engine optimization service

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Join Historic Jonesborough Days, July 2-3, 2011

WE THE PEOPLE