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BEST CHRISTMAS LIGHT SHOWS RADIO CITY OPENS JOHN F. KENNEDY’S PROFILES IN COURAGE
AMERICAN PATRIOT BEST CHRISTMAS LIGHT SHOWS
4 6 P.T. BARNUM THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH
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14 QUOTE OF THE WEEK
15 THIS WEEK IN AMERICAN HISTORY
THE BEST CHRISTMAS
LIGHT SHOWS
Americans love Christmas and they love light shows. Put the two together, and you have some awesome heartland Christmas light shows. Here are 10 of American Patriot editor’s favorites. 4 AMERICAN PATRIOT
SILVER DOLLAR CITY, BRANSON MO Millions of Christmas lights cover the whole park. The entire City is transformed into a holiday wonderland each evening at 5:30 p.m. as guests join together on the Square for the lighting of a five-story Special Effects Christmas Tree. Adorned with over 250,000 lights coordinated to blaze to the musical movements of Christmas songs, this unique tree presents classics such as “Carol of the Bells” and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” in a spectacular light and sound show. SMOKEY MOUNTAIN WINTERFEST, TN This magical celebration begins in late fall. Ride the Trolley Tour of Lights around Pigeon Forge and claim a spot on the sidewalk for Gatlinburg’s “Fantasy of Lights” Christmas Parade, featuring lighted floats, marching bands and giant balloons. Three Tennessee cities participate: Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. These neighboring Smokey Mountain towns are ablaze with 5 million lights through February. TRAIL OF LIGHTS, AUSTIN TX The Trail of Lights is a mile-long display of 42 lighted scenes, Santa’s House, the Yule Log, and an entertainment stage. The festival begins with the lighting of the Zilker Tree, a 155 feet tall lighted tree consisting of 3,309 bulbs on 39 streamers strung from Austin’s historical Moonlight Tower. Since 1987, the honor of lighting the tree has been bestowed upon the winner of the citywide children’s tree coloring contest. OGLEBAY FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS, WHEELING WV In 1985, a holiday tradition spread throughout the city of Wheeling. That tradition is the Winter Festival of Lights celebration. The first year, displays and landscape lighting covered about 125 acres over a three-mile drive throughout the resort of Oglebay. Since then, the show has grown into one of the nation’s largest Christmas light shows, covering more than three hundred acres over a six-mile drive throughout the resort. MAGICAL NIGHTS OF LIGHTS, LAKE LANIER GA Rekindle an old tradition or create a new one at Lake Lanier Islands Resort’s 16th annual Magical Nights of Lights holiday celebration. The fun kicks off November 22 through December 30 nightly. Bring the whole family on a drive through tour of over six miles of twinkling,
holiday light displays and a live nativity scene complete with live actors and animals! HOLIDAY FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS, CHARLESTON SC In 1990, Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission created the Holiday Festival of Lights to bring families and friends together, and to raise support for the Charleston county park system. With over 600 individual displays located throughout the park in 132 power locations, the Holiday Festival of Lights is a magical sight to see. TEMPLE SQUARE, SALT LAKE CITY UT The Christmas lights on Temple Square are lit every year on the day after Thanksgiving. This one-of-a kind display offers hundreds of thousands of lights and a life-size nativity scene. Visitors can enjoy the wonderful array of lights as well as Christmas music and various video presentations in the visitor centers. The lights stay up throughout December. THE CHRISTMAS VILLAGE, LEAVENWORTH WA Visitors come back year after year for this famous Leavenworth festival (shown left). Fridays the town is in darkness awaiting Saturday’s festivities. Saturday at dusk everyone gathers to sing “Silent Night” and witness the lighting of the village as it is transformed into a magical wonderland of lights. SHADRACKS CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND, WEST KNOXVILLE TN Shadrack’s Water Sports puts on two of the most awesome Christmas light show you’ve likely ever seen. A large hillside behind their boat showroom has been transformed into a Christmas wonderland with hundreds of thousands of brightly colored lights dynamically synchronized and dancing to Christmas tunes. LOUISVILLE MEGA CAVERN, LOUISVILLE, KY Every year, the Louisville MEGA Cavern is transformed into a Christmas light spectacular. Lights Under Louisville features 35 displays, 300 LED Light characters, over one million points of light. The public is allowed to drive their own vehicles inside the cavern to experience this unique Christmas wonderland.
AMERICAN PATRIOT 5
P.T. BARNUM THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH To understand the history of the circus and the spectacle in America — and the venerable Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus — you must begin with the showman of showmen, P.T. Barnum. 6 AMERICAN PATRIOT
Born in Bethel CT, Phineas T. Barnum started as a small businessman and founder of a weekly newspaper in nearby Danbury. Frustrated by small town life, increasingly skilled at public relations and with a hankering to be in the spotlight, he moved to New York City in 1834 and embarked on an entertainment career. His first major success was a variety troupe called “Barnum’s Grand Scientific and Musical Theater,” which featured a disabled African American woman who, her sponsors claimed, was 160 years old and had been the infant George Washington’s nurse. (A subsequent autopsy proved her to be 80 years old.) Barnum’s find was a sensation. Next, Barnum purchased the struggling Scudder’s American Museum, a collection of curiosities, which he turned into the most famous showplace of the era. The public could see educated dogs and fleas, automatons, jugglers, ventriloquists, living statues, albinos, fat men and bearded women, singing and dancing acts, models of Paris and Jerusalem, dioramas of the Creation and the Deluge, glassblowing, knitting machines, war dance, Siamese twins, flower and bird shows, whales, mermaids, melodramas, menageries of rare animals and more. Altogether, the museum showed over 600,000 exhibits during its existence. It made Barnum a national name. Two of his greatest successes in this period were: General Tom Thumb, a 25 inch tall and 15 pound man whose real name was Charles S. Stratton; and Jenny Lind, the most famous singer of her time, a Swede whom he introduced to the American public with a national tour. In 1854, Barnum published his autobiography and retired. After going bankrupt, however, the volatile Barnum resurfaced in 1871 with a circus.
Soon it was the largest in America. By 1874, he expanded his “P.T. Barnum’s Traveling World's Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show On Earth” to a size covering five acres. It filled 10,000 seats at what was New York’s original Madison Square Garden. Along with a young partner, James A. Bailey, the three-ring extravaganza he created was to become an American institution. His last great coup was the 1881 purchase from the London Zoo of the largest elephant in captivity, Jumbo. In 1891, the indefatigable Barnum began to fail. As a final stunt, a few weeks before his death, Barnum gave permission to the Evening Sun to print his obituary, so that he might read it. After his death, Bailey purchased the circus, successfully toured in the U.S. and Europe, and then, in 1902, merged with competitor Ringling Brothers to create the combined Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Its slogan is still “The Greatest Show On Earth.” LEARN MORN ABOUT THE CIRCUS’ HISTORY AND PLAN YOUR NEXT VISIT HERE AMERICAN PATRIOT 7
HOW TO
LIVE UNITED: JOIN HANDS. OPEN YOUR HEART. LEND YOUR MUSCLE.
FIND YOUR VOICE. GIVE 10%. GIVE 100%.
GIVE 110%. GIVE AN HOUR. GIVE A SATURDAY. THINK OF WE BEFORE ME. REACH OUT A HAND TO ONE AND
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US MINT STANDS UP FOR
DISABLED VETS The United States Mint has issued silver one-dollar coins to honor disabled American veterans. The American Veterans Disabled for Life Commemorative Coin Act authorizes the United States Mint to mint 350,000 such coins. Surcharges earned by sale of the coins are helping to fund the planned American Veterans Disabled For Life Memorial in Washington DC.
The coin’s obverse (heads side) was designed
raising the private funds for the construction
and sculpted by United States Mint Sculptor-
of the Memorial. The Memorial will be the
Engraver Don Everhart. The design features
first in the capital area dedicated to living
the legs and boots of three disabled veterans,
disabled veterans across all service branches
which pays tribute to the service and sacri-
and all areas of conflict. Commanding an
fice of our disabled veterans. The inscription
impressive two-acre site between Washington
“They Stood Up For Us” is in the banner
Avenue SW, C Street SW and Second Street
along the coin’s upper rim. Additional in-
SW, the memorial will be within full view of
scriptions on the obverse are “In Good We
the U.S. Capitol, adjacent to the National
Trust, 2010” and “Liberty.”
Mall, and across from Independence Avenue and the United States Botanic Garden. The
The coin’s reverse (tails side) is the work of
monument was sponsored in 2000 by Sen-
the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program Master
ator John McCain, former Senator Max Cle-
Designer Thomas Cleveland and sculpted by
land, and Representatives Sam Jonson and
Sculptor-Engraver Joseph Menna. Here, the
the late John Murtha. President Bill Clinton
design depicts a forget-me-not flower at the
signed it into law soon thereafter.
base of a wreath wrapped in a ribbon that cradles and supports clusters of oak branches.
Regular pricing is currently in effect. Available
The oak branches represent strength, while
options include proof and uncirculated ver-
the forget-me-not is a widely accepted sym-
sions of the coin, struck in 90 percent silver.
bol of remembrance for those who sacrificed their lives for our country. The inscriptions include “Take This Moment To Honor our
Coins can be purchased at www.usmint.gov/ catalog or 1-800-USA-MINT.
Disabled Defenders of Freedom.” As noted above, surcharges from the sale will go directly to the Disabled Veterans’ Life Memorial Foundation, the organization
SEE AN INTERVIEW WITH THE MEMORIAL’S NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON GARY SINISE
AMERICAN PATRIOT 9
JOHN F. KENNEDY’S
PROFILES IN COURAGE
10 AMERICAN PATRIOT
Rarely does a historical study of arcane issues and legislators influence a Presidential campaign, become a best-seller and get turned into a popular television series. But John F. Kennedy’s Profiles In Courage accomplished this, helping to establish then-Senator Kennedy’s gravitas as a serious thinker and potential Presidential candidate, as well as getting the public to focus on the grandeur of the Senate, and seeing life as a mid-1960s television series in which the “profiles” of courageous political leaders were dramatized. The book itself, a Pulitzer Prize winner, had a simple premise: it described acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators. In most of the stories, these men crossed party lines or defied popular opinion to make hard decisions that cost them dearly. Kennedy wrote the book at his bedside while on leave from the Senate recovering from back surgery.
THE EIGHT SENATORS INCLUDED BY THE AUTHOR WERE: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, for breaking from the Federalist Party.
EDMUND G. ROSS, for voting to acquit the painfully unpopular President Andrew Johnson.
DANIEL WEBSTER, for supporting the Compromise of 1850 which helped keep the Union together.
LUCIUS LAMAR, for seeking to mend ties between the North and South.
THOMAS HART BENTON, for staying in the Democratic Party despite his opposition to slavery.
GEORGE NORRIS, for trying to keep the U.S. neutral during World War 1.
SAM HOUSTON, for opposing Texas secession from the Union.
ROBERT A. TAFT, for criticizing the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals under what Taft considered ex post facto laws.
The book was widely applauded as an effort to raise the level of public discourse by a handsome young Senator with national ambitions. A few critics expressed doubt about whether Kennedy wrote it himself, since his family’s great wealth allowed him to be surrounded by many professional speechwriters and thinkers such as Ted Sorenson. Late in life, Sorenson acknowledged having worked on a draft. It remains, still, a definitive book on the history of the Senate.
THE JFK LIBRARY SPONSORS AN ANNUAL PROFILES IN COURAGE ESSAY CONTEST AMERICAN PATRIOT 11
FAJITAS TRUE TEX-MEX
12 AMERICAN PATRIOT
Texans would like to lay claim to the fajita, but history gives credit to Mexican ranch workers living in West Texas in the late 1930s or early 1940s. When a steer was butchered, the workers were given the least desirable parts to eat as part of their wages, often the tough cut of beef known as skirt steak. In Spanish, fajita is a form of the word faja which translates to “belt” in English. The fajita is classic Tex-Mex food, a mix of Texas cowboy and Mexican panchero foods. Considering the limited number of skirts per carcass and the fact the meat wasn’t available commercially, the fajita tradition remained regional and relatively obscure for many years. Today, the term fajita has strayed from its original meaning, and now describes just about anything that is cooked and served rolled up in a soft flour tortilla. This includes chicken, pork, shrimp and all cuts of beef. These days it is often cooked with onions and peppers, and served with condiments such as shredded lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, cheese and tomato. Historians who study such things credit Sonny Falcon, an Austin area restauranteur, as operating the first commercial fajita stand in Kyle TX and at rodeos and fairs. Dubbed “The Fajita King,” he actually trademarked that name and his food
became popular in the Houston, San Antonio and Austin areas. From there, the dish exploded, to the point where Mexican food restaurants nationwide have adapted the dish, and even McDonald’s has fajitas on their menu from time to time. Not just a cheap and regional food anymore, restaurants worldwide now serve it up and people everywhere are familiar with the site of fajita meat being brought to the table sizzling loudly on a metal platter or skillet, with tortillas and condiments served on the side.
CLICK HERE FOR 1000 FAJITA RECIPES AMERICAN PATRIOT 13
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY CHUCK KENNEDY
Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
— PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA Speech, June 28, 2006 14 AMERICAN PATRIOT
THIS WEEK IN
AMERICAN HISTORY
1932.
PHOTO BY MATT H. WADE
Radio City, the magnificent Art Deco theater at Rockefeller Center in New York, opens at the height of the Great Depression. Brainchild of John D. Rockefeller, more than 300 million people have gone to Radio City since its opening to see movies, stage shows, concerts and special events. A popular seasonal favorite are the high-kicking Rockettes, a precision dance troop. AMERICAN PATRIOT 15
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