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Maybe I am going to ramble a bit, but I am really embarrassed ....for the people who pass for entertainers in this country and based on that "pass" who show up at national events such as Inaugural Kid events and totally make fools of themselves. The actor who played Ray Charles in a movie about that singer's life was a featured entertainer at the KIDS INAUGURAL EVENT on tv tonight. He began his thing by asking the audience to sing "America the Beautiful",which he sadly could not sing without taking breaths in the middle of his words and phrases and which even more sadly, his audience could NOT sing along with him when invited. In contrast to the audience being invited to sing the "popular songs", the silence throughout "America the Beautiful" was pretty close to deafening. I noticed that the children knew all the junk music which preceded and followed his untrained rendition of "Beautiful" , but it got worse. He began his little talk by mentioning that on this same day in 1961 President John Kennedy had "this to say..." "Ask NOT what you can do for your country but what your country can do........................ oops"
Then he pretended he could not see his teleprompter, but knew his quote anyhow, and tried again,saying the quote identically to his first try, but this time completed the whole sentence INCORRECTLY:
"Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for YOU"
Then he stopped and tried AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He never quite got it right and moved on to other things. YES the real quote is "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" Thankfully this man left the stage and didn't come back. The cameras had to stop panning the audience because so many people ...ADULTS...caught the error and let me just say, their faces would not have served them well in a poker game. On a side note, my children have memorized Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream " speech in its entirty to present for home school group meetings and in our own classroom, with no note cards, no cue cards held by others, no teleprompters, as well as Abraham Lincoln's Inaugural Adresses, the Gettyburg Address speech, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" as well as whole chapters of Scripture and "The Spider and the Fly" among some selections: BY 9th GRADE. They knew JFK's quote and realized the actor had messed up very quickly.
The next insult to the intelligence of these children, their parents and educators (or maybe it was a challenge, I HOPE NOT,) came when random audience kids were asked "historical quiz questions" such as "Which President had a toy bear named after him?" and of President U.S. Grant: "U S Grant got a speeding ticket. What was he driving? A horse and carriage? A Ferrari? A skate board?????????" Since when does having fun exclude having knowledge or using it?
MY KIDS WERE AGHAST: American born and raised and the more recently transplanted alike. My 12 year old Isaac, who was adopted from Cambodia at age 8 ,4 years ago, speaking no English whatsoever, said "Maybe they asked such easy questions so that no one would get one wrong?" If the sponsors of this "Event" were not cheering on the children and telling them that they are the FUTURE of this country while down-playing their intelligence and totally NOT challenging them, it might not have been so totally sad to me. God bless Amerca???????? How about AMERICA .........BLESS GOD!!!!!