Latest news with #JohnPhilipSousa
New York Post
07-07-2025
- General
- New York Post
Texas flooding one of deadliest mass casualty events for US children in past 100 years
The catastrophic flooding that swept through central Texas on the Fourth of July has the grim distinction of being one of the deadliest events for US children in the past 100 years. Of the 89 people confirmed dead so far, at least 27 are kids, many of them from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp located just a few hundred feet from the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt in Kerr County. As of Monday afternoon, officials said 10 of the little campers are still unaccounted for as rescue efforts continue around the clock. 11 A cabin destroyed by the flooding at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas seen on July 5, 2025. Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images 11 Stuffed animals on the windowsill of a cabin at Camp Mystic after the flood. REUTERS 11 At least 27 children have been killed in the devastating floods. The unimaginable tragedy puts the Texas flash floods among other mass-casualty events involving children since 1925. New London School Explosion (1937) 11 The scene of the explosion at the London School in New London, Texas in 1937. Bettmann Archive A natural-gas leak at an elementary school in New London, Texas — then called London — led to an explosion that destroyed the London School on March 18, 1937, killing 295 people, most of them children. That year, the London school board had opted to tap into Parade Gasoline Company's residue gas line in an effort to save money. It was a gas-line connection that the United States Bureau of Mines later concluded was faulty. 11 One of the victims in the New London explosion getting his injuries treated. Bettmann Archive The botched job resulted in in odorless, colorless natural gas flooding the school unnoticed until a shop teacher turned on an electric sander, with the switch creating a spark that ignited the gas, an investigation concluded. Hartford Circus Fire (1944) 11 The fire at a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus tent in 1944. Bettmann Archive A Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus big-top tent water-proofed by a combination of paraffin wax and 6,000 gallons of gasoline sparked one of the worst fire disasters in US history, killing 167 people, including an estimated 100 children. Around 7,000 people packed the big top for a 2:15 p.m. performance July 6, 1944, most of them women and children. The paraffin and gasoline combination was a common way of waterproofing fabrics at the time — but also made the 200-by-450-foot tent highly flammable. The fire began on the southwest side of the tent's sidewall as The Flying Wallendas were performing. The bandleader noticed the flames and instructed the band to start playing John Philip Sousa's 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' — a tune known to circus performers as a signal something was amiss. Ringmaster Fred Bradna attempted to direct the audience to get up from their seats and leave in an orderly fashion, but the fire had shorted out the power, rendering his warning inaudible. Bath School massacre (1927) 11 The scene of the bombing at the Bath School in Michigan in 1927. Bettmann Archive The Bath School massacre was a bombing attack perpetrated by a deranged school board treasurer against the Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Mich., on May 18, 1927, killing 38 children and six adults. Andrew Kehoe, 55, who was incensed over losing an election for township clerk a year earlier and also facing foreclosure on his property, placed hundreds of pounds of explosives under the school with the intention of detonating them in an act of 'murderous revenge.' Before detonating the explosives, which were connected to an alarm clock timer in the school's basement, Kehoe murdered his wife and burned his farm to the ground. As rescuers frantically combed through the rubble, he drove a truck loaded with even more explosives and packed with metal debris to create shrapnel up to the schoolyard and detonated it, killing himself and four others. Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (2012) 11 Authorities at the scene of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Getty Images The deadliest elementary-school shooting in US history was carried out Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn., by 20-year-old former student Adam Lanza, who murdered 26 people including 20 children ages 6 and 7 before shooting himself in the head. Just before he left his home to commit the heinous act, Lanza shot and killed his mother. He then drove to the school in her car, dressed in black clothing and armed with a Bushmaster XM-15, an AR-style semi-automatic rifle, and unleashed his carnage. 11 People gathered for a prayer vigil at St. Rose Church in Newtown following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. AFP via Getty Images The horrifying mass shooting led to fierce debate about gun control in the US, including around subjects such as universal background checks and limiting magazine capacities. Oklahoma City bombing (1995) 11 The scene of the explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Getty Images The deadliest act of domestic terrorism in US history, committed by a pair of anti-government extremists, killed 168 people on April 19, 1995, 19 of them children. Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice, Terry Nichols, detonated a rented Ryder truck full of explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., reportedly outraged by how the US government handled recent incidents such as the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992 and the Waco, Texas, siege in 1993. The blast destroyed more than a third of the building, which later had to be demolished. The high number of child victims was due to the America's Kids Day Care Center located in the building. Uvalde school shooting (2022) 11 A memorial outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas after the mass shooting. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was the site of another one of America's worst school shootings, where 18-year-old former student Salvador Ramos killed 19 pupils and two teachers May 24, 2022. On the day of the shooting, Ramos drove to the school and entered a classroom after breezing by cops stationed in the hallways. He remained inside classrooms shooting victims for 1 hour and 14 minutes before the US Border Patrol Tactical Unit broke in and shot him. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department was roundly criticized for waiting around idle as Ramos perpetrated the attack. Two officers, including chief Pedro Arredondo, were later criminally indicted for their alleged mishandling of the shooting response.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sioux City Municipal Band concert season starts soon
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — Sioux City Municipal Band's summer season will be starting soon. The band's first concert will be held at the band shell in Grandview Park on June 1 at 7:30 p.m.. Story continues below Top Story: Siouxlanders place 4,000+ flags on veteran graves Lights & Sirens: Sioux City Police Dept. takes wanted suspect into custody Sports: Local Iowa high school state track and field results Weather: Get the latest weather forecast here The concert will feature 'Looney Tunes Overture,' 'Peer Gynt Suite,' 'Music of Disneyland,' and John Philip Sousa's 'Guide Right,' all led by Conductor Michael Prichard. The sing-alongs will include 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and 'I Got Rhythm,' both led by band shell host Dave Madsen. The summer concerts will continue through July 20. The series of concerts is free to the public and is presented by the Sioux City Parks and Recreation Department. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Your Tribalism Is Dumb
My father visited me once while I was working for Congress, and I took him to the D.C. Armory to see the marching bands perform. This was a brilliant stroke on my part as a son, as my father loves marching band music. He listens to John Philip Sousa every morning on his way to work, and he unwinds by playing Risk on his computer while listening to the kind of jaunty tunes you'd see in old war propaganda films as the aircraft carrier zips toward Japan. Dad might actually enjoy being invaded by a foreign army, so long as they did it while goose-stepping to a solid drumbeat. (I suspect he dislikes terrorists primarily for their lackluster showmanship.) At one point, the Army bands split into two sections, then marched to opposite ends of the field. One band played some pithy march, like "We Could Wallop Denmark if We Had To." Then paused, so the other band could blast out "The National Coast Guard's Pickleball Fight Song." When they alternated back, the stadium instinctively knew what to do: clap for their respective marching band, which had been created and assigned approximately six seconds ago. When the first band finished its installment of "The Fightin' 51st Airborne Squirt Gun Squadron," the north half of the stadium roared with applause, while we in the southern section waited expectantly for our own response. Our band outdid the north section with an upbeat rendition of "Bury My Spleen at Fort Gibson," and we applauded even louder. (We wanted the north section to know that our band was the superior band, and that we adored them and their brassy musical prowess more than those anemic northerners loved their own middling ensemble.) I was probably the only person in the entire stadium that day who thought it was the slightest bit curious that we were supposed to cleave into arbitrary groups, then arbitrarily root for an arbitrary team we had just been assigned. No one else seemed to consider the situation odd, because tribalism is so deeply hardwired into us. We instinctively form teams the way beagles sniff for rabbits, or how minotaurs build labyrinths to hibernate in. Tribalism compels us to belong to a team—to love it, affirm our loyalty to it, help it, and subordinate our own interests to its greater good. We gain a desperately needed sense of almost transcendent belonging when we lose ourselves to these tribal identities. So far, so good. The urge to team up, coordinate neckties, and sing fight songs is a positive one, springing from the depths of our nature as cooperative, social animals. The pleasant shift from "me" to "us" is an enjoyable and meaningful part of the human experience. Here's the problem: We don't just crave being on a team; we also crave a rival. We want to be in a club and we want a nemesis to motivate us. We desire an external entity to rally against. In American history, particularly when we have a disconcerting nemesis like the Nazis, the Soviets, or a minotaur, we shift our competitive drive to the external threat and get surprisingly chummy with each other. Absent a compelling bad guy to unite against, partisans glance around and say, "Well, I guess I hate you!" The urge to spar with a competing team is foundational, not circumstantial. That is to say, we are not blissfully lacking in team spirit or the inclination to coalitional rivalry until confronted by an external menace, at which point we suddenly group up and compete in response. Rather, the urge to oppose an outside foe precedes the foe itself. It's similar to sex drive, in that tribalism can be inflamed and engorged by external stimulus, even as it hums nicely along by itself either way. I've known several men who have resorted to crazy, reckless things when deprived of sex for too long: flying across the world for a first date, calling up unquestionably ill-suited former lovers at odd hours, wearing hairpieces resembling a dead weasel. Humans are not wholly rational and well-balanced eunuchs until a hot person walks by and makes us leak cash and willpower. That indisputable urge to reproduce does not mean we are hapless apes who wake up each day exclaiming, "Boy howdy, today I'm gonna go out and bang somebody!" then arrange our Google Calendars around getting laid. Yet it would be folly to view sex as some modular desire which we turn on and off when it's convenient, or which only activates when aroused by external stimuli. Civilizations past and present are brimming with rules and parameters to appropriately channel our boundless libido. Much of the time, they've been onerous and stodgy. But there have to be some guidelines. I'm about as libertine as they come—good luck with your S&M throuple!—but even I acknowledge that we shouldn't try to achieve orgasm while standing in the middle of a busy intersection. That's not prudish, that's just basic logistics. It's inappropriate to satisfy our baser instincts in some places (funerals, highways, children's birthday parties while making prolonged eye contact with other parents) and it's inappropriate in some circumstances (adultery, while piloting a fighter jet, etc.). We know we have a sex drive, but we acknowledge we have to delay gratification until we've landed the plane we're piloting. There's nothing prurient about a desire to eat, but we understand that we have to chew the odd salad instead of hamburgers and pastries, lest we catch diabetes with both hands. Society needs to develop a similar awareness of, and solutions to, our equally strong coalitional instincts. We can't inoculate ourselves against tribalism, but we can at least stop ourselves from willfully exacerbating it. I went into stand-up comedy knowing that everyone relates to death and sex—even monks, who occasionally get erections and die (hopefully not at the same time). Jokes that deal with these issues, particularly if they release some taboo or unstated tension, resonate with the human psyche in a way that punchlines about QuickBooks or airline food cannot. A lot of stand-up comedy revolves around tension in courtship (sex) and the quirks of aging (death). I was surprised to discover tribal loyalty is just as potent and visceral as death and sex. In fact, more often than not, allegiance to a tribe is more important. I'm not a particularly edgy comic, so I'm unlikely to ruffle feathers with bawdy jokes. All the same, I've rarely seen anyone in an audience get angry about an implied lack of sex, or gags aimed at their impending mortality. They can take it. Conversely, if you start asking people why they like a particular sports team, onstage or otherwise, they seriously contemplate running you over with their car. How exactly are the Vikings "Minnesotan"? The players aren't from there. Their teams drafted or traded them. And they will leave when they get a better deal. The owner probably lives in New York or Florida half the time. As Jerry Seinfeld puts it, are we just rooting for the jerseys? In high school, it surprised me to discover that many of my conservative, rural family members were registered Democrats. They came of age in a one-party state, and so affiliated with the only game in town, and had never felt compelled to change it. Why bother? It was simply a clerical distinction filed away in a building somewhere, not a personal expression of their values or chosen community. In college, I had entire relationships with people whose politics I never learned. Granted, I might not remember due to binge drinking, but I seem to recall going on strings of dates where politics never really came up. Conversely, when I moved to Manhattan, a young lady told me on our first date, "I wake up every morning and try to be a better liberal." At the time, this statement made absolutely no sense to me. It sounded like picking a wrench instead of a hammer, then somehow incorporating daily devotionals about wrench usage. Polling shows today's parents are more open than ever to the prospects of their son or daughter marrying outside of the family race or religion. But at the same time, parents are increasingly bothered by the idea of their child stumbling into a cross-partisan marriage. Politics has become the new religion. For those deaf to the siren's call of tribalism, political discussions are particularly vexing. Partisans increasingly assume all political conversations are a referendum about who is the good team and who is the death of humanity. Try as you might to discuss policy or philosophy outside of the partisan Thunderdome, people assume you're agitating for Blue Team or Red Team. And make no mistake: There are exactly two teams. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. You're not allowed to opt out. Criticism of any politician, then, must likewise fall within that well-worn partisan gutter. I call it Teeter-Totter Thinking: If you say something negative about a Republican, it must mean you are simultaneously championing Democrats as the alternative, or vice versa. So, if you critique [former] President Barack Obama, they will bring up that George W. Bush was worse. If you criticize Donald Trump, they will dredge up Bill Clinton's sexual exploits with underage minotaurs. All political conversations—and increasingly everything is a political conversation, from whether you prefer salad over barbecue to whether you drive a motorcycle or a unicycle—boil down to affirming loyalty to Our Team and, subtly or overtly, expressing disgust with Team Evil. Comedians have turned into pundits, and pundits have turned into minotaurs. It would baffle an extraterrestrial visitor to discover that Red Team and Blue Team, which nominally promote policy prescriptions, influence whether you think Bud Light is progressive inclusive swill or sanctimonious woke swill. Back in the day, Bud Light was largely apolitical swill. In a world of inflamed tribalism, everything is a totem pole, and everyone wants to desecrate the enemy's sacred idols. When we fail to reward partisan rancor as evidence of loyalty to the Good Team, Teeter-Totter Thinkers grow angry—we were supposed to applaud their polemical tirade! When we rebuff their efforts to bond over a shared hatred of some sinful person or ideologically dangerous sect, they infer we must harbor illicit sympathies for them. In fact, a lot of us simply don't want more hatred and fear in our lives. Most troubling, teeter-totter/tribal/partisan politics increasingly gives those who are drunk on tribal warfare license to suspend basic human decency. Heathens on Team Evil have willfully forfeited their humanity, and so are beneath contempt. Otherwise lovely, considerate people make cripple jokes about wheelchair-bound politicians, or wisecracks about dead spouses and troubled children, because the target is of the opposing party and therefore exempt from ethical norms. In online arguments, partisans fight their enemies with euphoric ruthlessness. In a spat about something as quotidian as trade barriers or the filibuster, they spew hurtful invectives calculated to inflict maximum emotional damage, in a way that would be wildly inappropriate (if not alarmingly sociopathic) in any other arena of life. A kind of derangement sets in to inflict not just emotional damage, but also social and vocational harm. If the villain winds up killing themselves, well, that's one less evildoer holding us back, right? If someone on your adult kickball team laughed and laughed when a player from the other team accidentally split their femur in half, we would rightly view that schadenfreude as inappropriate. Yet, often crusaders from Red Team and Blue Team are not merely exempted from such basic considerations, they are openly celebrated for flouting them. Sanctified as an epic struggle between two cosmic, warring factions, teeter-totter politics tells us that not only are you at liberty to be nasty and hurtful in a way you cannot be anywhere else in polite society, you are a good person for indulging such odious behavior. You can express your most vicious impulses and spew hate at your opponents for emotional release. Your cruelty will be tolerated, if not praised, in this singular aspect of society where normal restraints do not apply. Perhaps one day we can quit reflexively bristling and squirting fire hoses of partisan bile at each other. Only then will we be able to focus on the real threat to our great nation: minotaurs! This essay was adapted from Andrew Heaton's book, Tribalism is Dumb: Where It Came from, How It Got So Bad, and What to Do about It, by permission of Last House Standing Books. The post Your Tribalism Is Dumb appeared first on
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
U.S. Air Force Academy Band to perform at Springfield Symphony Hall
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The U.S. Air Force band of Washington, DC, will perform a free concert at the Springfield Symphony Hall. The concert, hosted by the Spirit of Springfield, will be held Sunday, April 13th at 2 p.m. with music selections such as 'Star Spangled Banner,' 'There You'll Be from the 'Pearl Harbor' motion picture, 'From the Earth, to the Moon and Beyond,' 'The National Game' and 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' by John Philip Sousa, 'Armed Forces Medley,' and more. Although the concert is free, tickets will be required to enter. Tickets will be available at Pride Convenience stores, the Springfield Visitor Center at 1319 Main Street, the security desk at One Financial Plaza at 1350 Main Street, or by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to Spirit of Springfield, 1350 Main Street, Suite 1004, Springfield, MA 01103. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
