How do US presidents end their speeches? (with a 3-6-9 postscript)

I just read "Weird Things About King Charles' Coronation" by Naomi Wolf, who argues that the coronation was rendered "uncanny" by slight but noticeable departures from established tradition. I'm not British, didn't watch the coronation, and have no opinion on this, but something else she said jumped out at me:

When we as Americans see the Stars and Stripes saluted - and we know that it is the same salute that goes back most of our nation’s history - we are comforted. When the US President ends his every major speech with the phrase "and God Bless the United States of America", that repetition is not only reassuring, it creates an invocation for our national life extending from deep into the past, giving us promise for the future. All of this is a form of positive magic.

[. . .]

I have noticed that icons, symbols and texts that are culturally central to Western countries, and that are central to the Judeo-Christian tradition especially, are being slightly rearranged, slightly soiled, slightly garbled these days everywhere (just as President Biden keeps systematically not concluding his speeches with: "And God bless the United States of America").

"God bless the United States of America"? Did she do that on purpose, to see if anyone would prove her point by noticing it? The traditional way to end a presidential speech is "God bless you, and God bless America," and Wolf's paraphrase is just the sort of "slightly garbled" modification she decries.

That was my immediate reaction, anyway, but I figured I'd better confirm it. I checked the transcripts of every State of the Union address in the last 100 years, and here's what I found.

First, ending the speech with any form of "God bless . . ." is a relatively recent custom, introduced by Ronald Reagan. Of the 60 pre-Reagan addresses I looked at, 95% end with no such formula. The three exceptions are from Truman ("May God bless our country and our cause," 1953), Kennedy ("may God watch over the United States of America," 1962), and Ford ("God bless you," 1977). Since Reagan's first State of the Union in 1982, though, every single address (with the one exception of Clinton in 1999) has ended with some form of "God bless . . . ."

From Reagan to the present, here is what presidents have blessed at the close of their State of the Union addresses:

Here's how they have referred to their country in these statements:

As for specific, word-for-word formulas, these are the only ones that have been used more than once or twice:

• God bless you, and God bless America. (used 8 times, by Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Trump)
• God bless America. (used 4 times, by Clinton, Bush II, and Trump)
• God bless you. (used 4 times, only by Reagan)
• God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (used 3 times, only by Obama)
• God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. (used 3 times, only by Biden)
  

So I feel a bit vindicated. Although the formula is neither as old nor as invariable as I had expected, the form I remembered is in fact the most canonical, used twice as frequently as any other. The difference between my own understanding and Wolf's probably has to do with the fact that I left the United States in 2004 and haven't watched a full State of the Union address since then, whereas Wolf presumably listened to Obama's addresses, with their (anomalous) preference for "the United States of America."

Anyway, Wolf's overall point stands: Biden is the only recent president to consistently end his speeches without invoking God's blessing on the country. It's also strange that Biden, not any of the wartime presidents who preceded him, should be the one to introduce "our troops" into the formula.

⁂

Reading Naomi Wolf -- a person whose existence hadn't crossed my mind in years -- made me think of the time she was interviewed by Ali G and managed to come off as cool and likable, something of which feminists seem no longer to be capable. (Then I found out that, after the show, she denounced Ali G as a racist and tried to have the episode pulled! She did manage to be cool and likable while she was actually on camera, which is something anyway.)

This little exchange caught my attention:

Wolf: But let me tell you, honestly, how would you feel if you had to sell sex, your sex?

Ali G: What, if people paid me money for sex?

Wolf: No, honestly! I mean --

Ali G: Wicked! I would be there every day, I would [unintelligible] 24 hours a day, seven days a week, three six nine!

Booyakasha! She walked right into that one. Notice, though, how he uses "three six nine," apparently with a meaning similar to "twenty-four seven." Debbie has brought up 3-6-9 several times in the comments, in connection with Shirley Ellis's "Clapping Song" and a statement by Nikola Tesla, but this is the first time I've ever heard it used in a slang sense. (In the Ellis song, I'd always assumed it had no real meaning but was analogous to "Two four six eight, who do we appreciate.") Has anyone ever heard it used this way before?

It's a T. rex world

The Babylon Bee has been a bit off its game recently, but I still check it from time to time, and yesterday I read the not particularly funny "13Ways To Tell If Your Priest Is An FBI Agent." One of the items on the list was "The name 'Father Burt Macklin' seems suspicious." That name didn't mean anything to me, so I looked it up. Apparently it's the name used by some sitcom character when he poses as an FBI agent.

His middle name is Tyrannosaurus.

Burt Tyannosaurus Macklin is played by Chris Pratt, shown here being chased by an Indominus rex in Jurassic World.

And here he is posing with a mini T. rex, not much taller than himself.

The sitcom is called Parks and Recreation. Googling that phrase led me to a familiar graphic-design motif.

I suppose after Charles is crowned, they'll start making coins with his face that say CHARLES III·D·G·REX. Googling to see if any such coins were already in production, I was astonished to find this:

Now I know they've had a female head of state for a really long time, and I know they don't teach Latin in schools anymore -- but come on, the Royal Mint made a mistake like this? "Charles III, Queen by the grace of God"?

Some of my readers will have seen that grotesque painting by Epstein girl Rina Oh that shows Charles with female genitalia, and her accompanying statement saying that it's all true. On the off chance that she's not lying or delusional, given the sexual-revolution meaning of the letter, wouldn't that make him a "T" rex?

Note added: Apparently another alter ego of the Chris Pratt character is "Johnny Karate."

Obviously a close cousin to Rex Kwon Do.

These all-American martial arts also brings to mind the kung-fu cowboy from "Knights of Cydonia."

Winter, flowers, and the Grail

I downloaded a collection of H. G. Wells short stories so that I could read "The Door in the Wall," but since I've got it and all, I figured I might as well read the rest of them. Today I read "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid," which is about -- spoiler warning! -- a flower that kills people, one of its weapons being the heady scent that renders its victims unconscious. It reminded me of a sonnet by my uncle, William John Tychonievich, called "O Poison Rose of Poetry," so I looked it up and reread it for the first time in well over a decade.

O poison Rose of Poetry, we drink

Your deadly nectar deep with each inhale

Of life's sweet atmosphere. Our breath does stink

Of your humid, earthy vapors. O Grail

Of Thorns and bright red-colored Seduction,

Your Goddess-sent scent both lures and entraps

Butterfly bards pulled by your soft suction

Into this matrix of sharp spiny paps.

Within your lattice prison we flutter

And strive, suffocating on your perfume

Until we fall and our corpses clutter

Your attar-petaled bed, our womb and tomb.

And here we lay, amid robust young shoots,

Our rotting essence feeding hungry roots.

I had forgotten there was a Grail reference in there! Earlier today I read and posted about an /x/ post called "Quantum Spacetime is the Holy Grail."

The main character in the Wells story is named Winter Wedderburn. Winter is a rather unusual given name, and for some reason what it made me think of was the 1992 Tori Amos song of that name, even though it's probably been 20 years or more since I've listened to anything by that singer, whose persona and most of whose music I've come to find actively repellent. (I was a big fan in my college days. Things change, my dear.) "Winter" is good, though, so I found it on YouTube and played it. I had never seen the video before.

Most of the video is pretty straightforward -- Tori walking around, singing, playing the piano, etc. -- but at one point it switches to a black screen with a big silver cup -- a trophy perhaps (it goes with the lyrics "you say I wanted you to be proud"), but also suggestive of the Grail.

A hand from offscreen pulls the cup away, and then some flowers float in and arrange themselves into this circular configuration. Then it's back to your regularly scheduled walking, singing, and piano playing.

The circle of flowers is a weird sync, since earlier today I saw this on /x/, posted with no comment but "what did they mean by this?":

Has Charles not been crowned yet? Kind of taking their time, aren't they? It's just some innocent graphic design, incorporating the floral emblems of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland -- unless, that is, you're /x/ enough to see the inverted crosses hidden in the shamrocks and the inverted pentagram at the top of the crown, usurping the place of the Cross. Anyway, whatever else it may be, it's a pretty specific sync with the Tori Amos video.