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Friday, July 4. 2008
Let’s Celebrate!
Today is the 4th of July, 2008. Here in the U.S.A. that means one thing: barbeque and blowing things up! Okay, that’s two things.Actually, that’s not a bad way to celebrate the 4th of July. In the Declaration of Independence itself, signed by 56 men representing the 13 Colonies under the political and economic control of England, says, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. For many of our fellow citizens, that means pursuing happiness and fun. Which, for me, includes a trip to La Jolla Cove for a little dip in the Pacific Ocean, followed by a trip to spend the day with friends, enjoy some barbeque, fellowship and fireworks. That’s where the blowing things up comes into play.
Celebrating the birth of one’s nation isn’t confined to the U.S. of course. Three days ago our neighbors to the North celebrated Canada Day and from what my Dear Friend Witchy told me, they do it pretty much the same way we do it: they have barbeques and blow things up. Well, my friend Ceifer, also a Canadian, blows things up on Canada Day … and any other day when he gets the urge to blow things up. Sort of like we Americans.
On July 14th our French friends will celebrate Bastille Day. Don’t know if they barbeque, but they eat real good and the blow things up.
Bastille Day celebrates the day in 1789 when angry Frenchmen stormed the Bastille, a medieval prison that, at the time, housed only seven prisoners but was an icon of an unjust monarchy that became the flashpoint and icon of Fête de la Fédération, the Federation Holiday.
How boring is that name for a national holiday. Better to call it Bastille Day.
On May 5th, our friends to the South in Mexico celebrate Cinco de Mayo, which actually isn’t the date of Mexican liberation; that date is actually September 16th. But we celebrate Cinco de Mayo pretty much as an excuse to consume dangerous amounts of tequila and Corona beer. Tons of teenagers too young to drink legally in the U.S. stream south to Tijuana to drink like fish in the loud bars that cater to their peculiarities with the expressed purpose of celebrating the 5th of May. Cinco de Mayo actually is in commemoration of the day when Mexican forces beat the French forces in the town of Puebla when the French were trying to occupy and own Mexico. Eventually the French succeeded and held Mexico for about five years, but Cinco de Mayo is celebrated anyway.
What’s cool about this, I guess, is that for our Mexican friends it doesn’t matter who won the war, it just matters that we have a cool named date to have a somewhat international holiday. I mean, Cinco de Mayo sounds so much more festive than Dieciséis de Septiembre. Just MHO.
But today we’ll have parades, listen to speeches by elected officials — some of us will even endure cheesy re-enactments of the signing of the Declaration and worse yet, re-enactments of Revolutionary War battles and special moments, like the night General George Washington led his army across the Delaware River. Trouble is, Washington made that journey in December when it was cold as Hell and there was snow on the ground. Hard to re-enact that in July, during the day with temperatures close to 100° f when even a snow making machine couldn’t make enough snow in such weather.
All of that’s okay though, because this is America and we have the right to celebrate — or not celebrate — the 4th of July in any way see fit to advance our right to pursue happiness.
Most Americans are happy and proud to be citizens of this great nation. We have our problems, we did elect an idiot to a second term in the White House, but it wasn’t the first time the dumbest kid on the block was elected to the highest office in the land. There were Herbert Hoover, Warren G. Harding, Millard Fillmore and a host of others.
Currently we seem to be loosing our unalienable rights with a slew of laws, but even that has occurred in the past and the ship was righted—but it really sucks when we are living in such times. Collectively we forget what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they put their lives on the line by signing the Declaration of Independence. They became outlaws and were subject to immediate execution if they had been caught. Assaulting our liberties, as has become the custom since Ronald Reagan first signed laws suspending parts of the 4th Amendment, sort of pisses on the Founding Fathers and their ideals.Sadly, the Supreme Court hasn’t seen fit to overturn these obstructions to our liberty, but hopefully that will change too.
Nevertheless, we owe our 4th of July — our nation — to these 56 men:New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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