stevenpensacola
<font color=red>Sometimes I sits and thinks, and s
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2000
- Messages
- 3,769
from msnbc: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13051628/
June 29 | 6:30 p.m. -- Why I hate the Fourth of July
It's too crowded, too noisy, too hot, too trafficky. I have to work the next day. My kids get freaked out. The Beach Boys. I can't barbecue to save my life. Spent cardboard fuselages litter the sidewalks the next morning. People blow their body parts off. I have to spend 400 bucks on reservation fireworks just to keep up with the Joneses. It's overdone. My dog -- who gets nervous when a door slams -- turns into a stoner after we pump her full of Quaaludes and then pees on her pillow and is too tuned out to care.
Mainly, though, I hate the Fourth because it gives the bozos in my neighborhood license to light dynamite every night for three weeks beginning in the middle of June and call it patriotism. Since it doesn't get dark till 10 this time of year where I live, the patriots are always waking us up just as we've settled into sleep. So we close the windows, soothe the dog, check the children, and sweat through the rest of the night.
The holiday mystifies me. Why, to show how much you love something, do you blow something up? We don't do this for weddings or birthdays or Easter. ("Honey, I love you this much." KA-BOOM!) And come to think of it, what would you blow up to show your love of Jesus? It would have to be big, like a country. But then it would seem not really to honor the Prince of Peace. Indeed, nothing blow-up-able really would. So why do we do it for America?
By the way, what do we mean when we say "America" -- as in the sentence: America: love it or leave it, you Independence Day-hating SOB? I mean, is "America" the government? the Constitution? democracy? the land? I'm not quite sure. But it sure feels good to kvetch. It's harder to suggest alternatives, though.
But I'll try.
Hike with your family in a national park. Visit your grandparents. Read your kids a story. Read the Constitution, or the Gettysburg Address, or "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Donate money to a cause you love, or a politician you admire. Go to an art gallery, even if you hate art. Write a letter to a soldier, especially if you're a pacifist. Lie down in a park and think of all the worse places you could live. Join the PTA. Pray for peace, if you're the praying sort. If not, meditate for peace.
It's a beautiful big-top of a country. Tell it you love it, without all the fireworks.
Jeff Williams
June 29 | 6:30 p.m. -- Why I hate the Fourth of July
It's too crowded, too noisy, too hot, too trafficky. I have to work the next day. My kids get freaked out. The Beach Boys. I can't barbecue to save my life. Spent cardboard fuselages litter the sidewalks the next morning. People blow their body parts off. I have to spend 400 bucks on reservation fireworks just to keep up with the Joneses. It's overdone. My dog -- who gets nervous when a door slams -- turns into a stoner after we pump her full of Quaaludes and then pees on her pillow and is too tuned out to care.
Mainly, though, I hate the Fourth because it gives the bozos in my neighborhood license to light dynamite every night for three weeks beginning in the middle of June and call it patriotism. Since it doesn't get dark till 10 this time of year where I live, the patriots are always waking us up just as we've settled into sleep. So we close the windows, soothe the dog, check the children, and sweat through the rest of the night.
The holiday mystifies me. Why, to show how much you love something, do you blow something up? We don't do this for weddings or birthdays or Easter. ("Honey, I love you this much." KA-BOOM!) And come to think of it, what would you blow up to show your love of Jesus? It would have to be big, like a country. But then it would seem not really to honor the Prince of Peace. Indeed, nothing blow-up-able really would. So why do we do it for America?
By the way, what do we mean when we say "America" -- as in the sentence: America: love it or leave it, you Independence Day-hating SOB? I mean, is "America" the government? the Constitution? democracy? the land? I'm not quite sure. But it sure feels good to kvetch. It's harder to suggest alternatives, though.
But I'll try.
Hike with your family in a national park. Visit your grandparents. Read your kids a story. Read the Constitution, or the Gettysburg Address, or "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Donate money to a cause you love, or a politician you admire. Go to an art gallery, even if you hate art. Write a letter to a soldier, especially if you're a pacifist. Lie down in a park and think of all the worse places you could live. Join the PTA. Pray for peace, if you're the praying sort. If not, meditate for peace.
It's a beautiful big-top of a country. Tell it you love it, without all the fireworks.
Jeff Williams
WE didn't even think about going downtown tonight to see the fireworks. NO WAY. We didn't even BarBQ. 
