July 04, 2005
The 4th
As an immigrant to this country, the 4th of July was always one of my favorite holidays. It's the birthday of the greatest country the world has ever seen. That makes it even sadder to see what we've done to her in the last twenty years or so. McCain-Feingold, the "real ID", the recent "takings" decision by the SCOTUS, the RICO act, and a myriad of other actions that we've allowed our government to engender is taking our freedoms one by one. Take this 4th to really THINK about what we are celebrating, and steel yourself to fighting the battle to take it back.
On a lighter note, I want to wish my father a happy 74th Birthday. He loves to tell the story of his 27th birthday. He had just moved his family the previous September to a new country, where he didn't know a soul, didn't know the language, and had no job waiting for him. What he DID have was a wife and two young children to support, and a dream of providing them a better life than they could have had in the Netherlands, which was still trying to recover from the ravages of WW11 at the time. When it got dark on that first 4th of July in his new homeland, the sky was lit up with a great display of fireworks.
He thought they were celebratiog his birthday! WHAT A COUNTRY!