Happy Fourth of Whatever

I made a mistake today. I IM'd a "Happy Fourth of July!" to a coworker in New Jersey. I might as well have thrown a stink bomb into the foyer of LA's finest dining establishment.

"What the HELL are we celebrating!?" he exploded in response. "Our so-called leadership is comatose, our military is enslaved to a conflict that can't POSSIBLY be resolved, our economy is sinking like a stone, gas prices are orbiting the moon, job stability is at the mercy of --"

I nodded politely as he continued his IM rage. Far be it for me to interrupt him long enough to point out that we are celebrating the fact that he is free to express those very thoughts.

Bless his heart.


We're still a new nation. We may not have gotten things right yet.

Relative to some of the older world powers, we're teenagers - and teenagers make mistakes. We have the know-it-all ego of a fifteen-year-old adolescent, the bluster of a schoolyard bully. The maturity of a tween fawning over the Jonas Brothers (or the Everly Brothers, if you're my age). We do stupid stuff, and sometimes we should be grounded for our own good.

Stupid stuff, rants 'n all aside, it's our birthday, dammit, and I want cake.