Have a happy and safe Holiday all, something to think about, my thoughts for what they're worth.

<c>The Fourth Day of the Seventh Month</c>

On that day America celebrates its birthday. We will scatter to parks, lakes, swimming pools, fireworks shows, backyards and all places between. Family reunions, picnics, Bar-B-Que, cookouts, coolers full of goodies and ice, firecrackers will go bang, children laugh and adults chatter. Watermelons will be cut, ice cream makers will whir, trainloads of Hamburger, Hot Dogs, Ribs, Briskets. Assorted cuts of beef, pork, chicken and vegetables will sizzle over shiploads of charcoal and tankers of propane. Parades, Outdoor Concerts, Veterans will gather, Children will recite various words from speeches by heros and legendary citizens of the past. And, sometime during all this most of us will stop and remember what it took to make us free, and the costs of keeping us that way. A moment of silence will follow.

Not much Pomp and Circumstance, but one hell of a lot of shouting and laughter, we work hard and we play harder.

We’re not bashful we Americans, we brag about how great this country is, and we’re right, it is great. An experiment in government, a test of a free society. Be damned, it actually works as well as human nature will let it. We live within a Society governed by Laws, not personalities, no matter how much we moan and gripe about it. We are the freest country on earth, a grand example for the rest of the world. While we are criticized out there, we have to limit emigration, they might not like us, but they sure want in.

I wonder why? Maybe because in this country anyone can be anything, from a street drug dealer, to the CEO of the largest corporation in the world. It depends on how hard you work, and how much you are willing to learn. No Secret Police will drag you out of your home in the dark of night, never to be heard from again. The News services are not instructed as to what stories will be printed or on the air at 6 and 11. Anyone can stand up and speak their mind, even criticize politicians, from the local dog catcher all the way up to the president. No gang of thugs will show up at your house that night to beat you half to death. We hang our dirty laundry out for all to see, our mistakes and foibles are debated in public. No matter how hard someone tries to hide our nasty secrets, without fear of reprisal the press drags it out for all to see. Where else does this happen?

A great deal of the world looks on us as brash and uncouth, from their point they’re half right. We are straight spoken and have small patience with dithering over points of protocol. We get the job done, we’re used to it. The American Worker is the most productive in the world, and has been for a long time. We are a nation of hybrids, our ancestors came from everywhere, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and every nation in between. The vast majority of them gathered up their dreams and hopes and left family and culture behind to come, they had damn little else.

And they thrived, their children became more then they had dared hope, their children’s children went back to the old countries and fought for freedom for all humanity. Their great-great-grandchildren sent men to the moon.

American food donations feeds millions each year, no strings attached. We send out Doctors and Engineers across the world to improve life for those who need help. Between public and private sources we do a hell of a lot of good around the planet. Some say we could do more, I say to them, we do it from a sense of true giving, we don’t have too. But we do, because we look around and see the misery of grinding poverty and conflict, and our hearts will not be still until we help. We make mistakes, and we admit it and try to correct them.

So on the Fourth Day of the Seventh month he have a bit of a party, and we make a big deal out of who and what we are.

We’re a little loud, a little proud, and we don’t hide it..

Have a problem with that?

<c>Deal with it.</c>