THE DAILY BLADE: Pomp And Parade
As the Founding Fathers were hammering out the final details of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that Independence Day (July 2nd to his mind, the date the Second Continental Congress voted that the Thirteen Colonies were “free and independent states” from England) would be celebrated by succeeding generations “with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other.”
Oh, and he also said something about commemorating the day with “solemn acts of devotion to God” but that sounds too right-wing Republican for some, so The Stiletto will just skip over that part.
This New York Times editorial explains why we chose instead to celebrate our nation’s founding two days after the fact – and why Adams was wise to recommend all the pomp and ceremony:
[O]n the Fourth, we do not celebrate the resolution of freedom. We celebrate the articulation of freedom, the newborn nation’s ability to explain its reasoning and its purposes to itself, to Britain and to the world. The made independence fact, but the Declaration made it principle.
What is hard now, as a nation that grew up on its language, is to feel how radical a document the Declaration of Independence really is. …
They were at the beginning, the men and women who first heard the news of independence. We have no idea where we are now - at high noon or somewhere else in this nation’s history.
The real point of those fireworks overhead is to let us hear the news again, to remind us that a fresh and unheard-of beginning is at the heart of our very nature.
Editorial Note: Yahoo! News technology blog Y! Tech offers detailed instructions on how to photograph fireworks.
Remember America’s POWs
On the day we gather to celebrate 235 years of personal, political and economic freedom, The Wall Street Journal reminds us that, two of our soldiers - Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from ID and Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie, an interpreter born in Baghdad - are believed to be held in captivity by the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively:
Over the past decade, the U.S. has deployed more than two million troops abroad, with hundreds of thousands in war zones at any one time. Yet in a sign of how much warfare has changed since the time of Thucydides, Grant or even Westmoreland, prisoners of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have been few in number and low in profile. Today there is one in each theater, an unusual symmetry that seems to magnify the solitude and difficulty of their plights.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been a captive of the Taliban for two years, since June 30, 2009. He was a 23-year-old private at the time, about a half-year into his first deployment. The circumstances of his capture remain murky, but one way or another he fell into enemy hands in rural Paktika province, a mountainous region along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.
His Taliban captors immediately began treating him as a trophy, posting videos online in which he pleads for his release, praises the military prowess of the Afghan insurgency, criticizes the U.S. war effort, and equates his captivity to the detention of Afghans by U.S. and coalition forces. …
In the case of Staff Sgt. Ahmed Altaie, there have been no Internet propaganda videos - and, indeed, no proof of life for more than four years.
Staff Sgt. Altaie was captured on Oct. 23, 2006, in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad. … [H]e had married a Baghdadi woman in early 2006. When he arrived for a visit to her family's home that October day, as he had many times before - in civilian clothes, on a motorcycle, and not authorized by the U.S. military to be there - he was grabbed, thrown in a car, and driven off.
Super-Patriots
From American Maid (think, a combo of Captain America and Wonder Woman) to Yankee Poodle (whose alter ego is gossip columnist Rova Barkitt) Wired.com's compilation of 10 super-patriotic superheroes.
Proud - And Grateful - To Be An American
Every July 4th, The Stiletto says a special prayer of thanks that her mother and father chose to make their lives in this country.
The Stiletto’s parents are well-educated, and spoke nearly a dozen languages between them – half fluently, half conversationally – so they could easily have applied for citizenship in any number of Western European or South American countries, Canada or even one of the far-flung nations comprising the British Commonwealth. But they were determined to become Americans, because this country offered a degree of personal and economic freedom unattainable even in other democracies. They wanted to give the children they hoped to have a birthright that ensured freedom from religious or ethnic persecution - no small concern in their case, as Christians in the Muslim country they grew up in are being killed in churches as they pray and Christian women are forced to wear the hijab so they can better blend in - as well as freedom from the despair of having their talents, drive and ambitions repeatedly stymied by a socioeconomic or gender-based caste system that keeps people “in their place.”
The Stiletto got all that – and more. Having been imbued with the go-getting confidence of this always-striving nation, which shrugs off failure as a bump in the road while lavishly rewarding success, The Stiletto has an unshakable faith that the best is yet to come for her country, and for her. Next to life itself, this is the greatest gift The Stiletto’s parents could have bestowed.
The Stiletto Blog Celebrates Another Birthday
July 4, 2010 marks the start of The Stiletto Blog’s sixth publishing year (third item). In the past year, The Stiletto invited independents, conservatives and libertarians to contribute to her blog and would like to continue to serve as a forum for readers to share their perspectives on the events of the day. For her part, The Stiletto is eagerly anticipating the series of debates, caucuses and primaries that will forge one Republican candidate into a sword of hardened steel that, in the hands of voters on Election Day 2012, will be used to free us all from the tyranny of big government and crushing debt.
Editorial Note: The Stiletto invites lurkers to become regular readers and readers to become subscribers. She also hopes commenters will engage each other in spirited debate. Finally, please follow The Stiletto on Twitter and tell family, friends, neighbors and co-workers about The Stiletto Blog!
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