The Life in My Years

The Big Apple in Four Bites: The Third Bite – The Lady in the Harbor

Paul

September 25, 2026

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus wrote this universally recognized sonnet in 1883, as part of a fundraising effort for a pedestal to secure the Statue of Liberty. The poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and affixed to the lower level of the statue’s pedestal in 1903, sixteen years after Emma Lazarus died. If the words describe a promise not always kept, they do nevertheless, represent a noble aspiration.

Given the current state of affairs in my home country, with the welcome mat having been tossed onto the refuse heap, I knew, before she was officially added to the travel itinerary, that a visit to Lady Liberty would be unsettling. I guess I didn’t realize the degree to which it would be heartbreaking.

It’s a drizzly, gray Manhattan morning, not unlike the day when the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. From Battery Park, the peak of the soaring Freedom Tower (officially One World Trade Center) is shrouded in fog and mist. It’s not an ideal day to visit the Statue of Liberty – but here we are.

We’ve been in New York for nearly a week and during our entire visit the weather has been capricious, everything from sunny and clear to downpours and thunder storms, so rescheduling would be a gamble. Travel during the shoulder season avoids the tourist hordes but the dark cloud to the silver lining is, well, dark clouds – full of rain.

During our last trip to New York we visited Ellis Island and skipped the Statue of Liberty. This time we’re visiting the statue. If we were visiting during what I often refer to as “the before times,” (the days before MAGA) I know that I would feel a swell of pride in that iconic symbol of acceptance and commonwealth. Today, as the boat churns and tosses through the chop of New York Harbor, and the Manhattan skyline becomes an apparition behind the dreary mist, I have misgivings.

Both the sonnet and The Lady are odes to a compassionate and a just America, an America as a haven for the oppressed, the poor, and the unwanted, a place of justice, hope and new beginnings. That has too often not been the case. America has a history of both upholding its ideals and struggling with them. At various times in history, those seeking new lives in the “land of opportunity” or those “yearning to breathe free,” have been met with the “No Vacancy” sign. For some, breathing free has – both figuratively and literally – been a struggle.

During the very decade when Ms. Lazarus wrote The Great Colossus, and The Statue of Liberty was dedicated, the ideals of both the sonnet and the statue were burdened by some inconvenient ironies.

As Ms. Lazarus, a Jew, was composing The New Colossus, systemic discrimination against Jews was on the rise. As a woman, Ms. Lazarus would never enjoy the right to vote.

In 1884, a year after The New Colossus was written, and two years before the dedication of the statue, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in response to a growing, nationwide anti-Chinese sentiment. By the mid-1880s, Reconstruction had long ended, and Jim Crow was on the rise.

The Big Apple in Four Bites: The Second Bite – Eating the Apple

Paul

8 comments

September 21, 2026

What does one do when one goes to New York?

Well, one visits the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. One goes to one of the many museums and stares at paintings while stroking one’s own chin in thoughtful contemplation, while making laconic comments about the artist’s motivation (extra pretension points if the chin sports a beard). One might take in a Broadway show, any show, even if it’s horrible, just to tell the folks back home, “I saw a Broadway show, and it was extraordinary.” One could go to Times Square, see the lights, gawk at the human sideshow, and fend off the scammers and pickpockets. If one has any appreciation for sports history one must go to Yankee Stadium, preferably if the Yankees are playing.

And there’s one other thing that one must do in New York –

savor the New York specialties.

It can be as simple as a hot dog from a cart or as extravagant as a gourmet tasting menu, but eating the foods that have made New York a food destination is a must.

Before leaving for New York, we put together our own foodie list of things to eat and restaurants to visit.

The Halal Cart
“There is nothing more vital to a city and a city’s health than good street food and more of it.” ~ Anthony Bourdain

That gurgling sound filling the hotel room is our stomachs demanding attention. It’s five-ish in the afternoon and we just arrived in New York City. Our flight from San Francisco left at 6:20 this morning, so at the airport we were more interested in coffee than food. Since we flew economy, the in-flight meal was just this side of table scraps.

We’re hungry and we know just where to go.

Before taking off we decided that our first dinner would be simple and stress free and something near and dear to the Manhattanite – halal from a cart. A veritible Manhattan staple.

Halal carts dot Manhattan. Having just arrived we don’t realize that there’s a cart not one minute’s walk from our hotel, and another just three minutes walk, and another two or three within five minutes. You get the idea. They’re all over. We’ve decided to take a 15 minute walk to the five star rated Maruf Halal cart on the corner of Greenwich and Murray.

We arrive at the cart and stare goggle eyed at the menu. Just two rubes from –

San Francisco.

That’s because San Francisco is a street food backwater. Outside of a few vendors selling danger dogs outside of Oracle Park after a ball game there are very few street food options in San Francisco. Why? Maybe it’s tight assed regulations. Maybe it’s a restaurant lobby that doesn’t want the competition.

Cora and I are street food rookies.

The halal guy is drumming his fingers on the counter while we figure it out. Finally I order chicken biryani, which comes with rice. Cora orders chicken teriyaki – hold the rice. Hold the rice? The halal guy and I stare at Cora in confusion. The halal guy is trying to convince Cora to take rice (rice or not, the price is the same).

After some back and forth it’s chicken teriyaki

hold the rice.

Whatever.

For a mere $26 dollars I’ve got a heaping container of biryani goodness and a water (my son who has halal cart experience suggested getting water because the food can be salty), and Cora has a less than heaping (because, hold the rice) container of chicken teriyaki and a Fanta. And the guy threw in two samosas each!

We find a small seating area in the shadow of the towering One Trade Center, where people gather just as we have, to eat some good street food. And it doesn’t disappoint. The chicken, caramelized onions, mint, cilantro, and spices are topped with a yogurt based sauce. (The halal guy had asked if I wanted ketchup or barbecue sauce. My impulse was to say “Are you out of your fucking mind?” but I went with the more polite, “No thank you.”). The rice? It isn’t just some conveyance for the sauce. I could eat a container of just the rice.

The samosas are wonderful and I try to talk Cora out of hers (after all she went, “hold the rice,” because she didn’t want starch), but she’s decided that a little samosa starch is better than none.

All for $26 stinkin’ dollars.

We’re stuffed and we decide to take a roundabout walk back to the hotel and marvel at the lights of Manhattan. Just two rubes from San Francisco.

The Big Apple in Four Bites: The First Bite – 9/11

Paul

7 comments

September 12, 2026

An eight day trip to New York City in four posts.

Note: I hadn’t originally meant for this to be the first in the series of four, but the timing of the anniversary compelled me to change my original idea.

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum
Why are we drawn to the places that break our hearts, the sites that remind us of man’s capacity for inhumanity?

I’ve personally seen plenty, and each time I’ve felt the same sorrow and I’ve always asked the same rhetorical why. I’ve stood on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, looked down on the Sunken Road at Antietam, and wondered at the brutality at the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania. I’ve walked the battlegrounds and war torn villages of Normandy. I’ve seen the homes of the enslaved on the grounds of southern plantations. I’ve stood inside of the Schindler Factory, walked the grounds of Auschwitz in Poland, and seen the mountain of abandoned shoes in the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. I’ve touched the ebony wall of the Vietnam Memorial in the nation’s capitol. And then there’s the countless square miles of cemeteries; Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Appomattox Courthouse, Arlington, the San Francisco Presidio, and Omaha Beach.

We’ve just arrived in New York City, settled into the hotel and unpacked the immediate necessities – the phone chargers. We’d flown economy so naturally that groaning, creaking sound filling the room is our stomachs, reminding us that they would like some attention – stat.

Before we left for the trip we had already decided to check off one of our must do boxes and get dinner from one of the many halal carts that populate Manhattan. A highly rated one is about a 10 minute walk from the hotel.

Google guides us along some sidewalks and then send us across a wide park. We don’t realize where we are until we’re looking into a yawning square hole into which a perpetual waterfall is pouring on all sides.

We’re peering into the footprint of what once was a 1,362 foot tall skyscraper – the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Along all four sides of the pool there is a parapet with panels that bear the inscriptions of those who perished in the South Tower, and on Flights 175, 77, 93, and at the Pentagon.

It would seem reasonable that the names would be arranged alphabetically. But this isn’t a place to be guided by strict cold logic. The designers had a different, more meaningful approach in mind. The names on the plaques are arranged by “meaningful adjacencies,” described in the website as “where they were at the time of their death and what personal relationships they shared with other victims.”

Near the South Tower Pool stands a tree surrounded by a simple iron barrier that’s festooned with multicolored tags. It’s a Callery Pear tree and it stands on these grounds as a symbol of hope and resurgence. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum website describes the touching story of what is known as the Survivor Tree. “In October 2001, a severely damaged tree was discovered at Ground Zero, with snapped roots and burned and broken branches. The tree was removed from the rubble and placed in the care of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. After its recovery and rehabilitation, the tree was returned to the Memorial in 2010.”

Each of the colored tags carries a visitor’s personal message. After reading the inscription on a plaque that describes the tree and it’s meaning Cora finds a place to sit and cry.

Our walk to the food cart takes us through the park to the North Tower Memorial. It’s a similar pool, this one in the footprint of once was a 1,730 foot skyscraper. On 9/11, on the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower, diners at the Windows on the World restaurants in the North Tower were enjoying a beautiful blue sky.

The parapets here bear the names of the victims of the North Tower and of Flight 11.

It’s a picturebook day. The sun is beginning to set. Puffy clouds and a still powder blue sky are reflected in the surrounding steel and glass skyscrapers of Manhattan. Maybe this is the best time to be here, under a calm, comforting canopy.

The park is nearly silent. People converse in hushed tones. There’s no running, no frolicking. The only punctuating sounds come from outside the park in perpetually busy Manhattan.

We only pause briefly here. All of the emotions, from Gettysburg, Auschwitz, the Vietnam Wall, Omaha Beach, and all of those other places where sorrow washes over all else, have come back to visit. What else is there to do but look down into the void, look up at the sky and the surrounding buildings and trees and wonder why?

And recall where you were on that morning 25 years ago.

Lens-Artists Challenge #409 – Best Ever. In the point of view of the beholder

Paul

11 comments

August 18, 2026

This week’s challenge hosted by Steve is Best Ever Images. While I judge my own work, I never know if my own opinion is reflective of what others see and think, so deciding on the criteria was a challenge in itself.

My best is none too good
My first thought in selecting images was to go off of the “like” reactions that I’ve received on photos that I’ve posted on Facebook. The image that has received the most “likes” is one that I took of an alley in San Francisco’s North Beach after an overnight rain. I love the composition, and on a Facebook page it looks great, but when I look at it closely and more critically, I see that it’s hopelessly overly pixelated and, since I took it at f5.6, it totally lacks the depth of field that the scene requires. The moment is lost forever. And while I can go back to that alley after an overnight shower, the rain puddles and the clouds will never be the same. In other words, it’s the best ever as a lesson in paying as much attention to the craft as I do the scene.

So, now what?

I’m going mostly with what moves me personally . . .

People. And the idea that every picture of people tells a story.

“The man is at the window” “credit to Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider“.
I was in San Francisco’s Chinatown, as I often am, with both a camera and an appetite for dim sum. This time it was during the Lunar New Year season. I was waiting to cross the street at Stockton and Pacific when I happened to look up at an apartment window to see a man gazing out over the crowded scene, and looking like he wished it was all over so that he could get some peace and quiet – as if you ever get those in Chinatown on a Sunday during Lunar New Year.

I extended my lens all the way out to 135mm and caught the man just before he retreated back into his apartment (no time for a second chance). It was one of those rare lucky moments and it did get a fair amount of “like” reactions on social media.

A French Journey: On the French Road Part IV. Village Hopping

Paul

4 comments

August 14, 2026

An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.

It wasn’t too long ago that the idea of driving in Europe was on par with sky diving; everything is in a language I don’t understand, how do you get gas (in the usual manner?), the driving habits and traffic laws are different, maybe the roads are bad (immaculate actually, especially when compared to California roads which resemble the surface of the moon), all the cars are manual transmission (not true), and hell, maybe they drive badly (there are few places that harbor more horrible drivers than my home state of California). A lot of different ways to rationalize my cowardice.

Our first road trip was in Spain and the results were, well, mixed. No problems at all while we were on the highways. Stopping to get gas at the Spanish version of a travel center was a fun experience. The difficulties arose when we entered the villages where, for some reason, I was surprised that 12th century roads weren’t built for cars – especially cars driven by Americans who are used to roads that can accommodate the oversized and butt ugly Tesla Cybertruck (aka the swasticar).

Who but an American would think that there’s a parking lot in the center of a town that was built while Chaucer was busy writing The Canterbury Tales? After all, in America it’s not improbable that the city council of a historic town would green light the razing of 18th century history to make room for a strip mall or “affordable” housing. If Americans can be so cavalier about history, why would I expect the Spaniards to be different?

So just before we got to Caceres, a city founded by the Romans in 25 BCE, I gave the order to Google Maps, “set sail for the Plaza Major” (which was built in the 16th century). It was a harrowing journey getting there and once in the plaza, we couldn’t get out. That is until a friendly, if likely annoyed, minion of the law led us out. Later that same day I managed to put a dent and a sizable scratch in our rented Mercedes.

With our patience spent, and our stress levels and blood pressures redlining, Cora and I erupted into an argument over the idea of cutting the trip short, torching the Mercedes (or at least returning it to the nearest agency), taking the train to Barcelona and getting the hell back to the land of Hummers and broad plains of concrete.

In the end, reason prevailed, we continued the road trip and once in Barcelona dumped the car at the airport rental agency and used public transit. (The bill for repairing the Mercedes was a surprisingly low $300 dollars).

Two years later, we rented a smaller car in Vienna, and drove through Bavaria before leaving the car at the airport in Munich, and then taking advantage of public transportation. By the time we decided on a French road trip we’d learned our lessons.

Except for getting slapped with a penalty for not paying a toll levied between Paris and Normandy in a timely enough manner, driving in France was largely problem free. I wasn’t crazy about the many ways you can get hit with a speeding ticket in France (especially after having driven the Autobahn where speed is not a thing), and the “priorité à droite” (priority to the right) regulation that gives the right of way to drivers approaching an unmarked intersection from the right. PSA – before you drive in another country watch some YouTube videos.

After leaving Normandy, our stays included stops in Trebeurden, and Gouesnach in Brittany, and Tours in the Loire Valley. These were our temporary homes, bases of operations, from where we took day trips to local points of interest.

A French Journey: On the French Road Part III. Gouesnach, The Germans, and Soft Boiled Eggs.

Paul

6 comments

July 29, 2026

An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.

“Travel is not a reward for working, it’s education for living.” ~ Anthony Bourdain

We hit the first traffic of any consequence on the eastern fringes of Quimper. Quimper advertises itself as a village, but with a population of 64,000, I feel l have to call connerie (bullshit) on that description. Maybe, small city with a quaint old section that dates back to the Middle Ages would be more forthright.

The area was originally settled during the Roman era. By the late 5th century the settlement became a bishopric. Bishopric; that bring a memory from the haze of ages past. It’s a term that’s been rotting undisturbed in the deepest, dankest, cobwebbed dungeon of my mind, a thing from a college course on the Early Middle Ages and quickly banished to the catacombs of my subconscious the moment I laid my completed final exam on the professor’s desk.

Simply put a bishopric was a territory ruled under the secular and spiritual leadership of a bishop. It’s something on the current wish list of American Christian Nationalists – that is, as long as the bishop is an evangelical who has a preference for folks containing a minimum amount of melanin. But that’s for a different discussion.

Old town Quimper is on my list of places to visit, but with stops along the way from Trebeurden the drive has been long, and I’m not up for spelunking into the historic town center and navigating what is apparently rush hour traffic Maybe another time. Maybe not. One thing I’ve learned about travel, particularly in Europe, is that you can’t see everything. It’s a lesson learned from exhausting and, in the end, unsatisfying experiences.

After leaving Trebeurden we took a quick trip to revisit the Pink Granite Coast, stopping at Ploumanac’h along the way.

At the Côte de Granit Rose we passed plenty of hikers along the lightly rolling trails that wind along the shoreline. Nearly every person we encountered greeted us with a smile, a wave and a cheerful, “Bonjour.” God, I love the French.

An hour’s drive on the E-50 took us past villages and country scenes towards our next stop, Château de Kerjean. (During this drive we make a brief stop at the village of Bodilis detailed in a previous post – link here)

Party On!

Paul

5 comments

July 21, 2026

“I urge our state legislature to reconvene to redistrict another Republican seat in Memphis. It’s essential to cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America. I’ve vowed to keep Tennessee a red state.” ~ Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, on X in April of 2026.

As one can plainly tell, Marsha Blackburn is a true believer, a connoisseur of the MAGA KoolAid. For a little context, Blackburn; opposes gay marriage, opposes choice, opposes LGBTQ rights, opposed the Affordable Care Act, does not believe in climate change, compared subsidized child care for low- and middle-income families to Soviet-era communism, and is, no surprise here, an election denier. Marsha can probably turn out a great apple pie (her degree is in Home Economics), but her words and actions clearly demonstrate that she represents everything MAGA and everything that’s contrary to what America is supposed to stand for.

Blackburn made her comment in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Calais decision which essentially tossed another shovelfull of dirt on the casket of the Voting Rights Act and at the same time, set off a renewed frenzy of gerrymandering.

What is gerrymandering? According to The Brennan Center, gerrymandering is “the process of manipulating election maps in ways that favor particular outcomes — (and) has long been a problem in the United States. Now, largely due to a series of Supreme Court rulings, it’s getting worse — and more frequent.”

Traditionally, redistricting is done every ten years following the decennial census, when the election maps are redrawn so that the districts are reasonably equal in population in order to satisfy the concept of “one man, one vote.” Typically, exceptions to the ten year tradition are a result of a court ordered correction. Gerrymandering is a partisan corruption of the process.

Gerrymandering is not a new phenomenon. It’s literally as old as the American nation, going back to 1788, and the very first congressional map. Historically gerrymandering has been an odious, if, grudgingly accepted, tactic. While the electorate’s outrage over gerrymandering is real and widespread, too many politicians speak out against the process but are loathe to do anything about it. One could reasonably call gerrymandering a cold war. It seems that there’s sort of an agreement among thieves (the party leadership) that gerrymandering is baked into the process and will continue, and any grievances over egregious examples will be settled in court.

One year ago, in 2025, the cold war turned hot, when Donald Trump,Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and the Republican led Texas State Legislature hatched a plot to redraw the election map in mid-decade in order to allow for the Republicans to gain five seats in the House in the upcoming 2026 midterms. Part of the impetus was the widespread disatisfaction with Trump’s unpopular policies and his broken promises that were pointing towards a Democratic majority in the House resulting from a midterm blue wave.

Polaris

Paul

4 comments

July 19, 2026

She reclines at an angle in the mud flats off Lone Tree Point near the Rodeo Marina, from where the squawks of a pair of peacocks breach the quiet of dawn.

The Polaris was a once a proud working boat when she plied the waters of San Francisco Bay. Her story is documented in a nearly two year old Facebook thread. Given that the story is on Facebook, I can’t vouch for the veracity, but it seems reasonable.

According to the story on Facebook, a man name Jay owned the boat for 23 years. Buried in the thread is a mention of a “dinner cruise biz.” I can’t imagine taking a dinner cruise on a tugboat. Then again, I never imagined that a double dealing reality show star and convicted felon would be the President of the United States. So there you go. Apparently anything is possible.

The story goes on that the Polaris was sold by Jay to the California Maritime Academy (CMA) which is across the nearby Carquinez Strait near Vallejo. According to Jay, the Maritime Academy and the tugboat instructors “ruined her.”

The story is picked up by a man named Mike who used to work at the CMA. “Back then , seeing future problems , and spending a ton of money repairing the hull and engine , management at CMA wanted an extreme sale …. Fast. . The buyer had a very shady record . He was know (sic) as a scrapper … always looking for salvage . When he got the tug they said get out of here . So he did . And for several years he searched out free docks and shorelines. The tug was sold with over 3000 gallons of fuel . … essentially, when he ran out of fuel he beached it at Rodeo . . . The tug began to sink … it sank , and was left to the Coast Guard to arrange the removal of all the toxic water inside.”

I discovered the Polaris when I was taking my dog for a walk. I decided to go back later with my camera. I’ve been back three times now, in different kinds of weather for backgrounds.

Taken from the grounds near (on?) The Four Fools Winery

The World Cup: One Winner Amidst A Host of Losers

Paul

11 comments

July 8, 2026

It was all going so well here in fortress America, where the formerly welcome from around the globe have become undesirables. The world, at least those who could afford it, arrived for the international crown jewel of sport, the World Cup, and almost everything that was anticipated to go wrong, didn’t.

Stephen Miller, America’s very own Joseph Goebbels, has remained quiet despite the fact that so many Muslims, people of color, and other forms of the unwashed masses have entered the country and brought with them their various wonderful cultural celebrations that give the MAGA-land the heebie-jeebies. Miller and his odious wife Katie who’ve combined to become the most horrible couple in America must be secretly fuming over the wave of “barbarians” who have the effrontery to come to America and charm Americans into being accepting.

While it’s true that the Iranian team was treated horribly, at least we’ve been spared scenes of platoons of masked ICE agents roughing up fans from Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and other African nations – the ones Trump has deemed to be “shitholes.”

For Americans like me, who have been enduring eleven tedious, wretched years of Trump and MAGA, the World Cup has been a cool, calming oasis in the middle of a godforsaken, fascist desert.

And then a barely known Brazilian guy named Raphael Claus gave the first domino a little flick that started the whole row to cascade in political calamity. It was the 64th minute of the U.S.v Bosnia and Herzegovina round of 32 match, when Claus, the match referee, reached into his pocket and held a red card in front of a stunned Folarin Balogun, the U.S. striker whose clete had caught defender Tarik Muharemovic’s ankle.

From my view the defender’s ankle was bent in a disgustingly awkward fashion but the foul, according to many former players and officials, did not warrant a red card penalty, one which disqualifies the player from the remainder of the current game and the following game. What makes a red card so onerous is the fact that, for the remainder of the game the team must play one man down.

For half an hour the U.S. team hung on for dear life to win the game. It was an inspiring story of resiliance and grit. But the U.S. team would have to play the next game, against seasoned, disciplined, and highly ranked Belgium, and the Americans would be going in with a spotty record against European teams. Win or lose though, it would have all the makings for a feel good Disney movie script.

If Balogun was some bench warming nobody, everyone would have shrugged and figured, next man up. But Balogun has been the go-to scorer on a team that is relatively deficient in that department. This was the equivalent of Shohei getting thrown out in the first inning of Game 7 of the World Series, or (as actually happened) the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green getting suspended from Game 5 of the NBA Finals after getting his fourth flagrant foul.

Questionable calls are a fact of life in sports. Reactions run the gamut from harrumphs and cat calls from the bench, to mayhem (in 1983, when George Brett’s homer to put his Royals ahead of the Yankees in the 9th inning was nullified over an illegal bat, Brett went berserk, rocketed out of the Royals dugout, and came as close to an actual assault on an umpire as I’ve ever seen). In youth sports a muffed call can result in a referee getting punched by an enraged parent. And every now and then there’s the story of an aggrieved congressman, with nothing else to do but grandstand, who threatens a congressional hearing over a bad pass interference call.

But this is Trumpland. In Trumpland, the feel good Disney script gets cast into the shredder in favor of a Goodfellas kind of story. All that’s missing is Joe Pesci stuffing the referee into the trunk of a Buick.

Two Hundred and Fifty: July 2, The Declaration of Independence

Paul

9 comments

July 2, 2026

With sincere apologies to Christmas, Thanksgiving, May Day and all the other days of note, I think that Independence Day is the most important of the American holidays.

It isn’t about the fireworks (we don’t have a local display anyway), or the flags, the patriotic music, or the hotdogs and apple pie. Hold on. Let’s keep the hotdogs and apple pie (NO ketchup on the dog and an unhealthy scoop of vanilla ice cream on the pie).

They say that holidays shouldn’t just be about all the fun stuff. Like Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of Christ (for all the Christians), and Thanksgiving should include giving thanks and being charitable, and May Day all about the contributions of labor, Independence Day should include some reflection on the events of 1776, the Declaration of Independence, and what came before, and what’s happened since.

Sadly that’s a lot to ask of too many of my fellow citizens.

This year, we celebrate America’s 250th, still a babe in the international woods. To be more precise, July Fourth is the birthday of the Declaration of Independence. It was still far from being a nation. The colonists still had a war to fight against the most powerful army in the world, and after that they had a government to cobble together for it all to become really viable. And if we really want to split hairs, the birthday of the Declaration of Independence could actually fall on July 2nd, the day that Richard Henry Lee’s resolution to declare independence was approved.

The Declaration of Independence is best known for thirty-five words. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

While it all seems pretty straightforward, that sentence has been the subject of some bitter debate. Most of the controversy is over the fact that of the 56 signatories, 41 were slave owners, the most prominent being Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the document. Of the 15 who did not own slaves, the most prominent was John Adams, who would become the second U.S. President.

How could the proposition of equality be self-evident when the men who wrote and signed the document bought, sold and owned men and women as property?

That was the most asked question even as the ink on the parchment was drying.

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