Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

So very ready.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

We still have time to mess this up!

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Everybody saw this coming.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / KULCHA! / Open Thread: Happy Independence Day!

Open Thread: Happy Independence Day!

by | 73 Comments

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A clip from last year’s Boston celebration, since last night’s concert was cut short due to a thunderstorm (the Beach Boys played, the fireworks went off, but the Pops didn’t get to perform the 1812 Overture).

Hope that our North Carolina and other south-shoreline readers have all come through Arthur safely/are well out of harm’s way!

Per the NYTimes, scholars are still arguing about “the nation’s founding charter”:

… A scholar is now saying that the official transcript of the document produced by the National Archives and Records Administration contains a significant error — smack in the middle of the sentence beginning “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” no less.

The error, according to Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., concerns a period that appears right after the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the transcript, but almost certainly not, she maintains, on the badly faded parchment original.

That errant spot of ink, she believes, makes a difference, contributing to what she calls a “routine but serious misunderstanding” of the document.

The period creates the impression that the list of self-evident truths ends with the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she says. But as intended by Thomas Jefferson, she argues, what comes next is just as important: the essential role of governments — “instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” — in securing those rights.

“The logic of the sentence moves from the value of individual rights to the importance of government as a tool for protecting those rights,” Ms. Allen said. “You lose that connection when the period gets added.” …

***********
Apart from remembering that Our Nation has always been a kludge in progress (see below), what’s on the agenda for the start of the long weekend?

Reader Interactions

73Comments

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    what’s on the agenda

    FINALLY finishing up the solar food dryer. Started building it last wkend, thought I’d get it done in a day but life kept getting in the way. Also I had to scale it up as my glass was larger which meant I had to rethink everything he did and why to adapt the principle to my situation, and make sure mine would work as well..

    So I will get to dry the last 3 lbs of the blueberries I picked last Friday. I froze 15 lbs, and the wife used 2 for muffins. We use dry fruit on salads a lot, so I really wanted more than 3 lbs, but I picked on the last day available to me, so that is all I get..

    Then going to my step-daughter’s for BBQ and soccer.

  3. 3.

    Mustang Bobby

    Today is an annual 4th of July antique car show and then tonight is the kickoff of the Miami 1-Acts Festival with one of my plays on the program.

    I hope everyone is safe and dry on the East Coast where Arthur is causing trouble and that no one gets hurt setting off their fireworks, although I’m sure we’ll hear our share of stupid humans causing self-inflicted and booze-induced amputations by holding on to that cherry bomb until what they thought was the last second.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mustang Bobby:

    tonight is the kickoff of the Miami 1-Acts Festival with one of my plays

    Here’s to everything coming off splendidly. Enjoy it!

  6. 6.

    raven

    66 degrees here in Georgia, great news for the 60,000 Peachtree Runners and the rest of us here!

  7. 7.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    Family cabin has been moved to a trust. The trustees are the remaining children, and the children of the deceased children (me, my sister, and two cousins) Going up north to negotiate some ground rules…primarily, no getting trashed and fucking the place up.

    This will be grand.

  8. 8.

    raven

    If any of you are still on Facebook the Oregon Inlet Idiots page is a great way to see real time hurricane updates.

  11. 11.

    geg6

    Happy Fourth!

    Rat fucking bankroller Richard Mellon Scaife died this morning, so during the family picnic, we will be drinking many toasts to the hope that it was a miserable, painful and lonely death. And the believers among us will be relishing the thought of him burning in hell for eternity. It almost makes me wish I was a believer. Almost.

  12. 12.

    Botsplainer

    Today, I trolled my Facebook page by basically making my Declaration of Independence from Christianity.

    Every time an Evangelical or Fundamentalist organization gets it’s way about trying to enshrine its anti-woman, anti-science dogma into law, it shoves me further and further from a Christian worldview. In other words, the louder, more visible, more engaged in the public sphere that the Evangelical and Fundamentalist leadership is, the more they push people away from Christian belief by causing them to examine the central tenets of their beliefs, even those which were held without much thought or internal conflict for a lifetime.

    I now completely get precisely why Ghandi made his distinctions between liking Christ but not being real positive in his feelings about Christians – we’re not seeing any true personal sacrifice. What we do see is a lot of preening pharicaism, noisome public prayer, comforting of the comfortable and afflicting of the afflicted because in the conservative Christian mindset, the afflicted somehow deserve it.

    With all these purity crusades as society moves on, devotion to that dogma by the greater mass is extremely shallow, and prone to tapering. Churchmen and churchwomen of goodwill know that numbers are off, but regrettably, the would-be Savonarolas and Cromwells are the loudest voices and drown them out by insisting that their beliefs, however wrong as to basic verifiable science, trump all.

    CS Lewis tried to warn about the effects of loud expressions of faith three quarters of a century ago, but I guess that he was a dirty hippy commie librul, or something.

    It is truly a shame. I count some outstanding Christian leaders, male and female alike, among my own family. The Christian faith expressed by and through my own tradition is gentler, even though both patriarchal and hierarchical (probably due to it having to labor under so many antithetical occupations – the culture is more prone to leading by example). My parish priest is a kind, wonderful, devoted servant of a Christ worthy of being followed and worshipped.

    The Christ of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists? Not so much – that one is all spittle-flecked bile, and zero sacrifice. Cheap mercy, cheap grace, and oppression for personal aggrandizement and gain follow. My perception of much of what pops out from the utter hypocrisy is summarized best thusly (and really describes the attitude of a lot of white Christians in the pre-Civil Rights Act era):
    “Jesus forgives me for treating you badly. Why can’t you forgive me for treating you badly? Are you some sort of anti-Christian anti-American?”

    You want the numbers of devoted adherents to stop evaporating? Here are some suggestions, none of which will be followed:

    1. Be quiet, and lead by example with your peaceful outward demeanor. This does not include using Jesus-y code words in everyday speech (“have a blessed day” tingles my spine in a genuinely grating way, and I know EXACTLY what that’s about, so stop it). Just be pleasant, even tempered, kind, fair and generous, and people will want to follow your lead.

    2. No, I don’t want to have a conversation with you about the relationship you share with your personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, unless I ask you about it, and please be aware of social cues as to how much information is really being requested. Likewise, I don’t want to go to worship with you at your church unless I’ve expressed an interest that didn’t come about as the result of badgering from you. I may have my own congregation, I may be politely disinterested, I may not believe at all or I may be a minion of the antichrist, but if somebody doesn’t want to go, your desperate plea for affirmation of your own faith isn’t going anywhere.

    3. Try being more forgiving of those who you think of as falling short in society at large than you would of those in your own congregation. If you are to remain somewhat consistent, you should expect as much because they’re not part of your fold.

    4. This is a big one – quit insisting making pharisaically loud public prayers in group settings, like football games. It’s stupid, and most of the crowd quietly thinks it a pathetic joke, but is too polite to waste the energy to object.

    5. Another big one – quit saying that you’re being persecuted when people object to your use of publicly funded megaphones to proselytize. Expecting people to politely refrain from using resources from differently believing neighbors to propagandize in favor of faith isn’t persecution.

    6. Shouting “wish me a Merry Christmas, goddammit” to the minimum wage store clerk who committed the sin of wishing you “Happy Holidays” isn’t an instance of you engaging in a full throated defense of your faith. It’s called being a jerk. Stop it.

    7. “Sorry I did that” isn’t enough. You screw somebody, own up to it and make it right. Have empathy and understand the ripples and broader effects of your ill actions, avoiding defensiveness. If an entire group has been systematically oppressed across many generations of bad acts, endeavor to understand the effect on them, the benefit you may enjoy even if you had nothing to do with it, and attempt to make things better for the previously oppressed group in word, deed and the way you relate.

    8. Respect all people, male and female alike. Recognize that they all have agency, and realize that their consensual sexual expressions really aren’t yours to judge or stop, because they aren’t affecting you in any objective way.

    Flame away. This has been bugging me a long while, and I’m happy to get it off my chest. It’s just when I see idiocy like this Wheaton College decision (which is even more Dred Scott stupid than Hobby Lobby for reasons that I’ll have to explain another time), I have to speak.

  13. 13.

    Iowa Old Lady

    We’re driving to Chicagoland to visit our son and DIL.

    Happy fourth to all.

  14. 14.

    Botsplainer

    My other troll, also referencing Wheaton:

    Christian corporate employers need to just make the purchase of contraceptives by an employee a firing offense. Each employee could be required to sign a HIPAA release and provide an updated list of medical providers monthly; prescriptions for contraceptives can be identified and the miscreants dealt with.

    No sneaking to Planned Parenthood, either. I’m sure there’s money to be made by some Christian Conservative businessman activist who could hire homeschooled web designers to build a site and database which would be a subscription-based clearinghouse for data gathered by pickets and cameras outside Planned Parenthood clinics, so no woman shall remain unshamed.

  15. 15.

    lamh36

    I’ll be in dreamland. I’m leaving work soon from a 12hr overnight shift and I have to be back tonight for a final one. I swear I’m not doing another one. I’ve filled in for the last 2 overnight shifts cause my boss figured the other new girl wasn’t ready (my years of experience meant he felt I needed less time to work overnights). Well no more. I HAT OVERNIGHT SHIFTS. Once I finished college the 2nd time I promised I’d never work night shift ever again unless I have to.

    So ill do ti one last time tonight instead of seeing Prince play at Essence Fest at the Dome (3 blocks from where I work I might add! !!)

  16. 16.

    gene108

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Mandating children work, rather than go to school is a sure fire way to create a never ending cycle of poverty. I cannot believe Bolivia is that stupid, as not to understand good education, especially for girls, is one of the things needed to break cycles of poverty.

  17. 17.

    Wally Ballou

    Delicious potato salad will be in the offing here today, and won’t even require a Kickstarter project.

    Our town fireworks were last night, which is just as well because I’ll be watching the Tigers tonight. Have a happy Fourth, everyone!

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    Boston-area folks should get themselves to the MFA sometime soon and see the copy of the Magna Carta they have on loan. Very cool, especially since it’s on display with a couple of manuscript copies of the Declaration of Independence (one written out by Jefferson and one by Adams) and an early draft copy of the Constitution, complete with marginal annotations (‘good’, ‘keep’, etc.) from one Mr. Gerry, of gerrymandering fame.

  26. 26.

    Just One More Canuck

    @geg6: one of my favourite books is Solomon Gursky Was Here (mordecai richler). One of the main characters is on his deathbed after a life of clawing and scratching ans screwing people over, and he says to his wife “if God exists, I’m fucked”

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @gene108: The law is being pushed by the .01%. I know you are shocked, SHOCKED! by that fact, but it is true.

  29. 29.

    Wally Ballou

    @Mustang Bobby: I believe tonight’s game is on ESPN, actually. Smyly will be facing a guy named Cobb, and I’m not quite sure how to feel about that.

  30. 30.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Botsplainer:

    I’m sure there’s money to be made by some Christian Conservative businessman activist who could hire homeschooled web designers to build a site and database which would be a subscription-based clearinghouse for data gathered by pickets and cameras outside Planned Parenthood clinics, so no woman shall remain unshamed.

    They did that, years ago. Sally Jessy Rafael was still on television, and she engineered a confrontation between a couple who were using the medical center for prenatal care and the guy behind a vicious mass mailing. His organization took down license plates and somehow got the registration information.

    His screed accusing the patrons of the center of murdering their babies showed up in the couple’s mailbox shortly after she had a miscarriage.

  32. 32.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: You are correct. We’ve still got a shot at being what we want to be as a nation.

    We have the almost unique benefit of starting right, and sometimes getting it right, so let’s hope we have a sturdy enough foundation for the current madness to run its course.

    Evil always runs out of steam. Because it’s very nature is degenerative, not generative.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @WereBear:

    We are always only one election away from moving in a positive direction, although some people will complain even then that we’re not moving fast enough.

  36. 36.

    tsquared2001

    “The logic of the sentence moves from the value of individual rights to the importance of government as a tool for protecting those rights,” Ms. Allen said. “You lose that connection when the period gets added

    Trust Grammarians to be endorsing what I thought everybody understood about the American experiment

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    @geg6:

    There are not that many people where you see their obit and think “Good!” and smile.

    Richard Mellon Scaife was one.

    Better he had been born a pauper. Ugly man.

    But that gets MY fourth off to a capital start!

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: Or as Churchill once said, “Americans always do the right thing, but only after they have tried everything else first.”

  42. 42.

    Chris

    @Botsplainer:

    Every time an Evangelical or Fundamentalist organization gets it’s way about trying to enshrine its anti-woman, anti-science dogma into law, it shoves me further and further from a Christian worldview.

    This is exactly me, and I was raised Catholic and stuck to it for quite a while, but it’s really, really started to grate the last few years due to a combination of the bishops’ behavior, and congregations increasingly saturated with right wing bullshit. The child rape apologetics were the straw that broke the camel’s back; when I moved from DC to Miami, I basically went on hiatus for half a year. I gave it a shot again during the following year but found all the same problems, if anything, louder than they’d been back in DC. At this point, I’m basically out of the game.

    Shit, I’ll go one further than your Gandhi reference and say that in the same way 1%er behavior in the last five years has made me far more understanding of and sympathetic towards my ancestors in the French Revolution, so has the bishops’ behavior.

    You want the numbers of devoted adherents to stop evaporating? Here are some suggestions, none of which will be followed:

    Ah, but you’re missing the point. They WANT us to leave. If we’re not with them, we’re against them (“cultural Christian” is the term most often used), and they don’t want tribe-traitors contaminating their nice pure church. They want to be the few, the proud, the elect. The Pure. The Chosen. People like us aren’t wanted.

    I’d add an especially loud cheer to your # 2 suggestion. The scene from Airplane with the pilot beating the shit out of all the Bible salesmen might just be one of my top ten movie moments of all time.

  44. 44.

    Chris

    @geg6:

    “He’s now in a better world, and so are all of us.”

    “I have never wished anyone dead, but I have read many an obituary with great pleasure.”

    “I did not attend the funeral, but I sent some nice flowers and a note saying that I approved of it.”

  45. 45.

    Botsplainer

    @WereBear:

    It’s how modern conservative Christianity waves off criticism of overabundant hypocrisy.

    You’ve actually seen this in the “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” line of tshirt and internet slogans. I just distilled it to purer essence.

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Wally Ballou: My wife grew up in Franco’s Spain. She can tell you that Franco built the model for what conservatives want America to be.

  47. 47.

    tsquared2001

    @Chris: Have you ever said something (sometimes anything) and the person you are talking to says – you must be Catholic?

    Or is that just me?

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    Arthur’s effect has been minimal here in NoVa so far. Actually positive: it’s 68° now, going up only to 81° later today. Overcast now, maybe some rain later. Not bad at all for July. Back up to around 96° on Monday. Ugh.

  50. 50.

    WereBear

    @Chris: And supposedly said at the funeral of Jack Warner:

    “It just goes to show that you give people what they want and they will stand in line for it.”

  52. 52.

    tsquared2001

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not so much that (although I am one of five) but more like when a kinda sorta ethical question comes up and you give your thoughts? And then you are unmasked as a Catholic

    It happens to me a lot.

  53. 53.

    tsquared2001

    @Chris: No. In real life. I have had co workers go “well, that’s very Catholic of you”.

    Fucking crazy talk.

  54. 54.

    Botsplainer

    @Chris:

    I’d add an especially loud cheer to your # 2 suggestion. The scene from Airplane with the pilot beating the shit out of all the Bible salesmen might just be one of my top ten movie moments of all time.

    My nonpracticing Jewish secretary and I share a shameful desire – that one day, one of us will respond to “have a blessed day” by saying “fuck you, too, you asswipe”.

    My youngest daughter recently told me that the thing she appreciated most about being raised in the Antiochian Orthodox Church (Greek Orthodox for Syrians and Lebanese, basically), the notion that we don’t proselytize or flex political muscle in North America.

    That will probably change, but the environment was really nice at the time.

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    Somehow I have gotten caught up on all Balloon Juice threads, and now I’m sitting here mashing Refresh with nothing to read. Oh, dear. I feel like Little Boots in the middle of the night.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    @Steeplejack:

    Hello Steeplejack. Sitting out on the deck with a mug of joe and appreciating this cool, breezy weather.

    Hello, Arthur!

    If you’re really channeling Little Boots, you need to put up a music link.

    PS: watched local fireworks last night. We were all oohing and aahing like the animals in Babe.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: That’s been happening to me a lot lately with BJ, there doesn’t seem to be as much going on. I hope it’s just a short lull and that BJ will be back in full swing soon.

    I wonder if it’s just coincidence or if there were an enormous number of DougJ followers who just disappeared when he left.

  58. 58.

    WereBear

    Not looking forward to “the booms” for our cats’ sake…we are only two blocks from the firing point.

    We usually stand out on the lawn and watch, but this year we have a new kitten so we need to hang in the house and reassure.

  59. 59.

    WereBear

    @WaterGirl: We also have threads that hang on and on before a new one pops up. Though I don’t know why that would deter anyone, with John’s Everything-Plus-Mustard OT policy.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    @Chris:

    “He’s now in a better world, and so are all of us.”

    *snort*

    Got my doubts about the first, but A-effing men to the second.

  61. 61.

    SFAW

    @Steeplejack:

    Somehow I have gotten caught up on all Balloon Juice threads, and now I’m sitting here mashing Refresh with nothing to read.

    You could buy about 50 boxes of toothpicks, and count them to make sure the manufacturer didn’t short them, i.e., only 499 in a 500-count box. (h/t Joe Martin)

    Because that’s about as good a use of time as getting caught up on BJ threads.

  62. 62.

    SFAW

    @WaterGirl:

    an enormous number of DougJ followers sockpuppets who just disappeared when he left.

    Sorry to break the news to you this way. I thought everyone knew that most of the commenters were/was just DougJ trolling.

  63. 63.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Elizabelle: Throughly approve of the sentiment, and I bet Hillary is probably secretly happy as well this Fourth. I mean, outliving your enemies has to be good for something.

    Busy fourth-haircut (eventually) a little cooking, and maybe some couch surfing. (And there’s a parade somewhere in there)

  64. 64.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Elizabelle: Throughly approve of the sentiment, and I bet Hillary is probably secretly happy as well this Fourth. I mean, outliving your enemies has to be good for something.

    Busy fourth-haircut (eventually) a little cooking, and maybe some couch surfing. (And there’s a parade somewhere in there)

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @tsquared2001: I lost my Catholicism when I had it beaten out of me by Sister Kathleen in 5th and 6th grades. Over the 40 years hence, I have pretty much rejected every Catholic… belief? Now that you mention it tho, it is surprising that it does not happen to me as it does to you. It is nice to pretend I can remove the Catholic from me, but when it is ingrained into your every waking moment day after day over the first decade of one’s life, it is really impossible to erase the influence entirely.

    Something to think about.

  67. 67.

    Walker

    We drove through Arthur last night to get to the family in Wilmington. It was fairly mild as hurricanes go.

  68. 68.

    J R in WV

    Here in SouthWest West Virginia, the sun in shining, the birds are going crazy,, and I am about to make cornmeal pancakes with blueberries and Real Maple Syrup!

    The high today is forecast to be in the mid-70s, and we’re going to a neighbor’s farm for a picnic, a reunion picnic, as most of her nephews are coming down from Pittsburgh. They grew up on her farm, and we knew them as tiny yard apes. Now they’re all grown up, with tats and (one of ’em anyways) goth apparel. Probably not today, even at mid-70s all black in teh sunshine would be HOT.

    I got a bunch of tiny purple and red potatoes to make olive oil and vinegar potato salad, and we have a couple of burgers to take to grill. And Sierra Nevada beer in cans to keep on ice. I suspect there may be fireworks come dark, as the boys (all in their 30s now) come right past some bodacious fireworks stands.

    My physical therapy exercises for the injuries I suffered in the F-350 roll-over are going well. BUT yesterday we finally got to one stretch that hurts some! so today I’m pretty sore, so far. Perhaps will take a pain pill before starting the salad. Maybe will do all the other exercises and see if they help the pain from the new exercise?!?

    Going to be a nice day, regardless.

    And now it’s BLUEBERRY PANCAKE FRYING TIME – HOORAY!

    Happy Forth of July, everybody!

  70. 70.

    Woodrowfan

    As much as I love “1776” they really did jerk the history around. Cesar Rodney was in Delaware for business, not to die. He died years later. And John Dickinson wasn’t that big of a jerk. He did refuse to sign the Declaration, but he did sign the US Constitution and he was the only founder to free his slaves during the Revolution.

  72. 72.

    Steeplejack

    I’m thinking about rolling out to Micro Center to pick up a few things, and I’m looking for a recommendation on a new mouse.

    The one that just died is a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500, which I like all right. I also have a 4000, which I like because of the bigger size but don’t use because the wheel is “smooth.” On the 3500 the wheel rotates in small, clicky increments, which, in combination with the Alt key, is a great way to do microscrolling in various applications. Can’t do that with the “slippery” wheel action on the 4000.

    What I would really like is a clicky-wheel version of the 4000 (wired or wireless). I like the bigger size but gotta have that clicky wheel action. Any recommendations?

    Note: I’m not a big gamer and don’t have any tendencies toward carpal-tunnel syndrome or wrist fatigue, so I don’t have any exotic needs.

  73. 73.

    J R in WV

    Wow!

    Blueberries evolved to die splendidly in hot pancakes. I use a Joy of Cooking cornmeal pancake recipe, have for years, and it makes a divine crispy pancake, light and fluffie and the berries just make it so healthy feeling and tasty.

    What a great start to a great day.

    When I was a kid, all my aunts and uncles lived nearby, and I had a slew of cousins my age. On the 4th of July we had a family picnic, with the whole shebang, 3 or 4 flavors of deviled eggs, hotdogs burgers, swimming, the works. Since the swimming hole was really small, no one invoked the 30 minutes after eating rule. In fact some of the cousins would put their plate by the edge and eat between submerged laps.

    The only rescue we ever needed was when a guest’s little kid walked off the edge backwards. He was holding his riding pony broomstick, and my uncle walked over to the corner where he went under, and when the stick he was holding came back out of the water, he pulled on it gently til the little boy, maybe 4, surfaced, then he picked him up out of the water. No one made a fuss, and he didn’t even cry.

    Those were the days! We’re giong to recreate them today!

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