inconsequential roundup.

yesterday was his birthay. happy birthday!

hot. humid. freaking summer. i haven't seen the heron in a while; i wonder if it's as disaffected with 90+F heat and mosquitoes as the rest of us. the heat killed off my herb garden. bah. i was looking forward to fresh rosemary too. we need rain.

going on vacation tomorrow through monday. upstate new york to see my sister. yay vacation! although it still looks as if i'm not going to get to the beach this year.

i need more books to read.

usa today has an interesting article on their website today, containing man-on-the-street type interviews about what it means to be patriotic, or how americans express our patriotism. i am struck by the fact that the first category it opens with is "Activists/critics" and never once includes the "if you're not with us, you're against us" attitude in the whole column. unfortuantely, there's a lack of analysis to the comments. a single sentence from a professor of sociology is not going to do much to deflect anyone who wants to make an accusation of the liberal media conspiracy.

the intersting thing that often gets lost in debate is that the person who burns the stars and stripes can be just as "patriotic" as the person who plasters their house with them. the freedom of speech that is so enshrined in our constitution allows for both. if you can't have one, you can't have the other. when people say "the terrorists" hate us for our freedoms and our ideology, i have a hard time imagining a group of bearded islamists sitting around in a cave cursing the first ammendment. they don't hate us because we allow our citizens to criticize the government; they're engaged in the exact same activity. what they are are religious fanatics who want to wipe us off the planet because we do horrible things like let women drive and work and own property. and we don't allow men to beat their wives or children or hold people in involuntary domestic servitude. they're religious fanatics, and if they're going to rant about anything in the first ammendment, it will be the "no law abridging the freedom of religion" bit, not speech and the press.

i will say that i am, in fact, incredibly grateful to be living in this country, and able to take advantages of such simple things as an uncensored blog, uncoerced voting, and a life relationship with someone of another race. these are the simple choices we are defending, based on principles, if not always practises, that this country has always clung to. somehow, somewhere, the amazing concept behind the rallying cry of the revolution, "no taxation without representation," has been lost.

i do "support our troops," because i think one of the worst things you can do to someone who has already borne the physical pain of war is to reject them at home for decisions that were not theirs. if we haven't learned anything else from vietnam, we've learned not to spit on the people that were sent overseas to dodge shrapnel and hold dying children.

ok, so maybe this post didn't end up quite so full of inconsequentials :) happy independence day.