A Rainbow Splosion for This Historic Fourth

I woke up this morning and realized: this is the first 4th of July we’re celebrating wherein same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states. I’m usually all, “Yeah, July 4th, meh, bwhatever” because crowds and noise and mindless patriotism aren’t my things, but this time, I’m all, “America, fuck yeah!” I wish it hadn’t taken the Supreme Court to make my country catch up with the other countries that’re happy to let couples marry even if they happen to have matching naughty bits, but I’m just happy we’ve got it. And the religious right tears have been so damn refreshing during this heat wave!

Of course we’ll need a rainbow fireworks display for this particular 4th!

Image shows an arch of fireworks exploding across a bay or some other sort of large body of water, carefully arranged in the colors of the rainbow.
Rainbow fireworks by Stav (CC BY-ND 2.0).

That’s deeply satisfying, not to mention beautiful!

Happy 4th of July, my fellow Americans and everyone in the world who’s like, “Hey, it’s American Independence Day! Great excuse to party! Woo!” Enjoy all that lovely marriage equality, and if you need a dose of science for the day, check out the geology of fireworks right here.

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A Rainbow Splosion for This Historic Fourth
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3 thoughts on “A Rainbow Splosion for This Historic Fourth

  1. 2

    It is?

    Maybe you could make a case for that.

    But even if so the United States of America is about so much, so very much more.

    Even this Aussie knows that.

    “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.”
    – US Declaration of Independence.

    ““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-tossed, to me:
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
    ― Emma Lazarus, ‘The New Colossus’ Statute of Liberty

    “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
    – Martin Luther King, 28th August 1963.

    ( http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm )

    “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
    – Apollo 11 plaque placed on the lunar regolith, July 20th-21st 1969.

    E pluribus unem, from many one.

    Melting pot, land of opportunity, home of the brave and land of the free.

    Cliches perhaps but true and not devoid of meaning. Not for those who do think that and work to keep it so. I’m not even American but I think these words, the events and people and aspirations and accomplishments that they note,say something, mean something. They might not be unique to the US of A* not all, not entirely, but they are powerful and echo what is best about the USA in my view anyhow. I think.

    * See similar sentiments in ‘I am you are, we are Australian’ which I feel is our true anthem among other things. A lot of the yearning and ambition and hope that is best about America is also what is best about Humanity in general.

  2. 3

    ^ See :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkrjYitgeA

    ***

    Also truth :

    “The Earth should not be cut up into hundreds of different sections, each inhabited by a self-defined segment of humanity that considers its own welfare and its own “national security” to be paramount above all other considerations. There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.”
    – Isaac Asimov, Pages 419-421, ,‘ I Asimov : A memoir’, Bantam Books, 1995.

    But not incompatible with what what I’ve said above , I think.

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