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Happy Fourth of July! Our nation is going through a terrible patch (thanks to a combination of deeper structural problems, a criminal idiot for a president, and the novel coronavirus), however, in the past we have been able to bounce back from these sorts of disasters, reform the constitution, and get back on track. It is the most meaningful election I can remember this year and Ferrebeekeeper will have lots to say about that as we get closer to Fall!
For today though, let’s celebrate the finer aspects of America rather than the current (Republican-caused) governmental dysfunction. Independence Day in America is traditionally marked with ornamental novelty explosions AKA fireworks. I love fireworks, but I have already said all that I can think of to say about them in past blog posts. Fireworks are one of those things which are more fun in the real world than online or in pictures. They always look like sublime sea anemones made of radiant fire to me. That is as awesome as it sounds..in the vast July nighttime sky, however pictures of such a thing would look like little black and white cnidarians. Therefore, to celebrate this rough Fourth of July, let’s look at some actual cnidarians in patriotic shades of red, white, and blue. It is true that these pictures won’t set your topiary on fire or cause your house pet to cower under the bed, yet I think if you take a moment to really look at the sea anemones, you will be struck anew with their expressive otherworldly beauty. Then you can hold this undersea pulchritude in your heart and remember it this evening as you watch rockets detonate above you.
RED
WHITE
BLUE
Wow! Those are some good-looking and patriotic invertebrates. I can barely tell whether I am on the national coral reef (?) or on the national mall in Washington. I hope you are having a lovely day relaxing with your friends and family. Get some well-deserved R&R because when we get back from summer holiday we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and clean up this ghastly mess.
It’s no good hiding. Everyone is going to have to pitch in…
Happy Fourth of July! The United States of America turns 242 years old this year (2018). People always talk about how new our nation is, but 242 is pretty venerable by any reasonable standard. When the founding fathers declared independence, France was under the Ancien Régime, China was ruled by the sixth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and the Ottoman Sultanate was a great world power. Russia was expanding under the enlightened reign of…Catherine the Great! The nascent United States had the idealistic strength of purpose to break from the forms of monarchy and autocracy which held sway around the world and to revisit the ancient, dangerous ideal of democracy–rule by the people for the people (although, admittedly, it was a pretty limited and flawed democracy in those early days…and maybe in these days too). Democracies have always turned upon themselves and blown apart, so the founders were brave/brash to mint a new one in the era of absolutism, but it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams (except maybe for Alexander Hamilton…that guy was a maniac).
I love my country for its dangerous democracy and vibrant idealism, although weighing everyone’s opinions and forging them into a consensus can sometimes be a slow and painful process. I also love America’s enlightened rule of law, its technological savvy, and, above all, its diverse population of people from all sorts of different backgrounds united by shared ideals. Lately though, we have reached a sort of crossroads where the population is fundamentally at odds over two different divergent views of America’s strength, ideals, and purpose. For the present, we are the Divided States of America: a recherche red nation of obedience, hierarchy, bravery, loyalty, & honor; and a libertine blue nation of shifting identities and ideas, ceaseless change, and unnerving new possibilities. Until one nation gains political ascendancy so overwhelming that the other side acknowledges it, the whole nation stumbles along deadlocked, incapacitated, and unable to adapt to a world where our adversaries and competitors are refining seductive new forms of autocracy (and goodness knows what else).
After World War II, the world lay in shattered ruins. The United States was at an apogee of power, victory and success. Yet America rebuilt our adversaries in the belief that prosperous powerful, happy nations would be better allies and would become amazing friends. We chose to remake the world not only with our vast power (not that we have been altogether reticent about wielding that double-edged sword) but with concepts, contracts, commerce, and compassion. Germany, Japan, and Italy are our dearest friends—esteemed equals in the great work of civilization and progress. The Pax Americana has not been a perfect success, but it has been very good to the world and very good to us. Turning our back on the world we built (and all of the advantages we built into the system for ourselves and our point of view) is rank folly. When we had everything and were the only super power, we failed to reach out to the former Soviet Union with the same big-hearted elan…and look where that got us.
We have made terrible mistakes in the past and we are making a lot of new ones lately (and revisiting some of the golden oldies which have plagued us and destroyed other great nations). Everyone talks about the “shattering of norms” (which makes me think of the drunken everyman from “Cheers” falling from his barstool and exploding into shards like peanut brittle). Reforms are inevitable and necessary if a nation wishes to stay dynamic and powerful. Some norms will have to be shattered so that these much-needed reforms can take place. The dance of reaction versus progress is so much harder in the real world than it looks on the pages of the history books though, and for the first time since the Cold War ended, I am truly afraid for America’s future. If we cannot control ourselves, our bright dreams of space colonies, next generation biotech, super AIs, and enlightened ecological conservation will vanish… so will a lot of other things we esteem and so will some very fundamental things we have always taken for granted.
I live in bluest Brooklyn, and I don’t suppose it is a mystery where my political sympathies lie. But it wasn’t always so. I am a West Virginian too, with a red heart and a (perhaps overweening?) sense of our special place in the world. This is a holiday and it isn’t time for more rancor right now, but I am going to write more about politics as the elections come up. We need to look back 242 years and forwards 242 years too (like the founders did) if we hope to get out of this serious crisis of our democracy.
The greatest Chinese political epic begins with the lines “Nations long divided must unite; nations long united must divide.” We are being tested by that adage and so far, we are failing the test. Have a happy Fourth of July! But stay ever-mindful that we have serious painful work due on our representative government. This time the heavy lifting won’t be done by heroic half-imagined people of long ago with funny clothes, muskets, fifes, paddlewheels, and telegraphs. It is up to us…you and me and all the people we care about with all of our dumb phones, anxieties, loudmouth ideas, and hare-brained schemes. We need to respect one another and strike new compromises, or government by the people for the people will perish here and the world will have to look to South Korea, Switzerland, Belgium, and India to find its paragons of liberty.
What in the hell is this supposed to be?
We are coming up on the Fourth of July, our national holiday here in America when we all get together to celebrate being American. Mostly we celebrate by blowing things up, eating fattening food, and getting drunk—but whatever…we are after all American and those activities suit our national character. Yet lately there are real troubles in the USA: everyone is always fighting with everyone else over everything. The rich and the poor apparently regard each other as separate species (most unwisely in my humble opinion, since those states, seemingly so infinitely distant are not nearly so far apart as one might suppose). Ethnic and racial groups are sorting apart and clustering together even as like-minded individuals enter into their own echo chambers on the web. Drivers hate pedestrians. Dog owners and cat owners tsk at each other (although both sorts of animals are lovely pets). And beyond everything else there is the yawning chasm down the middle—the chasm between blue and red. This widening political gulf between left and right is paralyzing our nation and leaving us all poorer—both financially and in terms of experience, friendship, and opportunities. I have been disquieted by America’s growing animosity and fractiousness and I really hope you share my unhappiness. This is bad.
What is going to happen when the latest economic bubble breaks and all of these divisions are thrown into sharp contrast as the money all sluices off to wherever it goes? I am a West Virginian who grew up In southern Ohio, Mainline Philadelphia, and Virginia. I went to college in South Chicago. I have seen red and blue America and they aren’t even that different! I feel like this tribal nastiness is being manufactured just so a bunch of narcissistic freaks can cling to power.
We are going to talk more about how to deal with this in later posts. If our country was united we could solve all of these logistical, moral, and fiscal problems which bedevil us in short order and resume building a future of beauty, meaning, and wonder. We will get there, but to celebrate the Fourth, let’s flee into a starkly different political climate: the past.
For the 4th of July I decided to peak back through the history of my congressional district, which today is arguably the most diverse in the United States (consisting of unimaginably rich burgher-paradise of Park Slope, the inner city ‘hoods of Brownsville, the vast orthodox Jewish enclaves of Midwood, and the Russian and Central Asian immigrant districts of Sheepshead Bay).
The history of the 9th Congressional District of New York was hilarious and remarkable. This congressional district has changed shape, color, and composition again and again like a cuttlefish at a rave. It has been redistricted and torn apart and pasted into so many different coalitions and coteries.
Although it has mostly been a Democratic stronghold (with some congressmen and women who became famous (or infamous)—like Chuck Schumer, Geraldine Ferraro, and Anthony Weiner), there have been a fair number of Republicans representing the 9th District too. However, if you go back far enough there were other affiliations as well: Federalists, Whigs, and more than one candidate who were simply Anti-Jacksonian or “Opposition”. All the first representatives had Dutch names!
The famous journalist Joseph Pulitzer was a congressman of the ninth district so was Thomas Bradley, a Tammany-era lawyer who died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 31. There were remarkable beards and moustaches aplenty: there were weirdoes and heroes and forgettable placeholders. The only constant was change.
We Americans aren’t just different in different regions: we change a lot not over time. If you are unhappy now, keep your chin up and keep lobbying to keep the democracy fair, civil, educated, and unbiased. Affairs will work out in the end so long as we remain democratic and bound by fair rules. History keep changing faster than you might think and mostly for the better. That trend will resume and we can start being the UNITED States of America again. We can build bridges instead of walls and canyons (which suits Brooklyn better anyway). Happy Fourth of July!
Happy Birthday to the United States of America!
In past years we have celebrated Independence Day with an historic picture gallery, possible national animals, and an essay concerning the lackluster national mascot, Uncle Sam. This year, let’s return to the basics: recreational explosives, or, as they are more commonly called “fireworks”. Blowing things up artistically in the sky has been the preferred method of celebrating this nation’s birthday since the 18th century.
Fireworks were first made in China, but today they are almost entirely manufactured in, um, China. As such, Chinese symbols and names are a big part of fireworks. This is lucky for ferrebeekeeper since snakes, poultry, bees, wasps, flowers, and badass mammals like tigers, cats, and wolves are mainstay names for mass produced fireworks.
I live in Brooklyn, and I can’t buy fireworks (much less light them off). Nevertheless the best part of fireworks is looking at the packages and fantasizing about the awesomeness which is just a spark away. Here is a gallery of firework packages which fit in Ferrebeekeeper’s topics array. Bees and birds are the best represented since not only do they fly but they are also beautiful and dazzling. I especially like the egg-laying hens which shoot exploding “eggs” out of their tail feathers. Unsurprisingly there are plenty of flowers, snakes, tigers, and hissing cats, but I was surprised to find pine trees, crowns, and octopus fireworks. Naturally outer space was featured, yet sadly there were no fireworks named for gods of the underworld (although I did find some “banshees”, which almost count).
Wow! I’m sorry we can’t wait for dusk and light these all off, but local laws prohibit that (as does the nature of reality). Enjoy the colorful exploding anemones in the sky at your local show and have a lovely weekend of feasting and drinking with your family and friends (and, for my international readers, I guess just keep savoring the world cup…your own national fireworks celebrations should be just around the corner). Fireworks remind everyone that life is brief and it isn’t safe, but it is beautiful and amazing!
Huzzah!
“Declaration of Independence” by John Trumbull
Independence Day Celebration in Centre Square, Philadelphia, a depiction of the celebrations of July 4th 1819, painted in 1819 by John Lewis Krimmel (a German-American immigrant painter active in Pennsylvania during the 1810’s.)
A Cartoon Depicting 4th of July Celebrations in 1837 (with Strong Beverages and Speechifyin’)
The Cover of Harper’s Magazine on the Fourth of July of 1865 (just after the Civil War ended)
1876 Picture of the Centennial Celebration of the Fourth of July. Beautifully engraved image titled,” The Glorious Day We Celebrate,” drawn by Thomas Worth from Harper ’s Weekly.
July 4th, 1905 in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota
Watching Fireworks on the Fourth: Coney Island, 1962
New York Harbor: Fourth of July, 1976
Army Camp Joyce Afghanistan with a historic American flag flown there on July 4th, 2007
Fireworks on the Hudson River, New York, New York, 2009
ferrebeekeeper 