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I’d just like to point out that the previous poll about when will the oil stop flowing into the gulf, I picked THE day it stopped. New poll up.

Happy Independence Day. On this day in 1776, thirteen English colonies declared themselves to be members of the new “United States of America.” Fast-forward eleven-score-and-fourteen years. What should I say, surveying the results?

It often seems that there’s little about which to be positive, and less each day. But maybe every now and then I should make the effort anyway. Maybe I can find a reason, on the Fourth of July, and after reading something like this.

A few days ago in Cleveland, 30 people chose to become citizens of this country, having traveled here at one time or other from some pretty far-flung lands. And I just had to pause and think after reading the story of

Linas Macikenas, 43, of Lithuania, [who arrived here in] 1997. The Euclid man said he became a citizen this year, “because that was how long it took. I am excited — Depression, recession, this country is great no matter what. There’s still a lot of opportunity here.”

Y’know, he has a point. I could and on any other day would express one of countless reasons why America needs to do better, but there must be an occasional moment when it’s worth observing that there is indeed, all the same, a lot of opportunity here.

Opportunity is good. I appreciate it, America.

gray, “I’ve got it!”
Mon, Jul 3 – 4:00am 2006

Finally! I know how we can discredit the unwieldy cabal of religious fundamentalists, masters-of-irony libertarians, and Orwellian neocons currently driving the so-called Conservative Movement: we need to somehow convince Dobson and his minions to start pushing hard for a revival of alcohol prohibition. It’s not much of a stretch; fundies are often public teetotalers who keep a flask of cooking sherry in the toilet tank. If prohibition forces everybody into the life of Secret Drinking they live, they won’t feel like such sinners. Fundies hate fun and love restricting others’ rights, “libertarians” don’t care about government intrusion into their lives unless it’s of the tax or gun-control varieties, and neocons would wholeheartedly embrace prohibition just on principle (that is, because it’s unnecessary, shits disproportionately all over the lower classes, and seems “bold”)…