Fifth of July thoughts

Each year we get a new crop of words that are really only in use for that one year. Chad? 2000. Metrosexual? 2002. Vuvuzela? 2008.

This year’s is semiquincentennial. I’m more than happy to let this one go: English is not a language where seven-syllable words sit happy on the tongue.

I was around for the bicentennial, but I was a baby and thus remember nothing. I’ll remember next to nothing for the (just going to copy and paste it) semiquincentennial because we just didn’t do anything.

No fireworks: cancelled due to thunderstorms. No outdoor activities; thumbs-downed due to the heat. No patriotic movies watched. No verses of Hail, Columbia sung. Cindy and I did eat vanilla-and-strawberry parfaits for dessert, in blue wrappers.

We made our own America-centric course in Mario Kart: New York Minute, Los Angeles Laps, Moo Moo Meadows (amber friends of grain), and Toad Harbor (with SF and a State of liberty, it’s sea and the other shining sea both at once).

But the biggest thing we did was start a TV show. About the space race, called For All Mankind. Where the Soviet Union gets to the moon first.

It’s about an America that’s feeling defeated and demoralized.

Angry, and looking for people to blame.

And the good people who, through their vision and values, are going to be more determined to do something good and valiant. It’ll require vast intelligence and vaster courage, but they can do it.

if you semiquincentennial was like mine, maybe we’re feeling similar. So you might like the show!

Nevertheless, here’s to another 250 more chances to make it right. The union can always be more perfect. And when it’s at its worst, we can make our own individual worlds the sort of places we’d like to see everywhere, and treat people the way everyone should be treated.

Oh, and happy birthday to my brother Brendan.

SUPER MARIO OF THE WEEK

Flag week!

SPIDER-MAN OF THE WEEK

PRINCESS LEIA OF THE WEEK

MICKEY MOUSE OF THE WEEK