The great thing about America's birthday is the celebrations that go along with it. This was my first time celebrating the Fourth of July in our Nation's Capital and it was an amazing time.
After the adventure that was Inauguration, I was a little apprehensive about heading downtown for anything even resembling a large gathering in town. Tonight there was a large crowd, but happily the Fourth of July was a lot more laid back crowd.
Now I present a few highlights from the National Mall. The fireworks were all fired off from behind the Washington Monument, so the nation's largest (ahem) erection figures prominently in the photos.
Enjoy...
Fair warning: I have no idea what the red lights at the top of the Washington Monument are all about, but they do remind me of the Eye of Sauron. IMHO: this illustrates the superiority of actual evil overlords. Sauron only needed one evil red eye to watch the movements of his friends and foes...
Sorry for the interruption. On to the pictures...
It does look like a strange cross between Return of the King with and air force and V for Vendetta, doesn't it? Just sayin'
And finally, here is a video:
To top all of this off, I went out to a little place called the Irish Channel near Gallery Place. Some fellow was playing acoustic in the corner and doing a great job. By and by, a group of college age people rolled in and asked the guitarist to play the Star Spangled Banner. To my surprise, they proceeded to sing along. Despite our drunkenness, they managed to get all of the words correct and show their sincere love of this country. One fellow was wearing his Obama/Biden campaign t-shirt, so we had a pretty idea which side of the ideological fence they were on, but it was inspiring nonetheless. They turned out to be really cool people and I ended up making some new friends tonight.
To me, this is what this country is all about. For one day, we can set aside our differences and accept that we are all Americans. We will be back to sniping at each other over our petty policy and party differences in the morning. Regardless, we are all Americans when it comes right down to it. We have put petty partisan differences aside and stood as one before and we will do it again if need be...Glenn Beck and his secession loving treasonous buddies be damned.
Happy 233rd Birthday America. We Democrats promise to help you recover from the last eight years and make you even better in the next eight or more.