Tag Archives: Fourth of July

national news

Happy birthday, America!

Today we wish our country a happy birthday. 250 of them have come and gone since the wise men who founded the nation gathered to sign the Declaration of Independence from the English Crown.

The declaration in fact was a long list of grievances the Colonies had against the Crown. Thus, the nation was formed by an act of dissent from the edicts of another nation that governed us. And yet … we now hear from the current American government that dissent is an act of treason, that it’s not right to disagree with the pronouncements from the nation’s capital. Such a belief is totally counter to what the founders believed. Indeed, they produced a government with a tenet that declares that dissent is the most democratic and patriotic thing we can do as Americans.

The folks in DC have it wrong. The founders 250 years ago had it right when they declared that we were “endowed by our Creator” with rights that could not be abridged and trifled with. They included the rights to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Well, I am one American patriot has lived a good life, I am liberated to the max and I am still pursuing happiness.

But I continue that pursuit against the current of rhetoric that comes from D.C. It comes from our current president, a man I happen to detest even though I accept with no sense of pleasure that he was elected duly in the latest presidential election.

I don’t want to make this brief salute to our nation about our current troubles. They’re going to work themselves out in fairly short order when vote for the next Congress in two years after that when we vote for president and yet another Congress.

The founders got it right when they built a governmental framework around a Constitution that was built to withstand the challenges if faces. They didn’t get it right. Indeed, the founders knew that perfection was impossible, as they wrote they were seeking a “more perfect Union.” We’ll continue that struggle through all the troubles we encounter.

They ended up with a pretty damn good piece of work. Happy birthday, America.

Donald Trump

Will he get this one right?

Sometime before the weekend expires, Americans likely can expect to hear from Donald J. Trump, who will speak ostensibly about the holiday we are celebrating.

Yep. We’re going to blast firecrackers, fire up the grill, salute the flag and cheer the nation’s 250th birthday. It’s a big deal, one that usually requires a red, white and blue statement from the president of the United States.

Oh, but wait! The POTUS this year is a numbskull who’s engulfed in scandal, caught up battles lost long ago, and who is presiding angrily over a nation that is growing increasingly disgusted with the man we elected to lead us.

Furthermore, we have seen what this individual can do to moments such as this. Do you recall how he defamed Christians’ most holy day over Easter with a tirade against his political enemies. He has done the same thing with Christmas, not to mention secular holidays such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, Patriots Day. You name it, Trump has cheapened it with shallow political rhetoric.

I hope against hope that he could rise to the occasion this time. After all, it’s the 250th year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That is a huge deal, man.

I am going to hope he doesn’t mess it up. That’s all I can do is hope. I don’t expect anything different from a president who hardly gives these matters a moment’s thought.,

national news

We’re still an immigrant nation

Americans lit the first birthday candle on their national cake 249 years ago when they declared their independence from the British monarchy.

We went to war to secure that independence and by 1789, the Constitution was completed. It was a flawed document that has needed some amendments along the way to create a “more perfect Union.”

A central tenet has remained. We were a nation created by people who fled other countries, came here in search of opportunity and the “pursuit of happiness.” That mission is underway at this very minute.

Let us never forget that essential truth about the United States of America. We were built by immigrants. Our nation has continued to thrive and prosper largely because of immigrants who came along later.

I am the direct descendant of immigrants. They came here from southern Greece and from Turkey. They did it legally. They had all the documentation required of them. They settled eventually in Portland, Ore. My grandparents all were proud Americans. They chose to live here. They weren’t blessed with being born here. One of my grandfathers, my Papou George, enlisted in the U.S. Army because he wanted to fight for his new country in World War I. They all came here in search of a good life … and they found it.

I understand and accept the current administration’s desire to crack down on illegal immigration. What I cannot accept is the brutish tactics being used to separate families, to deport individuals who have committed no crimes. I cannot accept the description being muttered out loud that immigrants in general have soiled our national identity.

All of this is fundamentlly ani-American. It goes against the very principles our founders used to create what would become the greatest nation on Earth.

Let us never forget — and may we always honor — our national history of welcoming immigrants to our land. Our immigrant heritage clearly is worth celebrating as we honor the birth of the world’s most indispensable nation.

local news

Birthday parties: a serious blast

I love birthday parties. They commemorate another year around the sun for those of us able to enjoy the ride.

Moreover, I also enjoy national parties, such as the one the USA is celebrating today as it turns 247 years young. Yes, we’re still a young nation, given the comparative ages of many nations with which we share this good planet Earth. I have had the pleasure of visiting countries in Asia and Europe, where they count their ages in millennia, not mere years.

This Fourth of July will be a quiet one for my family and me. We are still mending our shattered hearts. My wife left us in February after a brief, but ferocious, fight with cancer. My sons are hurting, as is my daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

I will return eventually to celebrating our national birthday. Just not this year.

The Fourth of July is intended to celebrate a great nation. It has always been great, even with its occasional dents and dings and, yes some hideous policies that have been sent to the crapper.

I look forward to enjoying the birthday party once again.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Oh, how she loved this land

The lady you see in this picture passed away 45 years ago on this very day; therefore, I want to take this opportunity to salute her while honoring the birth of the nation she loved with all her heart.

She was my maternal grandmother. Her given name was Diamondoula Panesoy. She married my grandfather after being betrothed to him for many years. This intrepid Greek woman made a harrowing journey from Marmara, Turkey, to the United States, boarded a train from New York City to Portland, Ore., and got married.

They produced three children, one of whom was my mother. The kids you see in this picture with our Yiayia are my sisters and me.

She chose to become an American, which to my way of thinking makes her an exceptional citizen of this great land. Yiayia — which is Greek for grandma — would repeatedly brush off suggestions that she return to “the old country” to visit, to see her “homeland.” She would answer, “But I am ‘home,’ where I belong.”

She never looked back once she left southeastern Europe.

Yiayia died on July 4, 1978. She had been battling many illnesses. My late wife, Kathy Anne, quipped not long after Yiayia’s passing that “She chose to die on this date just to make sure you would remember.”

Yiayia was without question a most memorable individual. Everyone knew her as “Yiayia.” That included the kids in her Southeast Portland neighborhood, the kids’ parents, the mailman, the milkman, the guys who picked up her trash, the clerks at the grocery store where Kathy Anne and I would take her on occasion.

Above all, she was a dedicated American citizen. She worshiped FDR and JFK. She always remembered to vote. As one of my uncles once noted, she probably was a closet socialist. She believed that government should help every American.

She made our nation better simply by being among its taxpaying, voting, red-blooded American citizens. Yiayia strengthened this strong land by loving it openly and without a hint of reservation.

So … this is my way of offering a heartfelt birthday wish to a great land, which opened its doors to a woman who — in my view — would become one of its greatest Americans.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Happy birthday, USA!

I am a flag-waving patriot, for which I make no apology. Indeed, it seems odd that I even feel the need to offer that ridiculous qualifier, but I do feel compelled to say as much.

Old Glory flies over the front porch of my Princeton, Texas home. It comes down if the weather threatens to get too windy; I don’t want the wind to rip the flag off the holder my son bolted into the brick and mortar for my wife and me.

Where am I going with this? The nation celebrates its 247th birthday on Tuesday. So-called phony patriots have been in the news over the past recent years, proclaiming themselves to love our country while standing under the Stars and Bars banner, the symbol of the Confederate States of America, the organization that declared war against the government in 1861.

Enough about them.

I stand by my flag and my nation because I was taught, primarily by my father, to honor the country and to serve the country if it calls your name. Dad served his nation with honor and heroism when, on Dec. 7, 1941, we were attacked by a foreign power. He enlisted that day in the Navy and in about a month was on his way into the fight of his life — and the fight of the nation’s life.

A generation later, my country called on me to don the uniform. I joined the Army and served with far less heroism than Dad did. However, the lessons I learned as a boy carried me through a couple years of active duty, including a stint in Vietnam.

I grew weary long ago of the faux patriotism of those who literally wrap themselves in the flag of our great nation. Our pride in our country isn’t about a piece of cloth. It is about the principles on which the founders created the nation.

They founded a nation on one principle in particular, which is the freedom to dissent, to protest government policy. We do so peacefully — most of the time! I am OK with that. Hell, I have protested my government’s policy at times myself.

It doesn’t make me love my country any less. It makes me love it even more. It also enables me to wish my country a heartfelt happy birthday as it approaches one more Independence Day.

Happy birthday, America. I love you more than I can express.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Hoping for a quiet Fourth

We live in a North Texas city that prohibits fireworks from being detonated within the city limits.

Indeed, Princeton City Hall has made an extra effort this year to get the word out that the Fourth of July celebration must not include fireworks within the city’s corporate boundary.

So, here comes the question: How does the Princeton Police Department enforce that rule? 

Independence Day is coming. Am I expecting a sleepless night listening to fireworks exploding all over the damn place? Yes, I fear that will happen. It will occur because the Princeton PD is unable to arrest or cite every single violator out there.

Which I guess brings me to the point of wondering why have an ordinance that cities cannot enforce effectively?

I know that Princeton isn’t the only city in America that has such a rule on the books. Indeed, I suspect most cities have them, which means that fireworks celebrations are limited to unincorporated areas way out in the country.

In our part of the world, the country isn’t so far away. Still, I am going to lament what I expect will happen in our neighborhood that sits in the middle of a growing city in Collin County, Texas. We’re going to hear bombs bursting in air and watching the rockets’ red glare.

The last time I posted something complaining about the noise associated with these celebrations, I got called out for being a sorehead. Well, I guess I’ll have to expect it once again by wishing there was a way for our PD to enforce a citywide rule.

Still, I want to wish the United States of America a happy Fourth of July birthday. I’m going to do so quietly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 85: He’s gotten jumpy

Toby the Puppy has gotten jumpy, but we think we know the source of his newfound skittishness.

It’s not a worry. Indeed, I get a bit spooked at the very thing that seems to have gotten under Toby’s skin.

It’s the sound of thunder. He no longer likes it. In fact, the sound of it sends our puppy scampering for a bed under which he can curl up.

Toby is now a little more than 6 years old. He’s been through a lot of thunderstorms in his life. He has exhibited little regard to the sound of the thunder … until now.

For that matter, we have discovered he has an acute dislike of the sound of fireworks. The bombs and rockets we ignite on New Year’s Eve or the Fourth of July send him into a state of near panic.

But we think we know where he acquired the unsettled behavior.

We attended a fireworks display on the Fourth of July, 2019. We were gathered along a lake in Northeast Texas, with many dozens of other fine folks. We were very close to the launching site for the rockets.

They were loud. As in really loud. Toby the Puppy heard all of that and, shall we say … he didn’t like it one single bit.

His Mommy — aka my wife — took him away from the blast zone, seeking to shield him from the din. It didn’t work.

Toby hasn’t been the same since.

He isn’t traumatized. Of that I am certain. He is an extremely well-adjusted and adaptable puppy. He travels better than any human being I’ve ever seen, with the possible exception of my late mother-in-law. Toby is a road warrior, as was my wife’s mother.

However, we have discovered a weak spot in his emotional armor. It’s the loud booming sounds, be they artificial fireworks or the sound and fury created by Mother Nature herself.

Despite all that, Toby the Puppy is practically perfect.

national news

Dear America: Happy birthday … hoping for a brighter day

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Dear America … on behalf of millions of others just like me I want to offer an apology.

I am sorry that the president of the United States couldn’t bring himself to say something worthy of the birthday you just celebrated.

Donald Trump stood before Mount Rushmore and then stood on the South Lawn of the White House and delivered two unforgettable speeches. We won’t remember them for the soaring rhetoric they should have contained. We will remember them for the raw anger, the division, the rage they planted.

This isn’t the way presidents usually commemorate your founding, but you knew that already. Presidents most commonly speak to our better angels, appealing to our sense of commonality, our quest to create a “more perfect Union.”

The Donald didn’t do that. He talked about angry mobs, the taking down of statues that “honor” traitors to the nation, generals who fought to overthrow the United States of America. He said those statues are part of “our history.” You bet they are. It is a history full of hate, of oppression, of enslavement of human beings. Donald Trump wants to preserve those monuments, keep them standing in public places. He is angry at those of us — fellow citizens — who protest them.

So he talked at length about that and about made-up assertions of the motives behind the demonstrations we have seen.

I am sorry he didn’t mention except in passing the pandemic that has afflicted so many thousands of American families. It has caused untold grief and misery. It has placed insurmountable burdens on heroic medical personnel. These Americans deserve our eternal gratitude but Trump didn’t see fit to offer it to them.

So, please accept my belated birthday wish along with this sincere hope for you, the nation I love with all my heart and the nation for which I went to war.

My hope is that we can deliver you a gift worthy of all that you represent. It would come in the form of a new president who is able to speak openly to our sense of decency and to, as Joe Biden has said, “restore our soul.”

America, I am forever grateful to have been born in this land. I pledge to do all I can to deliver this gift that you so richly deserve.

Here’s hoping for brighter days ahead.

national news

Immigrants, yes; also American patriots

The picture attached to this blog post is of three of my grandparents.

The woman on the left is my father’s mother, Katina; the gentleman is my mother’s father, George; the other woman is Mom’s mother, Diamondoula. I don’t know who snapped this photo; perhaps it was Dad’s father, John.

What do they have in common? For starters, they were immigrants. They came to this country from southeastern Europe. Dad’s parents came from southern Greece, while Mom’s parents came here from Turkey. They all were Greeks and proud of their heritage.

They had something else in common. They all loved the United States of America.

I want to honor them today to remind you about an immutable fact of this country: The U.S. of A. was built by immigrants. Whether they came her voluntarily, as my grandparents did, or were rounded up and transported here aboard slave ships, they all built this nation.

My grandparents were the proudest Americans you ever would want to know.

Dad’s parents brought seven children into the world, four of whom served in the military. Dad served in the Navy during World War II; one of his brothers fought for the Army during the Korean War, while his other brother saw Army duty in Europe between the Korean and Vietnam wars; one of his sisters served in the Navy. Mom’s parents produced three children; her two brothers both served in the military; one of them fought with Army Air Corps during World War II; the other served as an Army reserve colonel.

I want to salute my grandparents because they were Americans by choice. They forged a good life in this land. They honored the nation by flying the flag proudly. My maternal grandmother adored Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, keeping pictures of JFK in her home.

The current political discourse contains an unhealthy dose of anti-immigrant dogma. One of the president’s closest advisers is known to be anti-immigrant and has infused the president with the notion that we need a “merit-based” immigration policy that allows only those identified as potential high achievers into the country. Under that policy, none of my grandparents would have qualified … and the United States would have been made immeasurably poorer by their exclusion.

This weekend we’re going to honor the founding of this nation. We’ll celebrate it under a cloud brought to us by the pandemic. Still, we will honor our founders’ genius in crafting the framework that put together the world’s most indispensable nation.

I intend to honor — and recall with great fondness — the contributions that my grandparents made after arriving here from far away places.

They became the greatest of Americans … and played a major role in making America great.