{"id":22484,"date":"2018-07-04T11:49:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22484"},"modified":"2018-07-04T11:50:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T18:50:00","slug":"independence-day-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22484","title":{"rendered":"Independence Day, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States of America has always felt like home to me. It is<\/em> my home … how else would I feel? I’m comfortable here. I’d fit in almost anywhere within it. I know it well: as a military child, and later a military member myself, I’ve lived and worked in every region of the country\u00a0but New England. On top of that, I spent eight years in Europe and Asia,\u00a0gaining first-hand experience with other cultures and countries, experience that makes me appreciate my own culture and country\u00a0all the more.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6012\"<\/a>
Forming up for the neighborhood 4th of July parade<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I say I’m a patriotic American, that’s what I mean. I think that’s what most of us mean. We’re happy in our home country, where we feel welcome, know the rules, and everything is familiar.<\/p>\n

Well, sure. I’m white. My feelings might be more complex if I were a minority.\u00a0There are places\u00a0in this country where minorities are not welcome, where they’re judged by their\u00a0appearance before\u00a0they even open\u00a0their\u00a0mouths. The number of those places seem to be growing, but maybe that’s just pre-Civil Rights Era intolerance and racism finding its voice again, encouraged by\u00a0the\u00a0party currently in power.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6014\"<\/a>
Donna with the pups and some of our neighbors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And yet if you ask American-born minorities, they’ll tell you they’re patriotic Americans too. Naturalized citizens? They outdo us all in patriotism. That says a lot about what’s still good about America. My country, right or wrong. There’s a lot that’s right with it. There’s a lot that’s wrong with it. True patriots, I like to believe, are those who are willing to pitch in\u00a0and\u00a0make it better.<\/p>\n

So happy Independence day to my\u00a0fellow Americans, and may we continue striving to make it a better place. We can start by turning out to vote this November, and maybe do something about the party currently in power. Maybe take the country back. We can if we all vote, and that\u00a0would be\u00a0patriotism in action.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6019\"<\/a>
Maxie, me, & Mr. B<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The photos I’ve inserted are from this morning’s 4th of July parade on our street in northeast Tucson.\u00a0Our neighbors have been putting it on every year since the subdivision went up in the 1980s, and we’re proud to be part of it. Maxie’s an old hand at these parades, but it was a first for Mr. B, and after some initial\u00a0trepidation he got into it. Even the dogs are patriots!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My country, right or wrong. There’s a lot that’s right with it. There’s a lot that’s wrong with it. True patriots, I like to believe, are those who are willing to pitch in and make it better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,555,2,1601,8],"tags":[2567,1284,2423],"class_list":["post-22484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-local-color","category-personal","category-photoblogging","category-politics","tag-4th-of-july","tag-independence-day","tag-patriotism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22484"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22490,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22484\/revisions\/22490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}