Laying Low in the Summer Heat

I’ve been sweltering here in Phoenix. Jake and I get out most evenings for a walk after dark. It’s still hot, but more bearable after the sun goes down.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of my favorite politicians in the last month--a fun diversion. Even knowing the flaws of our political system, there are still politicians that I admire. These are the people who somehow learn to play the game, which from many perspectives is hopelessly _____________ (fill in the blank). Yet they rise through the nonsense in their pursuit of policies that make sense for our state and country, and they somehow get good things done despite it all.

Also, I am enough of a political nerd to think of my few favorites as if they were movie stars. I am also the kind of nerd who thinks movie stars are kind of cool, even if intellectually I know better--in both cases.

Tomorrow I head to Idaho for a week to help my sister with her move to Arkansas. Arkansas??!!

Sure enough.

232

America is 232 today.

That's just shy of two and a third centuries since we claimed our independence from Britain.

We're a nation at war, for the sixth Independence Day in a row.

Look at where we've come as a nation since the late eighteenth century. When Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, and the other fifty-two men put their name to parchment in early July of 1776, they changed the course of history.

They not only created a nation, they put on paper the ideas and ideals that have shaped this nation, and this world ever since. Among those words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Happy Fourth to all.