in dire straits

A lone American football player exercises his right to free speech using the public platform at his disposal. In response, an entire police department threatens to not do its job. By merely sitting quietly while others stood, this man sparked a national debate about free speech, respect, and honor. This conversation addresses questions swirling at the core of the American experiment. May citizens of this nation express themselves freely or should they be forced to stand at attention and display mindless devotion to a rectangular piece of cloth? The American flag represents a living nation. As such, it is a living thing that may not be glued or otherwise affixed to any article of clothing. Who enforces these federal flag laws that make it a crime to wear an American flag t-shirt? Will the police department in question start issuing citations to the tens of thousands of citizens who attend baseball games using the flag as wearing apparel - hats and shirts with a living thing illegally glued to them? A person walking down the street with a labrador retriever stapled to the front of his sweatshirt would be soon arrested for animal cruelty, but millions of Americans commit flag cruelty every day, and get away scott free. When a police department is allowed to choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore, when it publicly threatens to walk away from its duties and only a few citizens find that troubling, the republic for which the flag stands is in dire straits. To parrot the words of a current presidential candidate - people who don’t like free speech should leave America and find another country that works for them, a place where obedience is strictly enforced and any lack of respect for arbitrary symbolism is met with harsh and rapid sanction. That may sound like paradise to some, but it sure as syphilis doesn’t sound like one to me.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

on nature's nightly light-show

During these muggy days of summer, when the sun has set and the bats have emerged to hunt, thousands of bioluminescent insects put on a fascinating and free light-show. I do not really see it unless I stand for a while in the bowl of the valley and let my eyes adjust to the darkness; then, however, I realize that nearly every available surface – from the low grasses to the tops of the highest trees – has been taken over by lightning bugs.

Granted, the bugs do not produce the lung-thumping boom of fireworks, their lights are less bright than, say, roman candles, and they generate hardly any unnecessary light or air pollution, but for all of their apparent shortcomings these tiny insects, when occupying a stand of trees in sufficient number, are far more impressive than even the most magnificent and expensive Fourth of July fireworks display. The show they put on is so dazzling, so mesmerizing, that I must often force myself out of my trance-like state and continue on to the small tent by the creek in which I sleep most hot nights. To my knowledge, there is no rhyme or reason to these insects' flashings, no clear-cut code as far as I have been able to see, only thousands of randomly-timed pinpricks of white light winking on and off in the dark and shadowy gloom of the trees in which they sit. Concert-goers in a blacked-out sports stadium will all try to take a picture of the headlining band when it finally mounts the stage; the efforts of these little bugs have a similar visual effect, but to my knowledge their luminescent signaling is a means to the end of getting laid, while a concert-goer's flashings are little more than proof of his foolish exuberance and having forgotten to properly adjust his camera.

So, this week during which we Americans celebrate the date upon which our nation issued the most important document in the history of mankind, don't waste your money on Chinese-made fireworks – wait until it is dark and then go stare at a tree.

場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit