Beginnings

July 3rd, 2009

I decided that it was time that I started blogging. I am bad enough at keeping a journal, we'll see how long this will last. It is the 3rd of July, which means that tomorrow is a holiday. It is one of my favorite holidays. An effective holiday causes one to reflect on past events, or ideas that are out of the ordinary. Christmas, for example, is an effective holiday because it has the ability to grab peoples' attention and gear it towards ideas and events. The most important event, of course, is the birth of Jesus Christ.

The 4th of July is a great holiday because Americans all share in common a marvelous American Heritage (whether through lineage, or by naturalization or adoption). We all live in a wonderful country, with a wonderful and miraculous beginning. When I lived in Italy many Italians told me that America did not have any significant history, and that it only started a couple hundred years ago. Not wanting to discuss Native American history and its rich part in academia, I often smiled, and responded "It may be true that our written history only goes back five hundred years or so . . . but it is a great five hundred year history."

Happy 4th of July!