#sestercentennial

[tyger-land]

JACK KIRBY 1976

[thebeanhouse]

Hey! Guess what? I designed and made a quilt to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Navy! I call it "Everyone Loves A Sailor." You can view my quilt and the other fabulous entries from guilds around New England at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA, now through September 6th. The admission fee is voluntary for this exhibit. Be sure to vote for my quilt so that my guild, The Proper Bostonian Quilters, can win an exhibit of our own at the museum next year! Go Navy! From Huzzah (1775) to Hoo-yah (2025)!

[anthonybialy]

One Chance to Get 250 Right

America is the best.  This is a breaking news column.  A milestone anniversary featuring a memorable number has been met with pockets of tepid enthusiasm.  I don’t want to rush anyone, but this is the time for increasing guacamole and patriotism reservoir levels.

I don’t want to blame whoever’s currently president for the lack of excitement, especially when his enemies would despise our land even if it upped unearned entitlements to their preferred levels.  But king of festivities Donald Trump seems to struggle acquiring chips and streamers.  The good thing is he’s most renowned for accepting blame.

America’s 250th birthday is known as the Bisesquidoubleandahalfacentennial for short.  Like the Artemis Moon-loopers, we only get one chance at this.  Yet thrills seem contained in a place that should already be shooting off fireworks at every hour.  Sunlight illuminates the blasts.  

The self-proclaimed real believers in national promise want the president of their dreams bossing everyone around.  The difference between Trump fans and their archenemies is they accept orders only from their hero when he hugs a flag.  Acting like they strengthen loyalty has diluted fun.

Pleasant effects would be more apparent with an actual conservative.  But then we’d have to elect someone who doesn’t think announcing how amazing he is qualifies as a political philosophy, and we might never know.  Aspiring revelers could afford more America 250 merchandise if tariffs weren’t making paper plates a luxury item.

The other side sucks.  Trump’s superpower is getting his enemies to help him.  The reality show host and president never has to say anything positive or worthwhile: he merely must gesture at sputtering pinko lunacy.  The other side makes it easy by hating one thing, namely everything about America.

Contingent love is more than bad news for their spouses.  Deeply imperfect people kvetching about the place they live for not living up to their exacting specifications will surely feel pleased soon.

Bitching about America’s imperfections is for citizens who are surely inherently happy.  The loving left knows with certainty that it’s the only flawed country.  We should aspire to be more of an earthly paradise like one with universal everything or whatever they think Palestine is.

I checked and America has fewer things wrong with it than any other place.  Knowing who sucks the least is one way to approach many aspects of this rather imperfect world from voting to ranking.  Those whose preferred maniacal policies would lower us into the receiving votes category resent our current poll status.

You’re doing it wrong.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  Self-professed complex 

philosophers think it’s sophisticated to incessantly nag.  Eternal pouters are unlike Rocky IV-adoring rubes they disdain who possess the simpleminded earnestness to appreciate the greatness and goodness of a nation created with freedom in mind.  They can’t distinguish between being critical and negative or anything else.

We know who would’ve pledged allegiance to George III.  Retroactive loyalists to the crown only like America if there’s a president they voted for, and that visionary megalomaniac needs to try to ruin everything good.  This hateful bordered enclave full of checks and balances doesn’t tax enough.  The answer is always more.

Internal critics hate America then do all they can to make their claims true.  Their wretched notions that have been enacted at multiple levels cause the very poverty they claim to oppose with all their might.  Those who don’t recognize the downside of fundamental change should be pleased they got their way.

Telling crabby downers to get out before America’s next birthday is only partly as mean as it sounds.  The faction that thinks it’s cool to enter any country they feel like should find one with mandated parental leave instead of this mean jurisdiction where sellers can make as much as buyers will pay.

Noting this is a better country than any around sounds earnest every time.  So, that’s good.  Sincerity shouldn’t concern the authentic.  Pretending that nobody who stands up during the national anthem while watching a game at home has ever criticized this country is a popular hobby for those who also think class warfare doesn’t affect motivation.

America is great despite its government, which enhances its case in a way that infuriates those who claim we get freedom through mandates.  Trump makes the case for privatizing everything by bungling a simple soirée.

There’s tension about event planning, like whether Poison and Vanilla Ice will be onstage simultaneously.  I’ll still cheer for this country as I’m bracing for the worst single ever.  You may have noticed that getting marginal musicians to play in front of a group has been poorly managed.  Uncannily, that’s like every other Trump property.  It’s almost like him running his mouth is his sole successful enterprise.  You can gamble the day away at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City and not the Trump Taj Mahal for some reason.

We get a wrestling promo to accompany UFC fights.  Trump gets to act like he’s the knight protecting against a horde of barbarians.  Conflation is amongst his most annoying habits, as seen by how he links adoring America to worshiping him.

Freedom aficionados wonder why whooping about a calendar moment that should make everyone naturally pumped seems muted.  The head of state gets to blame a lack of excitement on bald eagle-punching ingrates who despise all that is good and decent.  We can note both the disturbing percentage of divisive United States dwellers and the lack of strategy from an executive who assured us he’d take care of everything.

The most fun events will fittingly be those not thrown by the government.  And the best part of partying is how no America-haters will be there.  It’s not to dedicate too much time to hating haters.  But we should feel glad to be despised by the miserable.  The carbon footprint of cooking meat with fireworks will further enrage the excluded.  Tethering steaks to bottle rockets is the typically awesome way we do things.