The Glorious Fourth

235 years ago - or so - the drafting was completed of the declaration of independence of 13 of Britain's North American colonies. It was now time to get the thing signed by the appropriate official representatives and . . .well, no one quite knew precisely what would happen next. It turned out to be independence of a sort. And we've made a national holiday out of that signing ever since.

It's 3 p.m. on the 4th of July 2011 here in the Athens of southeast L.A. county. We await with resignation this evening's orgy of recreational explosives and patriotic incendiary devices. If your municipality prohibits you detonating anything tonight in memory of the The Founding Fathers, try this site. You can light up the New York skies without leaving home.