Fourth of July Leftovers
Well, once again we've celebrated the birth of our country by re-creating a pseudo war. To my knowledge, no one died as a result of this phony war, although there were probably many injuries.
I'm talking about fireworks.
Surely there's a better way to celebrate the birth of our nation than by emulating war.
I can think of no benefit to spending hundreds of dollars on junk that literally goes up in smoke in minutes. I can, however, think of many detriments to fireworks.
1. They are dangerous to humans. Each year there are reports all across the nation about people who were stupid when handling their fireworks and burned themselves, blew their fingers off their hand, or damaged some other part of their body or someone else's body.
2. They are harmful to animals. Here is something I find extremely difficult to understand: People who have pets and purport to love them nonetheless make unnecessarily fearful once a year by subjecting them to the loud and fearful sounds of imitation guns and bombs. Animals have much more sensitive hearing than humans and the sound of fireworks is painful to them as well as being scary.
3. They are harmful to the earth. I don't know what the weather's like where you live, but here in the Pacific Northwest I've noticed that each year on the fourth of July we have nice weather, and each year on the fifth of July the sky clouds up and we have rain. Could this be the earth trying to heal the damage that was done to her by the concussion of loud fireworks? And how many wild fires are started by the use of fireworks? We live on an acre of land surrounded by trees. A couple of days before the Fourth celebration I found the remains of a bottle rocket in the garden next to my house. It came from one of the neighbors, which meant that it traveled up and over a patch of trees. It could just as easily have gone into the woods and started a fire.
How about we begin to celebrate this important national holiday with a focus on life rather than on the machinations of death? A focus on what makes this country so strong and such a wonderful place to live? How do you envision this new and improved celebration of the birth of our nation?
I'm talking about fireworks.
Surely there's a better way to celebrate the birth of our nation than by emulating war.
I can think of no benefit to spending hundreds of dollars on junk that literally goes up in smoke in minutes. I can, however, think of many detriments to fireworks.
1. They are dangerous to humans. Each year there are reports all across the nation about people who were stupid when handling their fireworks and burned themselves, blew their fingers off their hand, or damaged some other part of their body or someone else's body.
2. They are harmful to animals. Here is something I find extremely difficult to understand: People who have pets and purport to love them nonetheless make unnecessarily fearful once a year by subjecting them to the loud and fearful sounds of imitation guns and bombs. Animals have much more sensitive hearing than humans and the sound of fireworks is painful to them as well as being scary.
3. They are harmful to the earth. I don't know what the weather's like where you live, but here in the Pacific Northwest I've noticed that each year on the fourth of July we have nice weather, and each year on the fifth of July the sky clouds up and we have rain. Could this be the earth trying to heal the damage that was done to her by the concussion of loud fireworks? And how many wild fires are started by the use of fireworks? We live on an acre of land surrounded by trees. A couple of days before the Fourth celebration I found the remains of a bottle rocket in the garden next to my house. It came from one of the neighbors, which meant that it traveled up and over a patch of trees. It could just as easily have gone into the woods and started a fire.
How about we begin to celebrate this important national holiday with a focus on life rather than on the machinations of death? A focus on what makes this country so strong and such a wonderful place to live? How do you envision this new and improved celebration of the birth of our nation?
posted by Kathy Wilson @ 8:26 AM
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