Greetings dear readers!  *Cricket Cricket* Ahh – of course, you’re probably sleeping in, prepping the BBQ, camping, or even engaging in the purchase and discharge of some illegal fireworks

Now, bear in mind, your humble blogger does not want to discourage you from doing any of that (except, perhaps, the illegal fireworks part).  But, as with all holidays, we should take time to reflect.

Fireworks are just fireworks.  As are BBQs and camping, and over-eating hamburgers (or veggie-burgers, for my herbivore readers).  What makes them special today is not that they’re explosives and grilled food, or that they are explosives and burned food on the same day every year.  What makes them special today is that they are to celebrate our nation’s independence, and also our nation as a nation of independents.

Now comes the ugly…

As great as this country is, something is going wrong when Americans living abroad are, at epidemic proportions, renouncing their U.S. Citizenship.  From the looks of it, it’s for economic reasons and not any ideological ones.

Something is wrong with California too, when businesses (and the jobs that go with them) are leaving the land of chronic sunshine, delicious grapes, and bountiful Sushi to face tornadoes, floods, the dessert, and even blizzards (no, not the delicious ice-cream ones).

Light up your BBQ, blow up your fireworks, and, if you’re Yosemite Sam, go ahead and shoot your guns into the air.  But in between your fourth burger and your fifth, or while you’re getting the hose to put the fire out, or even while you’re reloading, think about what course we’re taking as a nation and as a state, if the honesty of self-interest is taking our fellow Californians and countrymen elsewhere.  What are we doing that makes them prefer their new homes to their real homes?

Wishing you a 4th of July that is safe, fun, and balanced enough to afford you time to reflect!