i love my country, goddammit.

The Fourth is coming. I’ve made my list.

Yellowstone.
Yosemite.
Barack Obama & Maxine Waters (my ticket for 2008).
Jazz. The Blues. Rock and Roll.
Silicon Valley (dang you guys are smart – and you’re keeping me employed – keep it coming.)
Ansel Adams.
New York City.
Chicago.
Seattle.
The Rocky Mountains.
Route 66.
Thoreau.
Ragtime. Bluegrass. Motown.
Abraham Lincoln.
The Underground Railroad (because they stuck it to the f*ckers).
Gordon Parks.
Cary Grant.
Jimmy Stewart.
Sarah Vowell, my favorite partly cloudy patriot.
David Sedaris.
Stonewall.
Jacob Lawrence.
Thomas Jefferson.
We the People.
John Muir (convert).
Elaine Stritch.
Broadway.
Hollywood.
Studs Terkel.
Denise Levertov.
My Grama.
The Beats.
The Nuyoricans.
Gertrude Stein.
John Steinbeck.
Canyonlands. Zion. Goblin Valley.
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Chief Joseph (with my deep regrets).
Jane Addams.
Jacob Riis (another convert).
Sojourner Truth.
Any train traveling between two major US cities and crossing a mountain range.
DC Comics.
Google.
Schoolhouse Rock.

There’s more, of course, but these are the first that come to mind. And I’ll save the “could use improvement” list for later.

Happy Birthday, America. You’re awfully good at f*cking things up, but I’m awfully glad you’re mine.

(Besides: a girl gotta dance with him what brung her. But that part where the rest of the world is pissed at us? Let's do something about that next.)