Celebrate Your Indy Pendence!

~Happy Fourth of July, everyone! For those of you living in Raleigh, catch the fireworks at Symphony Lake in Cary. For those of you who will be celebrating at home after your "trip" to the South Carolina border, please don't burn down your house/apartment/university. The paperwork is insane, I tell you.

The fireworks over here are supposedly fantastic. Japan is known for producing the best fireworks in the world, and the yearly fireworks festival in Nagaoka is unquestionably the best fireworks show in Japan (and, by default, the entire world). Every year on August 2nd and 3rd, the city shoots thousands of fireworks above the river that divides the town. That's TWO DAYS of massive fireworks, which attract hundreds of thousands of people. Just what makes these fireworks so impressive? For one thing, there's the sheer SIZE of them:

^ This fireworks is called "Sanjaku-gosun dama" and it's about one meter in diameter (a little over three feet, for you metric-deprived folks). Notice how there are dozens of other fireworks inside of this one large sphere. When launched, it explodes in a pattern over 700 meters in diameter! I can't wait to see these suckers blast off in August.

You might be asking, "How exactly do you launch something that big?" Why, you use one of these:

^ The caption reads: "A huge shooting pipe for the biggest fireworks in Japan. In the summer festival, the biggest fireworks are set off from this pipe on the Shinano River." I assume that you could also use this cannon to blast a fair-sized hole in a castle wall, or take out a regiment of cavalry.
Naturally, your Word of the Post is hanabi ( 花 火 ), which is Japanese for fireworks:

^ The front of a shirt I purchased at the Rose Festival a few weeks ago.

The American tradition of shooting of fireworks on July 4th harkens back to our national anthem, written during the War of 1812. What better way to remind us of, "And the rockets' red glare/The bombs bursting in air", than with colorful, untargeted airstrikes?

Speaking of airstrikes (now that's not an opening line you hear every day), I learned the fascinating history behind Nagaoka's fireworks festival. The annual celebration commemorates August 1, 1945--one of Nagaoka's darkest days. On that night, 126 American B-29 bombers blitzed Nagaoka in a massive airstrike for almost two hours, leveling the entire city and killing around 1,460 people. The fireworks are pretty to look at, but the truth is that they commemorate the deaths of so many that were killed by decidedly un-pretty explosions and fires. I'm still amazed that they don't hate Americans for it.

When you watch the fireworks this year, please give a salute to the 2,530 American soldiers killed so far in Iraq and the over 8,500 that have been wounded or maimed. Some people believe that we must "stay the course" (what course?) to honor their sacrifices, but I believe the opposite. To me, "supporting the troops" means not sending them to some desert hellhole in order to line the pockets of greedy politicians and corporations. The real terrorists are running amok in Afghanistan, where Bin Laden is still sending out orders, the Taliban is picking off coalition troops, and this year's opium crop is the largest ever.

If that's too depressing for you, take solace in the fact that thanks to the war, the stock prices of Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, and Exxon-Mobil are performing superbly! Invest your 401(k) wisely and you might just end up a millionaire! Remember, the more money you make, the proportionally bigger tax cut you get, so it's in your best financial interests to seize every worthwhile investment opportunity that our military-industrial complex so generously creates.

Ack, political ranting always makes me feel vaguely dirty. So remember, on the 4th of July, a) be careful with your fireworks, b) think about what really matters to our people and nation, and c) beware of orbital bombardment. ~Oyasumi!