The Dish

Quite simply this. And this:

all eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. these are grounds of hope for others.

for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

See you tomorrow.

[Re-posted from earlier today]

Henry Fairlie published this gem about his adopted country – like me, he was a Tory and a passionate American – thirty years ago today. If you have never read it, do yourself a favor. It’s the experience of a Brit brought up in post-war England discovering America in later life. This anecdote never fails to make me smile – with recognition and wonderment:

One spring day, shortly after my arrival, I was walking down the long, broad street of a suburb, with its sweeping front lawns (all that space), its tall trees (all that sky), and its clumps of azaleas (all that color). The only other person on the street was a small boy on a tricycle. As I passed him, he said “Hi!”—just like that. No four-year-old boy had ever addressed me without an introduction before. Yet here was this one, with his cheerful “Hi!” Recovering from the culture shock, I tried to look down stonily at his flaxen head, but instead, involuntarily, I found myself saying in return: “Well—hi!” He pedaled off, apparently satisfied. He had begun my Americanization.

“Hi!” As I often say—for Americans do not realize it— the word is a democracy. (I come from a country where one can tell someone’s class by how they say “Hallo!” or “Hello!” or “Hullo,” or whether they say it at all.) But anyone can say “Hi!” Anyone does. Shortly after my encounter with the boy, I called on the then Suffragan Bishop of Washington. Did he greet me as the Archbishop of Canterbury would have done? No. He said, “Hi, Henry!” I put it down to an aberration, an excess of Episcopalian latitudinarianism. But what about my first meeting with Lyndon B. Johnson, the President of the United States, the Emperor of the Free World, before whom, like a Burgher of Calais, a halter round my neck, I would have sunk to my knees, pleading for a loan for my country? He held out the largest hand in Christendom, and said, “Hi, Henry!”

One thing that shocked me most about Washington when I moved there was the Mall. I was expecting some kind of royal park or something, I suppose. But around these massive neo-fascist monuments, Americans were playing frisbee, chowing down on picnics, scuffing up the grass, treating the place as if it were their own. And then I realized the core difference: it was their own. There had been no monarchy presiding over this Mall after the Revolution – and that democratic instinct, that leveling perspective gave us frisbees and volleyball and touch football all around secular hallowed ground. I was hooked within weeks of arrival here. Why? I’ll let Henry explain:

I had been in the country about eight years, and was living in Houston, when a Texan friend asked me one evening: “Why do you like living in America? I don’t mean why you find it interesting—why you want to write about it—but why you like living here so much.” After only a moment’s reflection, I replied, “It’s the first time I’ve felt free.”

(Photo: George Goldstein, Harold Johnson and Harold Valentine prepare to march through their neighborhood playing their drums to celebrate the 4th July, circa 1935. By FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.)

Neil Irwin presents five facts about fireworks. First on his list:

You might injure yourself. You probably won’t kill yourself. The Consumer Product Safety Commission found that in 2012, there were 8,700 injuries in the United States caused by fireworks that required treatment at a hospital, well within the recent range of injury numbers (the 15-year high was 11,000 in 2000, the recent low 7,000 in 2008). But there were only six deaths reported in 2012, four in 2011, and three in 2010. (Here is more from Sarah Kliff on where on the body those injuries are likely to occur)

Marc Herman reads the The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC)’s report on fireworks safety:

The key to avoiding fireworks injury appears to be, broadly, not treating gunpowder like it’s barbeque sauce. The bulk of injuries came from various homemade firecrackers and misuse of powerful rockets. Reading the directions, and not trying to re-invent something the Chinese had pretty much nailed 2,000 years ago, appear to be the trick to avoiding injury, according to the CPSC report

And Margaret Hartmann finds a political angle on Independence Day festivities:

Thanks to sequestration, the Fourth of July is going to be a good bit less festive this year, particularly if you happen to live on or near a military base or are an air-show buff. As the Washington Post reported this week, politicians’ dire predictions have mostly not come true, but over the long holiday weekend, federal cutbacks will be especially visible as, with the military subject to across-the-board cuts, bases have been forced to scale back or cancel their Independence Day celebrations.

And National Geographic presents photography advice for capturing fireworks.

(Photo by Flickr user bayasaa)

“When slavery was assailed twenty-five years ago, the whole land took the alarm, and every species of argument and subterfuge was resorted to by the defenders of slavery.  The mental activity was amazing; all sorts of excuses, political, economical, social, theological and ethnological, were coined into barricades against the advancing march of anti-slavery sentiment.  The same activity now shows itself, but has added nothing new to the argument for slavery or against emancipation …

When the accursed slavery system shall once be abolished, and the Negro, long cast out from the human family, and governed like a beast of burden, shall be gathered under the divine government of justice, liberty and humanity, men will be ashamed to remember that they were ever deluded by the flimsy nonsense which they have allowed themselves to urge against the freedom of the long enslaved millions of our land. That day is not far off,” – Frederick Douglass, 1862.

(Photo: Michael Knaapen and his husband John Becker react outside the US Supreme Court in Washington DC on June 26, 2013. The US Supreme Court last Wednesday struck down a controversial federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, in a major victory for supporters of same-sex marriage.The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) had denied married gay and lesbian couples in the United States the same rights and benefits that straight couples have long taken for granted. By Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty.)

Dana Goldstein reviews Doing the Best I Can, a book on inner-city fatherhood:

Poor, single dads have a lot in common with their female counterparts. Both young men and young women in these neighborhoods see forgoing contraception as a key sign of sexual trust and fidelity, and they demonstrate little anxiety about unexpected pregnancy—a surprising notion for many middle-class Americans, who viscerally fear the loss of educational, career, and romantic opportunities that premature parenthood brings. Far from disdaining marriage, low-income single parents have fully absorbed mainstream cultural messages about what that institution should entail: two good jobs, home ownership, and a “soul mate” kind of love. Because these goals appear impossible for people living hand-to-mouth at the bottom rung of the American economy, however, men told the researchers that marriage is generally off the table as a realistic lifestyle. Indeed, they mistrust women, whom they see as enforcers of middle-class earning expectations they cannot meet. The love these men feel for their children is far stronger than any romantic connection they’ve made with those children’s mothers.

Reihan chimes in:

I’m more inclined to think that there might be some value to marriage-promotion programs, not because poor people “don’t respect marriage” — as Dana points out, that is not generally true — but rather because committed relationships require a skill set that is not evenly distributed across the population.

As women have entered the workforce, “traditional” gender roles have been fading. And so individual couples and families find themselves negotiating responsibilities and boundaries in ways that weren’t strictly necessary in an age of rigidly-defined gender roles. As a good friend pointed out in conversation a few weeks back, it is thus not surprising that marriages have tended to be more durable and successful among educated Americans with strong communication skills, as they are more accustomed to navigating complex relationships in the course of their working lives. Imparting communication skills is extremely difficult, and it might be a lost cause. But the best marriage-promotion programs rest on the idea that communication skills that can reduce friction in relationships really can be taught.

TNC’s dispatch on a Chicago family getting evicted feels tangentially related:

When we left, the beautiful brown boy was standing on the sidewalk next to his parents. His mother held the baby on her hip. She said nothing. One of the officers wished them good luck. The man yelled in response, “You talk about us like we dead. We ain’t dead. We still a family. Good luck to you.” He said it in such a way that he seemed to be trying to convince himself. …

When I saw the father today, I saw a man without the power to set his own laws. I’ve seen the same pose out in the streets where men yell and threaten violence. I used to think such a display fearsome, but people who must show their power through threatening violence inhabit a low rung.