The orgy of fireworks came late to the Independence Day celebration, long after my youth. A gathering on July 4th to see a brilliant display of pinwheels and rockets may have been the rule in Philadelphia, but it was unknown in New Orleans and the surrounding South. Maybe because Confederate Fortress Vicksburg fell to Union forces on that date? More probably, the costs of the shows.

On July 2nd, 1776 our Founding Fathers voted to declare independence from Great Britain. On July 4th they attached their signatures to a document that will be hailed as one of the greatest statements for individual freedom ever written. The preamble states the basic principles of individual rights, liberty, equality, and self-government or “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Frederick County Board of Education had a televised meeting on June 10, 2009. During that meeting, many things were discussed including re-districting and the budget. It is the latter for which we will focus our discussion today.

This weekend there will be thousands of “Tea Parties” across the United States. In Maryland at least seven are planned, being diligently promoted and advertised. If you can attend a local Tea Party please do so. While you are there, take a little time and ponder these thoughts.

Will this subject ever die, ever be solved? No! As long as there are people, there will be waste and, of course, opinions aplenty on its disposal. There are those who do and those who just yammer about what others should do. Those who do, finally make a decision; those who talk, are still talking.

Early Sunday morning four units, consisting of 200 soldiers of the military in Honduras, stormed the presidential palace in the capitol, Tegucigalpa, at 6, arrested and bundled-up their pajama-clad president, Manuel Zelaya, and carted him off to the airport and flew him to Costa Rica.

Kuala Pilah, Malaysia – My friend Dzul urged me to return to Kuala Pilah, a two-hour flight, for a reunion with his class. I had started teaching in 1974, just after his group had left; but some had returned for the next level of education (form six). The best and the brightest, they scored the highest on their exams. These were the former students who remembered me after 35 years.

Two celebrity deaths this past week brought an outpouring from the general public and the people who knew them. Farrah Fawcett's dying was both documented and expected. She bowed out with great grace. Although she came a great way professionally from the tousled-hair "Charlie's Angel" in the poster, she earned her greatest review on the manner of her passing.

I was thinking over the weekend how great it was that the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team made it to the finals of the Confederations Cup in South Africa. I remember when I was growing up that the biggest claim to fame for the team was a win over England in 1950. That was at the World Cup, which was played in Brazil. It was dubbed “The Miracle on Grass” (not to be confused, of course, with the “Miracle on Ice” in the 1980 Olympics).

So what is it about a very friendly and congenial local shop keeper that suggests he has the tools to the lead the City of Frederick? Only in City of Frederick politics could the phrase "He's a really nice guy" be considered pejorative.

The House of Representatives barely passed the first stage in President Obama’s “Cap-and-Trade” energy/ecology legislation late Friday 219-212. This, with the help of eight Republican traitors crossing over to vote, and having not read the bill, hundreds of pages of which only just became available at 3 A.M. on the day of the vote.

Most media eyes-and voices-have been devoted to Iranians this week and they deserve the attention. However, Iraq simply cannot be ignored. Both countries are Muslim and bereft of any democratic tradition; that's what the fighting is about in Baghdad and Teheran.

I once spent two days with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. What is this island I speak of?

How does one begin to bring memories of a great friend to the attention of others? It’s not an easy task, but one that must be completed, else they may be forgotten forever.

There is no issue that has exposed the ideological bankruptcy of the American right more than the debate over the inclusion of a public option as an integral part of health-insurance reform. With a straight face, conservatives have argued, sometimes within the same interview, that any health insurance program run and funded by the government is doomed to fail.

There’s been a lot of local political fighting around here lately. It seems that Alderman Donna Kuzemchak decided to take on Mayor Jeff Holtzinger again, this time suggesting malfeasance on the part of his administration during the infamous retirement buyout, an endless source of conversation for his opponents during the last couple of years.

Half-way across the globe on June 12, the volatile and enigmatic theocratic nation of Iran held elections in which the Iranian government counted 32 million hand-written paper ballots in about three hours and declared the incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad victorious.

Aboard a Malaysian Airlines Flight – “How do you spend 22 plus hours on an airplane and still stay sane” is the question I am often asked when I travel back and forth from Malaysia to the States. My reply: “I have never been sane in my life, so why would this make any difference?”

When I first looked on actor Stacy Keach from a reviewer's seat, his white beard was fake. He played Wild Bill Cody in Arena Stage's "Indians," a somewhat bitter analogy for the very bitter protests against the raging Vietnam War. We were young men in our prime. Now the white beards are very real, on both sides of the lights.