Tag: america

Yesterday, the United States of America celebrated 236 years of independence. If you’re me, it’s a day marked by your friends cracking wise about how awkward it must be for me to be living in a country my people once ruled with an iron something-or-other. If you’re literally anybody else (except maybe a Native American) it’s celebrated with the mind-boggling combination of barbecue, alcohol, and explosives.

The reasons this boggles one’s mind is obvious: I cannot imagine why anybody would want to set off fireworks in the height of summer when no bugger’ll see ’em.

July 4th is seventeen days shy of July 21st, which, as any fule kno, is the longest day of the year. The days are longer, the nights are shorter, and even the night sky has a curious, ethereal glow to it. Not ideal conditions for fireworks.

Back in Britain, we have the common sense to know when to put on a fireworks display: November 5th. It’s dark, it’s miserable, the days are short and the nights stretch out forever – the perfect setting for an explosives display. Even terrorist Guy Fawkes knew this as he prepared to destroy the Houses of Parliament in what could have been one of the most visually spellbinding terrorist displays in British history, had he succeeded. Of course, his failure is our win – we celebrate his inability to make a building explode by attempting to set the sky on fire, and every year it looks mesmerizing.

If the Founding Fathers had any common sense, they’d have held off on finalizing the Declaration of Independence until October at the absolute earliest. Then, the following year, the night sky would have set the perfect scene for the fireworks displays that would ensue. But no – it was the summer, and they just wanted to get the damned thing wrapped up so they could go swimming and eat ice-cream sandwiches. Bastards.

Did they not know they’d be depriving generations of spectacular visuals? Did they not consider for one minute that maybe the bright, orange summer sky would not make the best canvas? Or maybe they did know, but they didn’t care about their country enough to take action.

One thing is for certain, though: Every Fourth of July America has ever celebrated has been sullied by their failure to take this one small detail into consideration, and this country is all the weaker because of it.

Now obviously we can’t move Independence Day. If nothing else, it’s ruin the shorthand name for the movie of the same name. Instead, I propose a global calendar shift.

By rolling the calendar back three or so months, we would shift July 4th to the a period in the year when the days are significantly shorter. Americans would still get to celebrate July 4th, but they’d be doing so with optimum lighting conditions. What’s more, this wouldn’t have too much of an impact on Guy Fawkes’ Night, which would still take place under fairly optimal lighting conditions in what used to be February.

Everybody wins! Except for farmers, obviously, but they’d hardly complain. They wouldn’t want to look unpatriotic.