INDEPENDENCE DAY UPDATES

This Is Why We Fight (Colin Meloy)

Rather than the regular snarky newsy updates - they'll be back tomorrow - let's instead take a step back and meditate on the concepts of independence, freedom, and what it means to fight to get and keep and expand them. Especially that last point given all the forces out there fighting and working and, I'll say it, cheating to deprive too many people of them ... feel free to add your own!

-"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." (Nelson Mandela)

-"We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." (William Faulkner)

-"We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edge of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories." (Margaret Atwood)

-"No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow." (Alice Walker)

-"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom." (Bob Dylan)

-"The most courageous act is to still think for yourself. Aloud." (Coco Chanel)

-"When I discover who I am, I'll be free." (Ralph Ellison)

-"I'm single because I was born that way." (Mae West)

-"Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice." (Steve Jobs)

-"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech." (Benjamin Franklin)

-"There's no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated." (Scott Lynch)

-"Freedom is ... the right to write the wrong words." (Patti Smith)

-"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." (Hunter S. Thompson)

-"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." (Gloria Steinem)

-"Freedom is what we do with what is done to us." (Jean-Paul Sartre)

-"Freedom? Yeah, right!" (Zach De La Rocha)

-"Free your mind - and your ass will follow!" (George Clinton)

-"Yeah, open our mind as we cast away oppression/Yeah, open up the streets and watch our beliefs/And when they carve my name inside the concrete/I pray it forever reads/Freedom" (Beyonce/Kendrick Lamar)

-Besides the events on this date in 1776 (in which, in his journal for that day, King George III wrote "Nothing of significance happened today"), here's other things that happened on this date: in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was given to the United States by France ... on this date in 1910, the first "Fight of the Century" took place as Jack Johnson defeated James Jeffries, aka "The Great White Hope" ... on this date in 1939, Lou Gehrig thanked fans for their support after his forced retirement with one of America's greatest speeches ("the luckiest man on the face of the earth") - and became the first player to have a number retired (4) ... on this date in 1954, the pregnant wife of Dr. Sam Sheppard, Marilyn Sheppard, was found murdered in the suburbs of Cleveland, OH, inspiring both the TV series and film THE FUGITIVE and creating a Supreme Court case that established the right of a defendant to have an unbiased jury and to sequester the jury from media reporting on their trial ... on this date in 1970, Casey Kasem's AMERICAN TOP 40 premiered (the number one song: "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" by Three Dog Night, written by Randy Newman) ... on this date in 1976, The Clash played their first show in Sheffield, England, opening for the Sex Pistols ... and on this date in 2017, North Korea tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile.

-Happy Birthday to George Everest, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hiram Walker, Calvin Coolidge, Rube Goldberg, Gloria Stuart, Mitch Miller, Virginia Graham, Ann Landers, Johnnie Parsons, Eva Marie Saint, Gina Lollobrigida, Neil Simon, Al Davis, Chuck Tanner, Bill Withers, Hal Lanier, Ron Kovic, John Waite, Pam Shriver, Tracy Letts, Koko the Gorilla, Post Malone, and Malia Obama.

-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Marie Curie, Bob Ross, Eva Gabor, Charles Kuralt, Barry White, Hank Stram, Steve McNair, Terry Donahue, and Hank Goldberg.

-Feed the Worms: "The Mob's Accountant" Meyer Lansky, classist tax evader Leona Helmsley, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and pioneer financial scammer Michael Milken entered Earth on this date.

-Early American composer and racist lyricist Stephen Foster, circus co-inventor James Anthony Bailey and sorta-kinda journalist Geraldo Rivera were born on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday or if they Feed the Worms.

-Happy and safe Independence Day!