It’s supposed to be easy to feel patriotic on Independence Day, and indeed when I was a kid it was right up there with Christmas for me. Maybe it was the fireworks and ice cream, maybe the easy assurance that the promise of America was something we really aspired to as citizens.

This year, not so much. I really did not want to see the fireworks, didn’t really want to sing about bombs bursting in air. I get enough of that on CNN these days. Triumphal hymns are easier to take when our troops aren’t stuck in a pointless war in a rapidly disintegrating post-colonial husk of a country that threatens to engulf the entire Middle East in a sectarian bloodbath.

Gone– along with 2,500 brave Americans, our moral suasion and our budget surplus–are the stirring melodies and inspiring chords of our martial music of yesterday, replaced death metal anthems that the military uses, alternately, to gear up the grunts for tank battles and to grind down Iraqi prisoners before the real torture begins. If a nation is defined by the songs its troops sing on the battlefield, we are in deep trouble. Yesterday, the Battle Hymn of the Republic… today, Hadji Girl. The wingers can talk about the schools we’re opening all they want–but it doesn’t change the fact that my tax dollars went to pay for Haditha and Mahmoudiya. If I think about it enough I get sick at my stomach.

All of this has been weighing heavily on me for weeks. I suppose while David was out of town I was reading the news more and reflecting on it more deeply. Whatever the case, I was already wrestling with the question of what it means to be, in 2006, proud to be an American, when it came time to sing America the Beautiful at the end of the church service I attended Sunday at Saint Mark’s.

I almost lost it, right there in church. I love this hymn and it was speaking to me. It was telling me exactly what was wrong. To make matters worse, as I sang it (or tried to) two of the people I loved the most were on the road, sampling the deepest beauties of America– my sister Julie, driving to her new home in LA, and David, climbing a few of those “purple mountain majesties” on a hiking trip in Alaska. I had just prayed for traveling mercies for them, and now this song–the most beautiful and least bloodthirsty of our national songs– became a prayer that we as a nation could travel back to sanity. Where is the father who can turn this car around?

So to refresh your memory, read the lyrics one more time:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
for amber waves of grain,
for purple mountain majesties
above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
confirm thy soul in self-control,
thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for patriot dream
that sees beyond the years
thine alabaster cities gleam,
undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.

I will confess, I never liked that third verse… Katherine Lee Bates could hardly have missed the filthy tenements of the 19th century, so that lyric reads like denial, or perhaps a bit of hairsplitting between “undimmed” and “unstained.”

But that second verse– my God, it’s like she had a premonition of the headlines of 2006 and wanted to reassure us that we have it in us to fix what is wrong. What does it mean to sing of national heroes who love “mercy more than life?” It’s a far cry from the pundits who excuse those few soldiers who commit abuses by reminding us that war is hell. And “confirm thy soul in self-control/ and liberty in law” should be a rallying cry for what we on the left–as true patriots–expect from ourselves and our leaders. We have to wake up from the bad dream where every new attack on the Constitution is explained away by some version of “in the post-9/11 world…”

Frankly, I would rather live bravely in a post-9/11 world and take my chances with terrorists than to see my liberties stripped away in a world beyond the reach of the joys of the Fourth of July. I want my patriotic hymns back! I want to live in an America where the fearmongers on the right are drowned out by a chorus of people who know that what Benjamin Franklin said all those years ago is still true today: “Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.”

Struck by that hymn, and the request “God mend thy every flaw,” I stumbled out of the cathedral into the bright light of a gorgeous summer day. I’m still there, blinking in the light, hoping I can live up to the patriotism the song inspires. I think it’s about being a Fifth of July patriot–one who’s not just there for the fireworks and triumphalism, but the kind who cares about this Republic surviving with our freedoms intact.

At long last, GenPets are here! Once you unwrap this bioengineered critter from its plastic packaging, it makes for a fun and low-maintenance, if rather ugly, companion.  Genes from hibernating creatures keep it fresh on the store shelf until activated.  How cool is that!?  Finally, Bonsai Kittens have some competition … and I’m sure snopes will be on the case soon.

I just got back yesterday from a 10-day wilderness experience in Alaska. Our friend Rai in Anchorage had organized a “taste of Alaska” tour for our little group of 6 from around the country. I was a bit nervous going in: it was the longest trip I’d spent away from Jay since we first got together, and the 10-day forecast before I left predicted showers 10 days straight. But it all worked out well: the weather was wonderful and despite missing Jay I had an amazing time.

After meeting up with the others in Anchorage, we took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez, where we spent 4 days in a cabin on Shoup Bay, kayaking to the nearby glacier. After relaxing there, we drove north to Glenallen where we were picked up by a bush pilot and deposited at the source of the Dadina River in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. From there, we had a trek up to the plateau nestled between three volcanoes, exiting 6 days later at the Sanford Glacier.

There are many stories to tell of the trip, but the details will have to wait until I upload the pictures. More later.

For those of you who missed Paulette and Matt’s fabulous housewarming party last weekend, enjoy the pictures. What a pretty bunch of people! If only I could post the food for you to enjoy as well!

There is very little new under the sun, but in the midst of some work a couple of weeks ago on a new business presentation I may have actually coined a new term for a huge consumer trend. As of now, “peerenting” doesn’t garner any hits on Google.

So what’s it about? Well, it’s one of those trends that is really hard for me to wrap my head around, though rationally I can see it clearly. Basically, more and more parents have stopped being uncool: as 40 has become the new 30, parents have become the new hipsters–or as Adam Sternbergher of New York Magazine calls them in his insightful look at the new mode of adulthood, grups. And as many have observed for a while now, Gen Y just doesn’t seem to require the period of teen rebellion that has been the mainstay of youth culture since at least the 1940s. They actually like their parents, and don’t see them as uncool.
The result? A thorough re-ordering of how we need to think about parent-kid interaction–especially in terms of marketing. The old wisdom was that kids would hate whatever parents like, but we see evidence all over the place that this isn’t true anymore. Parents are turning kids on to their favorite music, be it Johnny Cash or Death Cab for Cutie. And in return, kids are sharing fashion tips and Xbox 360 cheats with parents in a way that a Gex Xer would have cringed at. It’s not always pretty–I recall running into a lithe late-30s mom at Bellevue Square last year with her two tween kids, all of them sporting Von Dutch caps in different pastel colors–but it is significant.

This also has huge impact on family dynamics, obviously, and I’m not sure all of it is good. I was close with my parents, to be sure, but if only I had a dollar for every time Big L said “I’m not here to be your friend, I’m here to be the parent.” Kids still need parents to set boundaries and say no. Certainly some kids are happy to be “friends” with parents who give them anything they want. But I’ll happily take any evidence that our psycho-babble culture has actually broken some of the destructive cycles that fracture families and cause kids to put up walls from their parents. Parents and kids who enjoy spending time together and share common interests are bound to have an easier time talking frankly about sex and drugs–as well as rock and roll. (There is at least some evidence, though, that kids with perpertually young parents may have a hard time keeping up.)
At any rate, this is a trend I’ll be keeping my eye on. We’re always on the lookout for circles of influence we can tap into, and conversations that unlock new insights.
If anyone out there has any comments or examples, I’d love to hear them. Oh, and I hope nobody minds, but I’m going to start blogging on these topics a bit more. Let me know if you hate it–I might just need to spin off my marketing musings onto a new blog.