It’s Monday, July 9th; it’s somebody’s birthday. Nobody I know personally. Happy Birthday anyway. Happy birthday to Ken Nash (wrestler), David Hockney (artist), Tom Hanks (actor). Happy birthday to the late Oliver Sacks, Emperor Kameyama of Japan and Roy Boy Slim. Have a good day wherever you are. Maybe you all could get together to share some libations and birthday cake. Maybe you have some wise words to weave into a toast that would make the rest of us feel celebratory or at least better about our world in general. Maybe you could make tin-can phones and extend the string phone line from today’s birthday celebrators still residing on earth to those in heaven or wherever. You could chat. You could discuss world affairs — then, now and maybe.
How about delighting in a birthday party game? O.K. First, name historic events that happened on July 7th and then match them to current event. Alright? Go! 1. Hadrian, Rome’s new emperor, made his entry into the city. 2. The leather-splitting machine was patented by Samuel Parker. 3. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. 4. The doughnut cutter was patented by John F. Blondel. 5. The United States turned over complete responsibility of the Demilitarized Zone to South Vietnamese units. 6. Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China. He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.
Current events: 1.Trump made his way into North Korea the same way he might insinuate himself into an elevator that was already full. 2. Trump ordered a leather mending machine (to be made in America) to repair the mechanical bull that he keep next to the oval office so he can pump up before tweeting. 3. Trump stands fast in denying citizenship to “dreamers,” denies immigrants due process, dismisses Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory as well as dismisses its people being U.S. citizens. 4. Chances are that Trump is having his own celebration today to honor the patenting of the donut cutter as now being the symbol for the embargo wars whose catch phrase could easily be “dollars for donuts.” The secondary reason, obviously being, that donuts are his favored food. 5. Yes, the DMZ was handed over to the South Vietnamese but look at the DMZ we are manufacturing today! We have demilitarized zones of varied widths being laid out between Mexico and the U.S., the U.S. and every country that is not the U.S., between families and their children, between the rich and the poor, between Democrats and Republican, between peace keepers and war mongers, between health providers and the ill, between …. you fill in the rest.
But, here’s some good news, remember that fellow, Danny Way, who skate boarded over the Great Wall of China without motorization? Well, we are putting up solar panels like crazy, paying more attention to what we put in our bodies and in our earth. We are scaling and fighting to scale every great wall put in front of us, we are demanding children forcibly separated from the families to be reunited yesterday but today, July 9th, will do. We will do what seems impossible because we have done what seemed impossible.
So, happy birthday all of you July 9th babies.
