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From Hark! A Vagrant:

It's funny because it's true. Sad, but true.

By the way, this is just one panel of Kate Beaton's whole strip. Click on the image above to see other scenes from "Founding Fathers (in a Mall)."

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There are 2 things I do every Independence Day:

1. Watch 1776.
2. Watch the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

One thing I do not do is eat hot dogs. After you watch a stage full of guys swallow 50+ hot dogs in 10 minutes, they just aren't that appetizing anymore. I'll have peanut butter and jelly for lunch, thank you.

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Just in time to send Superman and Advertising Month out with a bang, I received an advertising flyer in the mail this week for fireworks. Specifically, this ad promotes Phantom Fireworks, which has been advertising very aggressively this season. In addition to stuffing my mailbox, they have billboards on Interstate 85 in Atlanta and even commercials on local cable television. Too bad that the products they are promoting are illegal to possess here in Georgia.

It's not uncommon to see ads in Atlanta for casinos and dog-racing tracks in nearby Alabama and North Carolina. However, the sinful activities taking place within those locations don't extend beyond their own boundaries. Phantom doesn't explicitly tell us to take our fireworks across state lines, but their advertising slyly points out how their stores are just over the state line, wink, wink. I suspect that they would be irritated if I tried to shoot my new fireworks in their parking lot.

Georgia legalized fireworks about 6 years ago. Specifically, Georgia legalized sparklers and noisemakers, but not rockets of any sort. That means that despite Phantom's fantastic "Buy One Get One Free!" offer, I can't really buy anything. No 6-shot Mighty Mite's Mortars, no 12-shot Def-Con Alerts, no 30-shot Blue Brocade Barrages, and certainly no 100-shot Saturn Batteries.

No, no Phantom Fireworks for us here in Georgia. Thanks to the Georgia legislature, we're stuck with only Wolf Pack Snaps and Morning Glory Sparklers sold in the seasonal, appropriately-named Acme Fireworks tents. Because even children know that if there's any place to buy explosives of any sort, it's not from a company named Acme!

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I'm sure I've mentioned before that I love the Independence Day holiday more than all others. It's a secular holiday that everyone celebrates their own way, a triumph of rational individualism with a healthy side of slavish deification of a bunch of old people in wigs. Who doesn't love that?

Ah, George Washington. Is there anything he can't do?

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Another Independence Day come and gone. July 4th is without a doubt my favorite holiday, though I don't care for picnics, fireworks, or parades. Ironic? I don't think so. If others enjoy their crowded public places, I'll stay in my own suddenly quiet neighborhood. Everybody wins.

My brother and his girl were disgusted by my favorite Independence Day activity: watching the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Sure, it's gross, but it's much more entertaining than, say, Easter Sunrise Mass or a Christmas Day NBA double-header. (While it's not quite Thanksgiving Day NFL football, the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Competition only takes 10 minutes, barring overtime, and I'm not forced to watch this with the very same extended family that I try to avoid for the rest of the year.) How can you not love a competition that was cancelled by promoters in 1971 to protest "the reign of free love"? And I'm not alone in my appreciation of this grand event: it's estimated that nearly as many people showed up just to watch this year's contest as ran in Atlanta's Peachtree Road Race earlier the same day.

Maybe all of this success is because of the unique nature of the competition as a quintessentially American event complete with hot dogs, gluttony, and red, white, and blue bunting. When asked why he competes annually in this contest, 2007-08 champion Joey Chestnut summed it all up, "I love to eat. I love the competition. And... it's Fourth of July, and you can get away with it on this day, push your body this hard over something silly like this." Damn straight, Joey. It sure beats running a 10K.

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There's a brief bit of dialogue in the movie Clerks that goes something like this:

Dante: You hate people!
Randal: But I love gatherings. Isn't it ironic?

I feel that way about the Independence Day holiday. It's my favorite holiday of the year but I hate parades and fireworks. What I love is watching people gather to watch parades and fireworks. (Of course, I hate to actually be in the gathering crowds. I prefer strictly hands-off voyeurism, exactly the sort of thing for which cars, tall buildings, and television sets were made.) I'm reminded of the stories of the crowds of sightseers that gathered to watch the first battle of Manassas. Apparently, people will gather anywhere at the prospect of witnessing goose stepping and explosions.

On a related note, I've always wondered why we celebrate Independence Day on July 4. The Continental Congress approved independence from Britain on July 2 (it was this date that John Adams expected to be the one eternally celebrated), and the document itself wasn't actually signed until a month later. What we celebrate on July 4 is merely the voted approval of the document itself. Wouldn't that be a bit like deciding to remember Pearl Harbor Day on December 8, the day that the U.S. declared war with Japan, instead of on December 7, the day of the actual attack?

But never mind me. I got my panties in a bind when we celebrated the "new millennium" on New Year's Eve in 1999. (I "celebrated" with dinner in a now-defunct Shoney's Restaurant. Alas, poor Big Boy.)

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