It's the Fourth of July, a day when we celebrate the independence of the United States from Great Britain. What a long strange trip it's been, since that time. I wrote a few years ago about a contemporary 4th of July fair in a local park. Since then, I've thought about our independence in relation to the current political climate which continues to be contentious in an 'us vs them' fashion. I think it's pretty safe to say that while there will certainly be things celebrated in common, what *I* celebrate about America is not going to be the same as what "they" celebrate. "They", in this case, is the religious, ultra conservative right wing, the Tea Party and their ilk

They say they love America. I don't think they do love the current, real America. They love an idealized, fictional America. Their America is not of love and inclusion, ultimately and despite their protestations otherwise, but hate and disdain. There is no room for choice (or any women's self-empowerment), for LGBTQ citizens, for immigrants, for the poor. If they truly loved America, they would be advocating for equality for all - economic, racial, cultural, religious. That is my America.

Theirs is a land of hate and exclusion. One cannot cloak hatred in a God presumably of love and mercy and then invoke that god to rain destruction on your enemies. There is no love there, only hubris in thinking your way is the best way, the only way. Part of being American is the right to freedom of religion. I fully support anyone's right to celebrate (or not) the deity/spiritual traditions of their choosing. But that support ends when someone funnels their beliefs into a way to oppress anyone else. Pagans believe "do as ye will, harm none." Sounds rather like "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", right? But I don't see that being practiced very well. If religious zealots would just stop and take a breath, they would find we generally all have much more in common than not, and working together is not some evil compromise but a nod towards our best possible future.

Exclusion is not love. Discrimination is not love. Freedom is not about limits placed upon the people you do not like. I've argued on FB with a conservative who insists that we liberals are preventing him from living his life the way he wants. When pressed, all he complains about is taxation and regulation. I don't see anyone telling him he cannot worship as he wants, live as he wants. Don't like same sex marriage? Don't marry someone of the same sex. Don't like abortion? Here's a news flash: no one LIKES abortion. But the power to make our own choices about own bodies should not be a decision relegated to anyone else. Control over our bodies is a right. We don't take it lightly, and demand the respect to make these decisions for ourselves. And regulation is essential if we want clean air, clean water, safe food, etc. There's way too much evidence of corporate malfeasance when they are not kept honest (or at least moreso). They won't take care of anyone but themselves if left to their own devices.

I do not wish to live in their America. It is not real and it cannot exist. They cannot will the rest of us 'others' away. We will not lie down without a fight. There's a fantastic op-ed over at CNN.com today which explicitly lays out the history of how carefully our Founding Fathers worked to make sure that religion and government were not to be intertwined. It should be required reading for all those running for office who insist that God told them to, and that God is telling them how to oppress people and limit them. Where is their mercy when they plan to cut aid to the poor, the elderly and the disabled? What would Jesus do? Not make those who are suffering suffer even more. He would not celebrate and worship the mega-rich. I think he'd rather firmly take them by the scruff of their necks and make them do some good with their money, actually. But that Jesus is missing from the public stage these days. I hear his name a lot but I am not seeing much of his practice of love and compassion.

Here's my America: Love and follow your God. Yes, please do! But leave me out of your conversations with your deity. Respect difference. We used to celebrate that America was a great melting pot. When did we become so afraid of "other" (and who do we think is going to pick our produce and clean our bathrooms, for example, if we do not have immigrants? I don't see any hard-working Americans tripping over themselves for those jobs and yet we expect these things will somehow miraculously be done. They work hard and deserve far more respect than they get.) Celebrate love and family, and understand that love and family manifests in many wondrous ways that can be quite different from the Leave It to Beaver mirage. Peace is not a dirty word and it actually is the most supportive thing we can want for our troops serving all over the world. The best thing we can want is for them to come home in peace, whole, treated with respect and not having to then fight for their promised benefits at home.

And here we are... Happy 4th of July! I celebrate that I can write and post this essay. I celebrate all who fought for these basic rights to remain intact for the last couple of centuries. I celebrate our right to disagree and discuss, hopefully, and forge a future that will benefit all of us, not just a self-selected chosen few.

It took me a lot longer than usual to get into the Falcon Ridge mindset this year. Still, I can't fathom a summer without going to the fest so I mustered up the energy and got myself together. Below is a series of probably disjointed observations/thoughts/comments about the 2009 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.

( rambling... )

Today is the first annual UN World Oceans Day. I didn't plan well enough to go whale watching day (dang it) so I blogged instead :-)

World Oceans Day

I have a lot to post about being in Provincetown, but for now I am heading out for whale watch #2 of the weekend. I have posted on the blog a summary of yesterday's whale watch, and in a different post, impressions on watching some of a necropsy of a fin whale. That post includes a link to some photos. There are no photos in the blog post so if you want only to read about it (the photos are somewhat gruesome) it is safe to do so.

Whalegeek.com

Happy Sunday!

So, I hadn't posted about this here yet because there was always more to do. Well, I finally am ready to give the "big announcement". Last year I started a blog for my whale watching and news etc. As this season gets under way, I have been working feverishly to get the blog caught up with stuff from last year. And so here it is

whalegeek.com

My goal is to be a lot more regular this year with posts of blogs and photos and whatever catches my eye in the world of whales. I still need to do some updates on the reading list but otherwise, I am hoping people will find it, visit it, maybe I will get a comment that isn't spam from time to time.

Welcome!

Generally speaking, I am not a morning person. I seem to do my "best thinking" at night which is when I am most productive a lot of the time, too. I like to stay up late and sleep late. Which is not to say I am not capable of getting up early. I just need the right reason.

Today, I had one of those. A FRFF friend, Jake, and I had been talking about whale watching and a trip to the NE Aquarium for a while. Finally a date was set. The whale watch left the New England Aquarium dock at 10 AM so I got my butt out of bed at 5:20 this morning. Now mind you, just because I have occasions to get up early does not mean I go to bed any earlier. While I did manage to do a little better last night, I still awoke a little short of sleep, but long on energy and enthusiasm due to the day's plan. I was out of the house by 6:15 and still hit traffic so parked at the Aquarium (rather then outside of the city and taking the T in). It's more expensive but also convenient.

It's finally spring in New England, with a little tango of summer thrown in lately, so the weather was gorgeous - clear blue skies, not a lot of wind. A great day to go out on the water. Being spring and not yet summer also means that it's early in the whale watching season. Sightings are happening, but it's not the "embarrassment of riches" that a later whale watch can be. And it's always colder on the water at this time of year. Being early in the season, the boat was not at all crowded, which is refreshing. I don't go out on NEAq whale watches a lot because the 3 level catamaran can hold over 300 people which makes getting to the rail to see and take photos a challenge. The wind made it rather brisk out there, but we were prepared.

The sightings? Well, they were early season sightings. We came across a few minkes, including two travelling together which is somewhat unusual. I am fairly certain I saw a finback just as we got to Stellwagen Bank. For humpbacks, the "big money" whale because they are so charismatic and tend to be more dramatically active at the surface, we got good looks at just a few. Thanks to Jake's digital camera, one was definitively identified as Giraffe. I've seen her before but it has been a long long time. The others we saw were farther away so getting good looks at their flukes was much harder, though the naturalist (also a Jake) thinks one was Crown. We could see a fair number of spouts around on the horizon but they were too far for us to reach in the time allotted. Except for one breach that most of us missed except for the resulting splash, the whales were not being overly active. We went to the north/northeast corner of Stellwagen Bank because the southern end of the bank is in Cape Cod Bay which is still pretty well populated with critically endangered North American right whales so good efforts were being made to minimize boat traffic around them.

Reports on the NEAq web site of whale watches so far included dolphins, but we didn't get that lucky today. And I'm still trying to add the elusive (to me) Salt, the grand dame humpback of Stellwagen Bank, to my personal sightings list. She has already been seen this year so she is out there somewhere... I shot less than one roll of film (of 24 exposures) on whales today so I am already working on figuring out when I can get back out again.

I rather doubt I will be up late tonight, since I am already fading, but the day was well worth it. After getting back to the dock, we wandered through the Aquarium where I got to play a little more with the new digital point and shoot. It seemed to do pretty well. I need to sort through them, especially the large bunch I took of a diver in the Giant Ocean Tank hand feeding fish and rays.

It was also sort of fun to take advantage of my Blackberry and post updates through the day. I am following NEAq (which is also following me), so it cracked me up a little when they re-tweeted one of my posts. Which in turn was re-tweeted by someone else. Whatever works!

I am trying to find and keep my focus - on a lot of things, not just environmental. Along those lines, if you have not watched "the Story of Stuff", please set aside 20 minutes and have a look. It's eye opening and very worthwhile.

The Story of Stuff

I know, its been eons since I have posted here. Just a little thing tonight, which gave me a chuckle and a bit of a start.

I signed up for Twitter tonight. Originally, my plan was to have two twitters, one for me as most know me, and one for my whalegeek self, to follow different things. When I tried to sign up, the nick of photomonk was already taken. Whalegeek was not, so I set that up. Decided to see who the person was who already had photomonk.

He's an honest to goodness monk and photographer.

http://web.mac.com/fatheranthony/Father_Anthonys_Monastery_Journal/About_Me.html

Wonder if I should follow him on Twitter. Could be interesting...

Heh.

For the need to strengthen our school budgets...



I mean, come on - didn't anyone proof this before putting signs up around town?

.... saschaloves! Since it is after midnight here on the east coast, I can get an early jump on greetings! May your juggling always go well, your tumbling as planned, and may you always fly the trapeze of life with the greatest of ease!