Plowing through the eerily deserted streets of Midtown Sacramento this morning, seeking solace in a cup of coffee and bitterly resentful that the weird emptiness is due to the fact that an inordinate number of people have the day off (and I don't), I noticed something rather strange. At least, stranger than the lack of traffic. Anyone else notice this ...? Where are all the smoking piles of blown fireworks? Where's the burned detritus of garbage that symbolizes (what is commonly referred to as) the Freedom and Liberty which we know so well? Come to think of it, where was all the noise and clouds of barbecued Chinese gunpowder last night? It had to be the quietest, least stench-ridden Fourth of July on record, so far as I can recall.
I'm rather flummoxed, which comes as no surprise. It's almost possible to believe that a significant number of over-heated fellow Valley denizens actually had better things to do yesterday evening; that maybe their primitive nationalism, animated within the framework of unreflective "patriotism" and unquestioning obedience, is beginning to evaporate; that reason and common sense are finally starting to trump the overbearing, imperative qualities of the consumer culture; that the nitwits and flapdoodlers are, perhaps, coming out of their media/commerce-induced stupors ...
Is this really possible, or am I merely clutching at straws that don't exist?
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