No One Title Fits This....

So Jericho came to the end of its -second and alleged final- season on CBS last night. My boycott against CBS (see my March 23 post) will continue.

Knowing full well this could be the final episode ever of Jericho, I watched it with nervous excitement having my own ideas of what would happen, seeing the plot unfold, and watching it with a wide range of emotions.

The whole show has had a lot of symbolism and hidden messages in it, from political to historical. It has kept me riveted.

I never expected when Jericho started to be as disappointed with the closure of a television show as I am now because last night's episode exhibited some of the finest television writing I have ever seen. From the ripping off of the Allied States of America patches from the soliders' uniforms showing their protest of the puppet government put in place by a powermongering corporation, to the show of respect for another man's loss of family... and I never thought I'd find myself saying something like this, but ... to the shooting down of two former United States Air Force jets by the Texas Air National Guard.

Throughout the whole episode, I was yelling at the TV. A 33-year-old man was getting misty eyed watching how well the humanity and the patriotism bled through the screen. I was screaming in frustration or hollering in excitement.

That, my friends, is television at it's best.

However, one of the most profound moments in the show came during an exchange between the two heroes, when the one, Jake Green, was asking the other, Hawkins, what was going to come of their actions.

Hawkins replies: "Whatever happens in the next few hours could determine the course of things for years to come. Maybe our history for the next hundred years. That is the responsbility we got here. And if that comes at a terrible cost, then so be it. Because that's the only way that things get better and it's the only way that people stay free."

Imagine these scenes:

• The morning of July 4, 1776, Philadelphia, PA, at the Pennsylvania Statehouse as delegates of the Second Continental Congress assemble to go over the final draft of a document called "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America"....
• April 12, 1861, in the Charleston, SC harbor, as Confederate batteries are about to open up on Fort Sumter...
• December 7, 1941, in the White House as President Roosevelt receives word of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor...
• August 6, 1945, as crewmembers board the Enola Gay at Tinian Airbase in the Pacific...
• April 16, 1962, as President John F. Kennedy reviews surveillance photos showing Soviet missile batteries on the island nation of Cuba...
• November 22, 1963, as Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as president aboard Air Force One following the assassinaton of President John F. Kennedy...
• August 2, 1990, as President George H. Bush receives word the the Iraqi army has invaded Kuwait...
• November 8, 2000, in the Florida election commission headquarters....
• September 11, 2001, in the Pentagon, aboard Air Force One, or in the FAA headquarters as civilian airliners are used as weapons of terrorism against the United States....

Think about what happened in a few hour time period on each of those days.

Government leaders, military personnel, and ordinary citizens all made decisions and put actions into place that have since affected American history and world history and will continue to for years to come.

In many of those cases, the cost of those decisions was in a particular hardship, political strife, turmoil, or signficiant loss of American lives. These are things that we must be faced to go through from time to time in order to sustain our freedom.

We've lost 4,000 servicemembers in the Iraqi theater in the past five years. We lost more than 58,000 in a more than 10-year period in Vietnam and the jungles of Southeast Asia. Nearly 292,000 American servicemembers died serving their country during our less than four-year involvement in the theaters of World War II.

We've seen that there can be a terrible cost for our actions and for how we respond to different situations - and that cost, whether in the past, present, or future, can or will be hard to deal with and cause tremendous heartache and doubt. But that's how things get better and people stay free.

Happy Birthday America

She doesn't look too bad at 231 years old. Yeah, she's got some battle scars. She's a little rough edges from time to time. And her family doesn't necessarily treat her right all the time, but the United States of America turned 231 this July 4th.

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As with every 4th of July, there are people who truly do recognize the symbolism of this holiday -- and show their patriotism. For many people though, it's just a day off of work.

(Granted I did enjoy my day off of work. We grilled out and ate some hot dogs and some hamburgers, and went to see some fireworks)

But I wish more people would recognize the 4th for what it truly is. I wish on this day each year that every American would take time to recognize that the freedoms and liberties we enjoy as Americans are due to the people who 231 years ago signed their names on a document that turned them all into traitors in the eyes of the British crown and essentially laid down bounties on each of their heads (There was a great editorial in the Asheville Citizen Times yesterday about this); because of the more than 1 million American service members since that day who have given their lives in the defense of that freedom; and even because of each and every patriotic American who casts their vote for our legislators.

I wish so many things for this country and it's people. But we're 300 million sisters and brothers who don't see eye to eye and are not perfect. We don't all agree. We can be a factionalized bunch and are always split on issues -- from Iraq, to the environment, to family values. We try to tackle domestic issues and we make mistakes. We try to tackle international issues and we make mistakes. But we do things right also. We don't all get along. And we never will. The fact that we are all so different and we want different things for our country, yet we all have the ability to affect change in it is what sets us apart from every other nation in the world. That is the beauty of America. It's kind of a paradox.

231 years ago 56 men who led ordinary lives did something extraodinary. They put their own lives on the line so that the promise of a new nation, of new freedoms for generations and generations to come, could be born. I just wish I could travel back in time and thank each and every one of them.

Unrelated Topics On the Mind

I feel bad I haven't blogged in a few weeks. I have a few things that I want to just mention really quickly though. I may expand on these in the very near future, but for now I just wanted to get these out of my brain and onto paper (or the web, as the case may be)

1. Thomas Ravenel
For those of you who are unfamiliar with who Thomas Ravenel is, he is the (suspended) South Carolina State Treasurer. Earlier this week he was indicted on drug-related charges. This guy seemed sleezy from the get-go. He's just one of those types of people that looks like you can't trust him from the minute he opens his mouth. I am a die-hard, card carrying member of the GOP but this guy just is like nails on chalkboard. In every election since I was 18 I voted a straight Republican ticket - except in 2006. The one non-party line vote I have ever cast in my life was for Ravenel's Democratic opponent, Grady Patterson, who had been in office for years.

People like Ravenel are the reason why most of the nation thinks South Carolinians are an uneducated bunch of inbred hicks. He is an embarassment to the entire state. I don't understand why in the world ANYONE in a position like his would even think of being involved in anything remotely illegal. Yet politicians do it all the time. Again, this is a case of someone of status thinking they are above the law. And, fortunately for the justice system, the law caught up to him, yet unfortunately for the state of South Carolina, it makes us look like a bunch of drugged up rednecks. Thanks Thomas.

2. 9 Heroes
On a sad and tragic note....
Nine Charleston firefighters died earlier this week when the roof of a mattress store collapsed onto them as they were searching the store, which was engulfed in a massive fire, for anyone remaining inside. It was the highest loss of firefighters in a single instance since September 11, 2001. My thoughts and prayers go out to each and every family member and friend of each of these brave men.

3. Get in the game, Fred
Fred Thompson is polling very well right now, despite the fact he is not officially a candidate for president. A lot of people are saying he will bring a return a Reaganesque era to Washington. Frankly, I would like to see that. I think Thompson is really the only true unifying candidate the GOP is going to have and the only one who will be able to topple Hillary. Edwards and Obama are both a joke. The GOP can take them out of this game with relative ease if either survives the primary.

That's it for now.... more to come on Friday.

Remembering our fallen service members

Theodore Klingensmith is listed Panel 35W - Line 27 of the Vietnam Memorial. Teddy, as he was called, was a cousin of my mother's. He died on January 3, 1969 while serving his country in Vietnam. Teddy was killed before I was even born. I never had a chance to know him, but am proud of him.

In the more than 200 year history of our country, more than 1,004,000 servicemembers have died in the line of duty.

We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all of these fallen soldiers for their sacrifice, for the courage, for their honor in defending the very freedom that so many of us take for granted.

We have men and women around the world giving their lives each day so that this nation and our way of life will not perish from the Earth. For that, I am truly grateful. We cry with the families of those fallen soldiers. We mourn their loss, but give thanks that we live in a nation that allows us to follow our dreams.

Today, on Memorial Day, I can't help but think about what this nation, what this world would be like had those soldiers not stepped up in the face of danger and stood their ground. Could we still be ruled by a European power? Could we have split into two countries? Would the Cold War still be going on? Would the terrorists have unleashed even more fury upon American cities?

Despite any differences we all may have, we are all Americans. We should all stand behind our service men and women. We have a right to question our government's policies and actions. But we should not ever show disrespect or anger toward our men and women in uniform for carrying out their orders. We've seen what kind of hurt and animosity that can cause - we saw it as our troops came home from Vietnam, after watching their comrades die in over the skies, in the rice paddies, in the prison camps of Southeast Asia. Never again should we turn our back on them.

When you sit back and watch TV, cruise down the highway in your SUV, eat out at a restaurant, or walk down your local main street just know that men and women are giving their lives so that you can do just that.

Thank you to all our servicemembers, past and present - I am proud of you all.