Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond

In the capable hands of Fast and Furious director Justin Lin, the latest installment of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Beyond, is without a doubt the best Trek movie since The Wrath of Khan – the finest of all the films based on the original TV series.

There is plenty of action while time is allotted to give beloved characters the growth and depth that they deserve. The story itself seems in some ways a reboot of Khan, but it is done in such a way as to seem very fresh and still explores new territory in terms of the crew’s mission and Captain Kirk’s (in a fine performance by Chris Pine) leadership skills.

It is hard to go into too much detail without revealing major spoilers here, but I will give away one thing that most everyone knows – the iconic U.S.S. Enterprise does get destroyed as part of a much larger nefarious plot by evil villain Krall (Idris Elba), who is reminiscent of Khan but also has unique qualities that make him a much different nemesis.

After a failed encounter to try to present a gift of peace to a group of unimpressed aliens who attack him, Kirk returns to the Enterprise disheveled and disheartened. The gift – an ancient weapon called Abronath – is stored away on the ship, and as Kirk licks his wounds he records a captain’s log in which he wonders about his crew, their mission, and his place as their leader. In a few moments it gives Kirk more introspection than we have ever seen before from the character, but also sets up the conflict that is about to come.

Docking inside Starbase Yorktown, a magnificent new space station that is amazingly realized by cinematographer Stephen F. Windon, the ship gets resupplied and maintained while the crew has a chance for shore leave. During this time we get glimpses of the other crew members interactions, including Spock (a fantastic Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) having a few bumps in their relationship, much to the amusement of Dr. McCoy (Keith Urban).

Their stay is short-lived because an emergency presents itself that only Kirk and his crew can handle. A survivor of a doomed spaceship comes to the space station asking for help to save her crew that has crashed on a planet inside a nebula. Kirk and crew take on the mission, but as they enter the nebula it becomes clear this was an ambush as they are attacked by a massive armada of ships that quickly decimate the Enterprise, causing it to start breaking up and crash on the planet.

Krall and his crew are behind the attack and are in search of the Abronath, which seems to be necessary for Krall to complete a super weapon that he wants to use against the Federation. Kirk and he engage in a fierce battle, but as that is happening the crew manages to evacuate the crashing ship in escape pods. Kirk also gets away from Krall and escapes to the planet.

Once on the planet the separated crew members struggle to survive and make sense of what has taken place. Interesting dynamics are explored when Kirk ends up with Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin whose scenes seem to have added poignancy), Spock and McCoy are thrown together, while Scotty (Simon Pegg also doing double-duty as co-writer) meets up with alien Jaylah (a terrific Sofia Boutella who steals every scene that she is in) who knows all about Krall and may be their best shot at defeating him.

To tell any more would spoil things too much, but let it suffice to say that the crew is as resilient as ever and is not going down without a fight. The situation gets quite bleak, and there are some disturbing scenes where people are tortured and killed, and some of the main characters are in imminent danger.

Despite all of that, the film itself is beautiful to behold, and even the crash of the Enterprise is handled like visual poetry; in that horrible occurrence there is the choreography of explosions and destruction that is unpleasant and yet thrilling, enhanced by Michael Giacchino's glorious musical score. Everything from the ship going into warp speed to the space battles and the exploration of the immensity of the Yorktown comes together in a cinematic tapestry that should make even the most ardent Trekkies think that they got the biggest bang for their bucks.

Still, after all these years – all the TV episodes of different series and 13 feature films – the message that creator Gene Roddenberry brought forth seems as enticing and resilient as ever. His concept of a future where we have overcome divisions and war, where all people – including a wide array of alien beings – live in peace and treat others with respect and dignity, is still a beacon of hope to us all.

Star Trek Beyond continues the journey of these beloved characters and the mission they have been on all along – and, thanks to Roddenberry’s enduring vision, we all keep gladly wanting to go where no one has gone before.

Live long and prosper, Star Trek fans, and go see this film on the big screen in 3D to fully appreciate its magnificence.

Children’s Museum Becomes Gallery and Studio – The Art of Andy Warhol

If you are like me, during the summer months you take your kids away on vacations, spend time at the beach or pool, and allow them the down time they both want and need. Despite all the fun and games, you probably try to keep their academic skills sharp with reading, writing, and math activities, and all these things can fill out the schedule on these long, hot summer days.

I am also always looking for galleries, museums, and theaters with programs that will expand their horizons while providing them enjoyable and entertaining opportunities. Imagine my delight when I discovered that my kids could learn all about “pop art,” Andy Warhol, and his artistic world while getting a true hands-on experience in the silkscreen process.

The traveling exhibit The Art of Andy Warhol is now at the Long Island Children’s Museum in Garden City, Long Island. Housed on the first floor of the museum, the exhibit includes a gallery with original artwork from Warhol’s “Myth” Series. There is also a recreation of Warhol’s “Factory,” where there is an opportunity for kids to create their own individual works of art by stepping into a silkscreen studio and actively participating in the process from conceptualizing the work to making the finished product.

First we sat down at a table with paper and scissors and had to think about what we wanted to create. My son chose to make geometric shapes because he is enjoying those in our home math lessons right now. He also, for some reason, chose to draw a rabbit. After cutting out the shapes, arranging them on the pattern square, and choosing a color, we were ready to put them through the silkscreen process.

We were assisted by guide/artist Megan, who not only showed us the steps to make our work of art, but gave a thorough history lesson regarding the start of the “pop art” movement in the 1950s, Warhol’s role as its leading figure, his considerable influence on notable artists including Keith Haring, Richard Prince, and Jeff Koons, an influence which continues today as art students and art lovers look to his work for inspiration.

One thing that Megan mentioned which really fascinated my son was that Warhol made it acceptable to take everyday objects like soup cans and turn them into art. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he listened and no doubt imagined household items he would be using in future projects.

Megan guided us through the silkscreen process once we selected the ink (we chose blue) and poured it into the silkscreen bed, where my son used a wide brush in the “inking process” that turned our paper and images into a work of art.

As our masterpiece began to dry, we walked around the gallery, looking at the original artwork. Disney fans that we are, we were drawn to Warhol’s Mickey Mouse but also liked the other works that included images of Santa Claus, Uncle Sam, Superman, and the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. My son was also intrigued by The Shadow, a self-portrait that gave him an idea about the person behind these works of art.

There was a Costume and Book Center in the gallery where kids can dress in the costumes of the characters in the artworks (sadly, there was a waiting list for Superman and Mickey), but the opportunity was there to explore the background of these characters through provided books and online resources.

Upcoming events in exhibit include Artist-in-Residence Programs running throughout the summer. Also upcoming on August 4 from 1-4 p.m. is “Wonderful Warhol,” which will allow children to explore the artist’s life and work through different crafts and activities. The goal is for participants to “discover the artist in you” by creating works of art by using new techniques and their wonderful imaginations.

In the museum’s press release, LICM President Suzanne LeBlanc captures our experience in the gallery:

The Art of Andy Warhol exhibit provides children with a studio experience, allowing them to immediately apply what they are seeing and learning. The images in Warhol’s ‘Myths” series are playful and relatable to all ages; providing opportunities for children and adults to begin a conversation about art.

LICM has many more exciting exhibits and galleries for your children to explore. Since we are members, we visit throughout the year for special events, but definitely make a habit of going there for a “field trip” there more often during the summer months.

As we left the museum with our now dry work of art, my son was beaming with the thought that he had created something special. I appreciated the opportunity to be able to collaborate, create, and learn with him in an atmosphere so conducive to inspiring young people to know more about an essential part of their cultural heritage. We talked about the experience all the way home, thus fulfilling what Ms. LeBlanc noted about starting a “conversation about art” that I plan to continue. Needless to say we are going back to check out the Artist-in-Residence programs next week.

The Art of Andy Warhol exhibition was conceived by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and is supported locally by Astoria Bank and an award by the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition is free with museum admission fee and runs until September 4, 2016.

'Pokemon GO' – Away

I have long suspected that smartphones are going to be the thing that undoes our society. Forget terrorism, despotic states, and nuclear weapons – we are going to be destroyed from within by subtle yet nefarious forces that we never see coming – addictive things that keep us focused on that little device in our hands instead of what is happening all around us in our lives.

One day I overheard a guy in a department store asking the cashier to help him – he had lost his phone. He begged, “Please, my whole world is in that phone!” While I felt sorry for him, I also realized the salient truth of what he had said – without that phone, he had nothing. His case is a microcosm in a time when none of us remembers a phone number or knows directions to get anywhere because we rely on our phones to take care of those things.

We have all seen the hilarious clips of people walking and texting and the results of their collisions, falls, and dives. While these things may be humorous, they are also a sad indictment of a culture that is fixated on a virtual world that revolves inside a rectangular object that fits in pocketbooks or pockets; however, I see many people walking with devices in hand, almost afraid to let them go for even a few seconds. What have we become when a phone is like a virtual crutch or cane?

So into this tech-absorbed milieu we get Pokemon GO – the smartphone game taking the world by storm with little images of the Pokemon (pocket monsters) needing to be located and captured in real places. This augmented reality drops the little darlings in parks, churches, stores, and, well, you get the idea. The virtual creatures are being chased by (the game was meant for kids but I have seen more adults playing it than little ones) real people who are falling, tripping, and even driving cars into trees in order to get the job done.

My problem with something like Pokemon GO, beyond the obvious dangers, is that even though it was meant to get kids off the sofa and outside for exercise, it is also sinking the users deeper into a virtual fog. As a parent of two kids who are on their phones and the iPad too much already, this is like adding insult to possible injuries.

I think reality – no matter how unsettling it may be at times – has to be promoted rather than encouraging more escape from it. In the past people watched TV to escape from reality, then along came a slap in the face like the Kardashians to shake us up. What they call “reality TV” is no more real than a sitcom, but it pulled even more people into its web. The advent of the Internet  brought a different kind of reality – virtual reality – to get us even more distanced from the real world, and then smartphones took the journey into this cyber netherworld into more personal and mobile directions.

The Internet has maximized what used to be on television and that which is virtual – and this deadly combination with smartphones has made us sitting ducks – with our thumbs tapping away at a little screen we can conveniently take with us wherever we go. The obsession with the virtual is going to be our Achilles’ heel – the thing that undoes society worse than any enemy could. Along comes the insidious Pokemon GO, and suddenly everyone is falling over one another and causing havoc in the streets.

I have seen people wanting to “get inside to get the Pokemon” in places that are locked up – here in New York City churches are not always open, nor are stores, libraries, and restaurants. When people start crossing the line by crawling over fences or gates to capture the little virtual monsters on private property, then we have potential disasters in the making. There are also the accidents that have already occurred that portend what will be just as deadly as texting while driving – all this courtesy of a little game meant for kids.

As a parent I like when my kids use their devices for educational purposes – and they do this regularly – so it is not a simple case of taking them away in order to prevent them from playing Pokemon GO. It would be easier if the game would just be gone, but its success means that it is not going anywhere for now.

Even if Pokemon GO disappeared tomorrow, I fear the damage is already done, for the obsession is something that can be generated again and again. This game proves how susceptible we humans are to becoming tech-addicted lemmings, only too ready to follow the latest virtual fad right off an actual cliff.

Another craze will no doubt present itself soon and, just as my kids no longer even touch their once beloved Wii and all the assorted games and accessories we got for it, Pokemon GO will one day be gone – that cannot day come soon enough for me.

Politics and Pressure In Social Media – Please Make It All Go Away

At this point I am all conventioned out – and I haven’t watched even a minute of the Republicans in Cleveland, and I also don’t plan to watch the Democrats in Philadelphia next week. I am so overwhelmingly disgusted with the way the media – social and otherwise – has negatively influenced this campaign for the White House, that I am both done and undone. Truthfully, I have had enough; I just want it all to stop!

But just like Al Pacino’s character Michael Corleone in The Godfather films – he wanted out but they just kept pulling him back in – I feel the same way now, especially when it comes to Facebook, texts, and emails that come from friends, friends of friends, and people who are my cousin’s friend’s uncle’s roommate’s childhood sweetheart.

Some of these people I don’t know from a hole in the wall – or is it a gap in cyberspace? Whatever the case, I am inundated with calls to do things. I get “Share if you are a real American” and “Stand With Hillary” – or alternately, “Stand With Trump” – and so on. I would say I am mad as hell and can’t take it anymore, but it goes way beyond that.

Friends, relatives, and complete strangers are pushing their political agendas in my face on a daily basis. I get countless emails explaining why either Hillary or Trump is better than the alternative; I get texts as well, some of which are of dubious orientation. I am blocking more of these offenders than an NFL linebacker, but the smart phone is a gift that keeps on giving – junk mail, robo-calls, and more tedious texts just keep on coming.

Going on Facebook these days is for the most part an unpleasant experience. I used to enjoy going on FB just to catch up with people I don’t see as much as I would like or my relatives (distant or otherwise), but now a mixed bag of users has turned the site into an ideological war zone. I have seen friendships dissolve in the comments section of posts because the situation is so intense and divisive – imagine people who have known each other for 30 or 40 years allowing their relationships to be torn asunder by this combustive campaign rhetoric?

I am at the point where I scroll by almost everything because it is either political in nature or pressuring me to “like” or “share” something with which I have no interest in doing either. People are really pounding the virtual podium to the point of tediousness now. In the old days you could walk past the loons at Speaker’s Corner in London or in Times Square in New York and get away from them, but now in the virtual world they are omnipresent and oppressive.

I have been getting those posts where the person pressures me or tests me by asking me to “like this” or “share this” or “cut and paste this” in order that he or she will know if I am a “true” friend or not. I am so over trying to please or wanting to please people in regard to these things that I am also ignoring them, as well as people asking me to play online games. I have told people that I don’t play online games, but they keep inviting me. Grrr!!!!

I have explained to almost everyone that I am in contact with again and again that I do not support either candidate, and I would rather vote for someone who is no longer in the running – who also disappointed me greatly by compromising himself to support one “presumptive” candidate.

For the first time since I was 18 years old I will be not voting for President of the United States, and that hurts me deeply, but I have no choice because the candidates of the two major parties are such appallingly awful choices. I could write in a name – but I may as well choose Barney the Dinosaur because he would do an infinitely better job than our current crop of potential presidential timber (dry rot would be more accurate).

Yes, I could just stop using FB, delete my texts and emails, and try to move on, but that seems like I am being punished for not wanting to be involved in this process of mutual obsessive compulsiveness by devotees of either candidate (or unwilling to share things about illnesses, causes, or true friends, etc.). I’m getting really Greta Garbo about this social media quagmire now – I just want to be left alone!

So I am making my final stand with this post – I am asking for it all to stop, though I know it will never stop because social media is a monster that keeps feeding upon itself. I need to just go about my day and do what I need to do. I’m going to ignore these posts, try to scroll down, and maintain radio silence. I will comment on innocuous things like birthdays, anniversaries, and life accomplishments; otherwise, I am Silent Sam – the Invisible Facebook user – the Quiet Cyber Man.

I don’t like it this way, but that is how it has to be. This will be my last post that has anything remotely to do with politics until the die is cast in November. Once either one of these dubious candidates gets elected (unless Barney gets lucky), then all bets are off, and I may throw my hat back into the ring. Until then, I am going dark when it comes to this subject.

Until next time, Klaatu Barada Nikto!

My Grandfather Was Hijacker D.B. Cooper – A Short Story by Victor Lana

First appeared on Blogcritics.

I’m watching a story on CNN about the infamous D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a plane back in 1971 and never got caught. The report indicates that the FBI is closing the case after 45 years, and then they show sketches of the guy. Something seems familiar about his face, but I can’t connect the dots because the images are only on screen briefly.

Working at my desk later that morning, I look up at some family photographs, seeing one of Dad as a boy with Papa, and I realize that Papa looks just like Cooper except for a bushy mustache and blonde hair. After printing out the sketches and confirming the resemblance, I decide to go into Manhattan and visit the old man.

*

Papa’s aide Annie, a friendly older woman from Jamaica, opens the door. “Why are you such a stranger?”

“I’m never invited,” I say.

Annie directs me into the spacious living room where Papa sits hunched in a wheelchair looking out the picture window at the city.

He doesn’t turn to acknowledge me. “What’s the occasion?”

“Just thought I’d stop by,” I say.

“When’s the last time I saw you?”

“Dad’s funeral.”

Papa spins the wheelchair around – the bushy mustache now snow white; however, his face remains remarkably unwrinkled and his blue eyes are clear behind gold-rimmed eyeglasses. I thought he looked like Cooper when I saw his old photo; now I’m not so sure.

“I know your father told you how I was a bad guy.”

“No, he said he loved you; he said it often.”

“Why are you here, William?”

I take the print-out of the Cooper sketches from my pocket and hand it to him. “I made the connection this morning.”

“It took you all long enough.”

“Are you saying that you are…”

“I’m not saying it – you are!”

“So, is it you?”

He stares at the image. “Coming back from Vietnam very angry, I stayed out West and settled in Portland, working in the airport for Northwest Orient Airlines, but I kept messing up and they fired me.”

“So they owed you.”

“Shaved off my mustache, cut my hair, dyed it black, and put in brown contact lenses, so no one recognized me when I bought a ticket. On the plane I showed them my bomb – just some red safety flares in the briefcase with wires and battery taped to them, but that worked. I got my ransom and parachutes.

“Passengers got off in Seattle but I kept some crew on board. Told them to fly to Mexico, but I took the money and jumped. Being a paratrooper in Nam, it was no biggie.”

I stare at him in awe. “How did you avoid being caught?”

“I never used the money – at least not for a long time. Eventually, I made small deposits in different banks. When I finally started to withdraw it, those original bills had been long passed into the general population, serial numbers undetected.”

“Did Dad know?” I ask.

“No one has ever known until now.”

I think of what my father once told me. “Dad believed that you would have been a different person if grandma didn’t die so young.”

I see in his expression that he is fighting tears. He nods and then puts his head down. “Millie’s loss…destroyed me, and I know my kids hated me for marrying Gail, but I only did it so they would have a family. That was probably my biggest mistake.”

I think of myself, how I lost my last girlfriend Ella because of stupid reasons and pride. I put my hand on his shoulder. “We all make mistakes, Papa. At least you tried.”

I feel his body convulsing now as he cries, and I do something I haven’t done in my whole life – I get down on my knees and hug him. Papa brings up his good hand and arm and hugs me back, and I feel sorry for the old man now. He has lost a son, two wives, and can’t walk anymore.

We stare into each other’s faces, his eyes clear and watery now. “I know now that the sins of the father hurt the son; if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t hijack that plane.”

I get up and sit on the chair next to him. “What’s done is done now, Papa.”

He nods somberly. “I suppose you will expose me; tell the world who I am and what I did. I guess I deserve that.”

I had thought about that on my way here, but now I am thinking that there is no reason to divulge anything because it changes nothing – Dad and Papa’s wives are gone. My brother, sister, and their children don’t need a scandal to ruin their lives, and looking at the old man I know that he has suffered enough.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I say, “not now, not ever.”

Papa looks up at me. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I did it.”

So yes, my Papa was the hijacker D.B or Dan Cooper, one of the most infamous fugitives and wanted men in America for all those years, but now the case is closed, and for me it’s not about the money, avoiding scandal, or protecting my family.

Yes, those things factor in, but the most important thing for me is that my grandfather served his country in war and came back and was treated poorly. Papa didn’t hurt anyone in the hijacking – he didn’t even have a real bomb, and in the end maybe Northwest deserved to compensate him in some way after firing him instead of helping him get better.

We are quiet for a while, and then I say, “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to visit you more often.”

“But why now?”

“To make up for lost time.”

“I don’t deserve it,” he says with a big smile, “but thank you.”

I never saw Papa happy before. Case closed and then some.

What the World Needs Now – A Real The Day the Earth Stood Still

After the latest terrorist attack in France, the nations of the world need to stand together and say, “Enough is enough!” Unfortunately, that scenario seems unattainable due to the fractured nature of leadership across the globe, of people who don’t want things to change, and some who support the insanity that terror brings to the innocent people of this planet.

Using a truck as a weapon of mass destruction, the terrorist drove through a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day, slaughtering and maiming them as he went along. He also fired a weapon into the crowd. This attack seems to be a game changer – we can all debate about making guns harder to get, but are we now going to say the same thing about trucks? The truth is that it’s not just about what weapon is used but rather the state of mind that would foster such hatred, such disregard for human life no matter how death is delivered.

People can all say the world needs love; we want to give peace a chance, and all the other stuff about coming together to stop the carnage that seems to keep occurring. Of course, it is an equal opportunity carnage – consider Orlando, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia as all suffering recent terrorist attacks. What the world needs now is not peace, love, and prayer vigils – it needs a good kick in the ass.

It is time for an intervention – one of an extra-terrestrial kind similar to what happens in the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still. We all need to know – and that includes presidents, prime ministers, kings, and terrorist leaders – that our clock is in danger of getting cleaned. The only power that can accomplish this is one that is greater than all the combined nations on earth.

In the film a spaceship lands in Washington D.C. and human looking alien Klaatu (Michael Rennie) comes to earth to present a token of peace to the President of the United States, promptly getting shot by a nervous soldier. This could have been a disaster straightaway because Klaatu’s sidekick, an eight-foot robot named Gort, annihilates all weapons in the vicinity and could have easily taken out the people too; however, Klaatu is a forgiving soul and wants to bring an important message to the people of earth.

To prove his power, the alien makes the earth stand still – all power is shut off all across the planet. The implications in 1951 when the film was made were dramatic, but can you imagine what would occur if this happened on 2016 earth, a world so reliant on devices and technology?

Klaatu’s experiment was a demonstration of power to make all the saber-rattling leaders of the world realize that they had to put down their swords. At the time of the film’s premiere, the Cold War was in full swing and the possibility of mutual destruction seemed very real. At the dramatic climax of the film, Klaatu is wounded again by soldiers and the robot Gort prepares to destroy the planet. An earth woman (Patricia Neal) had been told by Klaatu how to stop the robot with a specific phrase, and she is able to save the world from destruction by uttering “Klaatu Barada Nikto.”

Eventually revived by Gort, Klaatu’s final message to the leaders of the world is most ominous – the world needed to get its act together and live in peace with other planets. Failure to do so, and any attempt to extend the earth’s destructive capabilities into space, would result in the earth being “reduced to a burned out cinder.”

All these years later Klaatu’s words in this film reverberate as something necessary and compelling right now. An overwhelmingly more powerful alien race (any visitors from a distant planet would have to have exceedingly more technology and weaponry than what we have currently) would not care about our petty territorial disputes or our antiquated allegiances to boundaries forged long ago. They would assess our danger to one another as unacceptable, and an ultimatum similar to the one in the film would shake the foundations of all we thought about our invulnerability – making us realize we are like insects susceptible to being crushed underfoot by a much greater power.

It is a shame that it would have to come to this, but there seems to be nothing else to stop our downward spiral. On our planet now there are too many divisions, too many so-called good guys who see everyone else as bad. There are all kinds of weapons of mass destruction that can kill everyone on this planet ten times over, but perhaps the most pernicious WMD is the human mind, the one that can descend to a place dark enough to think it is okay to fly a plane into a building, drop bombs on cities, or drive a truck through a crowd.

So, calling all aliens, please stop hiding during your visits to earth. There have been enough UFO sightings – we know you are out there. Please help us; please help save us from ourselves. Make yourselves known now! Land your vehicles in Moscow, Washington, London, and Beijing. Take over our airwaves, rob us of the Internet, and shake us down to every fiber of our beings – in short, scare the crap out of us and warn us to get our acts together fast or else we will suffer the consequences.

We can only hope that would be enough to get us to really change; however, if the aliens go away as Klaatu did at the end of the film, it may not be enough. We might revert back to our stupidity, back to the behavior that inspired the aliens to come and warn us, and then we could be in for the punishment we would deserve – annihilation, and then no promises will be accepted, no “Klaatu Barada Nikto” will be able to save us. All our arrogance, all our posturing of human superiority in a vast universe where our planet is just a speck of dust, will be reduced to ashes. What a sad but perhaps a fitting end for a people who were born into a beautiful world but took it for granted, abused it and each other, and then ultimately faded to oblivion.

Fourth of July – A Holiday For All Americans

Fourth of July is almost here – apple pie, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, and coleslaw! There will be parades marching down Main Streets all across America, and besides the barbecues people will flock to beaches and go away to the mountains or get out on their boats. At night many of us will be sitting around bonfires, roasting marshmallows, and looking up to see fireworks light the sky. Above most of these festivities, an American flag will be flying in the wind.

I am a registered Independent and I will be flying my flag outside my house. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, and people of all other parties are free to do so. The flag – patriotic symbol that it is – should be an equal opportunity for all Americans to show their love of country. As the song goes, “It’s the emblem of/the land I love/the home of the free and the brave.”

What worries me is the divisiveness that has hovered over this nation during the Presidential primaries; it is tearing us apart. All over the media, the Internet, and especially sites like Facebook, we get partisan posts that are rife with rancor. You get such ugly accusations, name calling, and assertions that you cannot be a “real American” if you are – fill in the blank with whatever party you hate most. It is depressing to see that we have come to this, and it seems it is getting worse day by day.

The problem is that this bitterness diffuses the nature of Fourth of July, when we celebrate Independence Day – the day when we made a stand for liberty and justice against oppression. It’s that notion of “independence” that should unite us, bind us, not tear us apart. When I hear someone say, "Oh he's a _____, he can't love this country" I know that person has no clue about not only love of country but what it is to be an American.

A long time ago my uncle was in local politics (in Queens, NY) and got to know some heavy hitters over the years – Alphonse D’Amato, Tip O’Neill, and others. He was friendly with people from both sides of the aisle. One time over drinks with O’Neill, he asked the then Speaker of the House how he got along with President Reagan. Tip claimed that they got along extremely well and that there was never partisan bickering in their dealings. They worked together to get things done.

All these years later I see none of that happening in Washington, on Facebook, or in the media. To get a good idea of how broken things are, all you have to do is to watch MSNBC for a few minutes, switch to CNN, and then to FOX News. The jabbering heads on all these channels will make your mind explode. The panelists bicker among themselves, the anchors make snide remarks if they don’t agree with you, and there is an overall breakdown of civility and lack of credibility that would make Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow turn over in their graves.

Personally, I have had enough. I am more tired of hearing about the 2016 Presidential Campaign than I am of the Kardashians. At this point I just want to tune it all out. It’s a sad indictment of the media and the way they have handled the mess that is going on, but the truth is I just don’t care anymore and wish it were over already.

I have my flag flying outside my house right now, and when I see the flag flying in front of someone else’s house I appreciate it. I don’t think, “That must be the home of another Independent!” It’s the right and privilege of ALL Americans to fly it, as well as people who have immigrated here and now love the country too and want to become citizens. As I mentioned before, the flag is equal opportunity for all to show their love of country, not just for some or those in your political party.

This brings to mind the lyrics of the great song written by Woodie Guthrie: This land is your land/ This land is my land/ From California to the New York island/From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters/This land was made for you and me.” It is the intent of this song to not only celebrate America but also the people living here – ALL the people living here from sea to shining sea.

So do yourselves a favor this Fourth of July – throw the dirty politics into the trash along with your soiled paper plates from the barbecue. Go shake the hands of people not because they are in your political party but because they are your fellow Americans. Stand shoulder to shoulder – Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and all other parties – and lean your heads back and watch the fireworks; when all the blasts of color and loud booms are over, our flag will still be there.

Photo Credits: CNN, NBC