Pursuit of Happiness

Chips and dip, potato salad and hot dogs, and the sounds of crackling and popping – it's the 4^th of July. Our whole family rose early and together with Nicholai, Izzy, Kelley and a couple of recycled tennis-ball sized balls, we hit the beach for a hearty exercise session.

The pitbull girls are sensitive to loud noises. Izzy has made her peace with Independence Day clamor and tucks herself into a cozy corner to ride out the din. Nicholai is un-phased by the hullabaloo; I like think he recognizes human doings that bear no concern for him. This will be Kelley's first 4^th of July with us, and since she worries about loud voices and vehicular sounds, we're a tad concerned about her response. We want her dog-tired when nightfall comes in hope that she'll be able to relax when the racket ramps up.

For me, I love to pull out the Declaration of Independence and have a read-through. Used to be, I needed to drag out an Encyclopedia Britannica, now-a-days, it's a cinch to Google and pull up a copy of the document right here on my shiny computer screen.

It never fails to wow me. "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume, among the powers of earth, the separate and equal powers which the laws of nature and Nature's God entitle them … all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness … Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it …"

Today, we live in a country where the government takes a historically high percentage of income in taxes but returns little in the form of schools, healthcare, jobs, or environmental safety and clean up. The government, our government, supports industry's need to maximize profits over ensuring public safety, regulating chemicals poured, leached, spilled, and dumped into the air, soil, water, and food. Our government has dragged its collective feet about providing healthcare to all Americans and school funding has never been so low. Did our ancestors outstrip us in courage and the conviction to be free?

Later in the text of the Declaration, the founding fathers state: "… all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, where evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

As oil spews into the Gulf killing wildlife and destroying livelihoods, my dog suffers a cancer shown most likely to be caused by pesticides in the environment (unregulated for 60 years), my sister suffers breast cancer (with no genetic predisposition, but a member of the most poisoned generation to walk the earth), taxes are up and jobs are down, I will marvel at displays of explosive color in tonight's sky.

When I tuck Isabella under covers, attempt to quiet Kelley's barking as the noise escalates, and hang out with my amazing cancer-surviving Nicholai, I'll be thinking perhaps the time has come again, in the course of human events, that We the People, get serious about our rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.