We hadn’t expect it to be, but there it is. Today’s a holiday. Because yesterday Biden signed into law our 11th annual federal holiday, Juneteenth… which is actually June 19 but because that’s a Saturday this year, we celebrate it today.

This is a big deal in America.

This place is so broken. Technically today is one of ten federal holidays for which non-essential federal workers get time off with pay. FDR declared “Columbus Day” in 1934 formalizing a New York City tradition first celebrated with a parade in 1792, three hundred years after Christopher Columbus reported landfall in the “New World.”

The holiday is no longer. Fourteen states renamed it “Indigenous Peoples Day” and several more simply don’t celebrate it. Most of the southern States (excluding Alabama) do still rigorously celebrate it, and President Trump just championed it:

The fireworks came early and are sputtering out. “He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

Achebe’s famous quotation is apt but simplistic. We have fallen apart, worldwide. We didn’t collapse on our own. Wedges were thrust into us. But Trump or Bolsonaro or Johnson or Putin – or for that matter, anyone – as the “He” misses the mark.

It’s all of us. We knifed ourselves. And now in America this weekend, we celebrate it all.

I found two things to keep me sane this 4th of July. The European Union’s great CDC site is the first and foremost. It even has better stats and analysis on America than America. Read it if you want to know what’s really happening.

Second.

Listen as I always do to NPR’s reading of the Declaration of Independence. This is an anchor in these quasar queer times, a guide for humanity and remarkable for its age. Yes you’ve got to have the courage to step out of our collective narcissism to recognize that the late 18th century didn’t have wifi. And that “timeless” might not be without context but has a dynamic and meaningful compass in it.

The framers of our original America were not perfect men as we aren’t. But my goodness how beautifully they expressed the ideals that all of us, today in today’s age, should embrace. When you do, the fog clears and the faith that we can make things better shines brighter than ever.

In America today we would normally have a holiday called Memorial Day. Instead we have an abnormal holiday called Memorial Day.

The holiday is intended to honor the memories of U.S. soldiers who died in action. But this year it seems meant for honoring anyone who is defiant, suggesting all the American soldiers who died in action weren’t fighting only against an enemy, but against themselves.

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Today is controversial: a very revered American holiday that many of us are reluctant to celebrate because we are so ashamed of America’s wars. Yet we can’t ignore the life stories of those who are conflated with them.

During my life time, which began just after World War II, America has fought many wars and not a single one was justified. I hoped Obama would end some of them, but instead he started new ones. Today, it’s terrifying.

The populism which snuck Trump into power will not alter its vehement refusal to engage globally, and that includes warring. So the Trump administration has made almost as many efforts to end America’s fighting abroad as it has to build a wall between Mexico and our southern border. Neither has been successful.

And the efforts have divided America even further and increasingly stressed our government and culture.

Consider this. America for good or bad was instrumental bringing down the Berlin Wall under what had been its most conservative president to date, Ronald Reagan. Trump refused to join the celebrations a few days ago. It’s unclear whether this was his decision or the Germans’. Either way he is clearly not seen or does not want to be known as a peace maker.

His bumbling missteps in the Mideast do not look promising. NATO is in tatters. Defense strategy is non-existent. His attempts to negotiate peace in North Korea have resulted in a dozen new North Korean missiles and his arrogance with Iran have fueled Iranian mischief.

Worse, our Commander-in-Chief has implied he will use nukes.

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