...it's Tuesday Morning -- Cowboy Junkies.

Hey, hey, it's America's birtday! Usually I try to read the Declaration of Independence on the 4th, but I haven't gotten there yet. I was sidetracked by Fredick Douglass's "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro", where he contrasts the spirit of the Constitution with the reality of slavery. It's a bit long (Douglass can talk/write forever before getting to his point), sometimes repetitve but it's worth thinking about for a moment. Whatever "good things" came from the American Revolution, the willingness to except slavery is something America will have to deal with for a long time. I don't have any answers, no one really does, but it is, to me at least, an ugly fact that lurks behind much of what is good about America.

I'm not even sure it can be fixed. Black and white problems seem firmly rooted here, to levels almost unknown by either side. Time might be the only thing that actually solves it because there doesn't seem to be a way to talk about it without anger and hate coming into play.