La Vie En Rose for 2005 July 5

Had a lovely fourth. I enjoy the BBQ, swimming, and fireworks part of our national holiday. It's quite fun, as long as one doesn't get carried away. Mom and I had a conversation about how so many of the national anthems are very militaristic. I have been thinking about this a lot because of Paris 1919. Reading it, I have come to realise that in a lot of ways the latter 4/5ths of the 20th century were just about the very painful undoing of the decisions made at the Paris Peace Conference. It makes one wonder if nationalism is really such a good idea. I mean the 14 points, self determination and all that, sounds like a good idea *in theory*, but in actuality, when you start inspiring in people the desire for their own state based on a constructed national identity, which basically translates into ethnicity, which *isn't * so easy to draw borders around, well... things get a little messy. So I guess one really good thing about America is, for the most part, it is a country built up sucessfully on many different ethnicities and peoples, without each group demanding their own statehood or cleansing one another, etc. Perhaps it helped to start on a country with a clean slate (having basically been wiped clean of Native Americans...) Hmm, there is much to ponder on.

Anyway, yesterday I was at chez Burzlaffs and we were sitting in the street watching the Seven Oaks fireworks. The Stockdale Country Club, which we couldn't see, was behind us. All of a sudden there was this BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! Very loud and sucessive... "Oh dear," thought I. "Here come the Germans." It can be really quite frightening, if one closes one's eyes and listens to fireworks with a fanciful imagination.