The Garden of the Blind

I went to Lagoon yesterday, and got myself sunburnt. I blame two things. First, there’s their policy that no street clothes are allowed on the water slides. I’ve never been able to make sense of this, especially since they’ll allow people to remove the offending clothing and carry it down with them. Wouldn’t it be safer to not have loose articles of street clothing making their way down the slide? Second, I blame the our current bottle of sun screen. It’s a spray-on kind, and I never feel like I can get adequately covered with it. I also think that it washed off at some point during the afternoon. At least the burns aren’t as bad as the ones I got from spending two hours walking along a beach (fully dressed) in Florida last month.

Note to self: next time, use lots of sun screen and bring plenty of water. Oh, and wear a hat.

Last night, I went to the fireworks show in my home town. It was great. They keep getting better every year. For the last two years they’ve added music to the show, like things are often done in bigger shows at football stadiums. Most of the music was great, including instrumental bits from Silverado and Pirates of the Caribbean (although I question the timing of that last song, which was used at the end of the show).

What did bother me about the music was that they used Celine Dion’s version of “God Bless America”. I am offended whenever that version of the song is played. I love the song, but I feel that Celine Dion tends to kill a lot of songs, including this one, by warbling aimlessly through them. The end result is repetitive and uninspiring, but that’s not enough to offend me. They also played a lot of trite country songs before and during the show, including an irritating one that says the Pledge of Allegiance and then launches into an editorial about the freedoms we’re guaranteed in this country including the made-up “freedom from want, and freedom from fear”. Celine’s song was released shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Virginia, and so it is a Canadian’s attempt to cash in on American pride and patriotism. That she did it poorly only adds to the offense.

I wonder how long it will be before I can attend a fireworks show where they will not play that song. I hope it will be soon. Maybe they can replace it with a song about our freedom of petition, and freedom to peaceably assemble.

It’s been a long time since I had anything that could reasonably be considered an internet connection. I have had some web access at work these last two months, but the network people there have a big brother mentality, and I don’t want to chance anything with them. So, I’ve waited until I had my own connection before publishing again.

I have a few entries I’ve written over the last few months. Watch for them to appear in their appropriate places, and watch for new entries once I get my life sorted out (I’ve been gone for two weeks on business and vacation). I doubt I’ll post prolifically, but I’ll try to make my voice heard whenever I have a topic to rant about.