

#24 hour gas near me free#
So the thick marine layer that chills Cooper and his fellow coastal denizens means free summer air conditioning to those of us too far inland to feel an onshore breeze. But self-described “weather geek” Arnie Cooper is writing from Santa Barbara, where sunny skies and the adjacent cool Pacific waters typically mean pleasant summer temperatures. To an inland Los Angeles County dweller like me, the persistence of June gloom into the summer is welcome news - it spares an early start of the oppressively hot July and August slog.

The California sun finally emerged to greet the summer solstice. I look forward to reading your letters and publishing several of them on July 4. Send us your thoughts in a letter to the editor of no more than 200 words to you can also use our online letter submission form. How we experience the independence declared on July 4, 1776, depends on factors beyond just being an American. The last several years in particular have challenged the notion of American exceptionalism - an insurrection after the 2020 presidential election, heightened mistrust of government and among ourselves, a reckoning with the lasting effects of slavery and racism, growing inequality and a contraction of individual rights.

But the nation has often failed to live up its ideals. The United States was formed as an aspirational country built on the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the country has remained a beacon of freedom and opportunity for people around the world. These questions have spawned much debate since our nation’s founding. So now we ask you: What do the words declared by our founders almost 247 years ago mean to you? Do you believe we are meeting those aspirations to freedom and justice? What will you be celebrating this July 4? He referred to the slain American revolutionaries buried around Independence Hall and said true freedom depends on people’s willingness to carry it out as much as it does on the words written in our founding documents. Nor did it fulfill the ideals of equality or self-government for all articulated in the Declaration, a copy of which he held in his other hand. Holding up a copy of the Constitution, he declared that “this document” did nothing to address the nations of Indigenous people here prior to English settlement.

Near the end, the National Park Service ranger guiding us through the historic site did something I never expected from a uniformed federal officer: He recited unflattering truths about the two founding documents produced in that very building, the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the U.S. Let’s look at the week in Opinion.Īs the Fourth of July approaches, and as we in Opinion ask readers what they will contemplate as the nation celebrates its birth (more on that in a bit), I am brought back to a tour I took of Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 2009. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, June 24, 2023.
