Photo by Ray UbingerI attended the July 4th Fest on Sunday, which was set up by the Whit for Congress committee. It was a gathering of over 1500 Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents who all wanted to celebrate our freedom as a nation. It was a huge celebration with a barbecue, skydivers, bands, and several speakers, of whom I was one.
Fortunately, it didn’t rain on us, but man, was it hot! And with a high humidity as well, it was mostly just a battle to stay cool. I survived by telling myself that, when the Continental Congress voted on Virginia’s Resolution on Independence on July 2, 1776, they did it in a room without air conditioning wearing several layers of wool clothes in just this kind of weather. The only one who seemed unaffected was Libertarian Presidential candidate Michael Badnarik, who barely even broke a sweat despite never removing a part of his full suit and tie. His only disappointment was not being able to join in the skydiving, which he loves so much. (He’s a skydiving instructor who can do tandem jumps as well–so he could have been the one jumping with George Bush, Sr. on that day!)
I’m very proud that, out of all the speakers that day, I got the biggest cheers from the crowd. They absolutely loved my speech comparing our government to a game of Monopoly®. As usual, I recorded the speech, but there were some audio problems due to some otherwise very welcome wind, so apologies for those places where the wind hit the mic. It’s all here (2.6MB mp3 file). I’d like to thank Ray Ubinger for the photo.
