This is a particularly good Monday as the middle of the week's bloated hump gets disregarded due to July 4th, and we can all celebrate while taking a short week! There are many things to rant and rave about with this country right now, and it's almost impossible to click on Google News or Twitter or The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or (you get the point) without becoming thoroughly depressed, but I do try to remember how and why this whole experiment of a country started, and exhibit some sense of pride in our ideals and optimism and what we've accomplished as a country, and more importantly, as people.

That all being said, I also just finished reading "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann, a true story about many, many Native Americans who were systematically murdered by white people and covered up by more powerful white people because AFTER the United States banished them from their profitable and farmable land, the United States jammed this tribe, the Osages, to what was believed to be a worthless area of Oklahoma, but it turned out the land was worth untold millions due to oil underneath the ground, turning the Osage nation into the richest people per capita in the world! Once the wealth of the Osage became apparent as the color of their skin, the racist belief that these individuals were worth less than the "regular" and God-fearin' folk, was really all anyone needed in that part of the country to kill them off for their inheritance.

Luckily, the FBI eventually came in to try to solve some of the problem, and some individuals with integrity and overall decency picked apart and found some of the murderers, yet so many remain unsolved to this day.

I went on that tangent because my first paragraph, and any other soliloquies we all will make this week about our country being the best country in the world (which I still believe to be true while being VERY sorely tested right now) should always come with a caveat to remember the many terrible things we have done as a nation and allowed to happen. This caveat should not solely be a means to shame or embarrass us, but a lesson to learn. To remember where all of our family lines (even the Osage and Native Americans!) came from at some point: different countries hoping for something better.

God knows I got it. I am one of the many "luckiest people living in the world" right now. I had truly amazing parents and role models. My family is one of a kind, and I know so many of them who would do anything to help me. My friends have always been there for me, many of them since I was a child. My wife, my one of a kind, my everything that I look at and love more every day, makes me sure of my luck. I've worked my ass out for a lot of things, but I've had a lot of opportunity to do it thanks to my parents that worked their ass off before me and their parents and their parents who boarded a boat...for something better.

Enjoy the 4th, proclaim why you will always love this country despite our failures, and remind yourself how lucky you are to be an American. And as always, enjoy the music :)