If you read Annie's Mailbox -- an advice column put together by two of Ann Landers' editors in the wake of her death some years ago -- for July 4, 2008, you'll get a reprint of a poem by Otto Whittaker in 1955 called "I Am The Nation."

And it's not terrible, all things considered. I mean, a person writing such a poem in 1955 wouldn't have to have included the two black people he mentioned, although he could easily have included so many more. And he could've included many more than the two women he named in the piece.

I guess my main problem with it is that while all of the things he lists indeed are America and are the sort of things that might make one feel patriotic and proud, there's an America he forgot to mention, so if I may ...

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I Am The Nation 2008
by tjaman

I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed -- although I also offered oppression to the free, in slavery and in Manifest Destiny.

I am many things and many people. I am the nation.

I am an overseer's whip, and wads of Confederate money in plantation owners' pockets. I am Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, and I'm the sentiment behind the Underground Railroad. And less abstractly, I am armies of anonymous Chinese immigrants involved in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad.

I am Abigail Adams, demanding equal rights for women within the first hours of our existence as a free nation. I am Carrie Nation and Susan B. Anthony. I am Eleanor Roosevelt. I am Geraldine Ferraro, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. I am also Judge Thurgood Marshall and Sidney Poitier, Dennis Haysbert and Will Smith. I am Duke Ellington and George Clinton and Quincy Jones. I am Dorothy Dandridge and Halle Barre and I am Barack Obama.

Yes, I'm a beacon of freedom to millions, and I get extremely upset about it, especially when people come in on the sly and do work I frankly didn't want to do anyway. The industry I throb with these days often involves people working two or three part-time jobs with no hope of health coverage or getting ahead. I'm a Wal-Mart store manager demanding that employees work off the clock, and I'm a McDonald's store manager who strip searches an employee.

I am Enron. I am Halliburton. I am a vast pile of shredded documents and a mysterious fire in the Old Executive Building where the vice president has his offices. Indeed, I am Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and I'm the I.T. guy in charge of their unrecoverable electronic mail. I am Donald Rumsfeld, and I am Abu Gharib, and I am the detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

But then, back in 1955, I was also the detention centers holding Asian Americans during World War II, so I have a rich tradition of being afraid of my own citizens and acting accordingly, including Sen. Joseph McCarthy's paranoia and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Heck, these days I'm also an FBI operative listening without a warrant to phone calls made by American citizens because basically I'm frightened of them.

Naturally I'm also Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church and godhatesf+gs.com and I'm the people who lashed Matthew Shepard to a fence in Wyoming where he died of exposure. I'm also a groundswell of grassroots efforts seeking to expand civil rights for homosexuals. I am a gay wedding, and I'm the people who look on uncomfortably.

I am the nation where in 2005, my 300,000 richest citizens reportedly made the same amount as my 150 million poorest.

I may be Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, but I'm also Barry Bonds and Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. I'm Jerry Springer and all of his guests. I'm Richard Hatch nekkid on "Survivor" and I'm home to the jail cell he was thrown into for tax evasion, joining the some 2.3 million persons on record as being incarcerated in the United States.

I have the highest per capita documented incarceration rate of any nation in the world, although I was conceived in freedom -- or at least, that's what I keep telling myself.

May I one day reclaim the integrity, the courage and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to become once again a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world.

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One can but hope. Happy Fourth, everyone. And I can hardly have been comprehensive. Part of freedom is freedom to disagree, so feel free to add a comment about what America means to you

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This morning has been surreal, and I can't help but attribute at least part of it to Dave Thompson in the Bismarck offices of North Dakota Public Radio.

This guy is breathtakingly careless at the best of times. I've heard dead air more often on his watch than I have on anyone else's on that station. He comes up with absolutely horrendous puns coming off the national feed (I can't remember any offhand, but trust me, they're awful).

And this morning, he read yesterday's news.

I don't know if he threw in the wrong DAT or if he was reading it again for the very first time -- my suspicion is that it's the former. But if it was the latter, how on earth couldn't he be saying ... hmm ... this sounds familiar ...

I've stopped expecting too much. I think he's the station manager of NDPR because it's a position in life where he can do the least amount of actual damage. But some manifestation of this kind of nonsense goes on every morning.

And now if you'll excuse me, I just saw a couple of teens walking up the steepish hill outside my home with a skateboard and I must set up my camera.

This has been a wonderfully productive day. On top of some basic cleanup and site management, I made a few dozen of these. Share and enjoy!