Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy Independence Day!

As my neighborhood's usual display of highly entertaining and highly illegal fireworks goes on around me, I just wanted to pop in and say happy Fourth of July!

I am so thankful to live in a free country, and one where I can write whatever I please without fear of censorship.

God Bless America!

6 comments:

elysabeth said...

Yay that we are free but we still have censorship going on all the time even in this country that proclaims to support free speech, et cetera -

Hope it wasn't too noisy and that you got some writing done - E :)

LindaBudz said...

Yes, I know there is censorship in terms of organizations refusing to carry books, etc. ... but we are still free to write what we want and to me that is invaluable.

But you are right, we need to continue to fight the good fight!

And I LOVE the noise!

rilla jaggia said...

Hey Linda,
I wish I could be as happy as you about living in a country with supposed free speech. Unfortunately, some are freer than others. For instance, I know of a young Pakistani family, with two tiny kids, one an infant who went to the butterfly house in St. Louis. It is a beautiful place, great for a family outing. Someone, not the butterflies, overheard them conversing with the kids in Urdu, their language. Before they knew it, they were being escorted out of the butterfly house and being questioned by the FBI. Or how about the Iranian gentleman in line at the post office. His mom calls from home asking him not to forget the milk and eggs. He's speaking into his mobile in farsi. Another foriegn language. Before he knows it he's asked to step out of line and he's being questioned and searched by the FBI...Yet, if you're a well-known evangelist, you can rant and rave about hating people and wiping them off the face of the planet just coz they don't look right or speak the wrong language, or live in the wrong place or don't follow your religion, and you have complete license to do so with immunity. People even cheer you on. Yeah, some of us have a little more freedom to speech than others, even in this country. We need to fight to make sure it isn't so. ...

LindaBudz said...

Where I live (in Northern VA), English is a second language for probably close to a quarter of the people, so hearing people talk in other languages is the norm. I've never heard of any of them getting hassled. It's interesting to hear perspectives from other areas of the country.

I know the U.S. has some problems, but I am proud to be an American, as the song goes (even marched in a parade yesterday!), and I make no apologies for that.

rilla jaggia said...

Heh heh heh, not asking ya to apologize, Linda ;) Just to fight to make this country even better than it is. We're in the perfect place to do that. As children's writers we can make a difference when we promote tolerance and understanding between people early on.

LindaBudz said...

Amen, sister! On that we can certainly agree ... let's hope we both get an opportunity to do so, and on a large scale!

:)