...I live a couple of miles from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where the Roots play the Wawa-sponsored biggest free concert in America (about 600 thousand people last time I went) in front of the Art Museum steps every 4th of July....the residents of my building, a narrow row house converted to four apartments, are all Chinese, except for me, while most people on my street are Muslims from North Africa, the Middle East, and Bangladesh, mixed in with African Americans, who make up the majority of the population of West Philly, along with a large community of lesbians and transgendered people, vegetarians, wealthy college students, hipsters, yogis....just walking around the block, one hears a striking variety of languages and accents, sees all kinds of clothing, along with a mosque, an old stone church, and a head shop that closes for prayers......the kind of place that would make some cry out in despair...this is supposed to be AMERICA!!!!...I want my COUNTRY back!!!!!.....probably some of those folks live around here, too...everybody else does.....and that, I think, is the way it oughtta be...a country struggling, failing far more often than not, but still struggling, to live up to an ideal that founding fathers, themselves heavily invested in slavery and ethnic cleansing, put forth all those years ago, just a couple miles away....
