India, which obtained its freedom from British rule on 15 August 1947, is celebrating its Independence Day today. Even though the celebrations remained muted this year due to social distancing norms amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Indians took to social media to mark the occasion. India’s Independence Day celebrations ruled social media with hashtags like Independence Day, Jai Hind (Hail India), and 15 August featuring as the top trends on Twitter. In fact, the top seven trends on Twitter, with several hashtags in Hindi, were dedicated to Independence Day celebrations. The prominent hashtags relating to the 74 the Independence Day celebrations […]
Independence Day
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We all have those friends who continue to live their lives online, sharing their brunch and July 4th cookouts, ignoring the disastrous backdrop of a global pandemic and nationwide protests. Count Melania and Ivanka Trump among such social media showboats. Echoing Trump’s new strategy for handling the coronavirus crisis—“we need to live with it”—both women used the holiday weekend to parade some flashy clothing after months of austere dressing. Face masks, which Ivanka so performatively promoted in the past, were not to be found in photos taken from her western vacation. Was Ivanka’s Heidi-on-the-range getup—a ruffled denim dress and milkmaid braids—tasteful […]
I spent most of the day, the Fourth of July, thinking about cemeteries, the past, America in the rear-view mirror. I thought about all our dead buried in Europe and the Pacific, at Arlington, in small towns and big cities here, their lives, service and sacrifice; a rather quiet, anonymous reminder of who and what our wounded country delivered to the world as a gift called liberty. I thought about a wall in Washington, D.C. and a museum at the southern tip of Manhattan. I thought about all the firefighters, police officers, doctors, nurses, EMTs and the thousands of victims claimed […]
Sometimes aspects of life become so royally fucked up, there comes a point when you say, “Eh, screw it, I’ll go along with this for a bit, let’s kick it up to another level.” This country loves the Fourth of July—maybe less at present from the standpoint of proud patriotism, especially with how we’ve been going for a few years now, but certainly because of good times with friends, beers, cookouts, laughs, camaraderie, in-person summer social manna, which for many people is quite different than a chat on the phone. The Twilight Zone has a marathon every year, which is apt […]
Our teenage boy-in-chief has planned two consecutive days of Fourth of July celebrations, assuring our country what we need most as Americans faced with a resurgence of COVID-19 cases and national unrest is more fireworks. The president vowed that the aptly named “President Trump’s 2020 Salute to America” will be “the largest in recent memory,” bringing this country together, literally, through high-school-like pep rallies risking further infection. Because he couldn’t wait, the man-child’s July 4 weekend kicks off today, Friday July 3, at the tranquil, sacred Native American grounds of the Black Hills with a pyrotechnics display in front of the […]
As Independence Day celebrations draw near in the US, Americans are reminded about a history that Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of history at the University of Houston, regards as a product of the malfeasance of historians. Horne, who authored numerous books such as “The Counterrevolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America,” asserted to Loud and Clear hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou on Thursday that Americans have been left “unable” and “unsuited” to understand the reason why the US continues to have a “pornography of violence” because they have yet to be taught […]
A Mount Rushmore Independence Day celebration that will be attended by President Donald Trump will not mandate social distancing, nor will it limit the number of attendees due to the coronavirus, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said Thursday. The National Parks Service is giving out 7,500 tickets by lottery for the July 3 fireworks display, which will mark the first time in a decade fireworks have been set off at the memorial for the holiday. Noem said she is not concerned about a heightened risk of coronavirus infections that an influx of tourists may bring: statewide infections are trending downward and […]