Happy Birthday, America.  Not the best year.  The economy, the oil spill in the Gulf, big messes right in our laps.  But it’s the 4^th of July and time to recall that America’s a great country filled with great people doing great things – no matter what – and more people with new ideas and new energies adding their voice every day.  We have low points and hard hits, but we come back strong.  We’re not giving in by a long shot, this is all going to take a while, but we’ve connected the dots, we’re finding our way and we’ll succeed. There’s nothing like the American spirit when we want to fix what’s not right.  Just watch.  What was the motto on that early flag – ‘Don’t tread on me?’.  

We’ve got our critics, we’ve got our failures, but we’ve got our fans and our successes too.  I flew to Boston a few weeks ago and took a cab to my hotel.   It was the start of the World Cup, and the cab driver was from Somalia. ‘Does Somalia have a team in the World Cup? ‘ I asked.  ‘No, too small. But anyway I cheer for the US because from yesterday I am a US citizen,’ the driver said, smiling.  I asked about the oath, the ceremony.  ‘I said the oath, and there were 110 of us – from all over, even Canada,’ the driver said.  Canadians?  ‘Married to Americans’, he said.

A country that people want to join is a strong country, no matter what the problems of the day.  We are a strong country.  We’ve got some things to deal with right now, we’re in the middle of a lot, but we’ll come back strong – we always do.  It’s in our nature as Americans, whether we’ve been an American all our lives or for a day.  Our independence, our self reliance, our ingenuity.  This year we had the economy, we had the oil spill, but we also had Bloom, Tesla, Apple, Facebook and lots of other good news.  We’re down but not out, we’ve got work to do, but the comeback is there.  So Happy Birthday and here’s to the next 234 years.