July 4th Special: Pick Your Flag

Scanning the newswire heading into the July 4th weekend, I came upon two photos that capture today’s flag politics, not to mention a serious fissure in “one nation under God.” The shot above comes from a photo gallery at the L.A. Daily News documenting a special Independence Day ceremony hosted by L.A.’s Immigration Services that turned 150 local children into U.S. citizens.

On the flip (or, under?) side, Everglade City Florida’s Firecracker Pageant is known for its early jump in welcoming Independence Day. (Here’s the slideshow at Naples News.) Nothing like starting things off early, right? With the battle brewing in South Carolina and with reporters around, clearly the parents of this thirteen-month-old were aware of the provocation.

Not to leave a bad taste in anybody’s mouth on America’s birthday, though, I wanted to close with this shot that leads Reuters’ Photos of the Week:

With the historic Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, I noticed someone in my Facebook feed ask, “can we just call it ‘marriage’ now?”  Beyond the wondrousness of those celestial bubbles, that famous identifier, the rainbow, and the rainbow flag, truly did become, well … revolutionary.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Monday.

(photo 1: John McCoy/ Daily News caption: Khalid, Omar and Hamid Khan wave their flags while waiting to become citizens. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Los Angeles administered the Oath of Allegiance to 150 local children and youths during a special citizenship certificate ceremony in honor of Independence Day at the USCIS office in downtown Los Angeles, CA 7/2/2015.photo 2: Corey Perrine/Naples Daily News via AP caption: Clinging to a Confederate battle flag, Augustus Demere, 13 months, is escorted by his mother, Patty, as they kick of the Firecracker Pageant Saturday, June 27, 2015 in downtown Everglades City, Fla. A few hundred came to celebrate Independence Day with a Stars & Stripes-themed patriotic parade, food, contest, prizes and more. Historically the town is the first in Collier County to kick off July 4th festivities. photo 3: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters caption: A woman dances in a cloud of bubbles while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California June 28, 2015.)