Happy 250 America?

America marked this milestone by staying in air conditioning, or at least I did. Trump did not ruin the celebration - he was irrelevant to it. His national state fair was planned before he was elected again - it was just another version of the annual folk-life festival. The ferris wheel was tacky in the way the London Eye is tacky - but I bet the view would have been great in cooler weather with crowds on the Mall.

Blame climate change. Scientists will not say that warming caused the heat dome - but given the way the Barents Sea has warmed and its effect on the Artic Ocean, with the Arctic's effect on the jet stream - and that this keeps happening year after year - its a good bet that whatever changed since 1960 (cars everywhere) is at fault. 

If Trump put the blame for the quiet of the holiday on warming rather than his imagined enemies and then did something about it, he would be seen as great in hindsight.

This year, however, we just ignored him. Probably the best result. Protestors showed up on both sides, with the worst Trumpers among them, and no one watched his big speech. I was watching the World Cup. 

Frankly, the best thing about America 250 was hosting the tournament - even as I write this after America's loss to my ancestral Belgium (which included Luxembourg when my great grandfather left). My mother's people were from England and Norway, with a dash of German. Will the winner of that gain make it into the finals? Not likely. My bet is Argentina v. France. And yes, I plan to keep watching.