tellmewhy,

Thanks for neatly encapsulating everything that's wrong with contemporary America. You completely missed the boat on what's best about fireworks, and that's being part of a public spectacle, sharing blankets with strangers, rubbing shoulders with little kids and old people. I've been going to fireworks almost every year since I was a kid, I've done it in small towns or in cities like San Francisco. I always had a ball, made new friends, but then again I didn't just see "too few port-a-pottys".

Yeah, much better to just make it like any other day and ignore one of the few civic traditions we still have left. And one of the last -free- forms of entertainment that doesn't have an army of marketers behind it trying to make a buck. Screw the public square and just live your life in a mall.

What a tool.