250 Celebration Not What It appears To Be #390 By Hank Silverberg In a few weeks , the United States will start celebrating its 250th birthday. It could be a time of renewal, of bringing the country together, of celebrating our democracy, with its successes and its flaws. Independence Day in general is supposed to be a day to remember American history, how we got here and where we can go. (Tall ships sailed into New York Harbor, July 4th, 1976) It was so in 1976 when we celebrated the Bicentennial. The nation had just finished the Vietnam War poorly, Richard Nixon had resigned after Watergate, and President Gerald Ford, who technically had not been elected to the office he held, was trying to put things back together. The events lasted more than a year with Ford lighting a lamp in the Old North Church in Boston on April 18, 1975 and traveling to Concord, Massachusetts the next day to commemorate the "shot heard 'round the world," and the begi...