FAIL: Fireworks Blow
I hate when people take easy shots at America for our love of guns and boobies. The ’Murica meme, with its patronization of our tradition of kicking ass, annoys me. If you’re looking for preening pith about how stupid Americans are, look elsewhere.
That said, Americans, please stop being so stupid.
Organized fireworks displays are awful.
Explosions are only cool up to a certain point. And if you like them, just buy your own firecrackers and set them off in your backyard. We don’t need a city-organized, hour-long display of ‘splodey stuff. That just shouldn’t hold interest for people. And if it does, that’s what Michael Bay movies are for.
Fireworks are also bad for the environment. One EPA study found perchlorate levels in nearby lakes spiked by 1,000 times in the day after a fireworks display.
Did I mention they cost the municipality an arm and a leg? Both literally and figuratively. Fireworks are costly and dangerous, maiming and killing dozens each year.
The only thing more moronic would be if we all just gathered and shot guns in the air, which would please only the NRA and Yosemite Sam.
Skip the fireworks this year, people.
By Ygal Kaufman
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WIN: Fireworks, YAY!!!!!
Fireworks: there’s not really much one needs to say to defend their level of awesome. You grab ’em, flame on with a fire-creating apparatus, and then they shoot up into the air and explode, showering sparklyness and joy over the people of Earth. Folks rejoice, hold hands, etc. The Jean-Luc Picard doll you strapped to the rocket (also known as a Mountain Dew bottle full of ground-up fireworks) is nowhere to be found. Ambulances wail in the distance as a content moon rises over the hillside in peaceful jubilation. Good times.
One year my dad tried to set a spinner off on our fence and wound up severely burning himself. Where would I be without that memory? What kind of person would I have grown into if I had been shorted the 10,000 giggles that accompanied the growing black ash snakes, also known as “dog turds?” Probably a criminal, and in prison. Little tick marks on the wall showing how many days it had been since I last shanked somebody.
So let this be a lesson to you: enjoy fireworks whenever you can. Or you might end up like me, in my fictitious present-future version… where I’m a bad guy. I’ll have an eye patch, too.
By Johnny Beaver
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