I hope you had a lovely 4th of July weekend. Iris and I spent it hiking, biking, and gathering with friends in the fog and wind of ‘summer’ in San Francisco.
I suppose it just as easily could have been called 2nd of July weekend, the day that the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted a resolution to become independent from British rule.
When I first learned about this independence history stuff in high school it felt inaccessible and distant — more like watching Game of Thrones than relating to a bunch of middle-aged dudes in meetings to discuss overthrowing management. Now that I’m nearly a decade older than Thomas Jefferson was at the time, I relate to the history in a different way. I know exactly what it’s like to bring together people with strong opinions, divide them up into committees to get the work done, and then crawl slowly toward consensus.
So why do we celebrate the 4th of July instead of the 2nd of July? As I understand it, a 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson was asked to lead one of three committees to prepare for an independent United States of America. Jefferson’s committee, considered the least important of the three, was tasked with drafting a one-pager on why the colonies were declaring independence from the British crown. (John Adams would later say that Thomas Jefferson — known as the “silent member of Congress” — was chosen to lead the committee because he had the fewest enemies and was the best writer.)
The first draft was presented on June 28. On July 3rd, it was scrutinized and edited (notoriously removing any reference to slavery). On July 4th, the edits were incorporated. And on July 5th, the final version was published. It has no legal binding. It’s just a few paragraphs of inspirational vision followed by a long list of complaints. I guess someone had to make the call as to whether we celebrate the day it was finalized or published. So we humans celebrate the 4th of July while the dogs and birds celebrate the 5th — the day the fireworks are over!
Listening
I came late to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast, which began in 2013 with a season on the English Revolution and has continued ever since with additional seasons about the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, Simon Bolivar and Gran Colombia, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Mexican Revolution, and the Russian Revolution.
I love that Mike Duncan has a humble bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University in Bellingham. I love that he was working as a fishmonger when he began researching and recording his award-winning The History of Rome podcast in 2007. I love that the open web makes something like this possible in a way that wouldn’t be if he needed a contract with Netflix or Spotify. After nearly a decade of hard work on the Revolutions podcast, he shared his final episode yesterday and it’s lovely to see the outpouring of gratitude from listeners in response to his simple tweet. I learn so much in every episode. Did you know that New Jersey was once a Swedish colony? Or that the Dutch traded New York for Suriname?
Mike Duncan’s season on the American Revolution is the perfect primer for today’s episode of the Ezra Klein show with Larry Kramer, the president of the foundation where I work. Larry is a constitutional scholar and offers a vision of the role of the Supreme Court that is a challenge to the way a lot of progressive organizations go about their work.
A useful tool
While I’m on the topic of podcasts, Castro is far and away my favorite podcasting app and I think I’ve tried them all. Whether I’m listening in my car, from my phone, or on my Apple Watch during a run, it has way more features than other apps. My favorite is the ability to save the audio from a YouTube video and then add it to my podcast queue as if it were another episode.
Have a great week!
David