Fourth of July Weekend Open Thread

We have been busy with personal business this weekend, and have thus been unable to complete research on the article we'd planned to post for today. There's been plenty of discussion on various threads below however, so we've decided to put up an open thread. It's obvious from our page counter that many of you decided to resist mortgaging the family home to buy gasoline for a weekend road-trip, and remain in close proximity to a computer, so here are a couple of items that we'll throw out for discussion for those who are staying home this weekend:

One of our readers sent us this email yesterday, so perhaps this would be a fruitful topic:

Not that it's that big of a deal, but in looking at the 4th of July schedule for Ogden, I see Nothing that has anything to do with American Independence. I see motorcycle parades and monster truck rides. Not that there's anything wrong with this, although I probably won't go to them,) but it seems to me that Ogden City should do SOMETHING to acknowledge Independence Day. Other cities are at least having flag raising ceremonies on their plazas and a parade, however small. Are we doing this? If we are, I can't find it. Our parade looks like it is motorcycles only.

I did read about the things at Lorin Farr Park, but I really think we should have something more in the center of town. Do you agree? Or not?

For those of you who don't consider yourselves permanently homebound for the entire extra-long holiday, we're linking a good Deseret News Article which highlights various holiday happenings -- mostly in other places around the state.

And just for old times' sake, we're linking to the feature essay that we posted for last year's Fourth of July celebration. Believe it or not, this American founding related piece is by far the most regularly-accessed article in our Weber County Forum archives. We still receive page hits on this numerous times every month from all around the world.

We'll get back with a new main article very soon. In the meantime, knock yourselves out, gentle readers. Talk about whatever you want to talk about.