Morning, folks. Running late this Saturday....'twas "Festival" last night.

Last night was the 35th annual Boston Pops concert at the Hatch Shell along the Charles River in this city.

Apologies to everyone outside the local area that got the canned 'national broadcast', apparently beginning with the 1812 Overture. Here, that's the finale, with the "Stars and Stripes Forever" as the encore...the same way we've done it since 1972. The entire concert used to be carried nationally, but now it seems that only the last few minutes are worth showing to everyone.

You see, we highbrow liberal elitists love our classical music, but the rest of the country can only stomach the bizarreness that is a Russian piece of music to celebrate a victory over Napoleon in a war we weren't even involved in, but I digress.

I didn't watch too much of it last night; we were out at our local celebration at the nearby football field...fireworks in the middle of a residential neighborhood make for some great viewing.

Although he didn't post it on his blog, local wag John Keller was musing last night over how blue this commonwealth is...and yet us liberal, fancy-pants, elitist, cheese-eating, gay-marryin', America-hating, godless, terrorist-sympathizers celebrate the 4th better than anyone else.

How is it that the Boston Pops (America's Orchestra, as they have been called) seem to be the semi-official "National Birthday Party", where obviously more patriotic places like Alabama, Texas, or Iowa are given short shrift?

Who hates America now?