It's July!

It's July, and in Tucson that means more excruciatingly hot weather, now even more muggy thanks to the Monsoon that hardly ever rains, but produces enough moisture to make your swamp cooler totally ineffective.
It also means that the 4th is coming up this Friday! That means hot dogs, family fun, and idiots shooting off fireworks and sometimes even real guns! Every New Year's or Fourth of July somebody gets injured or killed in a fit of celebratory gunfire. Even if you shoot into the air above your head, "what comes up must come down" (I learned about that on a PBS special on KUAT). Alternatively, someone usually starts a small fire by sending off bottle rockets in the city or in the desert. It's a desert, people! There's a risk of fire. You're supposed to put water on a camp fire and then bury it in the sand and then wait hours to make sure it's out. You're not supposed to throw cigarette butts out of the car window. What makes it okay to shoot random balls of flame that could go anywhere, including onto your neighbor's roof?
So all I ask this year is that no one shoot me or burn my house down. Happy Independence Day!