I posted this image on the BBQ Forum in place of some ads today, July 4th. 2009.  I wanted something on the forum to show that I really like my country.  I made the image which was a composite of some images I found on the Internet mainly it was a aerial view of the statue of liberty and an image of the American flag.  I liked the aerial view of the statue because what I had in mind before I started on it was the statue being protected by the American flag.  To me the flag symbolizes all the patriots of this great country who have sacrificed so much to protect the country.

So I cropped out the picture of the statue and then superimposed the image of the flag over the statue picture.  I then blended in the two images with a cloning tool in the graphics program I use.  I had to retouch the total image.  I added the sunburst effect the text and the lighting effects on the right side of the image to draw attention to the right side of the the image.  The effect was just what I wanted.  So I substituted this image for some of the advertisements the normally would have run n the 4th. of July.  I hope my advertisers didn't mind.

Now, the traffic on the BBQ Forum on any holiday is always very low.  People are cooking and having a good time on holidays.  There were a couple of nice comments about the image late in the day but that was about it.  I think a lot of people are scared of talking about their love of their country these days.  It seems to be much more fashionable to speak in critical terms about the USA then to praise it.  If you do praise this great country you probably will be criticized.  What a damn shame that is.

The following is a reply I posted to the forum in reply to a very nice comment about the picture:

Thanks, I wondered if anyone enjoyed it. When I did it yesterday I said to myself "if just one person enjoys it and appreciates it that's enough." I did put a lot of thought into the graphic and the position of everything has a meaning to me.  But, I won't go into that now.

I do want to say that this is the greatest country on the face of the earth. People all over the world are born, grow up, live and die wanting to live here. Yet some of the people that live here don't like this country or say they are ashamed of it and some, want to destroy this country.  I don't understand this.

I accept this country for what it is, the best country in the world and I am proud to be an American.

I deeply thank and respect all the people in the past that have given up so much to build, foster and protect this country.

Then I got to thinking that this post would just cause some people to post some things on the forum that I did not want to see.  So I deleted this post from the forum.  Anyway the links below are well worth looking at.

The Declaration of Independence

The Constitution of the United States

The Charters of Freedom

The Americans Who Risked Everything