Baltimore, Burning

Wide shot of the Universe -- infinite distance, innumerable galaxies, inconceivable numbers of stars.

Slow zoom in -- a zoom that takes millions of years -- through a funnel of sparkling lights as the stars pass, drawn out to white lines; as swirls of light and color wobble past, 2001: A Space Odyssey style.

See a blue planet, swirled across with white wisps of cloud, imperceptibly spinning, half of it cupped in sunlight, half of it dark, floating and bending its own little private plot of space in the black infinity that surrounds it.

Zoom further in, and see green and brown continents surrounded by blue, spread across the planet's face -- continents that used to be shaped into one, now broken into massive puzzle pieces; now become the homes of those who named them and then who changed the names, again and again and who broke these continents up into imaginary, mountain or river-drawn lines and named them: states, districts, provinces...

Now watch the planet spin, around to the continent called North America and see the bottom part of this massive land, the part called The United States.