star-spangled blather

[quarrel]

A local neighborhood magazine I came across recently featured a young (white, blond-haired...hmmm... "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles...") and independent-looking boy wrapped in an American flag, and brandished the headline, "America's Youth: Patriotic and PROUD."

Come on now. Children are the ultimate subordinates to peer pressure. How many children do you know that follow enough different news sources to reach an informed opinion about what's going on in the world? How many vote with that information? How many would have the guts to truly hold and voice an opinion when they know it's not the one the news, their friends, and their parents tell them they should have?

Come to think of it, I doubt many of them know that wearing a flag like a blanket for a photoshoot is arguably a violation of federal law, in particular, United States Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8, subsection (d): "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery." and subsection (j): "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform." But hey, what better time than wartime to forget a few inconvenent laws!