Stars and Stripes

OK I have to admit, I'm a sap for patriotic schlock. I like seeing flags and red, white and blue, bunting festooning everything that someone wants to festoon. I love fireworks! A real estate agent stuck flags in front of every house in my nieghborhood. I thought it really looked neat for my little 2-block street of Eas' Bal'more row houses to be lined with flags stuck in the ground lined in rows along the pa'ment. You really have to appreciate the local dialect, too. Wednesday Sarah and I sang an early American anthem by William Billings and this Sunday at church is the annual Independence day week-end extravaganza sending the choir off for it's two-month summer vacation - all American music. Yes, with my major in American literature, I'm also partial to American music. Why else would I know the lyrics of so many show tunes? Hey, they come in handy, often. And if you want to know what I think about the woman who sang alternate words to the Star Spangled Banner, claiming she was expressing her artistic understanding... well, bah humbug would be the polite version of my reaction. And it might be an instance where a societal return to public humiliation might be in order. A simple dunce cap or perhaps a sequined (making allowance for celebrity, gag) S for stupid might be in order. But I'm supposed to be too enlightened and liberal for such thoughts.