with that said, i only wanted to clarify one thing and make one observation.

rags you make a good point about the possibility of me implying meaning upon all the flags that i saw flying and although i can see that as a possibility, i don’t think it is the case—of course i don’t have any scientifically verifiable evidence for my observations. however, i don’t believe that we are at war (holy crap i just agreed with dada!) years ago our president proclaimed “mission accomplished” and the end of hostilities in iraq. the iraq war ended when we toppled the government. we are no longer engaged in a war, but rather in a policing situation as we attempt to restore order to a country that was ravaged by a war. unfortunately we’re not receiving any support from the rest of the world to make that a reality—and undersandably so considering we turned our noses up at them and said we could do it all by ourselves. so, for the flags to be flying because we are in a war, can be just as “faulty” of an argument as reading nationalism instead of patriotism into the flying of a flag—or 10 from the back of your car.

an astounding observation i made while driving to st. louis last week: i counted 70+ flags on cars, barns, etc, before getting bored of counting. now i did think, “maybe this is because of the memorial day weekend that i am seeing these things.” however, the majority of the flags i saw were tattered, dingy, and older looking flags that had certainly held their position for some time and were not recent additions for the weekend. an even more astouding observation i made and quite possibly the most disturbing one was that of a church that draped a “gas station-sized” flag over the front of their building. at first i believed that this could be in celebration of the memorial day weekend, however when i drove the same church on memorial day the flag was no longer there. (there could be a multitude of reasons for having the flag draped like that over the church, but it struck me as extremely inappropriate.) i fear that this shows the nature of christianity within america as nothing more than a civil religion that celebrates and elevates the country more than the gospel of Jesus. (i say this after being a part of a church that put more emphasis and energy into the 4th of July than they did Easter Sunday.)

maybe my view is tainted… maybe i’ve seen too much of the bad side of church for me to have a healthy view, or even an optimistic view of what it actually is. i know i’m not looking through rose-colored lenses, but sometimes i wish others would stop looking through those rose-colored lenses and pay attention to reality for just a moment.

A lot of stereotypes would be lost if people met a few immigrants and really got to know them.

It’s probably just easier to believe what Fox News and Lou Dobbs on CNN say, though.

The other day I saw a truck in traffic here in NJ with a big sign on the back. The sign had an American flag in the background, with the text: America – Love it or leave it.

That’s not an adequate choice. If by “love” this person means accept it the way it is, I question whether this is really love. Truth be told, he’s probably just a xenophobe. A lot of Americans are.

Rudy Giuliani recently indicated that he would have no problem using “extreme measures” to extract info from detainees if there was an imminent threat of a terrorist act.

Did all of those college ethics classes over the past two generations fall on completely deaf ears, or have we really fallen to this level?