So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[MisterCairo]

It's at times like these I'm really glad to be Canadian, and that for the most part, we picked our own crops.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There have been many times when I've wished that the War of 1812 had turned out differently. I wouldn't at all mind being a citizen of New Ireland.

 

[BlueTrain]

How's your French coming along, Mr. MisterCairo?

 

[tonyb]

...

And the paramount of idiocy, to me, is seeing some halfwitted Maine teenager driving around in a rusty pickup truck with an American flag and a Confederate flag lashed to the back, right above the rubber testicles hanging off the trailer hitch. Seeing things like this make me wish birth control could be made retroactive. That's not "working class pride," that's telling the world you're an illiterate nose-picking pinhead.

To see ourselves as others see us, eh?

It's akin to those who can't settle for just one bumper sticker indicating a political preference. I see a Prius with an ass end all but covered in stickers urging me to think globally and vote for this or that lefty candidate and to support marriage equality and any number of other good "liberal" causes, or an oversized pickup with its back bumper and rear slider window festooned with messages from gun-rights groups and the local right-wing talk radio station and I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that this person doesn't live next door to me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Which reminds me of another tick-off. Our local AM radio station has a misadjusted transmitter, which splatters all over the upper end of the dial. No matter where you tune there's a rasping echo of whatever moronic talk show they're airing at the moment. Where's the FCC when you need it? Oh yeah, it was eviscerated twenty years ago.

As far as loud, gaudy public displays of "patriotism" go, we weren't brought up to do that in New England. We started this country, we know its history, and we don't need to shove it in peoples' faces every five minutes with flags and stickers and pins and jackets and hats and similar exhibitionism. When they bring out that ridiculously-gigantic flag at Fenway Park and drape it over the left field wall, I flinch with embarrassment. The marketing people who came up with that idea *aren't from here.*

 

[BobHufford]

Christmas commercials in June. Branson, Missouri has already started those annoying Christmas Train ads. Grumble ...

 

[ChiTownScion]

As far as loud, gaudy public displays of "patriotism" go, we weren't brought up to do that in New England. We started this country, we know its history, and we don't need to shove it in peoples' faces every five minutes with flags and stickers and pins and jackets and hats and similar exhibitionism. When they bring out that ridiculously-gigantic flag at Fenway Park and drape it over the left field wall, I flinch with embarrassment. The marketing people who came up with that idea *aren't from here.*

That is more or less how I tend to view the best way to show my own patriotism, taking a cue from those of the World War II generation who raised me. In a nutshell: keep your mouth shut, just do your job, and avoid the jingoist adolescent flag waving crap. If you feel the need to stand for the National Anthem - and I usually do *- go ahead and do so. Remember, however, that the better ideals of this nation call us to respect the rights of others who choose NOT to do so. I am required (by the by laws in effect in my state) to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to open meetings at my lodge where I currently preside: I chose to omit the 1954 "under God" portion because I don't wish to put my imprimatur to that McCarthy Era nonsense. Outside of lodge, I try to avoid reciting it at all: the oath I took requires me to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and therein lies my allegiance. Not to a flag.

* I usually don't join in. Respectful silence is my best offer. It's a terrible tune, more suited to the lyrics of the British drinking song for which it was written. I'll usually join in on "O Canada," however: not because of any national identity, but because it really IS a better song. And if I ever get to attend a big rugby match in England, I'll try my best with "Jerusalem." Great song.

 

[2jakes]

To see ourselves as others see us, eh?

It's akin to those who can't settle for just one bumper sticker indicating a political preference. I see a Prius with an ass end all but covered in stickers urging me to think globally and vote for this or that lefty candidate and to support marriage equality and any number of other good "liberal" causes, or an oversized pickup with its back bumper and rear slider window festooned with messages from gun-rights groups and the local right-wing talk radio station and I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that this person doesn't live next door to me.

tonyb, this one always cracks me up!

You suppose the dude woke up one morning & had a revelation like,
“Hey everybody... I think this would look cool on my truck!”

 

[LizzieMaine]

That could be a lot of things besides the obvious one.

SNOT HAPPENS
SPOT HAPPENS
SPIT HAPPENS
SOOT HAPPENS
SMUT HAPPENS
SCAT HAPPENS
SKIT HAPPENS
SEAT HAPPENS
SWAT HAPPENS
SUET HAPPENS

The last one's my favorite.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nevertheless, "Suet Happens."

 

[tonyb]

That is more or less how I tend to view the best way to show my own patriotism, taking a cue from those of the World War II generation who raised me. In a nutshell: keep your mouth shut, just do your job, and avoid the jingoist adolescent flag waving crap. If you feel the need to stand for the National Anthem - and I usually do *- go ahead and do so. Remember, however, that the better ideals of this nation call us to respect the rights of others who choose NOT to do so. I am required (by the by laws in effect in my state) to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to open meetings at my lodge where I currently preside: I chose to omit the 1954 "under God" portion because I don't wish to put my imprimatur to that McCarthy Era nonsense. Outside of lodge, I try to avoid reciting it at all: the oath I took requires me to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and therein lies my allegiance. Not to a flag.

* I usually don't join in. Respectful silence is my best offer. It's a terrible tune, more suited to the lyrics of the British drinking song for which it was written. I'll usually join in on "O Canada," however: not because of any national identity, but because it really IS a better song. And if I ever get to attend a big rugby match in England, I'll try my best with "Jerusalem." Great song.

Millions have suggested we replace "The Star Spangled Banner" with "This Land is Your Land," me among them, but the odds of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Millions have suggested we replace "The Star Spangled Banner" with "This Land is Your Land," me among them, but the odds of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

Especially if all the verses are used.

"Banner" is not a bad song if it's played briskly -- John Kiley's 58-second version on the organ at Fenway was just about perfect. No elaboration, no giant flag, no flyover, no film clip of an eagle with a tear in his eye, no tortured Whitneying of the lyrics, no lyrics at all even. If you absolutely must have a patriotic demonstration at a meaningless late-September baseball game against the Twins, at least keep it simple and dignified.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I have little doubt that if those of us of European descent had been born in a Southern state a century and a half before we were, we, too, would have found the cause a noble one.

Which does nothing to ennoble the cause. But considering that likelihood might keep us from another moral failing -- that of finding ourselves superior without considering the experiences of those we might look down upon.

One of the problems with moral relativism is that by its nature it discourages introspect and critical examination of ourselves as a society. How do we better ourselves if we can't look back and say "yeah, that was a bad call"?

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Especially if all the verses are used.

"Banner" is not a bad song if it's played briskly -- John Kiley's 58-second version on the organ at Fenway was just about perfect. No elaboration, no giant flag, no flyover, no film clip of an eagle with a tear in his eye, no tortured Whitneying of the lyrics, no lyrics at all even. If you absolutely must have a patriotic demonstration at a meaningless late-September baseball game against the Twins, at least keep it simple and dignified.

Oh, come on, Lizzie, even you have to admit that the Roseanne Barr version was a classic!

 

[LizzieMaine]

That one reminded of my mother's vocal stylings. She usually omits the crotch-grab though.

Fun fact: although "Banner" was routinely performed at the World Series as far back as the 1910s, it didn't become a regular season ritual until 1942. It was a wartime flag-wave that became institutionalized during the Cold War when nobody dared to stop doing it.

When I was in radio, the station where I was working during Gulf War One began playing a recording of the Marine Band playing the anthem at the stroke of 12 noon every day. When the war ended, the management was afraid to stop doing it, even though it became kind of a joke around town, because a couple of Big Giant Flag auto-dealer sponsors told the sales manager how much they liked it. So for the next six years, until I finally kissed off that job, I had to wait until the anthem was done before beginning my noon news broadcast. To this day, after sitting thru it over two thousand times, whenever I hear a military-band performance of the anthem, the only meaning it has to me is an instinctive need to check and see if my news copy is in order.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Especially if all the verses are used.

I was always partial to "America the Beautiful," but the best verse is rarely sung by the proles who could learn the most from it. The verse containing the words:

America, America, God mend thy every flaw!
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

My favorite national anthem is the Marseillaise, which, besides a great tune, has the wonderful line, "Their polluted blood shall water the furrows of our fields!" So civilized, those French.

Oddly, the German national anthem, "Deutschland Uber Alles," is one of the least bellicose. Read the lyrics sometime. It's literally about wine, women and song.

 

[Stearmen]

Nevertheless, "Suet Happens."

Since this is The Fedora Lounge, shouldn't it be, Suit Happens?

 

[swanson_eyes]

tonyb, this one always cracks me up!

You suppose the dude woke up one morning & had a revelation like,
“Hey everybody... I think this would look cool on my truck!”

My high school bio teacher had a sign up that read Feces Occurs.

 

[Zombie_61]

I was always partial to "America the Beautiful," but the best verse is rarely sung by the proles who could learn the most from it. The verse containing the words:

America, America, God mend thy every flaw!
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law.

I prefer "America the Beautiful" myself, as long as it's George Carlin's version:

Oh beautiful, for smoggy skies,
Insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountains majesty,
Above the asphalt plain,
America, America,
Man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs,
From sea to oily sea.