Quote of the Day: On Patriotism, Obama, Secession & Tea Bagging

Photo from Crooks and Liars

"Isn’t threatening to dissolve the union over the stimulus package a little less American than failure to wear a flag pin?"

--Gail Collins, NY Times Op-Ed Columnist

Read her entire (excellent) article on the "tea parties" at: New York Times

Citizenship Test: Do You Deserve to be a Citizen?

Image from source, AOL News

People sometimes question why anyone still uses AOL. Long plagued--even in its heyday--with derision as "training wheels for the Internet," the service just doesn't get any love. I guess for me, it has to do with familiarity. Just like how I started with CorelDRAW v. 2 wayyy back in 1990 or so, and still prefer it (by a long shot) to Adobe Illustrator, I took up AOL after the demise of Prodigy, and have been with them ever since. I like the interface--though the buggy software sometimes drives me to the edge of dropping them forever.

Still, one of the delights of the service is that almost every day there is an item in the splash page that begs to be clicked. Whomever is responsible for their highlighted 5 or so items does a great job. Today, the thing I couldn't resist clicking on was a citizenship test. I've often wondered how many natural born citizens could pass the test if forced to do so. And I'm happy to say, I scored 100% on the test with very little deliberation on any of the questions. How would you do?

Greenlee Gazette Challenge: Click the link, take the test, and report back here in the comments section! Which ones did you miss? Should people who fail be booted from the country? Do knee-jerk flag lapel-pin-wearing "patriots" do better or worse than commie liberals? Discuss!

[Excerpt]

LA Welcomes Record 18,000 New Citizens

Record crowds of immigrants - more than 18,000 in all - took citizenship oaths here Thursday, a showing credited to rising fees, a heated debate over illegal immigration and one of the brand-new Americans raising their hands. . .

Read more and take the test at: AOL News

Why Do White House Correspondents Hate America?

Photo from Newshounds.us, where you can also read a bit more about it.

Well, doesn't it just figure? The people who've been hounding Barack Obama for his patriotism are themselves unpatriotic by their definition. Interesting.

The patriotism issue, especially as it applies to ridiculous things like flag pins and whatnot actually highlight a disturbing trend in the state of our news media. Rev. Jeremiah Wright's prominence for weeks and weeks and weeks (and weeks) is another. It is the media's ability to take a frivolous or trivial issue, and magnify its importance beyond all scope and reason.

What's worse, these silly "issues" have a real tendency to be straight from the mouths of fierce, rabid partisans like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Then, after the "scandal" takes root, every discussion of the topic devolves into reporting on how the media is responding to the issue, how much play it's getting in the press. As Rachel Maddow noted on Race for the White House on MSNBC,

"I find it incredible that we're all sitting here going, 'Why won't the Jeremiah Wright controversy go away?' [snip] What else has to happen in the news to push Jeremiah Wright out of the headlines, before we do it for six straight headlines on every politics show in the country?"

And now that I have wandered away from my topic, here's an excerpt from AmericaBlog, about the non-issue of patriotism and the National Anthem.

[Excerpt]

Half the audience at White House Correspondents Association dinner didn't put hand on heart during National Anthem

You're not supposed to put your hand on your heart during the National Anthem, that's for the Pledge, but still, it's interesting that at the opening of last week's White House Correspondents Association dinner, a little birdie tells me that half the audience didn't put their hands on their hearts. . .

Read more at: AmericaBlog