The United States Flag

I often think about how the US flag should be redesigned. Because not only am I a communist and a traitor, I also have a vivid imagination. So I look at that rigid, busy symbol of our alleged patriotism with a sort of amusement as I imagine its eventual evolution or extinction.

First, I think the colors should change. For instance, wouldn't it be great if we had a "pride" US flag flying over the White House? Colors of the rainbow - that's something we can all get behind! Besides, most of us would have an easier time naming the seven dwarves than the thirteen colonies. They're antiquated! And we've got all 50 in the "star zone." Vote YES on the US PRIDE FLAG!

Then I think, wait a minute, why did the gays have to pick such, ehm, uh, GAY colors? I mean, couldn't we all get along and respect each other, you know, life healing sunshine, nature and spirit all in harmony with a palette of colors that Martha Stewart would approve for the den? I guess there are good reasons for the PRIDE flag to be BOLD, but it's fallen way out of sync with the Apple logo, and it's just so ... gay. Besides, kids would start passing out if they had to sing "every heart beats true, under red, orange, yellow, green, violet and blue" at 4th of July assemblies. We need to strive for less complicated, not more.

Red, white, blue. To change colors now would be too disruptive. We might as well call the whole country off. So, we've got our colors, we're feeling pretty good about that. Red, white, blue. Could we switch the order around?
It might require a few adjustments...

Hooray for the blue, white and red!
How we wish all non-Christians were dead!
Hooray for the blue, red, and white!
May we never pass up any fight!
Hooray for the white, red and blue!
I suppose you're okay, you're a Jew!
May our foes all wear stretch khakis too!
Their the emblem of,
The land we love,
Hooray! For those stretch khakis too!

Speaking of diplomacy - can't we just take some other country's flag? Let's keep the Red, White and Blue, but take over the French, er, I mean Freedom Flag. We're pissed at them, right? The tricolor! Yeah, we're cool with that! We thought of it first! It's ours now! Nuh uh! Finders keepers, loser's weepers! History, schmistory! Yeah we gonna get our flag on!

The Freedom Flag's colors are referred to as the "blue, white and red." That is so clearly backwards. We'd fix that in a hurry. The colors represent Paris and the King. We can work with that! It's about time Elvis got his due, and a small town in Texas will be very pleased! (They found their idiot!)

My country, 'tis of thee:
Elvis and Tommy Lee;
Of thee I sing.

Land where the oil wells dried
Land where no prisoner's tried
We love our chicken fried:
I'll take a wing!

It's looking pretty peachy from where I stand. But inevitably, somebody would get pissed about the stars. "I done liked them stars! Gimme my stars!" We just about crammed as many stars as we can into the flag. Why do you think Puerto Rico will never be a state? It's not political, it's practical! Nobody wants to figure out where to put the extra star! "No problemo," dice PR, "no debimos estrella." Pero we know they'd want one eventually. They all want a star eventually. Then we're fucked. It's probably best to keep the stars - if we got rid of the stars, people would start trying to sneak in states left and right. "Nobody will notice one teensy little extra state." The US flag, in addition to being the very symbol of everything I would sacrifice my life for, serves as a balance to thoughtless imperial expansion! Nobody gets a state until we figure out where to put the star!

So we're stuck with the red. The white. The blue. The stars. Maybe this flag changing business is more work than I'd bargained for. It's not so bad the way it is. Really. It mostly stays out of the way. Doesn't cause no harm. It burns real well. I likey BBQ. It has a strange, some might say eerie correlation with a number of patriotic songs - it's almost as if they were written with this particular flag in mind. I guess the old gal's really grown on me. Really become sort of a part of the family, hasn't she?

Yes, the flag is here to stay. Until the next flag, that is. Which will be red and white striped, with 50 smaller blue stars meticulously arranged in the shape of one larger star.

Puerto Rico's star.

The Poorhouse Fair

I just read "The Poorhouse Fair," by John Updike. I think it's his first novel. This edition has a copyright of 1958 on it. It's an old paperback - a "Fawcett Crest" edition.

One of the first most striking features of this book is the antique censorship of some obvious and surprising "profane" words. Any instance of the word "fuck" becomes "f." So you see things like "He's a f.er", or "I don't give a f." The main character's name is "John F. Hook," who is a 90+ year old convalescent living in a public retirement home. Sooooo to make this otherwise boring novel more interesting, I like to imagine that the middle initial is actually a profanity-censor, and everybody actually refers to this thoughtful, biblical minded old man as "John Fucking Hook".

Other words like "shit," definitely get the treatment. But then there's one or two that get the treatment when it's not immediately obvious what the vulgarity is. It's a profanity puzzle! C.S.er was pretty easy - just took a moment to figure it out in context: "I'll kill the C.S.er." But, the best thing about censored profanity is you can make up your own if you want it to be even more obscene! "Son of a bitch of a cat-killer, brave bastard run your a.h. off." I prefer to read it as "run your anal hemmerhoids off!" That'll show 'em!

Being the brave seeker of depravity that I am, my eyes couldn't help but stutter at the sight of this paragraph. Just the opening phrase is beautiful in it's ease of misreading, but the paragraph goes on to offer up choice snippets for the ill-minded to relish in. I've quoted the paragraph verbatim, with just one of many possible interpretations color coded in red:

Conner stood by two men screwing, with painful slowness, colored bulbs into sockets strung on long cords. They were maneuvering this chore in the dead center of the main walk. Surely they needed at least advice or one of the nimbler men - Gregg, for instance, who had been, come to think of it, an electrician in Newark - to mount the shaky ladder lying on the lawn, stained by dew, when the time came to string the lights on the posts. He asked aloud how they proposed to get them up. The two went on fumbling without reply.

The moral of the story? Even the most boring book about a day in the life of a convalescent home can become an enriching experience with a little censorship and wicked-mindedness. Happy reading!

The Poorhouse Fair

I just read "The Poorhouse Fair," by John Updike. I think it's his first novel. This edition has a copyright of 1958 on it. It's an old paperback - a "Fawcett Crest" edition.

One of the first most striking features of this book is the antique censorship of some obvious and surprising "profane" words. Any instance of the word "fuck" becomes "f." So you see things like "He's a f.er", or "I don't give a f." The main character's name is "John F. Hook," who is a 90+ year old convalescent living in a public retirement home. Sooooo to make this otherwise boring novel more interesting, I like to imagine that the middle initial is actually a profanity-censor, and everybody actually refers to this thoughtful, biblical minded old man as "John Fucking Hook".

Other words like "shit," definitely get the treatment. But then there's one or two that get the treatment when it's not immediately obvious what the vulgarity is. It's a profanity puzzle! C.S.er was pretty easy - just took a moment to figure it out in context: "I'll kill the C.S.er." But, the best thing about censored profanity is you can make up your own if you want it to be even more obscene! "Son of a bitch of a cat-killer, brave bastard run your a.h. off." I prefer to read it as "run your anal hemmerhoids off!" That'll show 'em!

Being the brave seeker of depravity that I am, my eyes couldn't help but stutter at the sight of this paragraph. Just the opening phrase is beautiful in it's ease of misreading, but the paragraph goes on to offer up choice snippets for the ill-minded to relish in. I've quoted the paragraph verbatim, with just one of many possible interpretations color coded in red:

Conner stood by two men screwing, with painful slowness, colored bulbs into sockets strung on long cords. They were maneuvering this chore in the dead center of the main walk. Surely they needed at least advice or one of the nimbler men - Gregg, for instance, who had been, come to think of it, an electrician in Newark - to mount the shaky ladder lying on the lawn, stained by dew, when the time came to string the lights on the posts. He asked aloud how they proposed to get them up. The two went on fumbling without reply.

The moral of the story? Even the most boring book about a day in the life of a convalescent home can become an enriching experience with a little censorship and wicked-mindedness. Happy reading!