Anybody else feel as though they should tuck Old Glory away and fly the Jolly Roger this Memorial Day weekend?
Whenever our fellow Americans get their bib-’alls in a bunch and saddle us with some featherbedding fascist who’s only passing through to rob the savings and loan, poke anything with a pulse, and then burn the whole town down to its foundations, why, I think about how refreshing it would be to rock the hammer and sickle, skull and crossbones, or an upside-down stars and stripes on national holidays.
Someone up the road a ways is doing the latter, perhaps in response to a neighbor who did likewise during the previous administration. A quiet little tit for tat. Haven’t heard any raised voices or gunfire yet, anyway.
I don’t know who I’d be trying to impress with any kind of alternative flag display, though. El Rancho Pendejo sits at the bottom of a cul-de-sac and is seen mostly by the people who live here, the mailman, various tradespersons, and the drivers of a steady stream of delivery vans, though that torrent has become more of a trickle as the economy struggles with a distinct kink in its hose.
It all seems mostly performative, anyway. Like the mouth-breathers flying Trump flags from porch and pickup. Lets you know whom to visit at 2 in the morning come The Revolution, to be sure. But they’re starting to look like an endangered species in any event. Fingers crossed.
Back when we were new to the Greater Patty Jewett Yacht & Gun Club Neighborhood in Bibleburg, our next-door neighbor Marv, a veteran, explained that he flew the flag to make sure that “those guys” (his words) didn’t think they were the only ones entitled to do so.
Maybe that’s the example to follow. Memorial Day isn’t about “those guys.” If it were, we’d all be flying pirate flags for sure.
Mad Blog Media 
I had to convince my better half that the flag was ours, too, lest the MAGA-hats think they have exclusive use of it. My uncles didn’t spend WW II in Europe and Asia thinking these hucksters and snake oil salesmen would be running the show. I suspect old Ralph and Roy Bonati are spinning in their graves.
Come to think of it, I didn’t agree to work on nukes thinking that the Orange Asshole would be in charge of The Button. I’d probably have stayed in the academic ashram.
Or perhaps designing said buttons to be fat orange finger proof.
And inaccessible to the clown car he has working for him.
The American flag. Where to start? It ain’t a lapel pin or pocket square. It ain’t a cape to wear after winning an Olympic medal. It ain’t a political prop. It ain’t a dick substitute as in mine is bigger than yours. It ain’t a decoration to stick in the potting soil at your local nursery store. It ain’t a damn bumper sticker or cap decoration. It damn sure ain’t for kissing or hugging while you make a piggy face. The bottom line is the flag has lost its meaning. Yea, it’s a pet peeve of mine.
That about covers it, Pat.
Fifty-six years ago — on my birthday! — Abbie Hoffman appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show,” and CBS felt compelled to blur the image of his American-flag-pattern shirt so that sensitive viewers would not see it.
In 2026 … well, just do a quick search for “American flag toilet paper.”
Well, there is freedom of speech including burning it if you want to. Call it the shock and awe method of protesting whatever stupid shit the gummint is doing at that time. The January 6th criminals were using it to disguise their spears and staffs they used to assault cops. But, sometimes the indoctrination in basic training sticks as it did with me. If you let the flag or your rifle touch the ground, bad things would happen to you.
You should see some of the raggedy-ass flags the knuckleheads fly around here. Puts the “Old” in “Old Glory” for real for real. Zero flag etiquette. I suppose they expect a commendation for not wiping their fat arses with it.
I just had to look mi amigo. Celebrate the day in style, and help build more dick rockets. Amazon strikes again.
I had 2 flags flying on the pole. On top the Stars and Stripes, below the Ukraine flag. In high wind a walnut tree dropped a limb and gashed the US flag so it now would only wrap around the lanyard ropes. I took it down, turned it upside down and ran it up the pole to reflect my feelings on where our country is these days…torn apart and upside down. But I took it down a few days ago out of respect for today…a sobering Memorial Day indeed. I will fly no flag until Adolph tRump leaves the White House. And I mean permanently, not just to play golf or get another transfusion of what is likely rodent blood.
At sunrise I planted the usual two small flags out front, one for Col. O’Grady, the other for all the other vets.
Going forward? I dunno. Maybe I’ll fly a black flag until we run that fat orange roach out of office.
Meanwhile, at The Atlantic, Tom Nichols has some sharp thoughts about The Great Dick-Tater and his little excursion in Iran. Good Gawd Awmighty. What we have inflicted upon ourselves, our armed forces, and the rest of the world.
Ann Telnaes has a thought as well.