One of our great symbols is the American flag,13 red and white stripes corresponding to the number of original stats on a rectangular piece of color, one corner blue with 50 white stars for 50 states.
You see the flag everywhere now, "what so proudly we hail.” It means the World Trade Center happened to all of us. "We"re proud to be Americans, "say flags on front porches in small towns across the country. Some homes seem to have been built to fly the flag. This wouldn"t be complete without it; just perfect. "We"re American too" say the flags inelegant glued to the city apartment windows. The declaration of patriotic intent is everywhere, the simplest as persuasive as the displays where one was considered not enough. Rockefeller Center with 150 beauties is in show business, a stirring sight although it"s unlikely that management there loves our country more than the owner of the smallest small business, displaying just one.
The Annin flag company makes most American flags. They have more business than they can do now. You don"t have to go to Annin to buy a flag though. Flag sales are a street corner cottage industry. Furtive operatives set up shops, to them the buck means more than the banner.
The color of our flag and the numbers of stars and stripes are ordained, but there is no rule regarding dimension. There are tiny flags on sticks made in China. This grand flag is so big on a building in New York that it had to be continued around the corner. This beauty hangs from the side wall of a fire house. And you wouldn"t want a dirty flag so they wash them.
Everyone wants to be associated with the flag. America and Yale, America and Episcopalians, America and J.P.Morgan, America and Maxell, America and the Ritz Tower.
人人都想跟国旗扯上关系:美国和耶鲁、美国和圣公会教徒、美国和摩根、美国和万胜、美国和丽晶大厦。
There are inevitably people who are more anxious to appear patriotic than to be patriotic. They treat a fine line between patriotism and commerce. The flag is everywhere in close proximity to a business interest. It sells shoes and shoe repair, women"s dresses. The American flag invites diners to foreign restaurants, Japanese, Italian, even Afghan.
There is an official flag code but it is routinely ignored. It is not to be used as a awning or a canopy or plastered to the hood of a car. The code says the American flag is not to be used as decorative clothing. Some find it irresistibly fashionable though and we are more amused than they.
