US Flag Waving an epidemic

Story (AFP): "It's a true epidemic: the red, white and blue, stars-and-stripes banners are everywhere in the United States - on house facades, front lawns, cars and clothes.

Hitting an high point on the July 4 US Independence Day holiday, it is a genuine phenomenon of American national pride that, inevitably, gets a good but also sometimes unwanted boost from commercial exploitation.

"It's a little strange, this obsession of the flag," French author Bernard-Henri Levy wrote after traveling across the country.

"Everywhere, in every form, flapping in the wind or on stickers, an epidemic of flags that has spread throughout the city," Levy wrote in "American Vertigo" of the riot of banners he saw.

"Old Glory," as the US flag is affectionately called, can be seen in abundance through the year in the American heartland and the South, and to a lesser extent in cities like New York and Los Angeles."

Coming from a Frenchman, this may be a compliment. A man is jealous because his country has no national pride. America does, and we are proud to be Americans. Why? Because we're free.

But what really irks me about this article is the epidemic is not just refered to by the Frenchman, but it continues on in the rest of the article.

I hope ya'll had a great Independance Day, or 4th of July, depending on where you live. I did, and the flags were waving.