Saturday, August 16, 2008

Follow-Through Can Be a Bitch

I love seeing irony in the wild, and this was today's example:

1) a sign pugnaciously reading "These colors don't run," surrounding an American flag, in the back window of a van.

2) completely washed out and faded by months, if not years, of sunlight.

It might not be "running," precisely, but I don't think that sign is saying what its owner wants it to say.

That also made me wonder about that phrase, and I realized that I don't quite get it. Clearly, it's not just a claim that our nation possesses color-fast dyes, so our flags will maintain their color wash after wash. I guess it could be a coded "never surrender" idea, with a mild pun on "run." But I actually think it belongs the the very large category of bellicose but mildly stupid expressions of blind patriotism -- saying "this is my flag, the best fucking thing in the world because it's my flag."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

in the winter just after 9-11, I was driving behind a SUV that had a small-ish flag fastened to the rear windshield wiper. It was filthy and totally bedraggled.

Whenever I find myself muttering balefully about jingoistic flag-waving uber-patriots, I also remember that flag.

Anonymous said...

"These colors don't run" means what you think -- our country, symbolized by the flag, doesn't run from a fight. You see it a lot in belligerant states like Texas.

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