Respecting our flag

In the comments on a previous post, someone allegedly named Anonymous said:

Don't you think it's disrespectful to our country for the person singing the Anthem to wear a jersey saying "Beat X" where X is the opponent, and then for the team to flash said jersey on the scoreboard, thus encouraging more disrespect?

You are correct, "Anonymous." I certainly do think it was disrespectful to show the "Beat Buffalo" lettering on her jersey while she was singing the anthem. It was a sign that the person running the scoreboard was trying to get the crowd going, rather than showing our nation's anthem the respect it deserves. In their defense, however, it was a matchup between two American teams, so there was no opportunity to show a bear crapping on a Canadian flag, as is the Coliseum tradition during the singing of "O Canada."

It also defiles the Islanders uniform to put extra lettering on it. However, when someone wears a Rangers jersey that spells "CRACKHEAD" down the front instead of "RANGERS", that's comedy gold.

What would I do if I were running the scoreboard? I would put together a montage of patriotic scenes that all Americans could be justly proud of. It would start with an American flag flapping in a light breeze. It would then dissolve to home-movie-quality footage of a toddler wiping his butt with a roll of Bin Laden toilet paper. Then a few more flags. Then it would switch to a naked, blind, 70-year-old man chained to a cage in Guantanamo, with dogs snarling at him. A couple more flags, a still shot of Bush falling off a Segway, and then the grand finale. Finish it off with an outline of Iran that turns into a mushroom cloud, and then morphs into a shot of some shirtless fat guys in the crowd, with American flags painted onto their hops-and-barley-bloated guts. Superimpose some fireworks over that, and you've got yourself an anthem.