I am pretentious as hell. (I don't know if you noticed with my last post on gerunds.) I walk around using phrases like "spring term" and "to wit" because I read the Chronicles of Narnia too many times as a child and apparently think I'm an upper-crust British lass.
That said, there are brief (but all-too-frequent) moments when I grow perversely, irrationally irate and full of patriotic fervor. These are the moments when some very nice person full of personhood and valuable values walks down the street (or, say, the terminal in the Honolulu Airport), minding his/her/zer own business, imbued with different cultural norms than those with which I was raised. As a result, this person walks down the left side of the street. My immediate reaction, particularly upon encountering this person face-to-face at all-too-little distance, is to mentally shout, "THIS IS AMURRICA, GARDANGIT!"
AMERICAN CULTURAL HEGEMONY!
For the love of all that is holy, walk down the right -- both right-hand and correct -- side of whatever throughway you are traveling.
Then I calm down and realize that this is foolish. After all, these persons are simply locomoting to someplace just as important as I, and why should my cultural spacial norms prevail? CUZ THIS IS 'MURRICA! Okay, whoo, I calmed down.
Enough to wonder: Do you suppose that the eagle is embarrassed with that name?
"The correct term is not bald. It's receding hairline. Asshole."
On that same subject, the eagle is also probably pretty pissed about being exploited in every advertising item sent out by the Tea Party EVER ( "I AM THE TEA PARTY." ).
"HEY your people want to cut environmental funding - which has kept me alive - ENTIRELY. So fuck you, you patriotic fucks. I don't even LIKE tea."
