define "American flag."

Is there an official description of an American flag? Must it be made out of cloth? How about those cheap plastic flags you see flapping from the antennas of autos? Must it be of a uniform aspect ratio with regard to how porportional it is in terms of width relative to length? How about the colors of the American flag? Is there an official mix of colors in the red and the blue, like a CMYK or an RGB percentage or can it be any old color you like?

How about the stars? Older flags have various numbers of stars. Some are arranged in rows and ranks, some are arranged in a circle. Will the good Congresspersons please make it clear exactly what they are talking about when they talk about the American flag.

Is it really an "American" flag if it was manufactured in Communist China, as so many of them are made?

Say I've got a plastic flag made in China and it's slightly more square than rectangular, and the color of the red is more like a rose-red than the official dark red? Let's say also that the Chinese Communists also screwed up and made the little stars sort of like diamond shaped instead of five-pointed ones. Is this an American flag that I can be prosecuted for desecrating?

Speaking of desecrating, what exactly is that, anyway.

Now if I take my plastic Chi-Com American flag and I'm crusin' down the old Interstate at 70 m.p.h. and the wind is making the damned thing flap so hard that it's being torn to shreds, is that desecration?

How about if I'm at a Forth of July picnic this year and the host has stuck those little bitty paper American flags on toothpicks and stuck them in the hors d'oeuvres, and I see somebody strip the ham and cheese off the toothpick with their teeth and throw the American flag in the plastic-lined trash bin with the dirty paper plates and empty no-return plastic beer bottles, is that something that maybe I should report to the police? After all, a crime is a crime.

I know other letter writers here have mentioned using red/white/blue objects that are very flag-like, for everything from ass-wipe to snot rags, but really, shouldn't it be a crime to own any object of red/white/blue that so very many of our Fallen HEROES have bled and died to defend? I mean, doesn't it just piss you off when you see people throw away the Sunday advertising sections of a newspaper around the end of June announcing all those Fourth of July sales events? I mean, those pages are going to go right in the trash or the recycle bin where they are bound to face desecration.

We need to make it illegal in this country to possess anything made of red/white/blue material unless it is officially sanctioned as a bona fide American flag. Then it will be real easy to identify lawbreakers and punish them with the full force of the law.

Oh the righteous indignation!

So far not one TV creature has had the curiosity to ask, "Ya think maybe Al Qaeda and other terrorist orgs already knew years ago that their banking transactions were being watched? Ya think maybe they are doing something else now?

Ya think?

Ah, but America! Thou fallest off the turnip truck each morning as though all accumulated knowledge is erased. By noon you have burned your fingers on the hot stove same as yesterday. You step on the same rake in the yard and it comes up to smack your face. And by night, you limp to bed angry and sore from all the misfortune of the day's events. But when you rise in the morning, you will fall off the same turnip truck once more and go straight to the hot stove, remembering nothing.

Bush is counting on you America.

You wrote of Tony Snow's former employer.

Actually, according to my latest edition (and personally revised) AP Style Book, the reference to the cable network owned by Rupert Murdock and ruled by Roger Ailes, the title of the organization is now officially Fox "news."

News is always written in lower case, with quote marks.

Indeed, this reflects the common spoken usage of the word news as it relates to Fox, in that most people when speaking the name in public usually raise their palms outward and repeatedly flex their first and index fingers open and closed in a commonly understood gesture indicating quote marks.

This simple change helps readers understand the difference between real news and Fox "news."

Hope that helps.