Anyone who imagines that kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner is Un-American is grossly mistaken. He or she, however, has just as much right to be wrong and express his wrong-headedness as every one of the NFL players do to kneel during the National Anthem. I used to not stand during it at sports arenas because it had far too much in common with scenes I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. 

I know what the flag means, what it symbolizes, what respect for it is; as I do for what was once a more organically defended politicized tradition in active democracy, something we have abandoned longer ago than too many of us are willing to admit or maybe just able to recognize. I wonder how many of those who call “UnAmerican” the NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem have read the essays of Madison, Hamilton…

Donald Trump, he who twitters . . . does anyone recall what twittering used to mean? No? Ah! The sparrows twittered under the fire-escape building their nest on top of the cable box. The swallows came to roost twittering. Oh yes, to talk,perhaps, rapidly, and at length in a trivial way . . . this explains Trump. But then Twitter limits speech, does it not? But Trump does twitter away the Presidency on social media, twittering along the old-fashined meaning while limiting himself in the common meaning, yes, twittering on Twitter, double entendres intended. You do know that double entendre is not French, does not exist in French, is an English language pretense of creating meaning out of literally transposed words from one language into meaning something in another. More absurdity I could not find? This of course is not to say that all such occurrences are pretentious…

o