02.4

“It Seems a Bit Impolite for the U.S. to Wave the Flag in the Whole World’s Face.” Opinion piece by E.R. Shipp. New York Daily News, 18 February. Shipp quotes Mailer’s comments about excessive patriotism from an unnamed British newspaper: “Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tinniest way, with so much flag-waving?” He continues saying that real patriotism carries “the obligation to improve all the time, not to stop and take bows and smell its armpits and say, ‘Ambrosia!’”