To be honest, flag-motif t-shirts are kind of garish and not ‘real American’

I have no doubt I’m going to see more than my share of people Thursday clad in t-shirts bearing the red, white and blue colors – if not depictions of the U.S, flag itself.

A symbol of our national pride

To be honest, a part of me is going to be shuddering at the very sight.

BECAUSE I HONESTLY think that it’s kind of tacky and garish, if not quite unpatriotic, to have to see someone wearing the U.S, flag, particularly if they’ve let the image get all faded and wrinkly.

Or worse yet, if it’s a hot, humid summery-type day and they’re covered in sweat.

How disrespectful to the image of our nation to reduce it to an article of dirty laundry.

To be totally honest, I’d find it more respectful if they were to literally wrap themselves up in a real flag – which technically would be an act of desecration. U.S. flags are not to be used for clothing!

WHICH I’M SURE every single one of the ninnies who are going around on this Independence Day will be able to shout out at maximum volume to everyone who manages to offend their sensibilities of what is appropriate.

 

Bordering on skanky

When in reality, I’d argue it is their choice of attire that ought to be considered bordering on desecration.

And as far as any women who choose to wear a skimpy bikini in a pattern of the stars and stripes, all I’d have to say is that is nothing but skanky. How cheap to reduce a field of blue stars to the bikini bottom that covers up the part of her that prevents an arrest for indecent exposure from being made.

It never fails to amaze me whenever I walk into a clothing store of any type and see the assortment of red, white and blue themed shirts or articles of clothing. Meant to be sold to people who think they’re showing off just how “real” of Americans they truly are.

People most offended by sight of this … 

WHEN IN REALITY, I’d argue that they’re showing a level of gaudiness that probably illustrates just how little they truly comprehend what “patriotism” truly is and what “America” is truly all about.

The ones who probably think the day is solely about a summertime barbecue and watching a pyrotechnics display come the evening hours.

Or maybe you’ll get into a local municipal parade that is bound to have somebody clad as “Uncle Sam,” and probably far too many people wearing their “Make America Great Again” caps in bright red.

Which amuses me because I’m sure many of them are old enough to remember the meaning of the phrase “Better dead than red.” Now, they can’t get enough of the color.

BUT BACK TO the t-shirts, most of which are usually in patterns so tacky that I’d be embarrassed to wear one. Which is why I don’t actually own one.

The only red, white and blue banner I possess is an actual U.S. flag – which actually is one of those flags that is certified to have once flown over the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

 

… might well be proud to wear this

Yes, I realize its moment of being the actual “Old Glory” on Capitol Hill may only have lasted a few seconds long. But it somehow seems like more of a legitimate gesture of patriotism than wearing a t-shirt being an assault rifle image superimposed over a U.S. flag. (No, I'm not kidding. You really can find them for sale on the Internet).

Even though I suspect the kind of people who’d actually wear such a shirt are probably the grand-children of the ones who, a half-century ago, got most offended when activist Abbie Hoffman wore his American flag motif shirt in public. Now, such a garment likely would only be worn by someone of the “far right.”

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July 4 about more than a weenie roast

Call it one of my biggest pet peeves – the people who think of the holiday we celebrate Wednesday as the “Fourth of July,” and who think the term “Independence Day” is nothing more than that ridiculous film from some two-plus decades ago.

For the holiday that celebrates the events of some 242 years ago on this date is supposed to celebrate the events upon which the one-time English colonies of North America declared themselves an independent nation.

OF COURSE, I’M sure many people think that’s “boring!” and nothing more than ancient history. They prefer to think of this as the day we’ll dig out the barbecue grills, roast a few hot dogs and watch an explosive spectacle in the skies as we go out to our local park in the evening for a fireworks display.

That, and we find a way to turn this into an extended weekend – taking time off from work to make for an unofficial vacation.

If anything, the Independence Day holiday of 2018 will be unique because the actual “day off” comes on a Wednesday. We can actually pick if we want it to be the end of an extended weekend, or the beginning.

Or, for some incredibly lazy types, it will be a double weekend. A whole slew of time off – because why try to work when so many of your colleagues have disappeared.

I DOUBT MANY people will be giving history much thought. Which really is a shame.

Because at a time when our nation and our society is split so seriously, what I think we most are in need of is a history lesson. If anything, I think our “commander in chief” could most use such a lesson – since his sense of ego is such that I think at times he truly has no comprehension of what his campaign slogan truly means. Either that, or his sense of history comes entirely from those “Schoolhouse Rock” cartoons of the 1970s.

I’ll be honest; I don’t know exactly how I’m spending the day on Wednesday. A part of me thinks it would be useful to spend the day in historic meditation. Pondering the many sacrifices that generations past have made to create a nation and a society that so many from around the globe are eager to be a part of, while trying to calm the family dogs down as they endure an evening of explosives.

Instead, it could turn out to be little more than an over-glorified weenie roast, with me getting all outraged over my other pet peeve – people who persist in slathering their hot dogs in ketchup. Now that’s a truly un-American concept!

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Mexico -- 1; U.S.A -- 1

Just a thought in the wake of the tie played Sunday by the national soccer squads for the United States and Mexico, which is being considered a symbolic victory by the U.S. team because they avoided suffering a humiliating defeat at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City that could have ruined any chance they had of qualifying for the World Cup international soccer tourney to be played next year in Russia.

TRUMP: Real target of Mexican fan contempt

Considering that many Mexican and Mexican-Americans have felt great anger at the contempt repeatedly shown us by President Donald J. Trump, a Mexican victory would have been a symbolic "shove it" to the Trump-ites of our society.

AND YES, I realize that many Trump types probably don't pay any attention to "real" futbol.

But I have to admit that watching the match between the North American rival nations gave off more of a "World" series feel than the pro baseball tourney played each year in this country. Really, a "World" Series between Chicago's North Side and Cleveland?

For a more thorough account of Sunday night's match, check out this weblog's sister site at The South Chicagoan.

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Carli Lloyd-3; Japan-2

Oh, by the way, the rest of the U.S. women’s national soccer team also managed to score a pair of goals, which gave us the end result of the United States taking its first World Cup soccer championship in 16 years by a 5-2 final score.

The new sporting hero

I have to admit that Sunday’s championship game between the United States and Japan was one of the most remarkable soccer games I ever have seen.

PARTICULARLY FOR THE play of Lloyd, a New Jersey native and midfielder for the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League when she’s not playing for the United States.

She managed to score three goals within the first 16 minutes of the match, particularly that third goal that she kicked from the middle of the field – carrying roughly 180 feet right into the goal in large part because the Japanese goal tender managed to lose her footing while trying to block the ball.

That probably will be the moment that lives on in televised sports footage for years to come.

Admittedly, this match would have been more competitive if the Team Japan of the second half had been on the pitch for the entire match. But the U.S. team was able to get overly aggressive (jumping out to a 2-0 lead within the first five minutes) early on, making it difficult for Japan to seriously come back.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to admit they didn’t quit. There was one point when the score became 4-2 that created a feeling in the gut that perhaps some sort of miraculous comeback was in store.

So now there is a serious sporting moment that took place Sunday – with the women’s team getting its third championship (the others came in 1991 and 1999, the latter at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.) ever. Which is better than men’s squads from the United States have done – no championship ever, even though that tourney has been played since 1930.

 

Will Renee Wronecki (Miss Ill.) get her moment?

Perhaps this could give a jolt to the men’s national squads to do better when they take to the pitch in 2018 in Russia.

And you have to wonder, will anything that happens at the Miss USA pageant next Sunday short of a “wardrobe malfunction” by some unfortunate contestant come close to matching the drama of what took place today in Vancouver?

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How long will it take for O’Hare to Havana Marti becomes a daily flight?

President Barack Obama announced his intentions to restore relations between the United States and Cuba and diplomats from the two countries have already had their first sit-downs in hopes of the eventual reopening of an embassy in Havana

And it was on Thursday that a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate – with co-sponsorship of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. – that would ease the restrictions that prevent U.S. citizens from being able to travel to the Caribbean island nation for personal reasons.

YET I’M NOT deluded enough to believe that the past half century of hostilities between the two nations is at an end, nor that I’ll be able to spend a wad of cash on Cuban-made cigars as a gift (I personally find cigar smoke to be repulsive) for anyone anytime soon.

Even though I have been long of the belief that a restoration of relations between the United States and Cuba makes only too much sense for both nations, and that the only reasons for maintaining the tensions is the ideological hang-ups whose time has long passed.

There are many Midwestern agriculture interests and other companies that would love to do business with Cuban interests – their financial bottom line would stand to benefit from easing the restrictions placed by our government out of the belief that they would cause the economic downfall of the regime maintained by the Castro brothers.

They haven’t; not really!

CUBA IS AN economically strapped nation; but the hardships have done nothing but feed into the propaganda that places blame on the United States for the poverty endured by many Cuban natives.

Or at least those Cubans who haven’t managed to slip out of the country and into the United States, where they now put up with myriad restrictions on what they can send “back home” to their relatives remaining on the island.

Currently, the only travel back and forth between the two nations is for people with special purposes, and there are limits on the amount of money they can spend on such trips.

So it is with all that in mind that I find the Freedom to Travel to Cuba act to be refreshing. It was introduced in the Senate, with Durbin being one of eight sponsors – four each from the Democratic and Republican caucuses.

A SIMILAR BILL is expected to be introduced next week in the House of Representatives, according to the Washington Post, which also reports that the bill would not do away with the trade embargo that has been in place for 50-plus years.

And with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, saying the Republican House majority has no intention of lifting that embargo anytime soon, it means the full restoration of relations truly is decades away.

It definitely will not be something that occurs during the Obama Administration. Heck, I’m coming up on 50 years of age, and I wonder if I will still be alive to see the days when I can theoretically catch a flight out of O’Hare and go straight to Jose Marti International Airport for a Caribbean vacation.

Or perhaps the day when the Cuban government, with an embassy in Washington, D.C., may also decide it needs a presence in the form of a Chicago consulate. Heck, if the mainland China government can have a consulate (at 1 E. Erie St. in the upscale River North neighborhood), why can’t Cuba?

I’M NOT SAYING I’m intending to be on the first regular flight out. But it always just seemed odd that a government that is able to get along with the bulk of the rest of the world remains a pariah to the United States.

Particularly when about the only thing most of us know about Cubans for real is all the quality ballplayers who have slipped into this country to play professionally here – including Chicago White Sox slugger Jose Abreu, who could wind up being the ultimate nightmare of Chicago Cubs fans if his hitting leads the White Sox to another championship before the Cubs can achieve anything!

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It's all too routine a routine for a day celebrating an unroutine concept

I still recall what I did some 38 years ago on this date -- the almighty Bicentennial. One once-in-a-lifetime event that was truly unique in the celebration of our nation and its unique take on Democracy.

I spent it with family at my Uncle Carlos' house in suburban Park Forest (which at the time seemed to me to be at the edge of the world -- it is on the Cook/Will County border).

MY UNCLE DUG out the barbecue grill, we ate some food, watched some fireworks displays in the evening. And somehow, my cousin Carlos managed to come up with some firecrackers, causing us younger family members (I was 10 that summer) to find things to blow up.

It most definitely was NOT some high-minded ideal celebration about the purpose of Democracy. I'm sure if anyone had come along and tried talking that way, we probably would have lit a couple of firecrackers and flung them his (or her) way to scare him off.

Yet somehow, I doubt we were any different than 99 percent of the rest of the populace that was alive on July 4, 1976. We used the day as one of outdoor relaxation, rather than one of patriotic reflection.

Just like I suspect the celebration we had all those years ago will be repeated in so many forms on Friday -- when our nation officially becomes 238 years old.

PEOPLE WILL BE all concerned about the quality of the meat they're cooking up (or the texture of the tofu for those who can't take the idea of beef), and making sure it is appropriately cooked. Although the thought of all the beef that will be cooked to a crisp (as in well-done) makes me nauceous.

Some of them probably will find some obnoxious-looking flag motif shirt or shorts to wear , and claim it to be evidence of their patriotism. Just like all those gaudily-clad people of recent weeks who rooted for the U.S. national soccer team. Although I always wonder how many of those people had grand-parents who some 50 years ago lambasted Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman as a traitor and disrespectful for wearing that U.S.-flag motif shirt at anti-Vietnam War -protests.

For all I know, some may even spend part of the day lambasting President Barack Obama; who in recent days said he was preparing to move forward on executive orders to implement portions of immigration policy reform.

Even though if you want to be honest, it is those people who are adamantly opposed to real immigration reform (which has nothing to do with border walls or deportations) who are espousing the ideals that go counter to what Friday is supposed to be about.

I ALWAYS THOUGHT the concept of a "real America" is one in which there are a mish-mash of people with little in common except for their belief in the ideals of a place that offers the chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..

The people who can't accept that concept are the ones who probably would be happier elsewhere.

This ought to be the day we all think in terms of joining together for a national unity, and not trying to define "unity" as everyone else needing to be just like myself.

Personally, I think it would be deadly dull if everyone else were like myself. At the very least, there'd be no one else to quarrel with.

SO THESE ARE just a few thoughts that will be running through my mind on this Friday while I sit by the pool.

Yes, the pool. Barring inclement weather, I'm planning to spend the afternoon in the swimming pool at the apartment complex where my step-mother's mother lives.

Because that's where the family is gathering for this year's take on Independence Day. All except for my brother, Christopher. He's employed by Home Depot, which is engaged in its own take on the holiday.

He has to work, making sure that those people in need of tools and other building supplies can purchase them -- along with anybody who happens to feel compelled to purchase a new barbecue grill on this day.

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Did U.S. victory over Brazil leave its taint on champion match against Japan?

There’s no doubt about it.

MORGAN: Coulda been the hero



The United States’ women’s national soccer team played a match historic in character last week when it managed to beat Brazil.

COMING FROM BEHIND and tying up a match in stoppage time (that excess minute or two that gets added onto soccer games to account for any delays during the game), then managing to win that quarter-final match with penalty kicks.

A lot of drama. Certainly a moment that won’t soon be forgotten – even by those crackpots who want to complain about the fact that soccer is becoming a part of the sports scene in this country, no matter how much they want to claim it isn’t.

But in watching the U.S. team taking on Japan in the finals on Sunday, I couldn’t help but feel a letdown; and not just because it would be impossible to script on-field activity that could top the match against Brazil.

It just struck me that I was watching a batch of footballers who were convinced that this match was destined to go into overtime, through the two 15-minute periods of such play, then be decided by penalty kicks.

AT LEAST THAT’S how I explain the fact that the U.S. team managed to blow several chances to score in the first half of the match, then twice gave up the lead (once in the second half, and another in overtime).

They figured that destiny would take them to penalty kicks, and that would be where they would prevail.

Which is to say that I was rather disgusted on Sunday when the World Cup champion match went through overtime with a 2-2 tie, and ultimately got decided by those penalty kicks.

Which happens to be the point where Japan’s national women’s team prevailed. Their goaltender, Ayumi Kaihori, was diving all over the place to block shots – showing an athleticism one usually doesn’t see from goaltenders in the women’s version of soccer.

THE END RESULT is that the United States team lost a match to Japan that it should have won. EXCEPT that it made the mistake of assuming that the match’s “big” moment would come later.

Instead, it didn’t.

Which is probably a nice life’s lesson. Take opportunities when they come. They may not return when you think you’ll be ready.

The final “stats” for Sunday’s match show a U.S. team that had twice as many shots made and corner kicks than did Japan, although Japan had possession of the ball for 53 percent of the match.

YET GOING INTO the penalty kicks, it was merely a 2-2 tie.

It was particularly nauseating considering that the crowd on hand in Frankfurt (where the finals were played) had a large U.S. contingent. Each U.S. goal caused the stadium’s nearly 50,000 crowd to be filled with the “U-S-A” chant that crops up all too often at sports events.

That moment when U.S. fans were convinced that victory was at hand and that it was time to relax.

Instead, Japan’s teams managed to respond with game-tying goals each time – which suddenly shut everybody up.

WHAT I’M CURIOUS to see is how this affects Alex Morgan. The 22-year-old who is the youngest member of the women’s national team was the one who scored what should have been the game-winning goal in the 69^th minute of the actual soccer match.

Then in overtime, she set up the ball that Abby Wambach used her head to knock into the goal for what was briefly a 2-1 lead. Albeit, a lead that should have held.

Considering that she was a reserve player for the national team who only got into the match in the second half because of another player’s injury, Morgan could have been that “scrub” who rises to the occasion and given a U.S. sporting victory.

It’s too bad that Morgan couldn’t somehow have managed to be one of the U.S. players who made a penalty kick. Perhaps she had enough of the golden touch that she would have scored – instead of missing like most of the U.S. women did. Perhaps she'll be an integral part of some future national team that will actually win a World Cup tourney.

IF IT SEEMS like I’m taking this loss hard, keep in mind that what’s really bothering me is that I spent an afternoon (albeit out of the summer heat) parked in front of my brother’s television set watching this sometimes lackadaisical play, instead of doing something more worthwhile (although those of you who watched the Chicago Cubs' 7-5 loss to the Florida Marlins are more pathetic than I). I expect that by the time I wake up Monday, this will be long accepted.

LePEILBET: Local star

Particularly since we’re not going to have to endure the hype about a U.S. championship team. Nobody’s going to be getting any endorsement deals from having played Sunday.

And we’re definitely not going to be getting endless accounts of the life of Amy Lepeilbet – who is our local angle.

The defender for the U.S. women’s national team is a native of suburban Crystal Lake.

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