Quotable | That Old Piece of Cloth

I schooled myself in the writings of Madison and Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. I came to love those noble, indestructible ideas. They were ideas, to my young mind, of rebellion and independence, not of idolatry. But not that piece of old cloth. To me, that stood for unthinking patriotism. It meant about as much to me as that insipid peace sign that was everywhere I looked: just another symbol of a generation's sentimentality, of its narcissistic worship of its own past glories. Then came that sunny September morning when airplanes crashed into towers a very few miles from my home... -- Frank Miller (1957 - ), comic book artist and writer

Go to NPR to read or listen to the full essay (requires either Windows Media Player or Real Player), which is part of their This I Believe series. I highly recommend it. Miller really cuts to the chase, showing how his upbringing and his own sense of rebellion formed his opionions of patriotism and Old Glory ... and how the events of 9/11 reshaped how he viewed both.