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08/29/2010 = 07:43 AM

I had something else to say, but when I logged in, I noticed I have 8,000 comments on my blog since I started it back in '01 (actually, later than that, because I didn't have comment capability till I left Diarrhealand, where it was an additional cost, and put everything on MovableType, where it was included).

Wow, though. Eight thousand.

Eight thousand different times, someone got a wild hair about something I wrote and decided to jump into the discussion.

(Or, you know, tried to sell Viagra. Which is something of an opinion in and of itself, if you want to take it that way.)

So congratulations to Seraphine, who doesn't win a darned thing for being so interactive. Sorry. I wish I could afford to give prizes. All I can offer is thanks for reading and making me think about what I say, and how it affects the outside world, and for being really freaking awesome in her own right.

That goes for the rest of you too, by the way. She can't be 8,000 if you guys aren't 1 through 7,999.

Now, mind you, I'm wondering who was 1, and when that was, and if that person is still up in here at all.

Stand by. I won't be happy till I look.

....

Oh, kay. Get in the TARDIS and hold on; we're going back to February 24, 2004, when Piehole Jen, who never even updates her own blog anymore, let alone reading mine, said, quote, "Yippee! COMMENTS! (And I'm totally changing my link to you now.)"

She was, incidentally, also the second commenter, only a few seconds later. The context is that that particular post was about how I had heard someone say "Fuck me running" and I loved the phrase, but since I never run anywhere (hello arthritis, my old friend), I was changing the verb out as needed, such as "fuck me eating," "fuck me taking a shower," or "fuck me blogging."

So Piehole Jen's second comment was, quote, "You know, that comment would've been way funnier had I said 'fuck me commenting!' So, let's just pretend I said that the first time."

Consider it pretended, Jennifer. And I miss you.

Back into the TARDIS, everyone. Yes, we'll all fit. It's bigger on the inside.

And here we are in '10, and here we get to what it was I really meant to talk about today.

"I peg an eagle to the flag in the nicest state in America. And to the republic, for Richard Sands, one nation, under God, invisible, with liberty just as far off."

I won't take credit for that. I'm not sure who actually wrote it, but I first heard it attributed to Sam Levenson, and since I wrote my senior term paper about him, I'm happy to assume he was the culprit.

(Got an A on that paper, by the way. Thanks, Mr. O. Also, thanks, Mr. Levenson, yet another teacher who made a huge difference in my life, even though I never met him.)

The other day, one of my coworkers posted the actual Pledge of Allegiance as her Facebook status, and encouraged her Facebook friends to do the same if they believed, as she does, in not losing the "under God" part.

Well, my instinct is that, in America, the country represented by this flag, we're supposed to respect people's individual religious choices, but whatever.

The first commenter to her status post pointed out that she would have been offended if the wording were changed to "absent of all gods," so ...

This prompted another commenter to say, "If you don't like our Pledge, then go back where you came from."

Wait, what?

I don't like our Pledge.

It has nothing to do with the "under God" part; it's the bit about "liberty and justice for all" that perturbs me. So far, to my observation, it's always been "some liberty and some justice, for some."

Also, I can't "go back whence I came." I'm third-generation American. I came from HERE.

America.

The place where you want me to pledge allegiance to a flag representing a country that says, specifically, that even if I don't like everything about here, I'm still welcome to stay.

And I have the freedom to write about it, even unto using the word "fuck" if I want to.

I will continue to stand silently in respect of the flag, and to respect other people's opinions, and to do my utmost to fight for their freedoms, in my own little ways, such as not telling the "go back where you came from" person to shut the hell up and buy me a ticket to Connecticut, since I am not only third-generation American, but the Mom and my grampa were both born in Stamford and I was born in New Haven.

Whereas she (that "back where you came from" person) is either not originally from the United States, or is, at most, second-generation.

And as far as I, and the Pledge of Allegiance, are concerned, she is welcome here, even if she is a bit ignorant.

We don't have liberty and justice for all, yet.

But I hope that, in my lifetime, I'll get to stand with my hand over my heart, and recite the Pledge in its entirety, believing every word of it to be true.

Tags: Pledge of Allegiance

drinking: ice water
listening to: Deniece Williams, It's Gonna Take a Miracle (Royalettes cover)
coming soon, if i get up the bottles: a picture of me in my new tshirt