I found your editorial (“Praying to a red, white, and blue calf”) rather ironic, considering that the author has obviously been suckling from the teat of the red, white, and blue bovine on the one hand, and yet pretends to reject the essence of that calf on the other. Furthermore, she contends that those who exercise their right to demonstrate their appreciation of the calf’s sustenance are “jingoistic,” and that those who appreciate the resources and environment that is their surrounding are offering a prayer to the gods of “waste” and “over-expenditure.” It seems to me that she is confusing gratitude and appreciation with an exaggerated perception. My question is: to what purpose? Is she yearning for a totalitarian state, or perhaps a communist/socialist society where excellence is crushed, mediocrity is rewarded, and where freedoms as we know them do not exist? Or is she perhaps simply demonstrating an immature view of what patriotism is all about? No society is without its flaws, and the United States certainly has its share of them. However, to make the assertion that those who speak the pledge of allegiance are somehow blindly speaking a rote declaration devoid of meaning or original thought is to suggest that all of United States society is nothing more than a collective 5th-grade class, muttering the pledge under their breaths in order to get on to more important business.