Flags: 000000000000
From: swfc@read.cs.columbia.edu (Shu-Wie F Chen)
Subject: The Flag Takes A Licking
Keywords: topical, chuckle
Date: 14 Aug 89 07:20:05 GMT

New York Times, August 8, 1989, Letter to the Editor, by Ruth L. Kaplan:

The other day I bought a roll of 25 cent postage stamps.  I have not
had a moment's peace since.  For, upon unfurling this roll, I
discovered that every one of the 100 stamps bears the unmistakable
likeness of the American flag.

To appreciate my consternation, consider what is in store for these
stamps.  First, I must lick the flag-- er, stamp.  Then I will drop it
into a dark box, where it may well be bruised, possibly even torn.
Next, the stamp/flag will go to the Post Office, where an inexorable
machine will stomp on it, defiling it with ugly lines in order to
"cancel" it.

"Cancel" our inviolable flag?

But wait.  The horrors mount.  In time, the stamp will reach the
addressee, who may rip it, eagerly opening the envelope.
Ultimately, the flag stamp-- licked, cancelled, defaced, ripped-- will
be consigned to the trash, doomed to decompose in a dump, linger in a
landfill or-- shudder!-- be converted to charcoal and burned under a
steak.

What's a patriot to do?

I wonder if the Post Office will allow me to return a rerolled roll of
stamps.  But even it it does, it'll just resell it, perhaps to some
insensitive stamper who will lick, deface, cancel and rip those flags
without a twinge of conscience.

I pray (but not in school) for some official, even Presidential, guidance.

Ruth L. Kaplan is a retired Federal (but not postal) employee.