Deeply Depressing Letter in the Irish Independent Today...

...read it here.

Basically the author, obviously responding to the current flag controversy in Belfast, is griping about the use of flags at all.

He writes: "We should all have our roots in rootlessness, and favour the invisible flag. Every time I see an apparently flagless flagpole, my eyes mist over and I feel a great sense of pride. I say to myself "hooray, they are flying my flag today!"

So much of the modern distate for everything solid, fertile and positive-- for the nation, for the family, for tradition, for gender roles, for social conventions, for minor inconveniences (like buying something in a shop rather than online), and (increasingly) for alcoholic drinks-- is illustrative of Oscar Wilde's very wise words: "A cynic is someone who knows the cost of everything, and the value of nothing."

Somebody has pointed out that "Imagine", the John Lennon song that has become the definitive anthem of protest, is an entirely negative vision. Imagine no possessions. Imagine there's no countries. Imagine there's no Heaven.

I always prefer people who can proclaim what they love and stand by, rather than what they hate and would like to see abolished.