Story Archive

Stranger in a Strange Land

Washington’s Seattle Times newspaper got a tip from a reader: “Suddenly there is a Confederate flag flying in front of a house in my Greenwood neighborhood,” reported Rebecca Morris, a true-crime author. “I would love to know what this ‘means’,” she told the paper, “but of course don’t want to knock on their door.” A reporter went to look, and knocked at the house flying the purported rebel banner under an American flag. “That’s a Norwegian flag,” said the homeowner, Darold Norman Stangeland. “It’s been up there since the start of the Olympics.” (RC/Seattle Times) ...What it “means”: too many Americans are culturally illiterate.