from a Washington Post article inviting various luminaries to offer their revisions (humorous and otherwise) to the Pledge of Allegiance.

I love our imperfect country, and I love it partly for the ideal of respect for differences, the dignity of the unique individual. No communal incantation can embody that ideal. I don't believe that I got much from chanting sentences of allegiance in school each morning. Patriotism is not the same as piety. My classmates and I would have been better off, and it would be more in the best American spirit, if the teacher had read a different passage from "Leaves of Grass" each morning.

-- Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate


Once again, the poet nails it.

Happy 4th, everyone.