[ChemistCat]

Sigh. I have these visions of the Liberty Bell touring the country with an engraving tool. Spray paint cans being sold openly on the Mall in D.C. Murals being painted over the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Southwestern Bell, Microsoft, and Penthouse Magazine bidding for the right to have their corporate name and logo airbrushed onto Lincoln's coat in the Lincoln Memorial. Bill Clinton winning some unFReeped online poll and getting his head chiseled into Mount Rushmore.

I'm sorry, nobody should have taken a pen to any US flag. The WTC event was profoundly important to our nation's history, but it doesn't trump the rest of it.

[spycatcher]

Exactly. In our "advanced" TV culture, the flag wasn't good enough and needed something extra to compete with the AIDS quilts, etc. I got the sense that some signers were over-excited to be part of history themselves. Some of the markings were ugly paragraphs in large letters.

"Too many John Hancocks spoil the flag"