Everyone, may I tell a story? It deals with patriotism. On November 13, 1978, a quite typical pair of parents brought their then-ten year old boy to Manhatten to show him around the city of his birth. The boy was fascinated, and, in the modern parlance, "blown away" by the huge buildings and the lights and the noise. Such things were almost beyond his comprehension, having grown up in a sedate suburb an hour to the north. He thrilled to the subway, reveled in the cultures he saw in Little Italy and Chinatown and Harlem. He lit candles at St....