Patriotism

A baseball fan who says he was ejected from Yankee Stadium after he left his seat to use the bathroom while "God Bless America" was playing sued the New York Yankees and the city Wednesday. Bradford Campeau-Laurion says in his federal lawsuit that his rights were violated at an Aug. 26 game between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox when he tried to pass a police officer, who was being paid by the Yankees to work at the Bronx stadium.

The glove would have caught flak. But it also would have caught our throats, our consciences, our moment. The glove would have sparked a controversy whose flames would have engulfed the NFL down to its buttoned-up core. But it also would have reflected America's fire within. The practical part of me was relieved that Brandon Marshall's touchdown celebration for the Denver Broncos was stopped before it cost his team a penalty and possibly the game.

washington -- Should the world's most-used search engine be more of a Yankee Google Dandy? Google Inc. occasionally features light-hearted doodles on its colorful home-page logo to commemorate special occasions. But now they are drawing criticism from conservatives for not being more patriotic. The Mountain View, Calif.

Few movies take critical beatings as bad as the thumping handed out to South Korean director Shim Hyung-rae's "D-War," a dragons-do-battle fantasy that transports a Korean legend to 21st century Los Angeles. A fiasco of a plot, the critics said. Preposterous dialogue. Risible acting. South Korean audiences loved it. Two months after its release, 8 million South Koreans have seen "D-War," making it not just a box-office hit but a national success story, a way of channeling Korean pride.

Mia Kim isn't an avid baseball fan. She'll tag along if a friend has a free ticket to an Angel or Dodger game or catch an occasional game on television. But buy a ticket? Never. That changed this week when Kim stood in line at Angel Stadium and plunked down $135 for five tickets to see her native South Korea play rival Japan in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, which will stop in Anaheim for five days beginning Sunday.

Teachers in Tokyo cannot be ordered to stand, face the flag and sing Japan's national anthem at school events, a court ruled Thursday, delivering a sharp rebuke to a nationalist campaign that aims to instill a greater sense of patriotism among Japanese youth. The Tokyo District Court decision said compelling teachers to participate in ceremonial exercises that clash with their personal beliefs would violate Japan's constitutional guarantees of free thought and conscience.

For those who view Japan's swelling nationalism through suspicious eyes, there is plenty of evidence that the World War II loser is straining at its pacifist shackles. New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to rewrite Japan's war-renouncing constitution. He yearns for a robust role in world affairs, and has even mused about the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike against North Korean missile sites.

Japanese students can now look forward to studying patriotism as well as math, public spirit in addition to science. A pillar of postwar Japan's constitutionally enforced pacifism was knocked aside Friday when parliament passed a law making "love of country" a compulsory part of school curricula.

Re "Losing our 'American' way," Opinion, July 6 Now Jonah Goldberg is questioning the patriotism of Superman, and why? He dropped "the American way" phrase from his rallying cry for the horrific "all that is good." Clap him in Kryptonite irons and send him to Guantanamo! Traitor! Insurgent! Once upon a time, the American way was synonymous with "all that is good." Nowadays, lying to start a war and bombing innocent people into the Stone Age, curbing the rights of American citizens through scare tactics, denying lower-income people a minimum-wage raise -- all while questioning the patriotism of those who dissent with administration policies -- has become the American way. I'm sure that if Goldberg worked as hard to restore the American way as he does to fabricate arguments to validate the conservative point of view, Superman would be more than willing to meet him halfway.

Re "The last refuge of the GOP," Opinion, Sept. 9 I agree with Geoffrey Nunberg's analysis of the Republicans' attempt to seize the mantle of patriotism for themselves. They actually express not patriotism but jingoism -- the mindless support of aggressive nationalism. My patriotism is devoted to the things that make America unique. We have a nation established to provide liberty to its citizens under the rule of law established by the Constitution. These are the ideals that make America worthy of our devotion.