It all began when some crazy fuckers crashed a couple of planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into the ripe Pennsylvania earth. I was really upset. It bothered me to think of all those lives wiped out at once through terrible barbaric acts. For those who were killed, it had to be terrible. I can't even begin to imagine the fear that they felt and the anguish that they suffered through at the end of their lives. No one should have to die like that.

Even worse in my mind was the idea of all of the lives that were affected. Friends. Relatives. Co-workers. I could just imagine the grief expanding outward through the preverbial six degrees of seperation like waves from a pebble thrown into a pond.

As the days went by the flags started to show up. At first I thought it was great. I'm pretty happy being an American and I really do think that the republic that we live in is probably the best system of government invented so far. I cherish the liberties that we enjoy, I understand that this is government by consent, and what that means. Even though I take serious issue with some of the things that America has done in the past, and I imagine that we will continue to make mistakes in the future, I'm still proud to be a citizen of the United States of America. This country has a lot of love to give, even though sometimes it has a funny way of showing it. For this reason, I thought that people using the flag as a medium for displaying that pride and grief was good. Good for healing, good to remind us of what we have here. A flag flew in my living room window.

Eventually they started to show up everywhere. Billboards. Flags the size of a football field on the side of a building. Transparent flags in the windows of cars. Full pages of Newspapers. Tattoos.

Then one night I ordered a pizza. And there was a flag on the pizza box. All of a sudden, I felt the urge to take my flag down. I wasn't sure why, but for a moment, I felt dirty. I wanted to take my flag down. The symbol that I cherished for the pride and grief that I felt was being used to sell something. I'm not trying to sell things with my flag, I just want to show that I care. This was the antithesis of the purpose of the flag. It was not pure. It came with a slogan.

The pizza box was just the beginning. First it was a light rain of flags, like a summer drizzle. Warm. Friendly. But this wasn't a warm front. It was a cold front, bringing with it a thunderstorm of Red, White and Blue. I used a newspaper to try to keep the flags off my head, but it wasn't enough. The words ran and the paper turned to shreds under the perpetual bombardment of america for sale. I had to trade it in for an umbrella but that wasn't enough either. Now, I just hide indoors waiting for the rain to stop so I can walk outside to enjoy the sun.

What does it mean when a company takes a symbol that people use to describe something they care about, and twist it to convince them to buy something they don't need? I don't remember where but somewhere I read that patriotism is best expressed by what you do, not by what you say. I feel like this is an accurate statement and it's one that I live by. When I see this inappropriate use of the flag I know that what is being said is "we are patriotic and we care" but what they are doing is manipulating your emotions to make you more malleable to the idea of buying their product. That's not patriotic. It's rude. And I'm sick of seeing it.

The project is simple. Take pictures where the flag is being used inappropriately. Use those pictures to build a guide of bad use for the marketing intelligentsia.

Send me an image, a description of what it's an image of, who you are, where you are and a witty quip to go along with it.