I shot this flag hanging in a store window yesterday while walking around the Royal Opera.

I was temporarily in Sweden during most of America’s Bicentennial back in 1976. Now, as the absurdly commercialized 250th anniversary is underway, I realize I’ve become more Swedish than American. I don’t feel compelled to visit the USA right now, regardless of the occasion.

It’s hard to feel optimistic about the country’s current path. Will it make until the tricentennial in fifty years? I won’t be around by then, so I’ll never know. To me, it feels like the US is in a state of aggressive regression rather than positive progress.

I still love what the USA represents – in theory, anyway. And geographically speaking, it remains a remarkably diverse and beautiful country. But as an old friend pointed out many years ago, the flag is a banner meant to wave us forward, not a blindfold to hide where we are actually heading.