A few days old, but I had to take note of Ohio townspeople interpreting a broken flagpole as a gesture of mourning for Osama bin Laden:
An Ohio hotel has been fending off angry phone calls because a broken rope on its flagpole led some to think the business was mourning the death of Osama bin Laden.
The rope left the U.S. flag stuck at half-staff outside a Hampton Inn in Springfield in western Ohio two days before bin Laden was killed, its assistant general manager Connie Smith told msnbc.com.
However, people started noticing the flag and assuming its position was in honor of bin Laden on Tuesday.
The hotel and its company received dozens of calls from people who were either upset or angry. One threatened to run the hoteliers out of town. ...
"The whole town thought we were supporting bin Laden. So many people really had a fit about it. They were calling the local newspaper, they were calling the police. I didn't realize how patriotic our city is," she added.
Right. They're patriotic. That's the best description. What else but patriotism could explain their belief that the most plausible explanation for a half-staff flag was that a U.S.-based national retail business was publicly mourning the death of Osama bin Laden?