From the editor: A song for a day

Big flags are symbolic of one thing, for the most part—used car sales.

Just about every large auto dealership across the country unfurls one of those eye catching linens, measuring half a football field or thereabout, waving over a shining sea of polished metal and plastic. Perhaps some of these vehicles are liveried in amber or majestic purple, who knows.

Of course, there were large flags of greater consequence. I have no idea exactly when Baltimore seamstress Mary Pickersgill finished the most famous of these. It was 200 years ago and it was massive, 30 feet by 42 feet of bunting, stit...