Citizen curmudgeon. (Flip Side).

Don't ask me about my New Year's resolutions for 2003; I didn't make any. Every other year I have resolved to be nicer, more sensitive and caring, fitter, more serene and evolved. But this year I've decided to stay exactly the same and let everyone else do the resolving. Maybe I've hit the curmudgeon point of the life cycle, but there are just too many things pissing me off.

To begin with, the corporate inanities, like the current Whole Foods shopping bag that urges me to "Share the Season." Sure, I'll share the season. Send me your address and I'll Fed-Ex you a Ziploc baggy filled with doggy-poop-permeated local slush. It's so much easier than sharing anything else, like the $60 worth of overpriced yuppie comestibles I foolishly brought home in that bag.

Or the Cheerios box the back of which is emblazoned with the words "Teaming up to take on literacy." Yes, literacy is a terrible problem, especially for those of us who've used it to read the newspapers at any time during the last six months. And believe me, Cheerios people, you've done a lot to stamp it out with that statement, so there's no need for me to join the "team."

But my fellow citizens, toward whom I once strove to be more sensitive and caring, are bugging me too. People wearing angel pins, especially people working as flight attendants or ticket agents. I'm sorry, but anyone who believes in large human-like flying creatures endowed with feathery wings should be automatically disqualified from airline employment. What does it tell us about the condition of the planes and the sobriety of the pilots when you're flaunting your faith in the body's capacity for unassisted flight?

I am furthermore driven to tooth gnashing by anyone displaying a pink ribbon on her chest. I know, I know: You're trying to spread "awareness" of breast cancer. But "awareness" doesn't do the least bit of good when there's no cure and, as we now know, early detection does little beyond expose you to dangerous and debilitating "treatments." Why not just a skull and crossbones pin as a reminder of human mortality? As a public message, though, I would favor a tiny beige knit noose to promote awareness of capital punishment.

Turning to CNN, as I do every couple of hours a day just to check on what kinds of mayhem have erupted since I last tuned in, we find well over twenty minutes of commercials per hour, or "breaks" as the anchors refer to them. No doubt we need a break or two when "the news," CNN-style, consists of an endless infomercial for war with Iraq or some other penny-ante state. What drives me to hypertension isn't the commercials; it's the steady rise of anchor chit-chat, amounting to at least another five minutes per hour. Daryl teases Bill about how he would get by in Venezuela, where the beer supply is rapidly ebbing. Paula wonders disingenuously how she'll get to work in the event of a transit strike in New York (like she thought the limo drivers were going to go out in solidarity with the subway workers?). Leon shares the high points of his weekend. There is much giggling and mutual elbowing.

So we miss the famine in Ethiopia, the election in Kenya, and the ongoing turmoil in Argentina because the anchors are getting cuddly. What makes me want to hurl the potted poinsettia at the screen is the imperial smugness of it all. Not only do "we"--the CNN/Pentagon gang--rule the world, but we do so with the air-headed self-involvement of the cast of Friends.

While we're on the subject of CNN and its ilk: I've had enough of those bogus polls designed to give us the fleeting sense that we are actually citizens of a democracy. On AOL, which is of course part of CNN, I've recently gotten the chance to "vote" against war with Iraq and for the legalization of marijuana. Thank you very much, but polls of those self-selected people who are motivated enough to "vote" are as scientifically meaningful as divinations. Even more maddening, though, are the "polls" that ask us to opine on some current matter of fact or future event, like whether Osama bin Laden is alive or war will break out before February. How the hell would we know?

And what about the virus-like proliferation of American flags? The first few flag bumper stickers I saw were reassuring evidence that I hadn't zoned out during a forty-minute rock bloc and taken a turn into Burundi or Switzerland. But then, the first litter of kittens is also a delight. It's only after the tenth or so that you start running around trying to stomp them to death. So too, the American flag, which has, through sheer repetition, been reduced to the equivalent of wallpaper: flag sweaters, flag pins, flag earrings, flag Christmas lights, flag bathing suits, flag sweatshirts, flag underwear. Inevitably, this results in flag burning, since almost any random mound of garbage you ignite is bound to contain some flag or flag-like replica.

I must also take exception to the politicians' ungracious habit of referring to America as "the greatest nation on Earth." Would I walk into a cocktail party and introduce myself as "the greatest person on the planet"? Even if that were, in fact, the case?

Finally, before you accuse me of lacking patriotism, consider the word itself. One of the most nationalistic things Americans do is to reserve the term "nationalism" (which implies something sinister and potentially homicidal) for other nations, while holding onto "patriotism" (which is invariably seen as noble and good) for ourselves. Do me a favor this year: Call it "nationalism" when you affix a flag to your car, and leave the word "patriotism" for your efforts to make this country a kinder, more egalitarian place, and one that is less dangerous to the rest of the world.

Barbara Ehrenreich is a columnist for The Progressive and the author of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" (Metropolitan Books, 2001).