The threat of Muslim violence as a result of those notorious Danish cartoons has a lot of Europeans on pins and needles. But there’s at least one American who was apparently on pins and needles himself on Monday.
As Muslims in Europe and the Mid-East were burning Danish flags, a Ridgefield, Connecticut, commodities trading firm wanted to make a statement. So Rob Ellis and Tom Trillo purchased a large Danish flag and hung it up in the firm’s windows last Thursday. Ellis explained their action this way, “It’s principally out of solidarity with the Danes and the abuse they’ve taken from the Muslim world.”
Then on Friday, someone brought in lapel pins with the Danish and American flags together and with everyone feeling the love, down came the Connecticut flag and up went the Danish flag (right under the American flag) on the building’s flagpole. And there it stayed all weekend.
Now comes the part about the nervous guy. Landlord Michael McNamara drove up Monday morning, took one look at the new flagpole arrangement, and down came the Danish flag and up went the Connecticut flag. “I was on vacation and I came back this morning and I saw that a Danish flag was up,” said McNamara. “And I took it down and put it the way it always was, a Connecticut flag.”
McNamara would not comment further, but obviously, when you’re responsible for a building, you really don’t want to attract people who have been known to burn buildings.