Weekend Reader readers, Saturday is Flag Day, so excuse me for a moment while I go hang our U.S. flag from the pole that usually holds our seasonal banners — you know, the ones that depict summery Adirondack chairs or snowballs that have landed on the heads of irritated cats.

But then I worried: What if somebody sees my flag and assumes it’s a sign of support for the president’s ridiculous military parade on Saturday night?

And then I thought this: I am angry and saddened that we have reached a point where we fret over or try to second-guess even a modest display of patriotism. Let me be clear: I know how incredibly fortunate we are to be living in the United States. But I also understand that we need to be particularly vigilant these days against threats to the liberties that Americans have taken for granted for too long. For me, at least, those liberties are symbolized by that flag. So I put it up. The Adirondack chairs can wait.

Maybe my fussing over the flag is partially because this weekend seems particularly fraught, what with the huge “No Kings” protests across the nation, the shocking shootings overnight in Minnesota involving two state lawmakers, federalized National Guard troops in California, the military parade and crises overseas as well — including the Israeli attack meant to cripple Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

So here’s David Sanger of The New York Times offering a video analysis about how President Trump has taken a very different tack from his predecessors in dealing with peaceful and nonviolent — in theory, constitutionally protected — protests. (Many of the Times’ interactive features may be behind a paywall, even though all the other Times links mentioned in the Weekend Reader are free, even to people who don’t subscribe to the Times.)

If you’re thinking Trump seems more willing to dispatch the military inside the United States than abroad — well, that might not be wrong, according to this news analysis from the Times.

To wrap up this particular section of today’s Reader, here’s Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic, explaining how what he calls our “fractured media ecosystem” is creating distortion — dangerous distortion — around this week’s events in Los Angeles. Warzel’s Atlantic bio says he writes about “technology, media and big ideas,” and he’s an interesting voice on those topics, even if the headlines on his stories often feature some variation of “I’m running out of ways to explain how bad this is.”

Speaking of “how bad this is:” Here’s a piece by an associate professor at Purdue University (republished on the Nieman Lab website) about how most Americans still have faith in the accuracy of local news — but only 23% of those who say they pay for online news pay for a local or regional news outlet. This actually helps to create what Warzel would term a “dangerous distortion.”

My former colleague Cory Frye is one of the very best writers on pop culture I know, and he has popped up in New Times Phoenix with a piece that asks this important question: Who gets to decide what is officially yacht rock? Sure, we all agree about Michael McDonald — but Men at Work? That’s a tougher call.

Laura Gunderson, the managing editor of The Oregonian/OregonLive, has been named the new editor of the news operation. She’ll take over when Therese Bottomly wraps up her outstanding 42-year career at the paper on Aug. 1. Gunderson’s tenure at the paper dates to 1995, when she started her career by taking calls on the sports desk from coaches and readers asking about scores. (You’d be surprised how many newspaper careers started that way.)

Friday is the first day of summer, and here’s an article from Discover that will tell you more than you ever really wanted to know about the summer solstice, including the definition of the word “solstice” and the fact — this actually is kind of interesting — that summer is the longest of the four seasons. I start every summer vowing to spend more time just enjoying the season — and then Labor Day arrives. Well, this summer, I will finally follow through on my vow. I started today by writing the Weekend Reader on my back deck. Which just reminded me of how much yardwork I need to tackle. Curse you, summer!

Finally this week: Longtime Weekend Reader readers will be relieved to know that Lee Enterprises this past week finally sent me a bulk-mail notice that personal information about me (along with information about nearly 40,000 other people) was stolen in that cyberattack that crippled their newspapers earlier this year.

That’s it for this weekend. Keep alert and stay hydrated, and we’ll gather here again next weekend.