Respect the Flag

"When you see the Stars and Stripes displayed, son, stand up and take off your hat, somebody may titter. It is in the blood of some to deride all expressions of noble sentiment. You may blaspheme in the street and stagger drunken in public places, and the bystanders will not pay much attention to you; but if you should get down on your knees and pray to Almighty God or if you should stand bareheaded while a company of old soldiers marches by with flags to the breeze, some people will think you are showing off.

But don't you mind: When Old Glory comes along, salute, and let them think what they please! When you hear the band play " The Star Spangled Banner " while you are in a restaurant or hotel dining room, get up even if you rise alone; stand there and don't be ashamed of it, either!

For of all the signs and symbols since the world began there is none other so full of meaning as the flag of this country. That piece of red, white and blue bunting means five thousand years of struggle upward. It is the full-grown flower of ages of fighting for liberty. It is the century plant of human hope in bloom.

Your flag stands for humanity, for an equal opportunity to all the sons of men. Of course we haven't arrived yet at that goal; there are many injustices yet among us, many senseless and cruel customs of the past still clinging to us, but the only hope of righting the wrongs of men lies in the feeling produced in our bosoms by the sight of that flag.

Other flags mean a glorious past, this flag a glorious future. It is not so much the flag of our fathers as it is the flag of our children, and of all children's children yet unborn. It is the flag of tomorrow. It is the signal of the " Good Times Coming. " It is not the flag of your king-it is the flag of yourself and of all your neighbors.

Don't be ashamed when your throat chokes and the tears come, as you see it flying from the masts of our ships on all the seas or floating from every flagstaff of the Republic. You will never have a worthier emotion. Reverence it as you would reverence the signature of the Deity.

Listen, son! The band is playing the national anthem - "The Star Spangled Banner." They have let loose Old Glory yonder. Stand up-and others will stand with you.

This tribute to the flag is offered to the country in appeal to all men and women of all races, colors, and tongues, that they may come to understand that our flag is the symbol of liberty, and learn to love it.
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Author: Alvin M. Owsley. It was on the backside of an American Legion page entitled "The Flag Code." It is a product of the American Legion's National Americanism Commission circa 1923. Seems fairly applicable today.

Divisiveness is bringing down our country. 

There have always been differences of opinion on every topic, and there always will be, hopefully. We seem to have more splinter groups than ever before, all shouting to be heard, or protesting over something or other. Our Congress is Bought and Sold, and has been for years. Once in office, they could care less about us. Their salaries are far outweighed by their benefits legal and not so legal.

I still encourage people to vote. It's our only weapon left. Too many Americans since 1917 have died for our freedoms not to vote. I am sure the dead would love to vote just once. But for crying out loud, be a term-limit person and vote out all incumbents in place for two or more terms. Diane Feinstein from CA is about 87 and deems herself fit to run again. This is nuts. I am so weary of voters not caring and just voting a straight party ticket, or simply recognizing a name and checking that box.

Our spirialing-down education system isn't helping matters. Our young people enter adulthood totally un-equipped to make good conscious choices. We used to have a three-part, Checks and Balances govt where in each branch kept an eye on the other. No longer true, blatantly so.

The Executive Order power presidents have has morphed from sparing the Thanksgiving Day turkey, to making each president one himself. Thoroughly and totally NOT what the FF had in mind when they set up this Checks and Balances thing. Grown adults can't/won't lean across the aisle and talk with, not to, each other. Meanwhile, our enemies are lapping it all up. 

We don't have to worry about invasion. We're doing just fine destroying ourselves from within.

What happens when the next black motorist mis-behaves during a traffic stop and any color officer ends up shooting that person? Is the dis-respectful kneeling going to continue?

What happens when a black couple shops for a housing loan and is rejected time and again, or offered a higher rate than anyone else? Is the dis-respectful kneeling going to continue?

What happens when a black person shoots another black person, yet again? Will there be kneeling? Protests?

What happens when young blacks rage in a mall brawl, or have a punch-out in a park? Will there be kneeling? Riots? Public and private property destroyed?

White folks, and others of all tints, are abhorred whenever people of any tint are mis-treated, whether they take to the streets or not. Please don't mis-interpret our silence as acquiescence and approval. We do not.

We are however, absolutely mystified, when a black motorist doesn't know how to behave/respond during a traffic or street stop, no matter the reason or lack of one. The proper response simply is NOT rocket science. When a police officer contacts you, be polite. Talk politely. Move very slowly if you must. Answer the questions, politely. Accept the ticket. Accept the harassment. Also accept name and badge number, note the time and location, and immediately report the officer's actions to that officer's superior. You can be assured the matter will be investigated.

You can also be assured that if you act the fool during a contact, you are going to create problems for yourself. Not keeping your hands in clear view, sudden movements, running away, driving away, yelling, assaulting, throwing, whatever, will bring a response you are not going to like. How hard is this?

I understand, I get it, that blacks are followed around retail stores as if they were about to steal. I get that they get stopped for driving/walking.sitting while black. But their reaction always determines what happens next. I don't believe kneeling is going to change any of this.

We citizens of all shades, we immigrants/sons and daughters of immigrants all, willing or not, are perfectly aware our melting pot nation is not perfect. We always will have problems and we must always be vigilant in identifying them and coming up with viable solutions. This kneeling, this refusing to stand and appear, will not change anything substantial. Point has been made. It's time to move on.

We have struggled with equality mightily since the end of the Civil War. We have a long ways to go. Blacks do appear to be their own worst enemy, however, merely by the way a tiny minority lead their lives. The rest of the imbalance: in properly funding decent schools with great teachers in poverty zones, with proper pay rates, with sufficient job opportunities, with equal maintenance and repair of neighborhoods and provision of parks and playgrounds, can far more easily be addressed. There simply are too many blacks in prison and across the nation's crime statistics sheet, in proportion to their total percentage of the population. That fix, is not in stadiums, arenas, marches, riots. It's in the mirror.

Just a thought, but maybe if we pulled our troops out of the 177 countries they are currently deployed in, we could cut down on the $100B it takes to support some 800 overseas bases. Military leaders are constantly complaining how tired our troops are. Well, no kidding.

Here's a short list of where we have our military. We need to be asking why, and demanding answers. Ask yourself how many of these countries listed we actually are at war with: Norway, Hungary, Kosovo, Romania, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Pakistan, UAE, Qatar, Singapore, British Indian Ocean Territory Australia, Guam, Japan, S. Korea, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Somalia, Uganda, Greenland, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Columbia, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Mexico, Canada. Just a partial list, mind you.

Meanwhile: home infrastructure is crumbling; mental health care is lacking, health care for all is lacking, about seven states and Puerto Rico need serious long-term aid to re-build themselves from fires and hurricanes and floods. Nope, I have zero idea why we are in these countries. Afghanistan has zero end in sight, btw. Zero End. Think about it.

In response to NFL anthem/flag protests around our country Sunday Sept 24, 2017.

The failure of American public schools was evident across the length and breadth of our beloved country this weekend. Countless sheep decided to dis-respect our nation's symbol, thus enabling our enemies like no spin out of Washington D.C. could. They know now, that we are weak, deeply divided, and non-patriotic and won't care who comes in to do whatever.

Not everyone, of course.

The spin this morning is that such dis-respectful actions have nothing to do with love of flag and country, but everything to do with mis-treatment of some folks, or whatever.

Wrong.

Those of us, and we are in the vast, vast majority, who stand to respect our flag and anthem, are fully aware of our failings as a country, a mixed culture found nowhere else on Earth. We are also aware of our accomplishments, of the Five Thousand Year Leap, of the advances humans have and can make when given the freedom and the laws to do so, un-hindered by restrictive one-person rules and dictates. One fellow has been quoted as saying America is only known for baseball, Constitution, and Jazz music. I dis-agree.

Name another country where people are willing to die, to risk their lives, to reach. People: stow away, float, swim, hijack, tunnel, falsify papers to come to America. Our freedoms are like nowhere else on Earth. Folks are taking them for granted.

Standing for our flag acknowledges that we are Americans, all of us immigrants or descended from. Many cultures, languages, backgrounds, customs, habits, beliefs religious and otherwise. E Pluribus Unum. Out of Many, One.

We all know America is not perfect. Our failings, however, are out there for all to see, unlike govts. past and present around the globe today. We are aware of what needs fixing, and we are working on it. It will not get fixed, whatever it is, overnight.

To me it is hypocritical to stand in an arena and boo those who don't show this respect, then sit down and watch them perform for us anyway, as if we can't live without their athleticism. Horse hockey.

What will happen to us as a nation, unique to all others, when we stop coming together as one people, under one flag, no longer believing in the ideals and philosophies and guidelines laid out for us 228 years ago, when our Constitution was produced in 1789? We have to, we must believe in something. Otherwise, we believe in nothing, and that shall be the end of us.

Two generations, minimum, of Americans have been raised primarily in day care by strangers. Think about that. I believe it has had serious impact on national social mores, the way we greet, meet, and treat each other. Which is to say, shabbily to poor to violently. 

Says a lot about us as a nation, when we walk and drive around, with our heads down staring at our pacifiers. No human qualities on display much, anymore. Letting a car in front of you in a traffic line, or in or out of a parking lot or side street; no holding doors for others by looking behind us as we enter or exit; no returning shopping carts to pick-up points so they don't block others; littering everywhere; road rage; shootings for no reason. Our family values and moral fiber are weak to non-existant. Our natural propensity for acting out emotionally, irrationally, violently, sometimes deadly, is so much more so in evidence the past 30 years or so. Really sad to observe.

In response to a Charleston, SC Post and Courier newspaper article Sat Sept 2 2017 about on-line physical education being available and popular, the following is offered in response/opposition. Good grief.

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No kidding.

The nation-wide emphasis on varsity and junior varsity competition, down to 7th grade, has existed for decades to serve only a tiny minority of enrolled students everywhere. The talented few compete, the rest are expected to enthusiastically support them, whether they want to or not. Makes no difference the sport.

Meanwhile, out on the grassy fields of multiple sports, CTE continues to take lives/damage brains, eventually, through repeated knocks to the developing brains and skulls of the young and sometimes gifted. Parents continue to look the other way. Why, I have no idea.

On-line physical education classes are nothing more than logging what you may or may not have done over time. Seriously? Intramural sports, on the other hand, guarantees: actual physical activity, increased heartrate, aerobic gain, sweat, effort, learning about competition, digging down inside one's self to try harder, never give up, to win and lose with grace. You know, sportsmanship, win or lose. Are these key-tappers receiving these types of benefits sitting in the bleachers? Ehh, probably not. Definitely not. The same group of young people afraid to shower with their peers, has zero problem walking in public with their pants hanging below their buttocks and their chests exposed. Weak excuse.

Parents, and taxpayers without children in the school systems, constantly complain about costs.
Well, here's an area to dramatically trim costs. Eliminate high school varsity sports entirely. If your child wants to play enroll him/her in an off-campus program at your expense, not ours.

Implement intramural sports program across the curriculum starting in 7th grade. Every student including special needs, must enroll in one sport, preferably two, every year. Flag football, volleyball, basketball, badminton, softball, wrestling, field hockey, soccer, you name it. EVERYONE participates. We can dial down this letter jacket/bmoc thing. Teachers and students have their favorite sports team player's name and number all over the hallways and classrooms, while National Honor Society and IB students and the musically and artistically gifted routinely get ignored. No pep rallies for them, have you noticed?

No Friday night light bill. No stadium maintenance. No security. Far less insurance. Far less equipment needed. Flag football requires plastic belts and flags, tennis shoes, and a grass field. No traveling budget. No traveling on the nation's apparently oldest school busses. No students bouncing along on C averages, being released from desperately needed classroom time early, to go knock themselves senseless somewhere. Concussions will happen during intramurals too, but in far less numbers and should occur at less impact speed.

School spirit, often cited by principals as key to an entire school's self-worth, won't suffer. Indeed, the number of students feeling better and more self-confident about themselves should actually rise. The inclusion of ALL students in physical fitness training and competition is better for our society as a whole. Isn't this the point of public education, to educate and improve ALL students? Take a look around next time you're out running errands, etc. We are a woefully out of shape nation. Our education system's failings in this crucial area of student development is a prime reason, but not the only one.

Anyone swallowing this bilge water about on-line physical education needs to have their head examined.