State flag pledges, present and accounted for

January 10, 2007

I am guilty. I made a bit of an assumption that state flag pledges are rare. There were none in Idaho, or Utah, where I attended public schools. Maryland made no fuss about one while we were there. In most conversations when the issue of a state pledge comes up, people tell their shock at discovering there was such a thing for Texas, and that Texans actually say it from time to time.

Only Georgia bothered to send in correcting information.

But a search of Google finally managed to strike something, having got just the right combination of terms. Below the fold are the state flag pledges for Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio and South Dakota. I note that the years of adoption are recent — some sort of competition between state legislatures with too little to do? — which leads me to suspect that there may be more state pledges out there, but they are just showing up in the civics and history books.

How many more state pledges are out there? Got something to add? Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments | Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Pledge to the flag, State flag | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Correction: Georgia also has a state pledge of allegiance

January 9, 2007

David Parker at Another History Blog updates and corrects our information on state pledges of allegiance:  Texas is not alone, Georgia also has a state pledge.

Georgia does not require students to say the pledge daily, however.

These provisions are often hidden away in state laws that do not index well at the legal sites I use, Findlaw.com and the Cornell University Law Library’s Legal Information Institute.  Consequently, it’s quite possible I have missed other state pledges.  If you know of any others, please let me know.

And, in the meantime, go check out Prof. Parker’s post.  The details make the story, as always.

2 Comments | Current History, Curricula, Flag etiquette, Law, Patriotism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Honor the Texas Flag” especially when retiring it

January 7, 2007

Texas is a whole ‘nother place.

Flag etiquette is a concern of mine — no, not an obsession, despite the number of recent posts — and I try to stay alert to news on that front. Hangin’ with Scout leaders today I heard another one: Texas has a law that specifies how a soiled or tattered Texas flag should be retired.

U.S. flags should be retired in a respectful fashion, according to the non-binding U.S. flag code. Texas leaves a lot less up to the imagination or to chance. The law calls for a sober ceremony, but just in case you wonder, it also provides a suggested script for the ceremony, ending with the Texas Pledge. So far as I know, Texas is the only state that has a pledge of allegiance for the state flag, separate from the national Pledge of Allegiance (if you know of others, please tell!).

Image from State Office of Risk Management

The state law, in all its glory is below the fold (at least, that portion dealing with the Texas flag retirement ceremony). Read the rest of this entry »

12 Comments | Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

‘First, Roy Moore came for Keith Ellison . . .’

December 26, 2006

While denying that they have any racist or other xenophobic intent, critics of Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, like the abominable Dennis Prager, continue to try to gin up reasons why he cannot carry his own scriptures to Congress, why he cannot have the rights that every school child in America has, because the scriptures Ellison carries are Islamic.

Except for Roy Moore, the Xian Nationalist, unreconstructed Christian Reconstructionist, and Christian Dominionist who probably got the memorandum about how they aren’t supposed to talk about it in public, but who lets it fly anyway.

Representing the Great Booboisie, Roy Moore says Ellison should not be seated in Congress at all.

Alabama’s voters were wise to reject Roy Moore as governor, after Moore burned the people so badly when they trusted him to be chief justice of the state’s supreme court, and he instead turned the court into a circus of religious pomposity and disregard for the laws of religious freedom. Another History Blog Fisks the manifold, manifest errors Moore makes.

I cannot escape the feeling that Moore is speaking for most Reconstructionists and Dominionists, Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnival of the Liberals #28

December 26, 2006

I rather like the image of the Statute of Liberty. As an icon of freedom, it’s among the best. Help keep it: Go read the 28th installment of the Carnival of the Liberals, over at Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted).

Leave a Comment » | Patriotism, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Time to stand up for religious freedom: Lay off of Rep. Ellison

December 23, 2006

It was just sad when Dennis Prager prostituted U.S. history to rant at Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, for Ellison’s having said he’d use his faith’s scriptures for a staged photograph commemorating his being sworn in as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Ignorance can be so ugly.

It was jarring when so many others demonstrated their ignorance of the First Amendment and Constitutional history by repeating Prager’s concerns. Ignorance is contagious.

It was tragic when a few people, after having had a chance to repent of their ignorance, then mounted an assault on the Constitution by continuing to demand something was wrong with the situation, even calling for Ellison to give up his faith for the ceremony. Ignorance can be cured, why would anyone reject the cure?

It’s time to stop piling stupidity on stupidity: Rep. Virgil Goode (ironically named, no doubt), a Republican representing much of southern Virginia in the U.S. House (5th District) took aim at Ellison’s election itself, calling for “immigration reform” to prevent a Muslim takeover of Congress.

Goode’s comments are insensitive, xenophobic, insulting, demonstrative of ignorance, and just wrong on so many counts it is hard to determine which rebuttal is more important. So, random rebuttals follow. [I’ve come back to this four times today. It makes me amazingly angry, and I have to take a break.] Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Bogus history, Education, First Amendment, Holocaust, Patriotism, Politics, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Unapologetic Prager blunders on

December 8, 2006

Dennis Prager, please call George Santayana!

Invoking the name of George Washington, who, Prager says, brought his own Bible to be sworn in to office, Dennis Prager refuses to retreat from his errors of history, and insists that Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison should be prevented from bringing his own scripture to Ellison’s swearing-in.

Prager is simply wrong on the history, both the tradition and the law. He claims there is some grand tradition of Members of Congress swearing on a Bible. That is not so. When corrected, he claims it is important anyway. When it is pointed out that what he wants is illegal, Prager claims cultural imperative as the reason to vitiate the First Amendment.

It would be a teapot tempest, except for Prager’s breaking the teapot — he has real newspapers carrying his column, and he keeps insisting on being wrong about history, he insists on bogus history.

Flunk him, let him advance to the 9th grade when he can master the material and pass the test, without a tantrum.

Other commentary:

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Patriotism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hoax quiz on patriotism

December 3, 2006

At least I hope this quiz creator wasn’t serious.

Your ‘Do You Want the Terrorists to Win’ Score: 100%

 

You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, “blame America first”-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such clearly desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day…. in Guantanamo!

Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

 

You, too, can score with the terrorists on this quiz if you pick the rational answer, or if you pick the answer most like any patriotic, Bill-of-Rights-loving citizen. If you follow the Scout Oath and Scout Law, you have a better chance of siding with the terrorists, too.

I scored 100% with the terrorists. Recall, I was Orrin Hatch’s press guy, and a Reagan administration appointee (Schedule C, but still . . .); I’m a flag-waving former Boy Scout and current Boy Scout leader. I scored with P. Z. Myers, John Wilkins (98% only? This guy is close to being a Brown Shirt!), John Lynch (94%! Oh, but he’s in Arizona, and probably trying to fit in), and Mike the Mad Biologist (note the copy of Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech” War Bond painting there — and remember that Norman Rockwell was the art director for the Boy Scouts for some time, and their favorite artist for decades, featured at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas).

Does this really pass as political discussion these days? Most people tire of such histrionics in political discussion, I believe. To the extent that this quiz reflects genuine views of current supporters of the current administration, it shows how and why the Democrats won so many seats in the recent election.

Oh, and it should be “hanged for treason.” But what’s grammar to a silly, raving ideologue?

4 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Dissent, Patriotism, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Lange photos of Japanese internment show a different light

November 7, 2006

Unpublished photos of the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II were found in the National Archives.

Japanese Americans line up at Tanforan Assembly Center

Dorothea Lange took the photos, but they were forgotten in the archives — they did not show the view that the government wanted to be shown, some speculate, and so were not widely disseminated.

The pictures are being published for the first time, in Impounded:  Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment (W. W. Norton).

The New York Times carried some of the photos and a story about the book.

Lange, who died in 1965, showed families who had abandoned their homes and property. Because they couldn’t bring their belongings with them, they were often forced to sell them to speculators at reduced prices. In harrowing images that uncomfortably echo the Nazi round-ups of Jews in Europe, Lange’s photographs document long, weaving lines of well-dressed people, numbered tags around their necks, patiently waiting to be processed and sent to unknown destinations.

“There is no way to really know how much they lost,” Mr. Okihiro said in an interview, but he cited a 1983 study commissioned by a Congressional committee estimating that, adjusted for inflation and interest, internees had lost $2.5 billion to $6.2 billion in property and entitlements. Mr. Okihiro writes that one man, Ichiro Shimoda, was so distraught he tried to commit suicide by biting off his own tongue. When that failed, he tried to asphyxiate himself. Finally he climbed a camp fence, and a guard shot him to death.

Another man, Kokubo Takara, died after being forced to stand in line in the rain as a disciplinary measure at Sand Island in Hawaii. At assembly points in Hawaii, Mr. Okihiro writes, some detainees were forced to strip naked and had their body cavities searched.

Upon arrival at the assembly centers — including the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, Calif., a former racetrack — the internees passed through two lines of soldiers with bayonets trained on them. Lange was not allowed to photograph the soldiers, but she did manage some stark images of the horse stalls where the families lived, pictures that are included in the book.

18 Comments | Bill of Rights, Civil Rights, History, Japanese American internment, Patriotism, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

News coverage of “new” flag ceremony for Air Force

November 6, 2006

Las Vegas Review-Journal photo of two Airmen folding a U.S. flag

Inside the Thunderbirds Hangar at Nellis AFB, Airman 1st Class Michael Thayer, left, and Senior Airman David Prye demonstrate how to fold a U.S. flag. Photo by John Gurzinski, Las Vegas Review-Journal [Replacement photo]

[Sad, but the Las Vegas Review-Journal appears to have taken down this story and photo] Photo by John Gurzinski from the Las Vegas Review-Journal: Inside Thunderbirds Hangar at Nellis AFB, Airman 1st Class Michael Thayer, left, and Senior Airman David Prye demonstrate how to fold a U.S. flag.

Inside Thunderbirds Hangar at Nellis AFB, Airmen Michael Thayer & David Prye fold US flag

Airman First Class Michael D’Ancona and Senior Airman Assad Pharr demonstrated how to properly fold an American flag during a special visit to Robbins Lane Elementary School in Syosset on May 23. (Syosset-Jericho Tribune, June 19, 2014; photo added here October 2014)

Airman First Class Michael D’Ancona and Senior Airman Assad Pharr demonstrated how to properly fold an American flag during a special visit to Robbins Lane Elementary School in Syosset on May 23. (Syosset-Jericho Tribune, June 19, 2014; photo added here October 2014)

How did I miss this? The Las Vegas (Nevada) Review-Journal carried a story on July 4, 2006, on the Air Force’s efforts to replace the old, unofficial and misleading flag folding ceremony, with a new one. It has the script for the new ceremony.

The newspaper said:

Capt. Isham Barrett, Air Force action officer on Honor Guard policy, said the new script was developed because reference to the flag in the U.S. code “does not associate anything with any fold of the flag.”

“We don’t want to force a belief on somebody,” he said.

Barrett said the decision to develop a standardized script wasn’t prompted by someone complaining about religious connotations. “We can’t find anything in our files with regard to complaints,” he said.

Nevertheless, Christopher J. Andersen, an Army sergeant and member of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, wrote a letter in 2003, asking the U.S. Air Force Academy to remove the unofficial script from its Web site.

“In order to ensure this religious flag-folding ceremony is not portrayed as an official, government-sponsored flag-folding ceremony, I ask you to remove it from your .gov site,” wrote Andersen.

Andersen, who could not be reached last week, noted in his letter that the Air Force Academy removed the old script from its Web site after he complained.

Air Force leaders later set out to develop a script based on history rather than one that could be interpreted as contrary to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Combined with the Free Exercise Clause — “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — they prohibit endorsement of a national religion or a preference for one over another. They also preclude dominance of religion over nonreligious philosophies, according to a 1994 Supreme Court majority opinion.

The new standardized script based on history was approved by Air Force leaders in July 2005 and first appeared in revised Honor Guard protocol manuals in January.

Three cheers for the Air Force (yes, I’m biased, for family reasons).

Tip of the old scrub brush to Linda Case.

Update October 22, 2014:  The new, Air Force-approved script for a flag folding ceremony is at the Betsy Ross site.  Use it in good patriotic spirit, and in the spirit of accurate history.

9 Comments | Accuracy, Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Flags of Our Fathers — movie released October 20

October 16, 2006

Clint Eastwood’s movie based on James Brady’s book about his father and World War II, Flags of Our Fathers, will be released on October 20. This blog’s post on photographer Joe Rosenthal’s death a few weeks ago has been one of the most sought after, searched-for and read posts.

This movie release provides excellent opportunities for history teachers. Will we be able to take full advantage?

Here’s the website for the movie.

1 Comment | Flag etiquette, History, History video sources, Lesson plans, Patriotism, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

End the need for a flag desecration amendment

October 11, 2006

Title: Yankee doodle 1776 / A.M. Willard. Creator(s): Clay, Cosack & Co., lithographer Related Names: Willard, Archibald M., 1836-1918 , artist Ryder, James F., 1826-1904 , publisher Date Created/Published: Cleveland, Ohio : Pub. by J.F. Ryder, c1876.

Archibald M. Willard, “The Spirit of ’76,” one of the best-recognized icons of American patriotism; courtesy of the American Reserve Society Sons of the American Revolution (of which Willard was a member); Library of Congress data: “Yankee doodle 1776 “/ A.M. Willard. Creator(s): Clay, Cosack & Co., lithographer. Related Names: Willard, Archibald M., 1836-1918 , artist Ryder, James F., 1826-1904 , publisher Date Created/Published: Cleveland, Ohio : Pub. by J.F. Ryder, c1876.

Archibald M. Willard, “The Spirit of ’76,” one of the best-recognized icons of American patriotism; courtesy of the American Reserve Society Sons of the American Revolution (of which Willard was a member).

Scouters discuss issues of leadership and skill, a wide-ranging group of topics that pertain to Boy Scouting, on a list-server known as Scouts-L. I subscribe to the discussion, and at times have participated frequently in it. Looking over my own archives, I was amused to see that it was more than a decade ago that I addressed the issue of how to quell any need for a Constitutional Amendment on flag desecration.

The U.S. flag fascinated me from my early childhood. It always strikes me as unique among flags of nations, and I can truly say that I find it stirring to see it in good display. In court, in schools, in the Senate and executive branch of federal government, and in local government, I have had more than my share of occasions to participate in cermonies honoring the flag, or merely sit in contemplation of it during official proceedings. I always reflect on John Peter Zenger’s trial for telling the truth about the King’s governor of New York, and how our flag now means that we can tell the truth about our own government without fear of official reprisal.

I often reflect on the story of Virginia Hewlett, who was a member of the U.S. High Commissioner’s staff in the Philippines when Gen. MacArthur’s forces retreated, and who risked her life in order to strike the U.S. flag and prevent its capture by the Japanese. For this action she and several others were captured, tortured, and endured the war in a prison camp. When she was freed, to her husband and my old friend Frank Hewlett (who was a UPI war correspondent and later a Nieman Fellow and Washington correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune), she weighed 78 pounds. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Iva Toguri, RIP (Not “Tokyo Rose”)

September 30, 2006

Ima Toguri Aquino (NOT Tokyo Rose) (National Archives photo)

Iva Toguri D’Aquino died this week at age 90. She’s seen here in a file photo being escorted out of federal court after her conviction for treason in 1949. She was later pardoned. AP, via NPR National Archives photo (2-24-2007 blog update)

Scott Simon at NPR’s “Weekend Edition” had a remembrance of a woman from his old neighborhood in Chicago who died this week. It’s an audio report (transcripts are available for a fee from NPR).

As a Japanese American student stuck in Tokyo on December 11, 1941, Toguri was tossed out by her cousins. In order to live, she took a job with Japanese radio, and ultimately was one of a dozen women who read material between songs broadcast to American soldiers, known collectively as “Tokyo Rose.” Toguri refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship, ever. Assigned to work with Allied POWs in Tokyo, she read propaganda notices she said later were so silly that no GI could have believed them, written by an Australian POW for humor.

But at the end of the war, trying to get back to the U.S., Toguri was the only one of the woman broadcasters known. She was detained as a suspect Tokyo Rose for a year, then released — there was no evidence against her. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | Civil Rights, History, Patriotism, War, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Asimov’s tribute to the national anthem

September 23, 2006

The song’s popularity increased enormously during the Civil War. Because the song extolled the national flag—a symbol of loyalty to the Union—Northerners enthusiastically embraced it as a patriotic anthem.

In times of crisis and turmoil, Americans often turn to patriotic symbols for inspiration. Caption from the National Museum of American History (Smithosonian): Elmira Cornet Band, Civil War The song’s popularity increased enormously during the Civil War. Because the song extolled the national flag—a symbol of loyalty to the Union—Northerners enthusiastically embraced it as a patriotic anthem.

The scientist, science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov at one time held the title for the most published human being ever. There were few topics he didn’t have a learned opinion on, and there were many areas of ignorance where a well-trained scientist with a drive to get at the facts could shed a lot of light. His path lighting was not always appreciated. He wrote a guide to the Bible that has earned disdain from many a Christian conservative, thought I suspect that their disdain is really a disguise for the fear that a secular Jew could know the text so well and challenge so many unwarranted, but common, assumptions.

To the surprise of some, Asimov was quite a patriot. His short piece on the four stanzas of the “Star-spangled Banner” demonstrate his patriotism and his love of history, while offering a bit of humor to make it all stick in your mind. I post a complete copy below the fold.

I have not yet found the original publication source for Asimov’s piece; if you know it, or find it, please let me know. I suspect there is copyright attribution to be made, too. I borrowed the text from an on-line source called The Purewater Gazette. Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments | 4th of July, Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

How to fold state flags

September 20, 2006

As a lifelong Boy Scout and Scouter, I have lived with flag etiquette so long as I can remember. One of the key parts of flag etiquette with the U.S. flag is the proper folding, done to allow the flag to unfurl neatly when hoisted on a lanyard. (I have earlier discussed the meaning of folding the flag, or rather, the lack of meaning, here, here, and here.)

Several people wrote to ask about etiquette for folding state flags. Whenever I’ve been involved in ceremonies involving state flags, we have used the same fold prescribed for the U.S. flag, for the same reason — it allows the flags to neatly unfurl when they are posted. I have found several sites that urge a different fold for state flags, to preserve some uniqueness of the U.S. flag folding, but of course, that rather avoids the fact that the method used for the U.S. flag is just old ship tradition.

It seemed likely to me that some state had a special fold, however — and sure enough, I’ve found one. Ohio’s flag is not a rectangle, but is instead a tapered banner with two tails. In 2005, as an Eagle Scout project, Ohio Scout Alex Weinstock from Ohio’s Junction City Troop 260 devised a folding method for Ohio’s flag that ends with with 17 folds — appropriate to Ohio’s being the 17th state admitted to the union.

The fold is not easy — flag professionals call it “tricky.” (See a diagram here, from the Muskingumm Valley Council, BSA, in .pdf.)

Ohio’s flag is the only one of the state flags that is not a rectangle. So far as I have found, it is the only one with any suggested method of folding that differs from the method used for the U.S. flag — but my searches may have missed an odd law here or there.

If you know of other special folding methods, please leave a note in comments, or e-mail me.

23 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Flag etiquette, History, Patriotism | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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