Americans proudly breaking the Flag Code

Every few years, I reprise my post about the various ways in which Americans patriotically display the US flag in ways that contravene US Flag Code's definitions of what is (and isn't) respect for the flag.

So here we go around again

§176. Respect for flag
No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor.

(a) The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

It seems that most Americans know that the flag should not be flown upside down. All images of upside down US flags are either of actual disaster or of metaphoric disaster and not really of patriotic pride. If you find an example of Americans proudly flying an upside down US flag, let me know!

(b) The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.

There's something ironic about a right-wing presidential candidate giving a speech to a bunch of right-wing patriots in front of a flag that is touching the ground. To be fair, the group say that they eventually moved the flag, but the whole thing could have been avoided if they didn't bring the flag or ensured that the flag had a long-enough flag pole...



But most Americans know that the "flag touching the ground" proscription is a no-no, so this makes it so strange that this US Air Force veteran posed for Playboy with the US flag touching the ground. (It makes it doubly strange that she came to national prominence for attacking demonstrators on the grounds that the protesters were not respecting the flag.)

(c) The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.

This is not "aloft and free":

nor is this:

or this:

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.

Flag as apparel:

(The flag the lady is holding is also against another part of the Flag Code: "the union of the flag should be placed at the peak of the staff unless the flag is at half-staff")

And swim-suits also count as apparel:

And if you are wrapping yourself in the flag, I suppose it means that it's like apparel:

Flag as bedding:

Flag as drapery:

(e) The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.

Arguably, this can be easily damaged (or at least easily torn away from its moorings):

(f) The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.

Flag ceiling on Hero's Highway:

Flag ceiling in a Country bar owned by Toby Keith:

(g) The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.

Marking the flag:

Insignia placed on the flag:

Design, picture, drawing placed on the flag:

(With words placed on top of the flag just for good measure.)

(h) The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.

Flag as a receptacle for holding/carrying (even though it's a baby):

  

Flag backpacks are definitely a receptacle for holding and carrying things:

Flag baskets can be used to receive, hold, carry, and deliver many yummy foodstuffs:

Flag cellphone cases are used to hold your phone:

(i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.

Flag advertising:

(It doesn't matter that you are trying to become central to the celebrations of the 4th of July...)

(It doesn't matter if you're an American classic, either)

Flag cushions:

Flag handkerchiefs (and bandanas):

Flag napkins:

Flag boxes:

Flag toothpicks are definitely only designed for temporary use and discard (which is one more reason why I don't pay $1 for a US flag toothpick):

Flag stickers are also temporary use and discard (even when it's used to make a sign saying how much you respect the US flag):

Advertising fastened to a flag pole with a US flag on it:

(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.

Flag as a costume:

 (the costume on the top-left has been signed, contravening part (g), above)

Flag as an athletic uniforms:

(k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

This is - strangely - one of the points of respect that many right-wing patriots seem to not like about respecting the flag. It's almost always right-wing supporters that protest flag burning ceremonies (especially those done in protest by left-wing demonstrators). But at least the right-wingers seem to be consistent, by not burning US flags even during a Democratic presidency (and left-wingers seem to burn US flags more often during a Republican presidency). ... but these tendencies may well just be my perceptions and may well be subject to confirmation bias.

In addition to these rules of respect, there are also rules for how to display the flag... that also don't get followed:

§175(c): No other flag or pennant should be placed above ... the flag of the United States of America.... No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof...

US flag shown below Confederate Battle flag.

§175(i): When displayed ... vertically ... the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left.

US flag shown with union to the flag's own left, that is, to the observer's right.

There are definitely more examples of how Americans proudly display the US flag in ways that contravene the US Flag Code. And this will definitely continue. But I don't think anyone thought of painting an entire house as the US flag, so I think that this is technically not against the Flag Code:

The Terrifyingly Simple Normalcy that Segregation Used to Be

I saw the following photo from a friend's Facebook newsroll:

What read while scolling through Facebook was "COLORADO ENTRANCE," and it was the incongruity of that statement (that there was an entrance specifically for people from Colorado) that made me stop at the photo and actually read it; to see that it was a color photo from the segregated South.

This made me wonder whether the fact that I unconsciously read "Colorado" instead of "colored" was an indication of the complete unthinkability that such institutionalized racism could exist made my unconscious mind immediately fill in the word as the name of the 38th State. The completely calm and completely normal-looking appearance of everything in the photo also is so foreign to me. Indeed, the utter banality of the form that segregation took in day-to-day life in the South reminded me of the phrase, "the banality of evil," first coined by Hannah Arendt. Here is a really good and easy to understand summary of Arendt's point about evil and how it is so often so banal:

The banality of evil (the subtitle of Arendt's book covering the war crimes trial in Jerusalem of Eichmann) derives from encountering Eichmann, a man conceived as being a characteristic monster, and discovering that he was an utterly normal type of man who produced evil as a matter of just doing his job, and not because he was some sort of monster. Extending this recognition to the broader populace, Arendt writes with some understanding as to why societies - filled with similarly innocuous (and even generally good) people - can cause such massive evil to take place:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him. They were neither overly perverted nor sadistic. They were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal... This normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together...

-- Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: Report of the Banality of Evil, pg. 276

This links back to what I find (and likely many find) so jarring about the photo above: its terrible and terrifying normality. It is the utter normality of the scene pictured above that is jarring. It is the dull, day-to-day reality of segregation that is worrisome. We so often learn about the harsh problems associated with Segregation - the lynchings, the beatings, the stacked juries - and we so often read about the Civil Rights movements - the marches, the sit-ins, the use of the National guard to open schools and universities to desegregation - that the picture of Segregation and the reaction to it seem so much more about action and reaction; of mostrous evil and righteous struggle. And it is easy to paint that picture. And it is easy to think in those terms. (Which makes it easier to paint the picture, and so on.) But, as the photo tacitly implies, for the vast amount of time and for the vast amount of people, Segregation was simply a boringly normal part of life.

Thinking on this, statements by some older Southern Whites who have their perspectives on life during Segregation ring even more sinister, despite their statements lacking any overt inflammatory statements about how they reveled in its more obviously monstrous aspects. One telling example is in the remembrances of former Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, who commented that his town of Yazoo, MS, during the Civil Rights era, "wasn't that bad." In Salon, Steve Kornacki wrote about why Barbour's position on race in the South was troubling in a way that Clinton's wasn't:

The controversy that his remarks will surely stir ... underscores how problematic Barbour's political roots are for him. The simple fact that he was born in a segregated town ... isn't the issue. Bill Clinton was a product of segregation, don't forget. The problem is that Barbor, unlike Clinton, has never seemed to come to terms with what segregation meant to African-Americans throughotu the South - and what the legacy of segregation continues to mean now.

...[Barbour] has previously asserted that the integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962 - accomplished only through federal intervention and which set off riots that killed two people - was "a very pleasant experience."

He's also told of building a friendship ... at Ole Miss in 1965 with one of the school's few black students, a woman he identified ... as Verna Lee Bailey. ...Of course, the woman's real name is Verna Ann Bailey, and ... she didn't even recall meeting Barbour. She also remembered the integration of Ole Miss a little differently: "I thought my life was goign to end."

And then theres his claim that the South's wholesale transformation from Democratic to Republican stronghold had nothing to do with race.... That would be news to anyone familiar with the vote that Barry Goldwater received in Mississippi in the 1964 presidential election: 87 percent.... The truth, of course, is that the passage of Civil Rights in 1964 kicked off a steady, decades-long shift among white Southerners from the Democratic Party (which they'd been loyal to since northern Republicans had tried to impose the "humiliation" of Reconstruction on them) to the GOP.

It is hard to look back in history and not want to align yourself with the "bad guys." It is especially hard when the history you perceived was actually not that bad. In their paper, "But I'm no Bigot," authors O'Brien, Crandall, Horstman-Reser, and Warner discuss distancing strategies used by White Southerners to somehow say that they aren't racist (despite having racist attitudes). One major way was to define being racist as belonging to an openly racist and historically violently racist organization, such as the KKK, or doing outrageously racist things, such as Black lynching or cross burnings. However, as the photograph above shows, these sorts of actions wasn't what Segregation was about for most of the people most of the time. No, it was something far more troubling and worrisome, specifically for its non-overtness; it was something that was terrifying in retrospect because it was so normal as to not warrant much mention: it was the banality that everyday life with Segregation meant to the vast majority of people, Black and White.

And it was a form of racism that the vast majority of Whites supported, even as they might similarly have distanced themselves from the more overtly "evils" of Segregation (such as membership in the Klan or participation in lynchings).

And so we return to the photo of a covered entrance on which a sign marked "colored entrance" points, in shining neon lights, to an open door, outside of which stand a nicely attired woman in robin's-egg blue and girl in white with a bow in her hair. The woman appears to be putting something away in her purse while the girl waits; that somewhat bored stare that children have (while waiting, waiting, waiting for adults to do thier thing) marks her face. In the distance, a woman in a red dress walks up the street. A black-painted car shows up as as slightly blurred on the street, caught in motion as it drives down and to the right of the photo. Neon lights up the street point to other businesses, which - perhaps - also have similar signs attached to them: "colored entrance" or "White entrance." The woman in blue and girl with the bow in her hair, both standing outside the open door marked "colored entrance" are. The woman in red, walking away from the "colored entrance" is not.

... and the image, in its utter normalcy, forces the mind to think in those terms; those terms that were so normal then and so alien now; those terms that implicitly equated race with levels of purity and cleanliness. I would so much more like to change the sign to read as my unconscious initially read it: "COLORADO," but that is not what it says, and that is not was it - and the whole system of systematized and banalized malevalence that also spawned the KKK, cross burnings, church bombings, and (now) decades of post-desegregation White Southern butthurt - want us to think, in simple terms of "white" and "colored."

And so I go back and read "COLORED ENTRANCE," and I see one of the many simple, everyday evils that was Segregation. Seeing this Black woman and girl calmly and normally going about their business, I am reminded of the implicit hypocrisy and privilege inherent in statements made by Barbour and other old Southern Whites. And I am reminded of another part of American history - my history, despite having no close Southern roots - to which the myth of "American Exceptionalism" provides a tempting exit, paved (as shown by Barbour) with white-washed history and denial of any social responsibility.

Spring in Ann Arbor, and the air contains many heady smells

It's spring, and I'm back for a visit to Ann Arbor.

As it's spring in Ann Arbor, it means that many of the trees are in full bloom. Including the callery pears and linden trees, and you get to smell the ... unique smell:



And according to the Ann Arbor tree inventory, roughly 2% of the trees in the city are these odoriferous trees (and roughly 4% are similarly odoriferous linden trees), with the greatest concentration of callery pear trees being found in the downtown near the farmers market.


Well, it's spring in Ann Arbor again. And the air smells like a fruitful spring, with all these comely trees.

More bike companies need to make these kinds of bikes

If even Bianchi is making "City" commuter bikes like this:



then maybe we can have even more people choosing to become daily bike commuters. From The Urban Country, we are offered a different way to think about urban commuter cycling... It's for lazy people!

I arrive on time, I’m not sweaty, and I rode my bike not for a workout, but rather au contraire, I rode my bicycle because I am lazy.

I step outside my front door and hop on my bike because I’m too lazy to go downstairs in the parking garage to get the car. I pull my bike up to the front door at my destination because I’m too lazy to drive around looking for a parking spot then having to walk from the car to the building.

I ride my bike instead of taking public transit because I’m too lazy to go to the store to buy bus tickets, and I am far too lazy to dig for loose change under my couch. I am also too lazy to transfer from the bus to the subway to the streetcar, preferring to ride directly to my destination without transfers.

Instead of walking 15 minutes to my destination, I ride my bicycle there in 5. Yes, I ride there because I am too lazy to walk.

I ride my bicycle past dozens of cars at rush hour because I’m too lazy to be stressed out sitting in traffic and too lazy to explain why I’m late all the time.

Brilliant. I also ride my bike because I'm lazy. Too lazy to go to a gym to work out. Too lazy to go park a car. Too lazy to wait for the car to get cool enough in the summer or warm enough in the winter. Too lazy to go and pump gas.

I love it that I'm too lazy for all that.

Shibuya, Then and Now

A recent post by Danny Choo showed Shibuya in 1952:



This made me think about what the place looks like today, and going over to Google Earth, I find:


Not too different, right? ;)

(Previously: A "Then-and-Now" comparison of New York City)

Cleared massive fallen branch

Yesterday, there were bands of storms working their way across Michigan (and much of the Midwest). Yesterday, too, there was an Elderwise event: "Walk in the Woods," led by professor emeritus, Chuck Olson. Luckily, they didn't get rained out, but there was apparently a near miss:

The thunder shower that came through about 12:20-12:40 was over by the time we started. While we had a brief shower, later, most of the wet stuff was dripping of the trees. When we walked around the lake, I was surprised at the amount of windfall I saw, and especially by the very recent tree that dropped across the path just befoer we got to the side path to the board walk. We got around it (actually over it) and finished our walk without any real difficulty.

I went out there this morning and took care of the MASSIVE fallen branch.

BEFORE, there was a massive branch across the path, making it rather difficult to walk that route:


AFTER, apart from some debris and dug-up earth, the pathway is now clear:


I'm gonna miss this kind of work, even though I probably sweat several pints in the process. It's good, honest, physical labor, and it feels great.

The Steam Vents at the University of Michigan

They're all over the Central Campus, often acting as notice boards for student organizations; plastered with paper and wrapped with layers of tape. The vents are supposed to be used to literally let off steam, and - now that it's cool enough to see the condensation - we can see just how much steam there is to be released...

Saturday Omphaloskepsis: I like small houses, but this is a bit extreme

I am enamored with small houses, and I like the idea of living in a small house: you have to pare down the things that you have, since (unless you buy a storage facility) you just don't have enough space to put things in a small house. In addition, much like in a boat, the need to conserve space means that you have to multi-purpose many pieces of furniture, doing things like making a staircase act as the framing for a storage area or having multifunctional furniture. I find these projects interesting, because I find the solutions need to be innovative and, therefore, the construction and design challenges interest me.

Of course, there are cases where small might be a little TOO small. Thus is (potentially, at least for me) the case with the Keret House in Warsaw, billed as the "world's narrowest house" (probably not, but who's really counting).

Via Inhabitat:

Could you live in house no wider than a door frame? Etgar Keret can. The Israeli writer is now the proud owner of the world’s narrowest building, a home so tiny that you might not even notice it if you’re not looking hard. The house, which is less than five feet across at its widest part (three feet at its narrowest) was designed by Polish architect Jakub Szczesny and is located in Warsaw, the country’s capital.

Kinda narrow and a little too vertical for my tastes. After all, I am a kind of broad-in-the-shoulders guy, and so a house that narrows to about 3 feet will be a little... close. Furthermore, in a previous story on Keret House, Inhabitat reported the following about the amenities:

Electricity will be provided by a neighboring host building, and a water and sewage system in the small space will be free-standing, much like systems used on boats. The first floor of the living space is a work space and a lounge. The second level, reachable by ladder, fits a sleeping loft with a skylight. The top space can be used for storage.

I wonder how much sunlight this house actually gets, and how would one go about cleaning that skylight?

It's all kind of cool and fun and interesting, but - for me at least - it takes things just a little bit further than my interest.

Friday Photos: Autumn Pictures from Saginaw Forest

Some photos of the changing season:


The poison ivy are about to lose their leaves. (Still bad to touch them, though.)


The maples near the gate are slowly moving toward their color shifts.


I decided to quit my raking of the path after I realized how much work was going to be falling from branches in the coming weeks. Still: they need to be raked so that they don't turn into muddy lanes come the spring.


Almost stepped on this guy as I was going back into the cabin. He wasn't any wider than my finger!