To be honest, flag-motif t-shirts are kind of garish and not ‘real American’

I have no doubt I’m going to see more than my share of people Thursday clad in t-shirts bearing the red, white and blue colors – if not depictions of the U.S, flag itself.

A symbol of our national pride

To be honest, a part of me is going to be shuddering at the very sight.

BECAUSE I HONESTLY think that it’s kind of tacky and garish, if not quite unpatriotic, to have to see someone wearing the U.S, flag, particularly if they’ve let the image get all faded and wrinkly.

Or worse yet, if it’s a hot, humid summery-type day and they’re covered in sweat.

How disrespectful to the image of our nation to reduce it to an article of dirty laundry.

To be totally honest, I’d find it more respectful if they were to literally wrap themselves up in a real flag – which technically would be an act of desecration. U.S. flags are not to be used for clothing!

WHICH I’M SURE every single one of the ninnies who are going around on this Independence Day will be able to shout out at maximum volume to everyone who manages to offend their sensibilities of what is appropriate.

 

Bordering on skanky

When in reality, I’d argue it is their choice of attire that ought to be considered bordering on desecration.

And as far as any women who choose to wear a skimpy bikini in a pattern of the stars and stripes, all I’d have to say is that is nothing but skanky. How cheap to reduce a field of blue stars to the bikini bottom that covers up the part of her that prevents an arrest for indecent exposure from being made.

It never fails to amaze me whenever I walk into a clothing store of any type and see the assortment of red, white and blue themed shirts or articles of clothing. Meant to be sold to people who think they’re showing off just how “real” of Americans they truly are.

People most offended by sight of this … 

WHEN IN REALITY, I’d argue that they’re showing a level of gaudiness that probably illustrates just how little they truly comprehend what “patriotism” truly is and what “America” is truly all about.

The ones who probably think the day is solely about a summertime barbecue and watching a pyrotechnics display come the evening hours.

Or maybe you’ll get into a local municipal parade that is bound to have somebody clad as “Uncle Sam,” and probably far too many people wearing their “Make America Great Again” caps in bright red.

Which amuses me because I’m sure many of them are old enough to remember the meaning of the phrase “Better dead than red.” Now, they can’t get enough of the color.

BUT BACK TO the t-shirts, most of which are usually in patterns so tacky that I’d be embarrassed to wear one. Which is why I don’t actually own one.

The only red, white and blue banner I possess is an actual U.S. flag – which actually is one of those flags that is certified to have once flown over the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

 

… might well be proud to wear this

Yes, I realize its moment of being the actual “Old Glory” on Capitol Hill may only have lasted a few seconds long. But it somehow seems like more of a legitimate gesture of patriotism than wearing a t-shirt being an assault rifle image superimposed over a U.S. flag. (No, I'm not kidding. You really can find them for sale on the Internet).

Even though I suspect the kind of people who’d actually wear such a shirt are probably the grand-children of the ones who, a half-century ago, got most offended when activist Abbie Hoffman wore his American flag motif shirt in public. Now, such a garment likely would only be worn by someone of the “far right.”

  -30-

Does President Donald Trump give “patriotism” a bad name these days?

I got my jolt for the day from the results of a new poll by the Morning Consult group with regards to what we think of President Donald Trump.
 

The blunt-spoken confusion of Archie Bunker, or ...

No real surprise here; most of us don’t think much of the Trumpster – only a 41 percent approval rating in this poll. By comparison, the Gallup Organization’s daily tracking poll Friday had Trump at 38 percent approval.

THE BAD NEWS for Trump goes further, as people were asked whether various terms applied to Trump’s presidential performance. Those included “arrogant” (77 percent), “reckless” and “not willing to admit mistakes” (both 60 percent), “strong leader” (43 percent), “knowledgeable” (41 percent), “has the judgement needed to be president” (34 percent), “trustworthy” and “steady” (both 32 percent).

But then, there was the term “patriotic.”

To which 53 percent of those people surveyed by this particular poll said “yes” (34 percent said “no” and the other 13 percent presumably are clueless and can’t make up their minds).

That just strikes me as a bit of a contradiction. Someone whose performance is so negatively thought of can also be thought of as “patriotic?”

NOW BEFORE ANYBODY starts sending me their rants, I realize that the ideological right has done a number with the concept of patriotism – spinning the idea of love of one’s country as being the same as supporting their social issue ideals.

Even though one could argue that many of the people with different ideals are trying to make this a better, more fair country – and in some ways one more closely tied to the ideals written into both the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

That is a statement I don’t doubt will offend many of those conservative ideologues; that their rants on social issues aren’t what this country is supposed to be all about.

 

... the 'Vulcan logic' of Mr. Spock?

That may well be what is being reflected by the idea of people thinking that Trump’s political trash talk makes him a “patriot.”

IF ANYTHING, PEOPLE have a questionable comprehension at times of the Constitution. Such as that esteemed political philosopher of 1970s television, Archie Bunker (played by actor Carroll O’Connor) who once in a discussion about gun control responded to wife Edith (actress Jean Stapleton) who thought the Second Amendment referred to not making graven images by saying, “That ain’t the Constitution, Edith. What you says is the Gettysburg Address.”

Before you denounce the point as being that of a fictional character from four decades ago, famed television producer Norman Lear who created “All in the Family” has said that Trump shows “utter contempt” for the Constitution.

All of which makes me question how we’re defining the concept of “patriotism” these days. Is it really nothing more than blind faith to someone no matter how absurd the utterances from their mouth in public become?

Consider that the same Morning Consult poll showed 58 percent of people think Trump’s decision to share classified intelligence information with Russian government officials was “inappropriate” and that 50 percent think Trump was wrong to try to sway former FBI Director James Comey to end an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

ARE THESE REALLY the actions of a patriot? Or do we really not fully comprehend the concept of supporting one’s’ nation?

TRUMP: 6 percent say he's patriotic & don't like him

Which to my mind has always meant holding the nation’s needs above that of any one individual – while Trump always comes off as thinking that HIS needs outweigh the masses.

Writing that last line reminded me of yet another cinematic moment; “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” As in dialogue from the 1982 Star Trek film “The Wrath of Khan.”

Perhaps Trump, and many in our society would be better off if we’d pay heed to the words of Mr. Spock, rather than Archie Bunker!

  -30-

What will we remember when we think back fifteen years to September 11?

When I think back to Sept. 11, 2001, I have my own personal image I keep in my mind from that day.

As we viewed it from Chicago

It was as I walked through downtown that morning while most businesses were quickly shutting down for the day to allow for an evacuation of the Loop as a precautionary measure – in the event that anything similar to had what just happened in Manhattan and suburban Washington, D.C., was in store for Chicago.

I RECALL THE sight and sound of Chicago Police motorcycles riding all over the downtown area with their lights flashing and sirens roaring, trying to create the visual image of a heavy police presence that would pounce down on anyone who did anything even remotely suspicious.

And while I heard that, I happened to look over at the Borders Books store that used to exist on State Street (it’s now the Old Navy store), where I saw a store manager standing in the display window quickly concocting a sign that informed people the store was closed for business until further notice (it wound up re-opening a day later).

Like I said, the Loop was in a state of chaos. People were headed for the commuter train stations in hopes of catching a ride back home for the rest of the day. In fact, I was one of the few people headed to an office – instead of away from one.

I would up spending the day at a makeshift United Press International bureau, then got to see the Loop later in the afternoon by which time everybody was gone and it seemed like a ‘ghost town.’

ALL BECAUSE OF the activities by fanatics citing their religion as an excuse for acts of vandalism against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (with speculation being that had the plan been carried out to its full extent, the Capitol building and White House also would have been hit that day).

 

'Loop empties' makes Page One

We literally wondered if someone had in mind a plan to hit the Sears Tower as well. It led to the precautionary evacuation that pretty much meant that for Chicagoans, Sept. 11, 2001 was not so much a day of horror, but one in which we got an excused absence from work.

Which makes me wonder what we’ll think about on Friday – which is the date that many communities throughout the Chicago area have chosen with which to have official ceremonies paying tribute to the memory of that date.

 

A view from up and close

One which some people are determined to think lives “in infamy” even if their sense of history is so weak that they have no concept of what that famed FDR quote refers to, or who President Roosevelt even was!

I WONDER ABOUT the point of many of these ceremonies, which I wonder if they will be so filled with all the patriotic gestures one can think of that they wind up becoming trite remembrances of what we actually felt that day.

For one thing, they’re being held now instead of on the actual anniversary date of Sunday. Which makes me suspect that organizers fear people would be too preoccupied with the Chicago Bears season opener against the Houston Texans to care much about a patriotic ceremony!

Has Sept. 11 become just a date? Rather than an event in which we remember how 15 years ago our sense of our nation’s invincibility was challenged, and we might have to consider the concept that someone else would have the nerve to try to challenge our society.

Because that’s what those particular attacks were – meant to strike a blow against the western world that some perceive as leading us into a 21^st Century that has deviated too far from their vision of the ideal.

 

A little over the top

TO THE POINT that Chicago pretty much shut itself down for a day, and I still remember the fact that commercial airlines were shuttered for a week. Car rental agencies received a boon as certain people learned that the three-hour flight across the country was actually a three-day drive if done by automobile.

It's something that ought to be thought of seriously, and not just an excuse to listen to a poorly-sung national anthem while people struggle to remember the proper words to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Which is what is too likely to occur in ceremonies held across the metropolitan area and the nation come Friday.

  -30-

REDUX: It’s all too routine a routine for a day celebrating an unroutine concept such as our Democracy

This commentary is a repeat of what was published on this weblog on July 4, 2014. Aside from it now being 40 years since the Bicentennial and the fact my brother is no longer with us to celebrate, the sentiments expressed remain the same.

  -0-

My own flag tie

I still recall what I did some 38 years ago on this date – the almighty Bicentennial. A once-in-a-lifetime event that was truly unique in the celebration of our nation and its unique take on Democracy.

I spent it with family at my Uncle Carlos’ house in suburban Park Forest (which at the time seemed to me to be at the edge of the world, what with it being on the Cook/Will County border).

MY UNCLE DUG out the barbecue grill, we ate some food and watched some fireworks displays in the evening. Somehow, my cousin Carlos managed to come up with some firecrackers, causing us younger family members (I was 10 that summer) to find things to blow up.

It was most definitely NOT some high-minded ideal celebration about the purpose of Democracy. I’m sure if anyone had come along and tried talking that way, we probably would have lit a couple of firecrackers and flung them his (or her) way to scare him off.

Yet somehow, I doubt we were any different than 99 percent of the rest of the populace that was alive on July 4, 1976. We used the day as one of outdoor relaxation, rather than one of patriotic reflection.

Just like I suspect the celebration we had all those years ago will be repeated in so many forms on Friday – when our nation officially becomes 238 years old.

PEOPLE WILL BE all concerned about the quality of the meat they’re cooking up (or the texture of the tofu for those who can’t take the idea of beef), and making sure it is appropriately cooked. Although the thought of all the beef that will be cooked to a crisp (as in well-done) makes me nauseous.

Some of them probably will find some obnoxious-looking flag motif shirt or shorts to wear, and claim it to be evidence of their patriotism. Just like all those gaudily-clad people of recent weeks who rooted for the U.S. national soccer team. Although I always wonder how many of those people had grand-parents who some 50 years ago lambasted Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman as a traitor and disrespectful for wearing that U.S. flag-motif shirt at anti-Vietnam War protests.

For all I know, some may even spend part of the day lambasting President Barack Obama, who in recent days said he was preparing to move forward on executive orders to implement portions of immigration policy reform.

Even though if you want to be honest, it is those people who are adamantly opposed to real immigration reform (which has nothing to do with border walls or deportations) who are espousing the ideals that go counter to what Friday is supposed to be about.

I ALWAYS THOUGHT the concept of a “real America” is one in which there are a mish-mash of people with little in common except for their belief in the ideals of a place that offers the chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The people who can’t accept that concept are the ones who probably would be happier elsewhere.

This ought to be the day we all think in terms of joining together for a national unity, and not trying to define “unity” as everyone else needing to be just like ourselves.

Personally, I think it would be deadly dull if everyone else were like myself. At the very least, there’d be nobody to quarrel with.

SO THESE ARE just a few thoughts that will be running through my mind on this Friday while I sit by the pool.

Yes, the pool. Barring inclement weather, I’m planning to spend the afternoon in the swimming pool at the apartment complex where my step-mother’s mother lives.

Because that’s where the family is gathering for this year’s take on Independence Day. All except for my brother, Christopher. He’s employed by Home Depot, which is engaged in its own take on the holiday.

How many remember this White Sox attempt by team executive Rudy Schaeufer, manager Paul Richards and owner Bill Veeck to give us a Bicentennial minute?

He has to work, making sure that those people in need of tools and other building supplies can purchase them – along with anybody who happens to feel compelled to purchase a new barbecue grill on this day.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: The video snippet is courtesy of the Fuzzy Memories.tv web site, which gave us a cheap laugh and a pseudo Bicentennial Minute (albeit a couple of years too late). All we need now is a red, white and blue pie by Bozo smashed in Cooky the clown's face!

It's all too routine a routine for a day celebrating an unroutine concept

I still recall what I did some 38 years ago on this date -- the almighty Bicentennial. One once-in-a-lifetime event that was truly unique in the celebration of our nation and its unique take on Democracy.

I spent it with family at my Uncle Carlos' house in suburban Park Forest (which at the time seemed to me to be at the edge of the world -- it is on the Cook/Will County border).

MY UNCLE DUG out the barbecue grill, we ate some food, watched some fireworks displays in the evening. And somehow, my cousin Carlos managed to come up with some firecrackers, causing us younger family members (I was 10 that summer) to find things to blow up.

It most definitely was NOT some high-minded ideal celebration about the purpose of Democracy. I'm sure if anyone had come along and tried talking that way, we probably would have lit a couple of firecrackers and flung them his (or her) way to scare him off.

Yet somehow, I doubt we were any different than 99 percent of the rest of the populace that was alive on July 4, 1976. We used the day as one of outdoor relaxation, rather than one of patriotic reflection.

Just like I suspect the celebration we had all those years ago will be repeated in so many forms on Friday -- when our nation officially becomes 238 years old.

PEOPLE WILL BE all concerned about the quality of the meat they're cooking up (or the texture of the tofu for those who can't take the idea of beef), and making sure it is appropriately cooked. Although the thought of all the beef that will be cooked to a crisp (as in well-done) makes me nauceous.

Some of them probably will find some obnoxious-looking flag motif shirt or shorts to wear , and claim it to be evidence of their patriotism. Just like all those gaudily-clad people of recent weeks who rooted for the U.S. national soccer team. Although I always wonder how many of those people had grand-parents who some 50 years ago lambasted Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman as a traitor and disrespectful for wearing that U.S.-flag motif shirt at anti-Vietnam War -protests.

For all I know, some may even spend part of the day lambasting President Barack Obama; who in recent days said he was preparing to move forward on executive orders to implement portions of immigration policy reform.

Even though if you want to be honest, it is those people who are adamantly opposed to real immigration reform (which has nothing to do with border walls or deportations) who are espousing the ideals that go counter to what Friday is supposed to be about.

I ALWAYS THOUGHT the concept of a "real America" is one in which there are a mish-mash of people with little in common except for their belief in the ideals of a place that offers the chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..

The people who can't accept that concept are the ones who probably would be happier elsewhere.

This ought to be the day we all think in terms of joining together for a national unity, and not trying to define "unity" as everyone else needing to be just like myself.

Personally, I think it would be deadly dull if everyone else were like myself. At the very least, there'd be no one else to quarrel with.

SO THESE ARE just a few thoughts that will be running through my mind on this Friday while I sit by the pool.

Yes, the pool. Barring inclement weather, I'm planning to spend the afternoon in the swimming pool at the apartment complex where my step-mother's mother lives.

Because that's where the family is gathering for this year's take on Independence Day. All except for my brother, Christopher. He's employed by Home Depot, which is engaged in its own take on the holiday.

He has to work, making sure that those people in need of tools and other building supplies can purchase them -- along with anybody who happens to feel compelled to purchase a new barbecue grill on this day.

  -30-

When is a U.S. flag shirt disrespectful? And when is it just downright tacky!

I couldn’t help but think of the late Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman on Sunday. It’s too bad he’s no longer on this planet, because I can’t help but wonder what kind of racket he would have tried to stir up in response to the past few days.

I’m referring, of course, to the national frenzy by which we all try to pay tribute to the memory of what happened a decade ago at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon.

IT CREATES THE mood in which the conservative ideologues who most thought of Hoffman as a subversive element are in their element – being able to demonize their opposition and wrap themselves in “the flag.”

Literally, it seems.

Because in the course of my work on Sunday, I covered a few events that were tributes to the misery of Sept. 11, 2001, I couldn’t help but notice how many people came dressed up in their “flag” shirts.

I don’t just mean a t-shirt with a U.S. flag logo printed somewhere on it. I’m talking entire shirts meant to make it look like someone was wrapped in a banner.

ONE OF THE several incidents in his lifetime that made Hoffman a controversial character was a time he wore a proper, button-down long-sleeved shirt made in the motif of the U.S. flag.

The far right denounced him for doing that – saying he was desecrating the flag; literally. There were those who tried to see if they could have him prosecuted for violating the federal laws that prohibit flag mutilation.

Now, some four-plus decades later, a shirt with a flag on it seems so routine. I literally saw people who think a flag shirt is appropriate attire to attend a Sunday church service.

I must admit to being caught off-guard. Something about using the symbol of the flag and all it represents seemed a bit inappropriate.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE what really left me disgusted was the fact that the bulk of the men who persisted in wearing their “flag” shirts had beer bellies – making it look as though the “stars and stripes” was pregnant and about to give birth to a miniature flag that a child would wave during a parade.

Or perhaps those flag pins that so many political people persist in wearing in the lapels of their suit jackets.

Would Hoffman and his once-controversial attire now completely fit in during the 21^st Century? Or was all the past rhetoric about Abbie all a bunch of nonsense that should never have been taken seriously?

I am keeping in mind that many of these men who wore those flag shirts on Sunday were of a certain age that they would remember first-hand the racket that arose when Abbie wore his shirt.

SO PERHAPS FLAG shirts have merely come of age.

Then again, I suspect that the people who wore those shirts on Sunday were not among Hoffman’s allies back in the 1960s. They may well have been the types who still go around complaining about “damn hippies” whenever they see anything that isn’t exactly like themselves.

So I don’t really know what to think.

Personally, I would rarely be inclined to wear a flag shirt – mostly because I have a tendency to sweat profusely in anything even close to resembling warm weather.

GOING AROUND IN public in a sweat-soaked shirt would strike me as being disrespectful to the image of the U.S. flag. Then again, we’re casual enough today that a sweat-soaked flag wouldn’t have been the tackiest image in existence.

Scouring around the Internet, I literally found flag shirts designed for women in which the stars and stripes are printed in a pattern meant to accentuate the female bosom. The Jessica Simpson collection, I believe.

And as for men, too many of the shirts on the market these days would make me want play “drill sergeant’ and test their wearers to see if they ever served in the military.

“Suck in that gut! You’re disgracing the flag!!!!!!!”

  -30-

A trend? Or just a quirk?

Let me state up front that I have never attended Goshen College, nor do I know anyone who ever had a connection to the school in Goshen , Ind. And my exposure to the Mennonite Church (with which the college is affiliated) has been minimal.

So I don’t have a personal reason to want to praise that rural Indiana school that is going to find itself gaining national attention in coming days, and may well find itself becoming a target for the conservative ideologues who are determined to stage a cultural war to impose their sense of morals upon us all.

WHICH IN THIS case may be appropriate, since the issue we’re going to be fighting a “war” over is a “war” anthem.

Specifically, the Star-Spangled Banner, our nation’s anthem since 1931, which is based off an 1814 poem that tells the tale of how Fort McHenry near Baltimore sustained an attack from the British Navy and didn’t surrender – with the flag still flying high in the morning when the battle was complete.

Which may be an ideal worthy of mentioning – we don’t surrender.

But let’s be honest. It is an awkward song to sing, with a first verse of lyrics that way too many people manage to butcher and three more verses of lyrics that most people don’t even pretend to care about.

THERE HAS TO be a better song by which we can celebrate our sentiments about our nation than this one.

What is going to get ideologues worked up is the fact that Goshen College, following three years of debate, made the call to do away with the anthem being played prior to the ballgames played by the school’s athletic teams.

The Goshen Maple Leafs will no longer stand attention prior to a sporting event while a recording of the "Star-Spangled Banner" plays. Not that they’re going music-less.

Instead, the Associated Press reported Wednesday that the school will use "America the Beautiful" as a patriotic song to inspire us behind our country, before watching the Leafs take on their competition of other schools in the Indiana-based Mid-Central College Conference.

I CAN ALREADY hear the rants and rages from the ideologues about how this school is being disrespectful to the "Star-Spangled Banner." In fact, some of the student-athletes have already said they’re not thrilled about the change.

But no matter how much those individuals want to believe their thought represents the entirety of ideas on this issue, they don’t. There are those of us who realize that life will go on without the "Star-Spangled Banner," and who have become offended at the way the song routinely gets mangled prior to sporting events.

If not playing it prior to a ballgame means I no longer have to hear some third-rate singer try to pretend she is the Second Coming of Mahalia Jackson, I think we’d all be better off if sports teams followed the lead of Goshen College.

In the case of Goshen, they say their primary objection to the anthem is its war-like imagery (the Mennonites are pacifists). Hence, "America the Beautiful" is a more pleasing image – considering that it honors the physical beauty of our nation.

NONE OF THAT “rocket’s red glare, bombs bursting in air” stuff that dominates the U.S. national anthem. Although it’s not like the U.S. is the only nation on Earth that has a martial overtone to its anthem.

Just look to the south to Mexico, where “Mexicanos, al Grito de Guerra” tells of the roar of the cannons and how Mexicans will rise to fight off any, “enemy outlander (who) should dare to profane your ground with his sole.”

Get into the more obscure verses of Mexico’s national anthem, and you learn that those same enemy outlanders will have their blood spilled all over the land and will be devastated for trying to invade the Mexican homeland.

By comparison, Francis Scott Key composed a virtual love poem.

BUT MY REAL objection to the "Star-Spangled Banner" as an anthem that must be played prior to ballgames is really in the fact that so few people really know the song. They butcher it so badly that I can’t help but feel those moments when sports fans try to sing along are the most dreadful of any event.

I wonder at times if people really have any clue what it is they are supposed to be singing, and if they’re all so incredibly tone-deaf that they don’t realize how badly they’re singing it?

Besides, it’s not like the anthem has been around forever. There are generations of people who lived their full lives in this country of ours who would have thought our current obsession with singing the anthem prior to drinking a beer (or three) while the New York Yankees beat up on the Boston Red Sox is bizarre.

Our nation went for just over 150 of its 235 years of existence without the "Star-Spangled Banner" as its anthem, and the idea of a ballgame requiring the anthem is a product of World War II that probably should have withered away with the WACs.

FOR LET’S NOT forget that our nation’s “anthem” used to be a song called “Hail, Columbia,” which now is regarded as the theme music for the entrance of the Vice President.

Perhaps Goshen is giving us a nudge in the direction where someday, the "Star-Spangled Banner" becomes the theme for the Secretary of Defense – while the rest of us celebrate the “spacious skies” and “amber waves of grain.”

Except maybe for the atheists, who will be offended that the song says “God shed His grace” on “America! America!” Or maybe the American Indian tribes who will resent the reference to “pilgrim feet” whose “stern impassion’d stress, A thoroughfare for freedom beat, Across the wilderness.”

But those are commentaries for another day.

  -30-

Patriot, or trash-picker?

It has been a week since I first learned of the activities of Jeff Olsen, and I have to confess that I still don’t know what to make of him.

Olsen is employed by Waste Management, and the old-school term for his job is “garbage collector.” He’s on the crews that work around the Elgin area, going from house to house to pick up the trash cans and haul the waste away.

BUT WHAT GOT Olsen some public recognition last week, and has led to follow-up stories in recent days, is the fact that Olsen makes a point of going through peoples’ trash cans, and takes his action if he finds anything resembling a U.S. flag.

It could be one of those little 3-by-5-inch flags on a stick that one waves with their thumb or index finger, or a full-fledged flag that once was rung up a flag pole as part of a patriotic display.

Olsen told the Chicago Tribune that he has managed to find about 250 flags by going through peoples’ trash. In some cases, he tries to repair them. In other cases, he takes it upon himself to give them a more dignified disposal than being dumped in a Glad bag along with someone’s pizza box and rotted tomatoes that didn’t get eaten in time.

In theory, I don’t really care what Olsen or anyone who gets worked up over his “cause” does. After all, these are items that were disposed of by their owners. So it certainly is not theft.

BUT IT BUGS me to think that someone has the potential to rifle through the trash of someone else, and start making judgments about what those people chose to dispose of.

Now I know some people are going to read this and start giving me a rant about patriotism and proper respect for the symbol that is a U.S. flag. Others may get overly anal retentive and start quoting precise portions of the U.S. Code that relate to proper display and disposal of a U.S. flag.

I suppose I can’t stop you from sending me your messages, but be forewarned that I have read the code. You won’t be informing me of anything I haven’t already seen.

And what I have seen has been vague to the point where I don’t know what constitutes proper disposal of a U.S. flag.

I KNOW SOME people swear by giving their tattered old flags to a local veterans’ organization. Those groups are good about collecting such flags, then periodically holding rituals in which they pay tribute to the nation – before disposing of the raggedly old flags into a pyre.

In short, they burn them.

But somehow, I get the feeling that the people who are most likely to want to make some sort of hero out of Olsen these days would be greatly offended if any of those people who threw their tattered flags into the trash were to have tried to create a bonfire in the backyard and had dumped the flag into the flames.

Police would have been called. Reports would have been filed. Tax dollars would have been spent to pay for the prosecutors who would have had to convince judges about whether someone’s backyard fire was dignified enough to be a legitimate disposal.

IT WOULD HAVE become a fiasco because someone thought the best way to get rid of a tattered flag was to dispose of it quietly, rather than make an elaborate ritual of the affair.

Now I will agree that dumping a flag into the trash bin, then taking the trash can out to the curb probably is not the most dignified way to get rid of a flag of any type. Just envision the stains it would gain from leftover Chinese food cartons that would spill onto it.

And what would people think if the kitty litter had managed to get onto the flag? What an outrage.

But Olsen told reporter-types he thinks people who throw the flags into the trash are the same as those who stomp on them as an act of political protest. That is just absurd. And that is why I have my problems with the patriotic trash-collector (who to the best of my knowledge has never picked up the trash anywhere near my neighborhood).

THERE HAS TO be some sense of degree. I don’t know that I want to start blaming the people who disposed of their flags for doing something all that improper.

After all, I have seen the flags that Olsen chose to have his picture taken with. They were more than just tattered. They were torn. They were definitely battered to the point where it would have been wrong to run them up a flagpole and claim they were a part of any patriotic display.

If it reads like I’m praising these people for at least having the sense not to fly a torn rag (which is what these flags had become) to score some “patriotism” points for themselves, then you’d be correct.

Should we really be trying to make a heroic figure out of someone who is “refuse rummaging” – a practice that most of us quit doing when we were about six?

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: A Northwest suburban American Legion post used Flag Day on Sunday (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/06/flag-day-elgin-jeff-olsen.html) to pay tribute to a trash collector who has spent the past 18 months picking U.S. flags from peoples’ garbage cans.

Is this what it takes to turn the burning of a U.S. flag from an act some want to think is un-constitutional to one (http://www.flagkeepers.org/ProperDisposalCeremony.asp) that gives the symbol its proper due?