The American Standard Bearer

Wow! Terri Schiavo has been dead for, what, a week? And already, a judge has ignored the wishes of an elderly woman and paved the way for her imminent demise. We know what the wishes of this elderly woman are because she put them in writing in the form of a living will.

All the talk about the neccesity of a living will is apparently meaningless, because, as a lawyer friend once told me, "The law is whatever the judge says it is." This case looks nothing like mercy – it looks a lot like convenience, and maybe even greed. This is really scary stuff.

Read the story: Granddaughter yanks grandma’s feeding tube

Something to contemplate – has there ever been a nation at any time in history in which compassion was practised  so naturally and selflessly  as here  in the United States of America?

Here’s a story about a delivery man trapped in an elevator in New York. The resources, time and effort that went into finding this guy are remarkable, yet just par for the course here in the good old USA. Plus, he turns out to be an illegal immigrant from China, yet the overwhelming sentiment is simply relief that he was found in one piece. Even the Mayor got involved.

Read the story.

April 4, 2005

FLAGINFORM from the Flag Research Center

By presidential proclamation George W. Bush has required the half-staffing of the United States flag in commemoration of the death of Pope John Paul II.  All federal government and military buildings, and navy vessels throughout the country and its territories, are affected.  The flag is to remain at half-staff until sunset on the day of the pope’s interment.

Flags flown by state, city, and other non-federal government buildings may be ordered lowered by responsible authorities.  Private individuals, businesses, non-profits, etc. may half-staff flags at their own discretion.  When the United States flag is half-staffed, all other flags flown with it in a given display should likewise be half-staffed for the duration.

I just ran across this whilst surfing the web – I realize it’s a little old, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. We were wondering why orders for American classroom flags have been up.

Thousands of flags needed under new state law
an Associated Press report 12/06/04

ORLANDO – More than 15,000 American flags need to be replaced in public-school classrooms in central Florida by the end of the school year because they are smaller than required under a new state law.

The law, requiring every Florida public classroom to display an American flag, includes a 3-foot-by-2-foot size requirement. Many flags already used in classrooms aren’t large enough.

"We already had flags in every classroom," said Richard Wells, the district spokesman in Seminole County. "They just weren’t the ones specified by the law."

Because the law states that districts should "attempt to acquire the flag through donation or fund raising," many schools regionwide have spent the fall looking to community groups and businesses to pay for their flags.

In Seminole County, for example, Bank of America has agreed to donate half of the 4,000 flags the district needs, at a cost of about $4 each, Wells said.

Lawmakers estimate there are 156,000 kindergarten-through-12th-grade classrooms in Florida.

"Had the school districts come to us, and said, ‘We have suitable flags,’ I would have had no problem grandfathering them in," said state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who led the movement for the law.

The law is known as the Carey Baker Freedom Flag Act, named for the Eustis lawmaker who spent a year serving in Iraq. Fasano said he would be surprised if any school had to buy flags on its own.

Carl Persis, principal of Ormond Beach Middle School in Volusia County, said these groups are needed right now for more serious projects such as collecting holiday food for the needy and lending a hand to hurricane victims.

Volusia schools need 3,300 new flags, or about $15,000 worth. The most popular flag size in Volusia — 12 inches by 18 inches — is half of what the state now requires, district officials said.

"I really do think it’s just a total waste of effort and money," Persis said. "We already have flags. It’s not the size of the flag that matters, it’s the idea that students are aware of what the words mean in the Pledge of Allegiance and that they stand every morning and express themselves and recite the Pledge."

Orange County school officials aren’t sure how many flags the district needs because donations are being organized at the school level, district spokesman Lin Wright said.

First Medal of Honor flag to be presented [Army News Service]

By Eric W Cramer

March 29, 2005

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 29, 2005) — When Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith’s family receives his Medal of Honor, they will receive a new item that will be given to all future recipients of the medal – a Medal of Honor flag.

The flag consists of a field of blue, with 13 stars arranged in the same formation that the stars appear on the Medal of Honor ribbon. It is fringed with gold.

The design was the brainchild of Sarah LeClerc of the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry. A panel of eight members made of representatives from each Service (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard), one Office of Secretary Defense staff, one historian and one representative from the Medal of Honor Society was formed to review and evaluate all designs submitted and make a final recommendation to the Principal Deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

"Several of us in the Creative Section worked on the design," LeClerc said. "I wanted to the simplicity of the 13 stars on a blue field."

LeClerc said her initial design also contained a canton, similar to the canton containing the stars on the U.S. national flag. On her original design, the canton of red and white stripes, contained the word "valor" as it appears on the Medal of Honor. The committee asked if the canton could be removed.

"They felt the design was better without the canton. We said that as it is an Army design, we can change it however you want, and so we removed it," said Pam Madigan an industrial specialist with the Institute of Heraldry.

A law created in October 2002, called for the creation of the flag, and the institute solicited designs via an announcement in the Federal Registry, Madigan said.

"It didn’t take long for the committee to make a selection. The meeting only lasted four hours, and they asked me if we could remove the canton. They decided to go with Sarah’s ribbon design, with gold fringe," Madigan said.