This is a very good read. Sort of expresses my views completely.

Bill Moyers on Patriotism and the Flag

BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Bill Moyers

I put the flag in my lapel tonight. First time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans.

Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart's affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother's picture on my lapel to prove her son's love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

So what's this flag doing here?

Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo -- the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism.

On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. And during the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error.

When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's Little Red Book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.

But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American.

They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They're in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.

So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don't have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash).

I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war -- except in self-defense -- is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomatic skill.

Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.

What do you think?

-Bill Moyers
NOW with Bill Moyers

Currently at 8:01 PM CLOUDY Winds SSE at 10 mph. Temp: 59° F Tonight A couple of showers and thunderstorms in the evening; clearing and breezy Low 44° F Tomorrow Partly sunny and breezy High 58° F Tomorrow Night Increasing amounts of clouds Low 37° F Monday 2/24 Breezy and mild with clouds and sunshine High 58° F

Currently at 8:31 PM PARTLY CLOUDY Winds SW at 3 mph. Temp: 38° F Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy Low 31° F Tomorrow Some sunshine giving way to clouds High 54° F Tomorrow Night Mostly cloudy with a passing shower late Low 39° F Thursday 2/20 A passing shower in the morning, otherwise mostly cloudy High 53° F

Schools were closed Monday and today. Not very many people showed up at work yesterday.

Spring is going to be a bit more special this year after this rather rough winter.

You might notice that I haven't mentioned anything about George Bush today. My mother is upset with me. She sent me an e-mail yesterday complaing about my post of Friday night. You know, the one where I called George Bush an asshole. She said that if I can't say something nice about someone, I should not say anything at all. So I won't say anything about George Bush. This is only good for one day though.

Love you mama.

Currently At 9:01PM FOGGY. Winds NE at 12 mph Temp: 20 Tonight Cloudy with a bit of freezing rain and freezing drizzle; dense fog and cold. Low 22 Monday 2/17 Cold; freezing rain and drizzle in the morning, then a shower cannot be ruled out in the afternoon High 38 Monday Night Mainly cloudy Low 31. Partly sunny High 51

We have had sleet falling all day long. It didn't start overnight like they thought and there hasn't been any freezing rain either. We have about a 1/2 to an inch of sleet on the ground. They have already closed schools for tomorrow.

Neno and I went last night and got some wood from Randy's landscaping yard in his truck. We stacked it on the front porch. Now we really look like rednecks.

I think war is inevitible. GWB has just gone so far with everything now there is no way he can back out. Our relations with our NATO allies suck. Polls show that the majority of people in countries around the world think that Bush is wrong in choosing war instead of more inspections and containment. Heck, the polls show the majority of Americans feel that way too. Bush trumpeted war without any other alternative so heavily, that he can't do anything else now. He has painted himself into a corner.

Currently at 12:13 PM OVERCAST Winds N at 3 mph. Temp: 50° F Today Cloudy with periods of rain High 52° F Tonight Cloudy and cold; periods of rain in the evening, then becoming breezy with rain and freezing rain Low 26° F Sunday 2/16 Icy; remaining cloudy and very cold High 30° F Monday 2/17 Rather cloudy and cold High 33° F

Big ole ice storm predicted for tonight. Oh Boy. Just what we need. In fact, they say this one could be as big or bigger than the killer we got in December. When that one hit we lost power for about 14 hours and cable and internet access for 3 days.

Linda has gone to Super Wal-Mart to buy some groceries. I am getting ready to go outside and put more firewood up on the back porch. We are going to fix some things like soup and pinto beans that we can warm up easily on the grill or the wood stove in case we lose power again. I'm not looking forward to this again. I just hope I can have power and cable so I can watch the Daytona 500 tomorrow on TV.

Currently at 8:19 PM CLOUDY Winds SSE at 5 mph. Temp: 43° F Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain Low 42° F Tomorrow Cloudy with rain, heavy at times High 50° F Tomorrow Night Cloudy with rain at times Low 26° F Sunday 2/16 Remaining cloudy and much colder with freezing rain High 30° F

Linda is complaining that I'm not writing enough. So I will endeavor to do better.

One of Linda's former co-workers is also complaining that I'm not writing enough.

Bill Gentry used to work with her at Hayworth and he and his wife, Susan enjoy reading about my dull life. I will work harder at putting something up at least every couple of days if not every day.

If I start writing from work occasionally I might put more on here. I just feel guilty about doing it from work. But you know, when it comes right down to it, I don't hesitate to work late in the evening or on weekends when I have to, so why should I hesitate to spend a few minutes during some days updating this?

I feel better about it already.

I had a first time experience yesterday. For the first time ever, it cost me over $20 to fill up my car with gas. It is a 1992 Taurus station wagon. Maybe next year at this time, I'll look back at this and think, "I can't believe I was complaining about gas at a $1.60 a gallon."

Thank you George Bush. I'm sure your oil buddies are happy now. I'm beginning to think less and less of GWB. He is an idiot. He is an asshole. He is our president. He has completely lost his focus.

Instead of focusing on the economy and terrorism he is instead focusing on Iraq and Hussein. In my opinion, Iraq is not our biggest problem, it is the economy and terrorism and we will suffer from both while he tries to avenge his father's failings.

Today is Valentines day. I have created a tradition and didn't realize it until this week.

I'm not sure when I started it, but in the past few years I have bought one of those heart shaped boxes of candies for each of the kids. This year, the kids, especially Caitlin and Daniel started asking days ahead of time if I was going to get them their Valentine candy boxes. They asked about it every single day. It was really a very big deal to them.

Today at lunch, I stopped at the drug store and got them each a box of candy, and since they already had the Easter stuff out, a box of yellow Peeps to go with it. Caitlin called me twice today on my cell phone to inquire about the candy and if I was going to get it. It really made me feel good to make them so happy with something so small.

Currently at 2:28 PM OVERCAST Winds W at 7 mph. Temp: 46° F. Mostly cloudy High 51° F . Tonight A few clouds Low 31° F.. Sunday Becoming mostly sunny; nice in the afternoon High 58° F Low 42° F. Monday Times of clouds and sun; warm and pleasant High 62° F Low 49° F

This is going to be one of those "Where were you and what were you doing events. Of course I'm referring to the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and it's crew of seven. I was in bed.

I have a Timex Internet Messenger watch. It is a pager on the Skytel network and it also allows me to receive e-mail. The e-mails I receive are severely truncated however. The watch only allows a certain number of characters to be transmitted for e-mails and by the time it receives the headers such as who the e-mail was sent to, who sent it and the subject line, there is not much left for the actual body of the message. But with the headers and subject line and what does make it from the body of the message I can usually get a real good idea of what e-mail is about and whether or not I need to check e-mail immediately and find out more.

Just this past week, I signed up to receive breaking news alerts from CNN via e-mail and I set up my watch to receive them. This morning at 9:29am, my watch started vibrating to let me know that a message had been received. I pressed the button to read the message and saw that it was breaking news from CNN. By the time the headers had finished, the only amount of the message that made it through was, "NASA reports losing contact with space....."

I wondered if it was the space station or the shuttle, but thought it might just be a temporary thing, so I stayed in bed and didn't think about it more. Besides, Linda and I were.....well, it's really none of your business. Let's just say we stayed in bed.

Then, at 10:13am, my watch started vibrating again. I checked it and after the headers, the message I got was, "The space shuttle Columbia, carrying...."

I told Linda that something must have happened, because this was the second alert I had received. We jumped up and went to the computer we keep in the bedroom and went to CNN. That is when we learned what had happened. We cut the TV on and I've been watching it and listening to it all day.

Below are the two e-mails I received.

The first e-mail

Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 09:29:05 -0500
From: BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM | This is Spam | Add to Address Book
Subject: CNN Breaking News
To: TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@CNNIMAIL12.CNN.COM

-- NASA reports losing contact with space shuttle Columbia at 9 a.m.
EST prior its scheduled landing at 9:16 a.m.
Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com /AOL Keyword: CNN for the latest
news.

The second e-mail

Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 10:13:05 -0500
From: BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM | This is Spam | Add to Address Book
Subject: CNN Breaking News
To: TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@CNNIMAIL12.CNN.COM

-- The space shuttle Columbia, carrying a crew of seven, broke up
Saturday morning 200,000 feet above Texas. More soon
Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com /AOL Keyword: CNN for the latest
news.


Free Republic is a right wing web site I check out frequently because I think it is important to know what the other side is thinking. Plus, some of the nut cases which frequent this site are fun to read. But there is a thread that is largely non-political, at least at the beginning, that is a very interesting read.

It is a moment by moment account of some posters watching the space shuttle Columbia as it came across the US and then broke up. Some of them are watching NASA TV at the same time. It is quite interesting to read how they go from exhiliration at seeing it cross the sky in their location to sadness as they realize what was happening. Click HEREto read it.