Dishonoring the Flag

As you drive through many neighborhoods in Utah on days like Memorial Day, Flag Day, President’s Day, or Independence Day, you will see what appears to be an awesome display of patriotism.  Early in the morning a group of young Scouts got together with a few leaders and posted an American Flag in the lawn of people who donated money to their organization.  It really is quite an awesome display.

However, I am deeply concerned about how this is done.  This morning as part of my duties as a Webelo’s Den Leader (co-leader with my lovely wife), I helped my Webelos and several other Cub Scouts place these flags in lawns in our neighborhood.  However, what I saw when I got to the place they store the flags appalled me.  The flags were not properly folded.  Instead, they were rolled around the PVC pipe that is used as a flag pole.  After further investigation I found out that the flags were semi-permanently mounted to the pole with a cable tie.

So, I am tempted to send this letter to our scout troops Charter Organization Representative.

Dear Charter Organization Representative,

The Boy Scouts of America is a great organization for teach boys a love of God, Country, and self.  And after several years of involvement I have found that this is a great organization and I look forward to when my son can participate in the activities, leadership, and development that it provides.  While, I generally don’t donate much to non-profit organizations, I usually will donate to the Boy Scouts.

However, I am concerned with a recent donation that I made to the Scouts (and the young women organization of the Church).  I donated $30 to have a flag placed in the lawn of my home so that I could participate in the patriotic display of a neighborhood united in support of its Country and the men and women who fight and die for it.

On Memorial Day 2006, I had the opportunity as the Webelo’s Den Leader to help the Cub Scouts of your Charter place the flags around our neighborhood.  And while the display was awesome, I am afraid that I was less than pleased with the process.

The proper way to store the American flag is with 13 folds leaving the field of stars visible.  The most important reason for doing this is respect for the flag, our country, and the people who have fought for it.  However, this will also extend the life of the flag by reducing the bumping of the flag against other poles and flags in storage.

The flags own and cared for by your Scouts are semi-permanently attached to the pole and cannot be removed without considerable effort.  Thus, the flags can only be stored by rolling them up around the pole.

The only reason that I can see for not folding the flags is to save time.  However, what message is this saying to our scouts?  I believe that it tells the boys that their time is more important than their country.  It changes the order of how I believe the Boy Scouts sees things.  It puts self before country and not the other way around.

I respectfully request that the flag be folded before it is stored.  If this is not possible, then I request that the flag no longer be placed in my yard.  Please keep the $30 donation, but understand that I will not donate in the future.

Respectfully,
Travis R Grant

Okay, now, I need you to reign me in here.  Am I wrong?  I tried to find information about the proper storage and respect of the flag, and I can’t find it anywhere.  The closest I could come to an official statement is the U.S. Code Title 4, Chapter 1.  However, there is no mention that the flag should be stored in the triangle fold.  I did find one site that mentions folding as proper storage (see usflag.org). However, this is not an official site.

So, should I actually send the letter above?  Should I make changes?  Am I complete wrong?  Am I right? (Like that’ll ever happen.)  Should I st let it slide and allow the scouts to store the flag in a way that I find offensive?  Should I add a comment about how I feel the boy need to be in their uniforms too, or would that be pushing it too far?

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UPDATE (1 Jun 2006):   I emailed the good peoople at ushistory.org, who run a great resource on the American Flag and Betsy Ross, and they told me that although the triangle fold isn’t necessary it is the most respectful.  After a follow up email, they confirmed that just rolling the flag around the pole is not appropriate and shouldn’t be done.

Bent and Broken Television

Despite the fact that I may be chasing some people away.  I wish to further discuss television for a while.  I would like to set up my next few discussion about specific TV shows by providing you with a little of my background on the perspective that I will be taking.

As I have mentioned earlier, I have a keen interest in the Thomas Jefferson Education Model of teaching.  While I don’t believe that the following perspective is unique to this model, I was introduced to this perspective from Oliver Van DeMille.

In his book on Thomas Jefferson Education, DeMille comments that all books can be classified in four ways.  They can either be whole, broken, bent, or healing.

A whole story is a story where good is treated as good.  In other words, as the story is told the “hero” is a good person who intends to do good.  Another aspect of the whole story is the good prevails in the end.

A broken story is one where good is treated as good, just like in the whole story.  But the key difference is that good does not prevail, evil over takes the good.

A bent story is where evil is portrayed as good.  The evil will often win in these stories and the story often increases one’s desire to do evil.  DeMille cites horror stories and pornography as part of this category, but I think that may be too narrow.

Finally, a healing story is one (whole or broken) that moves the reader to change a certain aspect of her life.  These stories don’t always have to have a happy ending, as long as the reader is enlightened in some ways.

DeMille further argues that most classic books are whole stories and that as a reader one should focus on whole stories.

With this information, I would encourage you to look at television and start categorizing the shows you are familiar with.  Looking at the past four shows that I reviewed, I would argue that 2 of them are at least bent (LOST) or broken (Survivor).  I will make more arguments in the next few days of how TV has become a bent and broken medium.

TV is becoming more and more focused on the morose, pernicious, and evil aspects of our lives.  I am not saying that it is time to go back to Ozzie and Harriet, but I do think that TV has taken a turn for the worse.

The next few columns will focus on shows that I used to watch, but I have abandoned because they have offended my sense of right and wrong.  They will be about shows that although still popular are decaying our society and moving us in a bad direction.  Of course, this is all according to my perspective, and I invite your comments.  However, my main point is that these shows are more negative for us than positive.

TV - Survivor

Lately this has been a show that I have felt that I could do without, but I still find myself spending an hour each week watching it.

You may have noticed that 3 of the 4 shows that I have mentioned are so called “reality” TV shows.  If you will grant me a little aside, I wish to discuss why I watch so much reality TV.  The main reason is that for the most part the “reality” TV does not offend my value system.  It may be mind “numbing.” But it isn’t offensive.

Yes, Survivor might be some what questionable in that there is a certain amount of deceit necessary to play the game. And yes you can’t be an under 30 female and be on the show unless you are willing to where a bikini, but there really is nothing sexy about a 20 something who is starving to death and doesn’t have the common sense to cover herself up to keep from losing water by evaporation to the heat of the sun.

For the most part “reality” TV is about regular people who are just trying to have a little fun and win a few bucks in the process.  Most people are trying to be honest and good people who try to play fair.

Now back to Survivor.

I mentioned that there are some concerns with this show, and because of those concerns, I have never really put this high on my list of favorite show.  The only reason that this falls in the top 4 is because there are so few good shows lately.

This season in particular has been somewhat fun for me.  I have enjoyed rooting for the underdog and watching that underdog win.  Terry Deitz isn’t your typical underdog.  He is by far the strongest and smartest player on this season (and perhaps ever in the game).  Terry has dominated in all of the challenges (the only one’s that he has lost is where the social positioning is important, and that is where he is the underdog).

If you haven’t been watching, Terry’s team during the tribal immunities didn’t do very well.  And Terry’s team went into the merge with less members.  This has put Terry at a disadvantage.  Terry’s competitiveness and will combined with his underdog status has pushed him to win every individual immunity since the merge, and now he is guaranteed to be in the final three.

Terry rocks the Survivor world.  He has never given up.  He may not have played the social aspect of the game well, but he has played all other aspects better than anyone I have seen on survivor (and I have watched almost every season).  He has pushed through to the very end.

With that let me give my predictions for the end of this.  It is obvious that I want terry to win, but I don’t think that he can pull out the votes from the jury.  So, I won’t give what I want to happen (that’s obvious).  These are my predictions of what actually happens:

4. Cirie
3. Aras
2. Terry
1. Danielle

If Cirie isn’t the next out then I would say it is Danielle and Cirie will win.  The rivalry between Terry and Aras will keep them from being in the final two.

TV - LOST

Well, I have been debating all night (morning) about whether I should write this column about LOST.  After watching last night’s episode, I am not sure that I like this show very much.

LOST has been steeped in a lot of criticism lately.  Many people have given up on the show because the writers aren’t giving out any hints about the “big mystery.”  Well, I have been very interested in the mystery of the island.

I first started to watch LOST because of the mention that two of the people stranded on the island were Koreans.  Having served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Korea, I love to try and catch what Korean there is in this show, and translate it (in my head) before the subtitles.  I watch M*A*S*H for the same reason (well, almost the same reason, it is a good show too).  But this isn’t about M*A*S*H.

Well, I remember the first episode I watch focus on the character of John Locke.  I had flash backs about who he was, why he was in Sydney Australia, why he was on Oceanic 850, and had perhaps the greatest hint about the mystery of the island.

From that episode on, I have been very hooked on the show.  I haven’t always watched it, and it hasn’t been until the past couple of weeks that I really started to make it a must watch show.  So, I haven’t seen every episode, but I have seen enough to know that I like this show.

However, this past episode really rubbed me the wrong way.  Not because the mystery hasn’t been revealed.  What really bothered me with this episode is the dark turn that this show is taking.  I have given up on many shows because they got too dark (i.e., Without a Trace, and CSI).

WARNING HUGE SPOILER AHEAD: The darkness that I am referring to is first that Annalucia would prostitute herself just to get a gun so that she can kill a man.  And bigger than that, one of the good guys (at least my impression of Michael has been good) would actually kill two fairly innocent people and then shoot himself, just to get his son back.  Don’t get me wrong, I might just do anything to get one of my children back from a kidnapper, but I hope that I would have the fortitude to stop of murdering another human being (accept maybe the kidnapper).

Anyway, for the most part I am impressed with the show, but if it continues down this dark road I may just have to give up on this show next season.  I will give them the rest of this season, but I don’t know that I will continue with next season.

Just Don’t Watch It

You all know that I am a big media critic. You know that I don’t support much of what is available on TV, and if it is smut, that it shouldn’t be there.  You know that I would love for TV to go back to the good old shows like the Cosby Show, Knight Rider, and Early Edition.  So you might wonder why I am not going to call KSL and request them to preempt the new show the Book of Daniel.

Let me explain.  WTWO in Indiana has made the correct decision to not air this show.  As a result of this preemption, many socially conservative groups are pushing their local NBC affiliates to do the same thing.  I personally would like to see KSL preempt this show with some boring ER rerun or maybe a nice Law & Order: CI.  However, I don’t feel that calling or emailing KSL is going to cause them to make that decision.

KSL has been known to preempt shows in the past, and I am sure that they will in the future.  At least I hope.

But I don’t think that this show is as bad as it purports. Don’t get me wrong.  I think that it will be inappropriate for my family and I don’t think that it should be on the air.  I just feel that KSL is going to do what KSL is going to do, and there is no amount of phone calls or pressure that is going to make them back down.  They aren’t like KARK who feels that the listeners can be right.

However, there is one thing that we could all do that will cause them to back down.  And that is simply this: DON’T WATCH.  If you don’t watch it then advertisers won’t sponsor it.  If advertisers won’t sponsor it then it will be taken off the air.

That is the problem with this big campaign against this (and any other show).  It simply draws attention to a show that would probably simply go on and then right back of the air, if people would just not watch it.  Instead, you raise the hype about the show.  You call it evil and it gets greater attention than it otherwise would.  Thus increasing its viewership and increasing its revenue and keeping it on the air longer.

The AFA is good intentioned, but wrongly directed.  Getting the show off the air is the right thing to do.  But a better direction would be a whisper-like campaign encouraging good Christians and their friends to boycott this show.

Perhaps I am too naive; perhaps I believe too much in capitalism; perhaps I give the media too much credit.  But I am going to go out on a limb here and say this one thing.  The Book of Daniel will not make it into the Fall Season.  It will either fail in this “half-season” or at the end.  Because people who do watch it will realize that it is too unreal to bother with.  Although people are still watching CSI and that is as fake as it gets.

Poverty, Entitlement, and Sexual Predators

We had some friends over today.  They are conservative and hold many views similar to mine.  And the conversation turned to why we home school. (They are a home schooling parent’s too.)

I told him that we finally made the decision to home school because there was way too many problems with the school.  The first year we homeschooled, I talked with one of the 1st grade teachers, and she told me that she had at least 2 kids in her class that has sexual issues. THIS IS 1ST GRADE (6 YEAR OLDS!)

My friend asked me what I thought was the reason for such prevalence of sexual problems at this school.  “Is it poverty?” he asked.

That sent my mind a wondering.

Almost 10 years ago, I had two different jobs (at different times) that lead me to work with at least 10 different boys who were in state custody for sexual misconduct.  I learned a lot in that year, and I feel that I have a keen understanding of what makes the sexual predator tick.

First of all, I learned that children under about the age of 10 who have issues with sexually inappropriate behavior learned such behavior in only one way.  And that is because they themselves have been victims.  Thus, most likely these 2 six year olds who are acting out sexually were once victimized (most likely by someone in their home or family).

That took me to a second thing that I learned, and that was that sexual predators usually perpetrate because they believe that they have a right to do so.  They think that they are entitled to commit the offense because society (or the victim) has hurt them.

That is the one thing that sexual predators and the poor have in common.  They have a sense of entitlement.  They both feel like something is owed to them because they have been wronged some how.

I don’t point this out to say that all poor people will become sexual predators.  But more to say that our culture of entitlement is what has lead to the increase in sexual predation in our society.

We are often told that the increase in reports is because people are educated about what is wrong and they are more likely to report.  Some might even say that sexual inappropriate material in the media increases the rate of criminal activity (and I happen to think that it does to an extent).  However, I strongly feel that it probably has more to do with our cultural emphasis on entitlement that has lead to the increase in sex crimes.

TV Executives Need to Take Responsibility

Sex is an addiction.

Of all human passions, food, entertainment, sleep, etc. there is only one that cannot be satiated. You can eat too much. You can play too much. And you can sleep too much. However, sex researchers have found that sex in insatiable. (Source can be provided upon request).

And the TV executives know this. They use sex to draw people to their programs and sometimes it succeeds. It is especially successful among the population that is the most curious about it.

Teenagers love to watch shows like The O.C. and Desperate Housewives. I remember in my day it was Beverly Hills 90210. A few years back it was Friends and Sex in the City.

TV executives claim that they aren’t responsible. They claim that it is the responsibility of the parents.

And while I agree that parents carry a larger part of the burden. We have forgotten that for society to really thrive all players need to take a part in the responsibility of raising our children.

When the v-chip came out I knew that it would be an excuse for TV executives. They would claim that they were no longer responsible for what they air because we are in control. We can even turn off the TV. And this is true. And I do. Turn of the TV, that is.

However, does that make the TV industry absolved of any responsibility?

No. You can’t watch a show without sex coming on. It amazes me how many “family shows” are rated TV-PG for sexual dialogue and sexual situations (Check out this Guide for more information on TV ratings).

I think that Two-and-a-half Men is a very funny show. But I have quit watching it. I quit because it is frequently rated TV-PG (SD). I don’t need that in my house. I don’t want it in my house. And it would be there, especially when it is a “family” show.

As a parent I have taken the initiative. Now it is time for the Networks to realize that they too are responsible for the well being of society.