Flag Flap

The Confederate Battle Flag under fire ... again

As seems to be the norm whenever there's a flag controversy anywhere in the "land of the free" there's a parallel with out little college town.  Take flag removal for instance.

Yesterday an activist shimmied up a 30 foot flagpole to remove the Confederate flag from a Civil War monument on public grounds in South Carolina.

She had to use tree climbing gear because the flag is fixed at that position all the way up, hence it cannot be brought down to half-staff, or all the way down for easy removal.

In Amherst back in 2004, days after the relection of President Bush, a local woman -- also known as an "activist" -- removed a flag from immediately in front of Amherst Town Hall, just below the United Nations flag.

Of course in her case it was pretty easy to accomplish since the flag is attached to a pulley system.

She mistakenly thought the flag of Puerto Rico was the state flag of Texas put up to honor the reelection of George W. Bush, and took matters into her own naive hands.

The flag pole in front of Town Hall, erected in 1972 to specifically fly the UN flag, somewhat routinely flies other flags under it for special commemorations including the Rainbow Flag that briefly replaced it after gay marriage was first legalized in our state many years ago.  

Recently the Black Liberation Flag was flown to commemorate Black History Month, or the Children's Flag flies in April to raise awareness for National Child Abuse Prevention month.  And yes, the Puerto Rican flag still flies annually as well. 

The Children's Memorial Flag flies in April under the UN flag

Perhaps we can get the ACLU to create a First Amendment flag so we can be reminded or our sacred duty to uphold it no matter how messy the going gets.

Redundant perhaps, since that is precisely what the American flag represents.


The BIG American Flag will fly for July 4th in town center as will the 29 commemorative flags

Those Darn Extremists

 Amherst Town Room, Town Hall

So the accusations are starting to fly faster than quail frantically fleeing the hunter's birdshot.

The venerable Amherst Bulletin in today's editorial has strongly suggested I am an "extremist" for wishing to fly commemorative flags in the downtown to remember, commemorate, honor the 2,997 citizens slaughtered that awful day. 

Well I suppose if I'm in the same camp as the Amherst firefighters, who issued a strong statement of support for flying the flags every 9/11, that's okay with me.

And Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe borderline resorts to libel/slander in the same Amherst Bulletin front page article by strongly suggesting I purposely, willfully "exploited people's misunderstanding and oversimplification of this issue."

Interestingly the article closes with an exchange between O'Keeffe and an ardent flag supporter who thanked her for clarifying the complications, but even so, still thought the commemorative flags should fly on 9/11.   Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Last night around 10:30 PM WWLP Ch 22 News put up another flag flap story stating unequivocally that I "questioned the patriotism" of Amherst and town manager John Musante on my Fox & Friends live appearance on Sunday morning.

They even interviewed an Amherst resident who was aghast that I would dare to question their patriotism. Only thing is I never even remotely suggested that. The interviewee  probably got it from the Gazette coverage where Ms. O'Keeffe is complaining about uninformed viewers questioning her patriotism.

Bu you would think the reporter could have at least watched the five-minute-30-second Fox interview, or maybe contacted me for comment/fact checking. She had been stalking me on Twitter for the past two weeks, so it's not like it would have been hard for her to reach me.

I notice this morning the story has been pulled from wwlp.com