It IS a heritage day - not THE heritage day but A heritage day, yes that is correct. I agree with that.

I also agree with the other people who have dismissed it as a drinking day sponsored by beer companies, but like... let's be really clear here - when that one minor defeat of the French happened, A giant chunk of western America was only recently America - there were children alive when that battle was won who were living in what we now call California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, etc? Those kids were born in Mexico.

We love talking shit about "us" and "them" when discussing Mexico (Never Canada for some reason) but you know, where I'm sitting right now? 160 years ago? This was Mexico. I get that it's America now, but I also don't mind the Mexican flavor remaining. I don't mind the culture, nor begrudge the heritage of those whose land this used to be.

Jodi, I was staying out of the flag debate, but our military flag rules are the same, they drilled them into us in the army. Personally, it bothers me when a lot of the same people who object to the burning of the flag or the "disrespecting" of the flag actually desecrate the flag by hanging it out at night, wearing it as clothing or whatever.

Sure, if people have a more relaxed view of it, and want to wear it as clothing, fine. But they should know that the difference between that and flag burning is a matter of degree and they've already implicitly rejected the sanctity of the flag.

Further, burning (or as we were taught - separate by colour, then burn)  is the proper way to dispose of a desecrated flag.

In domestic flag burning cases it's mostly a form of protest that can be summed up as  "The government has symbolically/inferentially desecrated this flag and all it stands for and therefore it must be burned."

When I was in the army, there was a story going around about 4-5 soldiers passing by a guy's house and seeing the flag up after dark. They went into his yard, ceremoniously lowered the flag and folded it properly. Then they knocked on his door, handed him the flag and said that next time, they'd take the flag with them and dispose of it (separate and burn)

One such story that actually made the news involved a young second lieutenant who was officer of the watch one night at Fort Akershus  (near the capitol). As they took down the flags, a soldier dropped his end of it and the flag touched the ground. Having been drilled in proper flag protocol, he had the flag brought in, unfurled , ordered his men to separate the colours and then he burned it.

The officers who relieved him in the morning didn't know how to respond, because he followed the rules precisely, but a more experienced officer would probably have just done a "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, time to rotate this flag off to the cleaners" and pretended they didn't have to "purge" the desecration.

Figured in a thread about ignorance this story deserved a mention:

http://www.bravewords.com/news/139360

Seems the Westboro Baptist Church is going to picket the funeral of Ronnie James Dio.

And to follow up on Jodi's post, I was always taught that wearing clothing that was made to look like a flag was disrespectful. I believe that code she cited above only applied to taking an old flag and turning it into clothing, but in the Army we were taught that any piece of clothing made to look like an American flag was disrespectful. Such as this:

A full depiction of the flag was ok, but discouraged. This might have changed since I went through basic in 1989, so I can't speak to it's accuracy now.

Personally I won't wear any clothing like the shirt pictured above. It's tacky and disrespectful. But to each his own I suppose.