Don't Rally 'round the Bogus Flag, Boys

During a recent altercation among teens in Sarasota, Fl. a young white boy who was displaying an alleged Confederate flag was shot and wounded by a black youth who took offense at this. The use of the word alleged is accurate because the flag at issue is a creation of the 20th century and was not a product of the Confederacy despite its current widespread useage.

This "Confederate Flag" is a 20th Century invention combining the actual Battle Flag's colors with a Confederate Navy Jack.

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This flag with the Stars and Bars was flown over the first Capitol of the Confederacy on March 4, 1861.

Why is a 20th century artifice being used to invoke a 19th century historical event? If the intent is to honor the memory of the sacrifices endured back then, why is the symbol chosen a bogus Battle Flag and not an actual Confederate banner? Many consider such usage inflammatory and since several genuine alternatives exist perhaps another choice should be considered.

Symbolism often is a substitute for reality or to mask actual intention. But symbols are powerful shortcuts in conveying emotions and values. Compare the effect on a ship at sea during the 18th century viewing an approaching ship flying this banner

1707 Royal Navy White Ensign

or this one. The Jolly Roger!

Both flags were flown separately, or at times, simultaneously by the notorious pirate known as Edward England. Having lured his victims in close by the waving of the bogus Royal Navy flag; the running up of the skull and crossbones then signaled his true intent. Born Edward Seegar, in Ireland, England was marooned with two others when his crew mutinied and he died in Madagascar in 1720.

The symbol of the Jolly Roger is alive and well, however. On a bottle of poison or the prow of a vessel prowling the seas around Somalia looking for prey, the symbol lives on, its power intact.

These symbols, many of them quite ancient, have been reduced to obscurity and redundancy

by this one!

Sam, Sam, Wake up Sam!

Promptly at 4 PM on April 9 ,1865 at Appomattox Courthouse the bucolic American Giant, known fondly as Sam, went for a short nap that lasted for 136 years. After four long years preserving the Union, Sam needed a rest. He stretched out across the countryside with his head among the old original colonies; his rump placed conveniently at the headwaters of the Mississippi (for the drainage you see, clever Giant), and his legs sprawled westward ho! across the prairies with his heels planted in L.A. and toes dangling almost to the Mexico line.

Sam, like Gulliver before him, is plagued with Lilliputians but these cheeky, diminutive pests are known here as the 'Minions. While Sam nods off, these Minions wreak havoc in his name. They are always careful to do their mischief abroad so as not to awaken the Giant. And mischief it is. Greedy little buggers, these Minions, can't seem to get enough little island getaways around the globe. Been collecting them since the War with Spain. And power hungry!; those nettlesome gits have been showing the flag around the world for two hundred years. What started in Tripoli on tiny warships has metastasized to hundreds upon hundreds of flagposts everywhere on Earth.

All things end and so did the export of mischief abroad. Abruptly. Our sleeping beauty was jarred out of almost a century and a half of slumber by a frightful racket under his left year. Sam had been using Central Park as a pillow for ages but on September 11, 2001 he was rudely awakened by the noise and smoke. The trusty Minions rushed to assure him all was well.
"Go back to sleep, Sam", the Minions cooed. "We can handle it. We have ways". Sam should have stayed awake but old habits, and all that. No sooner had the old guy dozed off again; the bombing and invasions began in earnest.

It's starting the tenth year now. Sam's still out cold. The Minions are running amok.
The place is a mess. Everybody hates the Minions and the country is broke from their excesses. What will it take to rouse him from his slumber and begin to take charge again? Sam, Sam, Wake up Sam!

What Ails China...?

Or...take off those funny hats, the party's over.

China anticipates having a surplus of millions of single men unable to find women because of the imbalance caused by gender preference. Fifty years of a one child per family policy has produced a bumper crop of...testosterone.
Good luck with that.

It's a fifties rerun in the Middle Kingdom and the cruisin' has begun. Picture this scene out of "Chinese Graffiti" where forty million single dudes in spanking new SUVs cruise endlessly trying to pick-up, get this, NO chicks! Now that they produce more cars than the US the bumper stickers could shout, "What's Good for Great Wall Motors is Good for China!".

The menu may soon include, after a too many Saturday nights of striking-out, a midnight road trip to Macao or maybe Hanoi, wherever joy, or at least, relief, may be freely purchased. "Donkey Show" to follow! Sensing the regime's Confucian bent, and allergy to civil unrest, it may soon send observers to Nevada to see first hand how "Bunny Ranches" can be made to flourish in the Gobi Desert.

All in all, the old guys who run things in Beijing should look around the world, especially here, to see where all this 'progress' might lead. Instead of benefiting from seeing where we stumbled they seem determined to end up the same way, broke and confused. Nobody ever learns, it's our charm as a species and may bury us yet.