The Forkes Report - Social Responsibility

Waving the Flag

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 06:01:00 -0600

Yesterday there were two people at a park, sitting at a picnic table using an American flag as a beach towel — they were sitting on it. That’s always disturbing, seeing the flag used so carelessly. Most Americans are fairly cavalier in their “patriotism,” maybe rightly so. We talk a good game, but when it comes to things like the correct presentation and use of the flag, for instance, we can’t be bothered with the details.

On the other hand, I’m a hardcore proponent of the Bill of Rights, so we have the right to misuse Old Glory, no matter how egregious and thoughtless that misuse may be. But, I passed up an opportunity to instruct the couple on how that was disrespectful to the flag.

And the two people, friendly acquaintances, are not the gung ho patriot type. They are your average Americans out for a picnic with friends. They aren’t thinking about how to treat an American flag. For all they know, bringing the flag to the picnic might have been a patriotic thing to do. Hell, for all I know, it could have been a beach towel.

There are federal laws concerning the display and use of the American flag. We can’t wear the flag as apparel. Can’t use it for advertising purposes. Really, all those holiday-related ads and TV commercials showing the American flag — and playing the National Anthem — are illegal.
 Just had this thought: is a flag lapel pin a violation? It is being worn as an accessory for clothing.

Flags should not be laid out flat, but flying free or respectfully folded for storage. So, during halftime shows, when they have a hundred people holding that giant, oversized flag for the National Anthem, that’s illegal.

It tell us the flag cannot be touching anything beneath, including the ground or, for that matter, a picnic table bench and we certainly can’t be sitting on it, even if it is in the form of a beach towel. Just the fact that it’s a beach towel could be a violation of the flag code.

Like the oversized flags we see at half time shows, displayed flat and parallel to the ground, we see violations of the flag code every day and think nothing of it. We’re used to it. There are pictures of Sarah Palin and President George W. Bush signing U.S. flags, clearly a case of defacing the flag: "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature."

This isn’t a partisan attack though. In January 2009 someone in Baltimore, MD made flags with President Obama’s picture on them and sold them to commemorate Obama’s inauguration.

Yeah, having a flag signed by a president or with the president’s picture on it is a nice keepsake, but really, both clearly violate the letter of the law concerning the care and display of the flag.

Back in the good old days, the ’60’s for all of you who weren’t there, Abbie Hoffman made flag-emblazoned clothing fashionable when he wore a shirt fashioned from an American flag. After that, we saw flags as bell-bottomed pants, jackets, hats, socks and ties. Virtually anything that can be worn as clothing was fashioned from Old Glory or had the Stars and Stripes attached to it.

That’s just the way we are. Everything is a commodity to be bought and sold or used to sell our other commodities. On the flip side, we have this slavish insistence that we pay homage to the flag as if it’s a sacred item, a trait that is unheard of in other countries, nations that find our noisy jingoism puzzling, if not amusing.

It’s all a moot point though. From Title 4 of the U.S. Code: “The Flag Code does not prescribe any penalties for non-compliance nor does it include enforcement provisions; rather the code functions simply as a guide to be voluntarily followed by civilians and civilian groups.”

And in two separate decisions the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that laws proscribing penalties and enforcement of the flag laws are unconstitutional. Mainly to allow people to burn the flag in protest, those decisions also allow us freedom of expression. So, if you want to express your patriotism by wearing a flag sewn on the back of your denim jacket, by all means, go ahead and do so. And if you want Mickey Mouse to sign your American flag — and what character could be more American than Disney’s Mickey — then absolutely, get it signed.

And if you wish to buy an American flag beach towel and sit on it, that’s okay too. But you know, it really isn’t in the spirit of the U.S. Code.

Short postscript: There’s nothing more fetching on the 4th of July than seeing beautiful women in red, white and blue beach wear, especially skimpy bikini beach wear. Does that constitute wearing an American flag? Not really. The single piece of cloth needs to have the stars and stripes on it to be a flag and most bikinis just make use of the colors.

Most bikinis. There are the few ... sigh ... but they look so nice! Especially on the lovely Roxanne Dawn! And this is why I won’t admonish the couple for sitting on the beach towel flag. I’m guilty as Hell!

Happiness is a Warm Gun

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:01:00 -0600

Sunday there was an interesting letter to the editor in the San Diego Union Tribune. In it the writer simply stated this irony, with little political or social commentary: Jared Loughner, the man who opened fire at a Tucson, AZ shopping center killing six people and wounding over a dozen more, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, is by legal definition incompetent to stand trial.

On the flip side, Loughner was, by legal definition, mentally competent to buy a firearm — several, as a matter of fact. Now, some will say the law should be changed so he can’t “get off” with an insanity defense. Okay, let’s go with that idea for a moment, as flawed as it is; it still doesn’t prevent a mentally incompetent person from buying a firearm.

Crazy people buy firearms all the time. Not all of them commit mass murder of course, but maybe, just maybe crazy people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns. Here’s the sticky part: a judge has to declare a person mentally unfit before that person can be denied the right to buy firearms.

And then, that information has to be relayed to the F.B.I. database that keeps records on people who don’t have the right to own firearms, but not every state provides that information to the F.B.I.

So, the states and the federal government pass laws that should prevent crazy people — and terrorists, suspected terrorists, addicts and violent criminals — from owning firearms, but make them nearly impossible to enforce. Then, when someone like Jared Loughner comes along and shoots two dozen people, or Seung-Hui Cho, the man who killed 32 at Virginia Tech in 2007, the people who are only concerned about their Second Amendment right to own firearms say we don’t need more gun laws, we should enforce the ones already in place. Which are nearly impossible to enforce.

Not to mention, for a “watch list” to be effective, every state and every agency for the states and government must participate, by both submitting the information and by using it to screen people, in this case potential gun owners. Not every state gives its firearm-related information to the F.B.I. nor do all the states access the database for gun registration. Not only are there states that don’t wish to participate, there is an organization — a very powerful organization — that actively lobbies and pressures politicians to not make firearms laws or give real teeth to the laws already on the books.

Another problem with the mentally ill: many, if not most, litigators are loathe to pronounce someone unfit mentally because such a ruling does infringe on a person’s rights and not just the right to bear arms. That’s actually the least of it for most of the mentally ill. They can be forced into psychiatric institutions and have a legal guardian appointed that makes all decisions for the ill person; in other words become wards of the state and that severely restricts the independence of the mentally ill.

So, declaring someone mentally unfit and possibly a danger to themselves and others is a decision not made lightly. Those who are proposing such an action for someone have to prove to a judge beyond any reasonable doubt the ill person in question is a danger and incapable of making rational decisions and taking care of themselves.

Years ago some friends and I made weekly visits to the locked-down psychiatric ward of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in La Jolla, CA. We did it for years. There were people locked up in that ward who obviously shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a firearm, or any type of sharp object, for that matter.

They would receive treatment for a couple weeks, maybe a couple months, but eventually they would be back out on the street. Often enough though, we would see them back behind those locked doors, having stopped taking their medications and started self-medicating with alcohol and street drugs.

It’s hard to say if any of them were legally declared mentally unfit, but clearly many were incapable of living on their own, they reappeared in the psychiatric unit so often. A person can be put into an institution for certain periods of time without being declared mentally unfit by a judge

Could any of them legally buy firearms? I’m guessing yes. Should any of them own firearms? Ain’t no guess, the answer is no. Thankfully, for most of them owning a firearm wasn’t a priority on their lists. Once they were deep into their untreated illnesses it was all about getting the drugs and alcohol and then fighting the demons in their heads.

Actually, it could be quite sad listening to these people talk about what they thought was going on, their lives; they were being controlled by vast conspiracies against them perpetrated by the government and various phantom tormentors.

None of them should have been allowed to own a firearm and some of them maybe should have been committed to the permanent confinement unit at the V.A. — a section of the unit housing people my friends and I rarely saw because they were too far gone.

But what are you going to do? How does someone sit in judgment of another when the one to be judged hasn’t broken any laws? And that is why it is so hard to commit someone; it is a severe judgment.

One solution: Restrict the types of guns and ammunition a person can own. Stop selling 30-round clips at the very least. Force gun shows to honor existing laws regarding the sale of firearms, including private sellers who are completely unregulated. Neither of these options would stop gun violence, either solo or together, but they would lower the body count in some of these mass murders, like we saw with Jared Loughner and Seung-Hui Cho.

Personally, I’m loath to limit any of our liberties as outlined in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment (and every Supreme Court decision regarding it) is pretty clear: we each have the right to bear arms. But we lead the world in death by guns. Mexico may have drug-related gun battles, but when it comes to the percentage of the population killed with firearms, we lead the world.

At least we lead the world in something.
•••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• ••••
And just a reminder: my lovely and dear friend Claudia is still competing to be the Hooters Octagon Girl for UFC 132 in Las Vegas, NV July 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. We can vote for Claudia once a day until Friday. If you have a Facebook account, please do!

The Sound of Freedom

nospam@example.com (Tim Forkes) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 12:01:00 -0600

This is the weekend of the Miramar Air show. All types of aircraft have been buzzing and roaring overhead, shaking the building and rattling the windows. It’s kind of unnerving because I’ll have to sit for a minute to determine if it’s the flock of CH-53 cargo helicopters flying over head in formation — or an earthquake. It could be either, but usually it’s the flock of CH-53’s. Someone at Sikorsky, don’t know who (and I don’t care), named the helicopter the “Sea Stallion.” Now, 40-plus years later, we have the “Super Stallion.” In the Marine Corps we called it the “Green Monster.” Sikorsky should have commissioned enlisted Marines to find a name for their bird.

At any rate, I was reading a whiney thing about the noise coming from MCAS Miramar and not just during the air show, which is an awesome — and free — experience. Oh the noise, it’s pollution and shakes the buildings, especially those damn helicopters! Not to mention, helicopters are unsafe for use in populated areas, like what are found in and around MCAS Miramar.
 Okay, to be honest, some of this “argument” I read a couple years ago, but just recently listened to someone complain about how the air show disrupted their business! Not to mention the whiney complaining in Letters to the Editor! I exhibited some self-control and didn’t say, “Fuck you!” Okay, I did drop an f-bomb while reading the paper.

So, this is where the argument against having a Marine Corps Air Station located at Miramar went awry and still leaves me laughing. The noise and danger everyone opposed to MCAS Miramar griped about would no longer be a problem for the residents in and around the air station should the Marines of El Toro relocate elsewhere. At first glance, that makes sense. Get rid of this airport, develop all the land into commercial and residential property and all that air station noise will go away, to be replaced by the noise and congestion of having another 50 to 100 thousand people living, working and shopping in the area.

But that was never the thrust of the opposition to the air base being changed from a Naval Air Station to a Marine Corps Air Station.

A little history here. Back in the early years of the Clinton Administration we had the inaugural installment of BRAC: the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which decided which military bases to close and where to move all the units to accommodate the closures. Miramar used to be the home to the Navy’s “Top Gun” school, immortalized in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie of the same name.

Heresy of heresies, the BRAC shipped Top Gun off to Fallon, NV, the location of an existing Naval Air Station with bombing ranges, and replaced Top Gun with the combined units from Marine Corps Air Stations El Toro and Santa Ana. And closed those two busy, busy air stations.

Interestingly enough, the Cobra gunship squadrons once located at Santa Ana relocated to Camp Pendleton. The rest of the helicopter squadrons from Santa Ana came to Miramar with the fixed wing squadrons from El Toro.

This was the BIG bugaboo about bringing the Marines to Miramar — never mind the frightening spectre of Marines coming to the nice, upscale neighborhoods surrounding Miramar: Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch and La Jolla. They’re cocky, they’re always looking to get into drunken brawls, and they have that infamous distain for authority drummed into them during boot camp. Although Marines have a reverence for the Chain of Command and military courtesy and protocol. We know how to salute!
 Granted, much of that frightening reputation is self-created and generated and that distain for authority goes only so far as lip service will carry it, but it plays well in Hollywood blockbusters and recruitment offices — off the record of course!

The helicopters were going to amp up the noise level — they have — and helicopters are notorious for crashing. That was a new one for me. Maybe it’s true. But in the 12-plus years the Marines have been at Miramar, not one has crashed and that’s a pretty good record, as far as I can tell.

Many of the accidents, if you wish to call them that, have been in the places where we are fighting our wars, geographical Hellholes known as much for their inhospitable weather and terrain as for their importance in geopolitical matters. Sand and dust are murderous on helicopter technology.

In the suburban world surrounding Air Station Miramar, not so much of a threat to helicopters.

The BIG bugaboo about moving the Marines to Miramar had nothing to do with noise and aeronautical safety, it had to do with development, both commercial and residential. See, surrounding the air station are miles and miles of undeveloped land, like a big empty scab of nature in an otherwise perfect layer of developed geologic skin. There’s billions of dollars waiting to be had in those dusty hills around Scripps Ranch, Tierrasanta, Clairemont and that jewel, Miramar.

The real reason for opposing the Marines at Miramar — and having them move to March Air Force Base instead — had to do with making Miramar San Diego’s next international airport. And there are people who still harbor that dream. Two runways, maybe three, lots of space for development to support an international airport, it was and remains every developer’s wet dream.

You think the noise from Miramar is bad now, especially this past weekend with the air show? Go spend a day down in Ocean Beach, Point Loma and the Midway area, when we have at least one plane a minute taking off from Lindberg International Airport. Of course, I can understand why the residents of those places would like to see the airport move.

So, today, when I listen to someone gripe about the noise generated by the air show, about the helicopters coming into Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, especially those giant CH-53’s, the alternatives to a military installation come into my thoughts. Make no mistake, that area would not remain undeveloped if the Marines did one day leave.

When people complain about the noise coming from the air station and I’m feeling froggy, in a fuzzy sort of way, I remind them that sometime in the next 12 months many of those men and women will be in Afghanistan and possibly in and around Iraq. And some of them might not return alive.

That noise they hear, it’s the sound of freedom. Commercial airports don’t make that sound.