You are beautiful, Susie Salmon

Cover of The Lovely Bones

Yeah, I still have insomnia and sometimes when I can’t sleep I watch the movie ‘The Lovely Bones.”  I am watching it right now.

It’s funny.  I loved the movie but hated the book and the reason for both feelings are almost identical.  I will explain.

I hated Alice Sebold‘s book because I related so much to the father.  I know, I know, my father is a dick who beat me mercilessly but I still loved him desperately.  The father in the book works tirelessly to get the murderer of his child.  He never succeeds but he never stops trying.  That upset me terribly.

I loved Peter Jackson’s movie for similar reasons. Take a look at Saoirse Una Ronan in this film.  Take a look at photos of me when I was that age.  We could be the same person.  And I find I relate to her (the character, not the person) in ways that make my heart hurt.

I dunno, maybe it’s a combination of an actress looking like me, some residual love I have for my abusive father and my intense fear of serial killers but this movie has it all.

So, you are still beautiful, Susie Salmon.

Happy Flag Day!

I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the and to the Republic for which it stands,

one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 

As an ardent opponent of any Constitutional amendments banning flag burning, one might be surprised to hear that I think Flag Day should be celebrated.  At the same time, it strikes me that it should be ‘Constitution Day’ because that is what the flag represents.  Should we celebrate the ideas that guide our country or the symbol we use to represent it?

 

Anyway, Flag Day is June 14th and since it is a holiday should be celebrated but to do that we need to acknowledge the history of the day and the history of our flag, the allegiance to it and the holiday.

The precise history of our flag is not known and there are many theories.  My information comes from what I was taught as a child (and that information is hardly reliable), http://www.usflag.org and Wikipedia.  Before 1912 the proportions and alignment of the various parts (stripes, stars, etc.) were left up to the flag maker but an executive order changed that.  On June 24, 1912 President Taft signed the order that “established proportions of the flag and provided for arrangement of the stars in six horizontal rows of eight each, a single point of each star to be upward.” (www.usflag.org)  Two other executive orders followed:

 

•  Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated January 3, 1959 – provided for the arrangement of the stars in seven rows of seven stars each, staggered horizontally and vertically.

•  Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated August 21, 1959 – provided for the arrangement of the stars in nine rows of stars staggered horizon tally and eleven rows of stars staggered vertically. (both from www.usgflag.org)

 

The Pledge of Allegiance:

 

It was written in September 1892 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance) for a children’s magazine by Francis Bellamy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy).  His goal was to make it quick so that it could be recited in under 15 seconds and originally was “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”   The National Flag Conference pushed to have the words ‘my flag’ changed to “the Flag of the .”  The allegiance became official by Congress in 1945.  The words ‘under God’ were not added until the 1950s during the anti-communist fever that swept the country as a way to distinguish us from the ‘godless communists,’ and is why I leave it out when I say it and in the version at the top of the page.  Politicians love to bring up what our founding fathers’ would have wanted and while I am not a big fan of that, I am pretty sure they would not have approved of including ‘under god’ in our official allegiance.

 

Flag Day:

 

The day “commemorates the adoption of the flag of the , which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Day_in_the_United_States)  Some people refer to the day as the “flag’s birthday.”

 

Seeing as we are at war right now, it feels especially important to celebrate the flag and all it represents.  The reason I am so opinionated about all things political is I am very patriotic and think it is all of our responsibility to try to improve things here.

 

Happy Birthday Flag!

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