University Begins Displaying American Flag in Classrooms

(CNSNews.com) - The first American flag in a Florida state university classroom was unfurled at the University of Central Florida in Orlando on Friday afternoon as a result of an effort led by conservative students.

"This is a great day for UCF students," said Heather Smith, president of Rebuilding on a Conservative Kornerstone, or ROCK, a student-based group that has been working for months to have the flags placed in the school's classrooms.

Smith said it is national emblem of freedom and liberty. However, critics of the plan said the American flags would be used to show political support for President Bush and U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, issues that not all students agree on.

Several months ago, the school administration approved the group's request to hang flags in every classroom, and UCF officials even offered to provide the labor necessary to install them. However, ROCK was required to come up with the funds to buy the flags.

The organization asked the university's student government for about $3,000 to obtain 200 flags. On Aug. 28, the student leaders voted 20-13 to deny that request after some representatives said they wanted the university - not student fees - to pay for the purchase.

"I would consider this an invasion of what is supposed to be a bastion of critical thought, the university," said Robert Coffman, a junior majoring in English at the school. "What's the next proposal? Let's have President Bush's photo in every classroom?"

"The flag doesn't offend me personally," said UCF sophomore Matt De Vlieger, a native of Coral Springs, Fla. "The way it's being used does offend me."

"It's a shame that our extremist student government is so out of step with the average UCF student," said Thomas Dexter, vice president of ROCK, after the decision was made.

However, local radio talk show host Shannon Burke heard about the vote and decided to raise money for ROCK's effort during his morning program. Within an hour, Burke had gathered all the needed funds.

The biggest contribution to the project came from the state's Elks organization (the original founders of Flag Day), which donated more than $2,000. Also providing financial support were the local SunTrust Bank, people in the Orlando community and UCF alumni and students.

On Thursday, Sept. 4, the flags for every classroom were delivered to the UCF campus. "With the money that ROCK has raised privately," Smith said, "the flags will be installed this month."

Smith had worked closely with Adam Guillette, a University of Florida senior and chairman of the Freedom Foundation. Following their success at UCF, Smith and Guillette plan to help students at other colleges promote the idea on their campuses.

Still, the controversy over the project hasn't gone away. Some students gathered outside the UCF Student Union this past week to protest the effort, with some of the youths calling the American flag "fascist" and "offensive."

Nevertheless, Burke dismissed those who claim that the flags are being used in a partisan way. "The American flag transcends any political issue," he said.

See Earlier Story: Students Push for American Flags in College Classrooms (July 25, 2003)

Perhaps my catagorization is technically wrong but I see both "Waiting for Godot" and "Finnegan's Wake" as surrealistic as well as some of Kafka's work. But I lump Theater of the Absurd, Modernism and Surrealism into the same irrationalist basket, none of them I find particularly interesting.

Of course you don't listen much to Cage, there is nothing to listen to (in some cases literally nothing.) The man is a charletan. Compared to Mozart and hundreds of other composers he is a bad joke.

Pullman anticipated Ford by decades.

Primitive cultures' rites and symbols are generally based upon real history and are adopted with the view that using them will produce positive good for their societies. That is rationality. Magic is an attempt to use techniques for specific ends and can be compared to our use of science. They do not do things without an expectation of good results and, to me, that is rationality.

Tradition is sanctified by Time and Satchmo and Elvis will be part of American tradition. However, in the latter's case he was taking the tradition of the Blues and Black music and adapting it to his time.

However, I want to return to the original topic a bit. Your expressed concern about a new repressive atomsphere on campus can only come about when you ignore what has been happening there (not yours specifically) for the last 40 yrs.

Any discussion of Free Speech must not ignore the egregious violations of it by Leftist ideologues. It has never been conservatives who attend speeches by their enemies and shout them down or riot or threaten violence. But this is standard operating procedure for the Left, ask Ann Coulter or David Horowitz or Edward Banfield or many others about the threats they routinely receive when scheduled to speak.

It is not conservatives who routinely destroy newspapers printed by their enemies. It is the Left which has done so in dozens of instances. It is the Left which has been desperate to prevent the ideas of its enemies from being heard. It is the Left which attempts to prevent Clarence Thomas from speaking, conservatives NEVER attempt to prevent Ruth Ginsburg from speaking. It is the Left which routinely protests and attempts to marginalize books such as The Bell Curve not through argument and debate but through censorship.

It is not conservatives who attempt to prevent fellow students from speaking their minds, it is the Left which has ginned up "hate speech" codes to stop the free expression of ideas which it opposes. Hence the regular and repeated hurling of epithets such as "racist," "sexist," and "homophobe" at those who dare to express views contrary to Political Correctness (a Marxist concept.)

There is plenty of reason to be concerned about the suppression of Free Speech on campuses across the nation but not by conservatives, by far and without a shred of doubt the THREAT TO FREE SPEECH COMES FROM THE LEFT not the Right.

The divisions within avant-garde movement are worthy of much study. I teach avant-garde history at the graduate level, so I believe I am on firm ground (backed up by much research) when I say that Surrealism departs from Modernism and the Theater of the Absurd significantly.

Cage is not a charlatan, but is in fact one of the most important avant-garde figures in the 20-th century, up there with Duchamp, and Warhol.

I don't know much about Pullman, but I will look into him. You are probably right that he is a significant figure., Stillm I've not heard of "Pullmanism" as I have of "Fordism."

Primitive cultures don't have history in the same way that modern cultures do. Read Hayden White's historiography on this.

Your point about tradition, inclucing Elvis, points to the way tradition works -- through syncretism and hybridity. This notion of "pure tradition" is a fallacy, and it seems to be used often by the Right. The left, on the other hand, in general, seems to embrace hybridity and syncretism (though I make exception s and offer no excuses for fanatics like Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.)

I don't agree with the politically correct movement on campuses. The fact is, howvere, that the P.C. folks, which the Right enjoys bashing so much, are a small and dwindling minority not only on campuses, but in the left generally.

The right has their own version of P.C. thought as well, and a lot of inflexible people who also practice the techniques of shouting down opponents, intimaditing them, etc. I've seen it at demonstrations many times.

Perhaps avant-garde is a better lumping of those three concepts.

In twenty years Cage will be forgotten except as an example of the ability of intellectuals to fool themselves. Actually, I don't believe there is much modern music other than Jazz and Rock which will be remembered or considered significant. Warhol I put in the same catagory as Cage. DuChamp created one piece I find interesting but not much else. He is far down the list of modern artists I have any regard for. Certainly I don't appreciate him as much as Kandinsky and the Suprematists or Miro, Klimt, Klee, even Picasso.

It appears to me that culture has collapsed in general in almost every area with few examples of quality. Certainly nothing that can compare to even that of 50 yrs. ago when Faulkner, Stravinsky, Picasso, Shostakovitch were still creating. Now about all that is left is boringly pretentious annoyances. Unfortunately, most people are too intimidated to give their opinions on such things for fear of being considered unsophisticated rubes.

Particularly annoying are the attempts by the concert halls to force modern music down the throats of the audience. Knowing that few in their right minds would attend performances of modern composers, programs are designed which couple music people want to hear with abominations they hate. So, in order to hear the good, one must suffer through the screeches, shrieks and howls which pass as modern compositions.

Pullman was one of the first creators of company towns for his workers and most of the lives of those living there was controlled and monitored by company officials. His intent was benign and intended to help the workers but that sort of thing never stays that way.

Now that conservative groups have taken to the courts the speech codes are being overturned but the shouting down at speeches (not demonstrations) and destruction of newspapers continue. PCers were never anything but a small minority but they imposed their will upon the majorities because most of the latter did not care about politics (look at the number of voters in student government elections) and did not contest the seizure of positions of power by the Leftists. I know how this works because I actually did it. They were able to shout down and control because of their degree of organization and committment to the "Movement."

I see nothing wrong with shouting down and arguing at demonstrations, threats are another matter but those are generally from Leftists. Speeches inside lecture halls are an entirely different matter. There are very few examples of conservatives actually doing such things however. Mostly they are too polite and well-mannered to do that. (Not me but I enjoy a good fight or argument.)

Cage represents my point about hybridity perfectly. One of Cage's students is Brian Eno, who has had a huge impact on rock and jazz. Eno, like Cage is a theorist. One of the things about the pure avant-garde is that the original experiments, while not "popular," have tremendous power to influence the culture. That's what I mean by Cage being one of the giants of the 20th Century avant-garde. His influence is almost incalculable. So is Duchamp's. Both are progenitors of the "found object" and of "sampling," perhaps the most significant inventions in 20th century media culture.

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