Flag Day

The US flag with all its stripes and a few of its stars was adopted by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777. But today, overpriced textbooks and underpaid schoolteachers have sanitized most of our history and hidden the early controversies while fluffing half-truths, leaving us unclear about what that flag really stands [...]

The Perils Of Flickr’s “May Offend” Button

Quite a while ago now, stepinrazor asked people to do some self-censorhip in a post in the Flickr Ideas forum. FlyButtafly quickly joined the discussion, noting that she’d encountered some material she found offensive in pictures from other Flickr members: “as I’m going through the pictures, one shows up of a protestor holding a sign [...]

Burning Patriotism

My feelings on the Flag Burning Desecration Amendment should have been clear from my Flag Day story. Still, let me offer the t-shirts above as confirmation.
america, burn, citizenship, civil liberties, civil liberty, first amendment, flag burning, flag desecration, flag desecration amendment, free speech, liberty, patriot, patriotism, rights

What Bloggers Need To Know About Cahill v. Doe

Wendy Seltzer alerts us to the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling last week in Cahill v. Doe, a case that tested our rights to anonymity online, as well as the standard for judging defamation.
As it turns out, the court decided against the plaintiff, a city councilman, and protected the identity of “Proud Citizen,” who the councilman [...]