Raising the American Flag for Dummies

United States flag

You can find almost anything on the internet: we know, because the internet says so. What the research staffers at the Antisocial Network have also found to be true is that no matter what the topic, you can find someone on the internet babbling about it for money and, unfortunately, what they say isn't necessarily correct. The mother lode of misinformation seems to be the Demand Media (now Leaf Group) sites like eHow. SFGate and Synonym, but there are plenty of other places as well. eHow's the former home of today's DOTD, three-time winner Jonae Fredericks, who took time out from her usual writing about cooking and disease symptoms to explain "How to Raise the Flag"¹ (now at HomeSteady.com)

We'll go along with Jonae's assumption that the OQ meant "the American flag," since anything else becomes too complex for the 300-500 word DMS target (aka "minimum word count"). Where Jonae starts going off track is, as usual for her, in the introduction:

"When raising the American flag, there is a specific set of rules that needs to be followed in accordance with government guidelines. There are also special instructions that relate to the care of your American flag. Along with these rules are misconceptions concerning flag care, such as the need to bring a flag in during inclement weather and burn it if it touches the ground. These steps give you some basic rules to follow when raising an American flag."

Here, Fredericks (a cosmetologist by training) nibbles around the edges of mentioning an official document known as the United States Flag Code, a document she neither references nor mentions at all. As usual, Jonae misinterprets or misunderstands much of what she transcribes in her copy-reword-paste job, including points like "misconceptions... such as the need to bring a flag in during inclement weather," a point on which she herself has misconceptions. Whatever the case, Jonae's job here was to explain "How to Raise the Flag." Here's what she said: "Slowly raise the American flag to the peak of the flagpole, and then gently lower it to fly it at half staff. "

Say what? No, no, no, Jonae! The flag code specifically states that "The flag should be hoisted briskly and lowered ceremoniously." And more to the point, the original question says nothing about flying the flag at half staff!

Jonae pumped out more than 400 words on the topic of how to display the flag in several different settings, including her incorrect instructions for flying the flag at half staff, yet never once mentioned that the Code specifies that our flag be raised "briskly." With dumbassery like that, it's no wonder she's our Dumbass of the Day... again! We just want to know, can you cancel someone's voter registration for stupidity?

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_4516479_raise-flag.html

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