To see more of Alex’s work, his professional website is here, and his blog "Sidewalk Photography" is here.

NOTE: This video runs for over 48 minutes, and Bob doesn’t start speaking until about 32 seconds on the clock, so be patient with the black screen.

This photograph from the Library of Congress is titled:
Airplane on battleship deck with American flag in foreground.

It says further down in the text that the person who cataloged the photo titled it. I can’t imagine how daunting a task it must have been—to catalog the thousands of photographs taken by the military photographers during the war years. So I won’t grumble that the cataloger called the ship a battleship instead of an aircraft carrier.

I can’t tell enough about the airplane to identify it—so O Reader, if you can identify it, please comment below.

What I CAN tell you is that the photographer most likely spent a long time waiting for all these elements to come together. He knew they would eventually—and then he recorded it for us.

CALL NUMBER: LC-USF343- 091270-C [P&P]
REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USF343-091270-C (b&w film neg.)
MEDIUM: 1 negative : safety ; 4 x 5 inches or smaller.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: [between 1935 and 1942]
NOTES: Title devised by cataloger.
Transfer; United States. Office of War Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington Division; 1944.
SUBJECTS: United States.
FORMAT: Safety film negatives.
PART OF: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540
DIGITAL ID: (intermediary roll film) fsa 8e03045 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8e03045
OTHER NUMBER: C 96452
CONTROL #: fsa2000055851/PP

From the Library of Congress: Fort Monroe, Virginia, 1864

(f) The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.

Believing that most laws (and rules) have an originating  factor, my mind races to understand what must have transpired requiring this sentence’s inclusion in the Flag Code.

I can see it now—

Dateline Washington D.C., June 1942. Hot and muggy, Congress is in session hammering out one of the most important documents requiring their attention—the United States Flag Code.

The Distinguished Congressman from West Virginia, "I say gentlemen. We need to make sure no one uses the American flag for a bedspread in their private bedroom. This would demonstrate willful disrespect for Old Glory."

The Distinguished Congressman from Minnesota, "Well, unless its made out of wool, it wouldn’t be warm enough to use in my home state, but someone might use it to decorate the ceiling of their fishing shed."

West Virginia Congressman—"You don’t say … Hmmm, maybe we should include a ban on using the flag to cover a ceiling instead."

Congress in unison, "Hey, that’s a really, really good idea. We all make a motion to add a sentence to the Flag Code banning ceiling covering."

Congress in unison, "Second the motion."

" I have a motion and a second, all in favor? … Motion carried by majority. Now included in the United States Flag Code is a sentence banning any individual from covering their ceiling with an American flag."

Ok, maybe my rendition isn’t historically accurate*, but just think about it. What factors could have taken place that even brought this to their minds with enough force to ban the practice? I can’t imagine.

I also wanted to include a photograph with this editorial showing the U.S. Flag covering a ceiling, but this is the only example I could find, dated 1896—almost 50 years before it became a violation. At least this law against disrespect has worked.

*This is a dramatization. The U.S. Flag Code was a compilation from many different sources—State Flag Desecration Laws, Military Flag Codes, and more, compiled in 1923 by the National Flag Conference.

Screen capture from Deborah’s Google news reader

And as much as I love the Lone Star flag (Larry too!), we are greatly relieved that the Texas primary elections are behind us now, because our Google news readers were swamped with hits for “Texas flag” and “Lone Star flag.” Hundreds of stories every day with Texas flag or Lone Star flag—often both—in the same story, and frequently repeated several times.

From the beginning of Flags Bay, I set up my Google reader to search for every state’s flag, and now as the politicians have traveled around the country on their campaigns, that state’s flag usually shows up in the news stories.

Only Ohio’s primary came anywhere near to producing as many flag stories as the Texas primary. Ohio’s pennant-shaped flag is unique among all the state flags, and was prominently features throughout the campaign process. But Wyoming’s flag was scarcely mentioned in their recent primary election, and Wyoming has a terrific flag!

On the maps below, from the The Washington Post, the states shown in white are states that have NOT held their primary elections. I hope those state flags will be featured if for no other reason than for me to build up my reserve stock of state flag photos!

maps of the Primaries from the Washington Post

*Larry likes to read about fast cars; I like to read about fast boats and fast airplanes—specifically P.T. boats and B-25 bombers. Go figure.

(But if you car alarm can’t stand up to cannon fire, what good is it really. Are you going to trust it with your CD player?)