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Letters to the editor: Betsy, Thomas and the flag Charlotte Albedron, 12, wrote this essay for a competition in her sixth grade English class. She attends Cunningham Middle School in Presque Isle, Maine. I feel very strongly that this sensitive young girl's message cuts through all the missiles and remarks made about the Ashland flag-burning. "The American Flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain. School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth. Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag's real meaning remains." Al Bodin, Ashland Buckley, Bush foster an 'us vs. them' attitude The opening sentence of William F. Buckley Jr.'s, May 31 commentary caught my attention. "The program initiated by�evangelical Christian ministers to accost Islam by teaching the tenets of the Christian faith�to Muslims is very good stuff, overdue." In the following paragraph this iconic old war-horse of the right adds an aura of holiness to our war by emphasizing the tactical link between Marines fighting in Iraq and Protestant missionaries proselytizing to Muslims. Although he downplays the Holy War aspect with his disclaimer that "Nowhere�was our venture in Iraq dressed in crusader's battle dress," he conveniently forgets Bush's unfortunate call after 9-11 for a crusade against terrorism. The Muslim world took note of that historically loaded term and has likely not forgotten it. Buckley ends by implying that some brave leader should do as Reagan did with communism and declare the religion of one fifth of the earth's inhabitants an evil empire! That Buckley feels safe in blatantly fanning the fires of religious intolerance so soon into the postwar period is an ominous sign of the direction our current administration's "us versus them" attitude may take us. Arne Mason, Ashland LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -