The American Flag is Disrespectful on Cinco de Mayo?

by Greg Knapp

We’ve reached a new low. A high school disciplined students for wearing American flag t-shirts to school because they did so on Cinco de Mayo. As some of the students of Mexican descent explained – “That’s ‘our’ day.”

“We knew it was Cinco de Mayo. But we just came to show our flag,” said student Dominic Maciel. “We didn’t mean anything by it. We didn’t want to start anything. Nothing like that.”

We obviously aren’t teaching our kids well. They should know that the American flag is offensive in America! I blame the parents.

Student Anthony Caravalho was also sent home for not turning his shirt inside out. “They said we had to wear our t-shirts inside out and then we could go back to class and we said no,” said Caravalho. “It would be disrespectful to the flag by hiding it.”

It’s our flag that’s disrespectful. They could have avoided trouble and been hailed as tolerant if they’d burned the American flag t-shirts.

Some Mexican-American students KTVU spoke with said they thought wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo was disrespectful. “It’s just kinda disrespectful that they would do that on this day,” said student Victoria Wright. “I mean, we don’t go around on 4th of July wearing red white and green and saying ‘Viva Mexico,’ because that’s disrespectful.”

Sure they live in America, they’re getting a free education at taxpayers expense, and they have tremendous opportunities here they wouldn’t have in Mexico, but they want to celebrate the country their parents couldn’t wait to get out of. That makes perfect sense. Huh?
I am a first generation American. My mother came over from England after WWII. My grandfather died flying for the RAF. But I don’t see England as my country. I’m an American and proud of it. I like England and I respect my ancestry, but I LOVE America and never find flying her flag disrespectful. The vast majority of legal immigrants feel as I do. I don’t understand the ones who don’t.

Dominic Maciel said his father is of Mexican descent. “I have no problem with them wearing their Mexican stuff, their Mexican flags,” said Maciel. “I just thought I’d show my pride. American pride.”

Way to go, Dominic. I’m not easily shocked by how far we’ve gone in the PC game. But this one got me today.

What do you think??

curbside freebie

Tonight I did my first curbside freebie grab! A neighbor had set out a dresser last night and I passed it by. I didn't have time or space in my SUV to grab it so I decided if it was still there today it was meant to be. I totally forgot about it til tonight coming home from AWANA.

But there it was still waiting to go home with me!

I told Hubby about it and he promised after filing time sheets for work and IF his allergies calmed down he would drive the get away truck. :) I was too eager to wait on him after being home 2 hours so I grabbed my daughters and drove down the block. Imagine my surprise when the dresser turned out to be SOLID WOOD!!!!!! The girls and I couldn't pick it up alone so we flagged down a man and he loaded it for us.

The dresser maybe solid wood but someone gave it a good dose of "faux stone" white spray paint. HELLO! It is WOOD not "rock"!!! So it will be a beast to sand down.

Now to decide what to do with it.
Color?
Keep it as a dresser?
Make a cool book shelf/toy storage?

I hope to use Princess's laptop camera to get some pics of it on here tomorrow. We'll see as I am tech challenged.

hearth bread- from the Gold Metal bag

3 1/3 cups Gold Metal Better for Bread flour

1/4 cup Gold Metal whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 1/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast

1 1/3 cups water

1 teaspoon honey

1. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off with knife. In medium bowl, stir together flours, salt and yeast. Stir in water and honey. Place dough on lightly floured surface,. Knead dough until smooth and springy, but still slightly sticky. Add flour or water if necessary. Lightly brush oil inside of large bowl. Place dough in bowl, turning dough to oil all sides. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about an hour or until dough doubles in size. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.
2. Line cookie sheet with cooking parchment paper, or lightly sprinkle with cornmeal. Gently push fist into dough to deflate. Flatten dough; shape into round ball. Place on cookie sheet. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 45 minutes or until dough doubles in size. Place baking stone on lowest oven rack. Heat oven to 475*F Carefully cut and X-shape on top of dough; spray with cool water. Place cookie sheet in oven on baking stone; place 1 cup water in shallow pan on other rack.
3. bake 10 minutes; reduce heat to 425*F. Bake an additional 20 minutes or until bread is golden brown and skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on cooling rack. 

12 slices

this bread has NO fat and will go stale in a day.
left overs make great bread crumbs and stuffing

stir-ins-

1/4 cup of 1 or 2 of the following into dough--

Kalamata olives, roasted garlic cloves, cut up sun-dried tomatoes, sliced chives, shelled sunflower seeds, 

1 teaspoon fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs, such as rosemary or thyme

sorry I haven't been around

We are working on finishing up the school year. One child is done. One to go. One that doesn't want to stop because learning is fun! The homeschool convention is this weekend and we can't wait to pick up our new school stuff and maybe find some fun extras to add in.

I have also been suffering with the worst allergy season to hit in a while. The weather man says this allergy season is so bad because we actually got a long record breaking snowy winter here in North TX...oh joy! I am taking Sudafed during the day to get some relief and knocking myself out with Benadryl at night. I wish the non-drowsy Benadryl would work on my allergies then maybe I could function during the day or at least not be so scary looking. Ahem. Knowing my luck I will get my sniffles under control just in time to head to Montana for a mini vacation and my nephew's high school graduation where the allergy season will just be starting.

Today the sickies have invaded the house and Bub is down for the count. I hope he will feel well enough to finish AWANA tonight. In the mean time he has added to my laundry pile and my things-to-scrub list. As I wait on the sanitary cycle to finish in the washer I am going to try and bake bread from scratch. I haven't baked bread in over a decade so this is a bit nerve racking.  I'll be using the helpful hints from this post to guide me.

I'll be MIA a lot until the end of the month because of up coming events. I am trying to set up some posts to fill in until I am more settled with my schedule in June.