Sep 12 2008
Apartment manager bans flying American flags (Update: Flag ban repealed)
Update: The Ban has been repealed.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/28253009.html
Just in time for the 7th anniversary of 9/11. Nice.
Operators of a Vancouver, Wash. Apartment complex subsidized by the taxpayer-funded Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, have told residents they cannot fly or display American flags on or in their homes.
Residents of the Brandt Terrace apartment complex received a letter in August saying they could be evicted for displaying “signage” on their homes, including flags.
The ban extended to displaying flags in windows or putting small flags in planters or other outside locations.
The ban does not sit well with residents, including a Vietnam veteran, many of whom wanted to fly American flags on Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.
Some residents continued to display flags on their property in defiance of the directive.
A manager at the complex, Dariya Tinkova, told KATU News she was “following the community rules” in enforcing the ban but would not say who was making the rules.
KATU News has tried to contact officials at HUD for clarification after a thorough search of their Web site failed to find any stipulation or rules against flying American flags on HUD properties.
This is regulation run amok. Since when is a flag, particularly the American flag, the equivalent to a Sign, Advertisement, Notice or other Lettering, as the notice to the residents showed.
The desire to display the colors, to fly the American Flag on holidays and such is such a common occurrence, who can possible defend this?
I can understand cautions against damage to the building, but a 6 inch flag in a flowerpot?
Seriously?
This sounds more like a case of a power hungry management company than a regulating with any actual purpose.
The only purpose served here is to piss people off, and to show disrespect to their sense of patriotism.
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2 Responses to “Apartment manager bans flying American flags (Update: Flag ban repealed)”
Two things apply to the apartment manager (and likely the upper/mid level bureaucracy that supervises the apt mgr):
1.” When a stupid man does something he knows is wrong, he always claims it is his duty”–the Centurion in Shaw’s “Antony and Cleopatra” BTW, “Man” here applies. Dariya Tinkova doesn’t get a bye just for being a woman.
2. Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy also seems to apply:
Seems a HUD apartment manager falls into the second class of bureaucrat. Hmm… From exposure to government workers in general (sadly, two members of my extended family work for government agencies–and another used to work fairly high up in the IRS), I can pretty confidently assert that most mid-level and above “feddle (rhymes with “meddle”) gummint” bureaucrats fall into the second class described by Pournelle’s Law.
Handily enough,
1. local spores of the Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind are not always fully assimilated into the collective and so actually report such events as noted above and
2. the internet is a wonderful thing, allowing local stories like this to have wider than merely local play when the Hivemind would suppress them.
Thank you for posting this news.
A couple days ago (I think it was), I tried trackback pinging to this entry, after linking to it… And I just tried again, but it still is giving me an “Error!” message. I will have to go with the “poor man’s ping”…
Trackback from Quick Post, while Composing More Bloggage, University Blog
Thanks, and please keep up the good work, with your fine site!