OF3-07/13/12 8:25 AM
A FLAG FLAP IN MASSACHUSETTS
The Osgood File. Sponsored in part by Sage - turning numbers into knowledge that your business can use. Make your business smarter and your life easier with services from Sage. I'm Sam Litzinger sitting in for Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network.
Here's one way to make a lot of Americans mad: tell them they can't hang an American flag where they live.
SOT: Unidentified Wrentham resident
"This is un-American. I don't think that's right at all." (:03)
More after this from Charlie.
((( SPOTS )))
Big trouble in the little town of Wrentham, Massachusetts. A notice went up on doors, saying residents of the town's senior citizen housing complex could not display the American flag outside their units. What do you think the reaction was?
SOT: Don Pike, Wrentham resident
"If I had an American flag, I'd put it out there right now." (:03)
Don Pike lives in the complex and he thinks the flag ban was an incredibly stupid idea.
SOT: Don Pike, Wrentham resident
"That's a lot of baloney to me." (:02)
The flag ban sparked a public outcry - with statements from the governor and a U-S Senator saying this was obviously a mistake. One elderly woman who got the ban notice says she was so upset, she had to go lie down.
Now - a ban on the ban. WBZ TV Reporter Bree Sison reads a portion of the statement from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development saying, in essence - go ahead and hang all the American flags you want!
SOT: Bree Sison, Reporter, WBZ TV
"The state retracts the ban, saying it was meant to affect displays of private materials." (:04)
Officials say they're still trying to figure out exactly why this ban was posted on residents' doors in the first place. Apparently there was a complaint and the ban was a form of bureaucratic overkill. And as you heard, a lot of residents were very unhappy. The housing department says it's gotten some of the nastiest emails you've ever seen - nasty enough that police were called in case words turned into action.
Whatever the intention of the flag ban was, it's had one big effect: they are actually MORE flags hanging from doorways in the housing complex NOW than there were before the ban was imposed.
The Osgood File. Sam Litzinger on the CBS Radio Network. |
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