A Letter to W&L University

The writer, Bill Dennison, posted this letter to Facebook and noted that contact information was removed because Facebook does not allow it. The letter is reproduced here with Mr. Dennison's kind permission.

July 10, 20114

Mr. Kenneth Ruscio, President
Washington and Lee University

Mr. Daniel Wubah, Provost
Washington and Lee University

Mr. James D. Farrar, Jr., Secretary of the University
Washington & Lee University

Ms. Katherine Brinkley, Executive Assistant to the Board of Trustees
Washington & Lee University

Re: Restriction and Removal of Southern Confederacy Related Items, Action and Speech

Dear Sirs and Madam:

The purpose of this letter is to express my concern regarding action(s) announced by President Ruscio relative to the Army of Northern Virginia regimental flag replicas surrounding the Edward Valentine sculpture, "The Recumbent Lee", the Lee-Jackson Day parade entering onto the Washington & Lee campus and the censorship of presentations made by private groups in Lee Chapel.

Straying a bit from the heart of the matter at hand, I would point out two things that I would have thought would have been obvious. First, because of the location in Lexington of Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s home, his burial place and the presence of the Virginia Military Institute where Jackson taught and which produced many renowned Confederate leaders, coupled with the fact that the final resting place of Gen. Robert E. Lee is on the campus of Washington and Lee University that many credit Lee with saving from extinction because of his efforts there, people throughout the South, the nation and the world hold the City of Lexington as an almost iconic place and travel great distances to visit.

With that thought in mind, I would submit that while the physical location of the flags and the others symbols of the Confederacy may be situate on the Washington & Lee campus, in a larger sense they belong to the people of this country, particularly those of us who happen to be Southern and especially we Virginians.

I know that "The Committee" claims, that the flags symbolize slavery and because of that they find them “offensive”. I would submit to you that a thorough review of Confederate history will demonstrate conclusively that the issues were, and are, far more complex than that simplistic viewpoint and that these people are “offended” primarily because they choose to be. In fact, one of them, at least, was in his third year of law school before the "offense" became intolerable. Contrary to current "progressive" thought, no one has an unalienable right not to be offended. To paraphrase a comment from another who opined on the matter, for a student holding sentiments such as those of "The Committee" to apply to and attend a university named Washington and Lee is akin to someone enlisting in the Navy when they know they are prone to seasickness.

I included this observation in an earlier letter, but I think it bears repeating. The targeted flags are regimental battle flags representing some of the regiments that Lee commanded in the Army of Northern Virginia. They are soldiers' flags, not, as many would have you believe, symbolic of anything other than the brotherhood of valor that comprised that gallant body of men, Lee's "boys". Those flags are there representing the devotion and respect of those veterans for their old commander, "Marse Robert".

President Ruscio's statement that, " “The purpose of historic flags in a university setting is to educate. They are not to be displayed for decoration, which would diminish their significance, or for glorification, or to make a statement about past conflicts . The reproductions are not genuinely historic, nor are they displayed with any information or background about what they are. The absence of such explanation allows those who either ‘oppose’ or ‘support’ them to assert their own subjective and frequently incorrect interpretations.”, is disingenuous at best and a bald-faced distortion of the true history of how the flags came to be there in the first place, and why. They were not placed there to be "in a university setting" at all. They were placed there to honor the man who led those regiments and the fact that the current flags are reproductions and have no information or background regarding them is moot . . . neither did the originals and the reason there are reproductions there at all is because the originals were deteriorating. The entire statement is pure spin, and amateurishly done at that.

Finally we get to the "marching" and the addresses in the Chapel. The only "marching" that transpires is a single event on a single day out of an entire calendar year is by people who gather in Lexington for the Lee-Jackson Day parade and memorial service in Lee Chapel. This is done solely to honor the memory and service of two great Virginians, not to espouse or advance any agenda. Whether "The Committee" likes it or not, Lee Chapel is an icon, a beacon that draws people from all walks of life and from all parts of the country for this one hour service, once a year. To deny them this privilege for the sake of the demands of .4 of 1% of the total enrollment of the institution is outrageous.

The final restriction on what may or may not be said during lectures or presentations in Lee Chapel is pure, unadulterated censorship, completely out-of-place in a venue where freedom of thought and expression should be encouraged and defended.

This entire exercise in nothing but a thinly veiled effort by the university administration to kowtow to the racially charged demands of a vocal minority and relegate salient portions of the true history of the university to the dustbin of history. It is unfair, unwarranted, based largely on fallacy and is, above all, cowardly.

Very truly yours,

W. A. Dennison, Jr.

I will have more to say about this, and other W&L related items in future posts. ~Connie

Just Sayin'

From a comment at Crossroads:

Mnemosyne on July 9, 2014 at 1:21 pm said:

I remember reading about “bless your heart” being a slight somewhere before. Connie Chastain seemed to use it that way a lot.

Interesting. I don't know where Mnemosyne imagines she has seen me using it that way a lot, but obviously not here on my blog, because I virtually never use the phrase at all. Here or anywhere else.

The number of times it appears on Backsass (in these variations -- bless your [his, her, their] heart) is quite small -- in only five posts -- and every time it appears, I'm quoting someone else (most notably Mrs. Kevin (Michaela) Levin, who wishes for Southerners to meet an early death from what they eat, and who doesn't seem to have a good grasp of singular vs. plural).

Some of the other people who used that phrase which shows up here include Eric A. Jacobson, Josephine Bass, Jeffry Burden.

Here's the search result. http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/search?q=bless  I admit this isn't the most reliable search function I've ever used, so if you have a better one, search it yourself.

http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-challenge-for-eric-jacobson.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/12/motives-agenda-and-character.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-following-comments-in-italics-are.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-wish-for-early-croakin.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/12/yeah-what-is-it-with-some-people.html

Just another little proof that truth and fact are not an integral part of the floggosphere...

Bad Photoshop Images for Andy

But they do get the point across, don't they?

 

How Dishonest Can Floggers Get?

Now they're portraying understandable anger and disapproval of W&L's handling of the flag situation as not caring about historic flags.

I used to wonder whether they were just so entrapped by their leftist viewpoints that they couldn't tell what they were doing ... or whether they were deliberately misstating things.

I don't wonder anymore. I am thoroughly convinced that they are deliberately misstating things. To focus totally on a couple of hot-heads and try to palm them off as representative of all Southern heritage supporters is blatant dishonesty -- and they do it knowingly, and with dishonorable motives.

And their apparent belief that "the committee" is as pure as the driven snow in their motives is also dishonest. Anybody who has paid even the slightest attention to the machinations of the left since the middle of the 20th century knows exactly what's going on here.

The notion that the administration, faculty, students, etc., at W&L are indifferent to this cultural and historical cleansing is flogger spin.  People acquiesce to this kind of crap because they've seen for the past 50 to 60 years what happens, increasingly, if you speak up.  And it's worse now than it has ever been.

But somebody is speaking up. The Virginia Flaggers.  And they're inspiring countless others to shed their fears and speak out as well.  They are truly awakening dormant Southern pride and rallying Southerners across the Confederacy to take pride in their heritage.

That terrifies the "civil war left" the way the Tea Party terrifies left-liberal Democrats (and for much the same reasons) ... hence the horrendous attempts to discredit the VaFlaggers and the reprehensible attacks on Susan Hathaway.

Yet the VaFlaggers keep clipping along.  Two big flags by the side of the highway in Virginia are stirring Southern hearts with pride. And, amazingly, no great calamity has befallen Richmond or Fredericksburg as a result.

I don't know about y'all, but I would LOVE to see another giant flag by the highway in the vicinity of ... Lexington.

Is This Flag....

...a 48-star flag that was flying over Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked?

Or is it a contemporary 50-star flag?

If it's the latter, shouldn't it be replaced with a 48-star flag that was flying over Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked?

I mean, that's the reasoning (? smirk) of the floggers re: the flags in the alcove at Lee Chapel.

I don't know if the flag in this photo is 50-star or 48 star. But by the reasoning of the floggers, it should be a HISTORIC 48-star flag, one that was flying there when the attack occurred.  And it should go in some basement museum... except you can't do that at the Arizona memorial, or it would get wet.  In any case, any 48-star flag made now to go on the memorial would be a "replica" and "replicas" shouldn't be allowed, per floggers.

Hypocrisy, double-standards, a fine disregard for truth and logic, and a lust to denigrate...  Hallmarks of flogger "thinking."

(Updated!) The Texas Scalawag Droneth....

...On and On. Again

Andy says, "The focus of the present-day Washington and Lee University is exactly where it should be, on Lee’s contributions and legacy to the school. I have no doubt whatever that, were he here today, like Jefferson before him Lee would be more proud of the university he helped build than anything else he did in his public life."

Izzat right? Andy has no doubt about that? Well, you know what? Andy's absence of doubt doesn't cut the mustard with me; it doesn't make him right. Frankly, I couldn't care less what Andy has no doubts about.

Back in 2000, when his book, Robert E. Lee on Leadership, was released, author H. W. Crocker was interviewed on C-SPAN. The interviewer asked him about Lee's plantation or some such, and Crocker said, "Lee was a soldier, not a planter."

He was not an educator, either, although he did a fantastic job as the administrator of an educational institution after the war, where his leadership abilities saved Washington College from extinction.

But he was, in fact, a career soldier. Attended flippin' WEST POINT to prepare for a lifetime of military leadership. But Andy wants to tell us he would be prouder of his 5 or so years at Washington College than he was of his dedicated and brilliant performances and accomplishments in HIS CHOSEN PROFESSION?

Give me a flippin' break.

Talk about yer "history revision." Nobody does it better than fake historians like floggers.

If Andy is right, why doesn't the statue, Recumbent Lee, depict the general in the garb of a university administrator, dozing at his desk? Why does it picture him as a general in the Confederate army  -- in uniform, boots and all, sword at hand -- asleep as if in his field tent?

Over at Levin's blawg, Andy leaves this comment: "None of the predictably outraged responses I’ve seen so far acknowledge that (1) the flags being removed are replicas that only date to 1995, and (2) that they will be replaced by a rotating exhibit of a *real* Confederate flag, beginning with one captured at the “high water mark” of the Confederacy at the stone wall at Gettysburg.

"Style over substance, flashy showmanship over realty. Same as always.."

What escapes Andy's notice, whether intentionally or not, is that IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER THE FLAGS WERE REPLICAS OR NOT. They were intended to honor the general's memory, and that's what they did.

The historic flags that were originally there (to honor Lee) were deteriorating, so the replicas were placed there to serve the same purpose as the removed historic flags -- to HONOR General Lee.

The "real" Confederate flag (why the quote marks, Andy?) that will so graciously "replace" the ones in the mausoleum will not be put in the alcove with the statue Recumbent Lee, so it really isn't "replacing" the removed flags at all. It will be put in the museum, which is downstairs. And it will not be put there as a tribute to Lee, to honor the general's memory. In fact, the  point of removing the flags, the very purpose of removing them, was to remove the tribute and honor to Lee -- in other words, the removal was intended to dishonor him.

Back at his own blawg, Andy created a disparagasm by referring to the "usual suspects" (Southern heritage folks) but linking to only one Facebook post written by an outraged Southron with bad grammar and bad spelling, and in typical Andy style, with blatant dishonesty, he attempt to use it to smear all those who oppose W&L's decision.

He says, "One common whinge that we’ve heard for a while now is the W&L has somehow turned its back on the legacy of Robert E. Lee."  It is certainly in the process. These six agitator students have paved the way for the next six or four or two. You know, it really only takes one complainer to  to get another chunk of our heritage removed. And however many more will follow them, and on and on, until there is nothing left of Lee at the university -- not even his name?

Andy surely knows -- though I'm sure he will pretend not to -- that there are people who want nothing more than to have Lee dishonored and expunged from the University and from history itself -- except as an example of Confederate evil.

So Andy doesn't like us standing up for one of the greatest historical figures in the South, the USA and the entire world? Tough.

   UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE  

More droning on and on and on...

At Simpson's blawg, Andy sez,

"It will be interesting to see what the Flagger crowd does, beyond making really bad Photoshop images and fluffing each other on Facebook."

This is all he sees so he thinks this is all there is.  Is that not a scream!!  LOL! Typical flogger two-year-old mentality.

As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon.  What a gullibull..."

He continues with what he "suspects."  As if that matters. "I suspect they will find that not very many in the W&L community — staff, faculty, students, alumni, donors — are particularly torqued about this change in policy and, as with their protests over Lexington’s flag ordinance, they have to bring in protesters from out-of-town to have a photo-op “advancing the colors.”

Hey, Andy, it's a trick they learned from minorities, union-types, Democrats and other assorted leftists. The difference being that most proSoutherners pay their own way... There's no Donna Brazil to by them lunch, cigarettes and a bus ticket to and from wherever they're needed.

"Say what you will about “the Committee,” unlike the Virginia Flaggers they actually pay tuition and have a stake in the university."

As if the VaFlaggers are the only ones who object to the university's cowardly caving.  Every time they open their bloggin' mouths, the floggers show who/what they are REALLY interested in.

Besides, how does he know that no Virginia Flaggers (or their parents or children) has paid tuition at W&L and has no stake in it?

What the Va Flaggers are doing has nothing whatever to do paying tuition or with their "stake" in W&L. It has to do with confronting those instigating Alinsky-type agitation designed to bring down the existing heritage, history and culture, Gramsci-style, and put in place some bizarre, unrecognizable leftist fantasy ... because, you know, communism and socialism worked so well in the USSR, eastern Europe, Cambodia and the like, where it murdered some  110,000,000 people in the 20th century. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM

Apparently to left-worshipping floggers, that is preferable to honoring Lee and the Confederacy.

(P.S.  Andy, let's see some of your photoshoppin' efforts, hun. And I don't mean some CAD program that does all the pretty-work for you. Let's see some of YOUR OWN creativity and execution.)

Disparagasms In the Floggosphere

All these weeks Simpson has been keeping quiet and playing "history" at his blawg, he musta been bustin' a gut to get back to doing what he loves best --  ridiculing and denigrating, disparaging and reviling people who disagree with him about history.

His followers have apparently missed lobbing put-downs, as well.  Because when the dam finally broke (pardon the mixed metaphors), the ridicule that geysered up and spewed forth at Crossroads would put Yellowstone to shame.

The lust to harass and ridicule permeates the entire floggosphere, though, not just Crossroads, as a tiptoe through that barren cyberland demonstrates.

For example, we've recently seen how Andy Hall manipulates facts to hurl insults at Southern heritage folks.  And now, he's putting his "scholarly" foot forward with this, regarding the flag removals at W&L: "He (Lee) did not, as far as I know, intend for it to become Confederate Candyland or a reliquary to the Lost Cause, as some seem to want it to be." As if that's what the removed flags were. No, Andy, they were not -- at least, not anywhere but in your fevered anti-Confederate fantasy-life.

Andy, of course (to hear him tell it, and tell it, and tell it) -- has a direct line of communication with real Confederates -- all the hundreds of thousands of them. And to hear him tell it, they all thought exactly alike on any given subject he chooses to palaver about. So he knows ...  everything they knew, everything they felt, everything they believed, everything they wanted, everything they intended, up to and including the great general himself.  

Well, I don't believe Andy knows that. I think he's projecting his own animosity for Confederate heritage onto those brave men because, well, he's bought into the  PC version of the war, the South, Southern white folks. And because he's basically a scalawag.

I wonder how it feels to be the kind of person who can't feel good about himself unless he's diminishing someone else... many times disparaging them over things that the disparager doesn't give a fig about to begin with.

The more I deal with these floggers and their floggerettes, the more I realize they don't care about history, except as a weapon to verbally assault and abuse people they don't like. What they care about is giving themselves the warm fuzzies of moral superiority (but how much oomph can those warm fuzzies have if you have to get them immorally?) and the trembling, quaking, thrashing, panting ecstasy that comes with badmouthing another human being.

Spineless Admins at W&L Cave to PC Censorship

They chose to dishonor a great man to whom they owe the VERY EXISTENCE of the university, and cave to racially motivated, Alinsky-ish agitators.

I don't believe for a New York minute that these students felt "unwelcome" because of the flags in Lee Chapel. They were throwing their perpetually offended, catered-to weight around.

I believe that playing "offended minority" and targeting what our culture has honored for generations is a non-violent version of the knockout game.

Remember, floggers and floggerettes who are calling this decision "reasonable" and "intelligent" and "logical" are people who hate the Confederacy, hate Lee, hate his accomplishments and his memory, hate it when he is honored, hate those who honor him, hate the traditional South, hate Southern heritage supporters and hate white Southerners in general.

Rising Again

  The South won't have to rise again... just
remain standing while the rest of America falls.

That saying was coined by me and initially published to the Internet, in a longer form, in July of 1999, in my first post to a particular Internet forum.

Not long before, in the late spring of that year, I bought a Web-TV receiver. I was recently unemployed and didn't have the money to buy a computer, but I wanted to get on the Internet. I had learned how to "surf" at my job, and I missed it. I primarily wanted to do genealogical research.

In the weeks that followed, I discovered a discussion forum, Dixie Perspective, aka "The Rebboard." After lurking for a little while, and finding myself irresistably drawn to the discussions, the subject matter, and the people,  I decided to seek membership.  This involved submitting an email stating what had drawn me to the forum, what I though I could contribute, and such as that. It was submitted to the "Rebmaster," (a play on the term webmaster) and not long after, I received notice that I was now a member.

If I kept a copy of that email, it has been lost over the years. However, I do have my first post to the Rebboard, reproduced below.

July 6, 1999

From a newbie to the Rebboard, Greetings, my fellow Southrons.

I had never heard of Southern nationalism (except in the historical sense) until about a month and a half ago.  I was doing genealogy research on the web, looking for Civil War records  (yes, that's what I called it before I learned better) when I linked up to some Southern independence websites.

My first reaction was, "Southern independence?  We tried that once; fought a war over it and lost.  That settled it.  Didn't it?  Southern independence!   How bizarre!"

That took about one second.  It was followed by a moment of stillness and silence, and then the enormous implications hit me:  "Oh, my gosh, to be FREE!  To be free of political correctness.  To be free of  Southern-bashing by Hollywood leftists and the eastern academic establishment and the elite media.  To be free of Yankee immigrants and Yankee busybodies and other meddling do-gooders--  Oh, my GOSH, to be FREE of WASHINGTON, DC!"

Since that night, defending and restoring Dixie, and moving toward independence, has taken a place of great importance in my life.  A clear prerequisite, in my case, is getting educated.  I've discovered there's so much I was never taught (I received the usual  indoctrination in school) and I've already learned so much from the many fine, pro-Southern organizations who have pages on the Internet -- including you wonderful Southrons on the Rebboard.  Thank you!

What I'm curious about right now, though, is whether any of you -- especially boomer-agers -- have experienced the gradual repression of your Southernness over the past two or three decades -- and whether you realized it was happening.  It certainly happened to me.  I knew very well the South was fading away (the South I knew and loved, anyway) and it made me so sad, but I thought it was because the whole country was declining.  I didn't realize how much my own Southernness had diminished, until it came rushing back with my discovery of the Southern independence movement.

This is why I'm so glad to see that the movement is cultural as well as political, and that it honors the past as it builds the future.  The South is different, it has always been different -- better -- and children in the South used to learn about and live that difference -- proudly, for the most part -- from an early age. 

I remember the first time I heard of the war.  I was a little tyke, on a road trip with my parents.  It was 1954, maybe.  We were traveling through the countryside south of our hometown, Dalton, Georgia, when we passed a big, old house in the distance, set under a grove of trees.  My mother remarked, quite defiantly, "Well, there's one Sherman didn't get!"  I said, "Who's Sherman?" and got my first lesson on the war between North and South, and Sherman's march to the sea.  If slavery was even mentioned, it was incidental because I don't remember it.  My parents' "history lecture" left with me impression that we should have won, and it was terrible that we didn't, because the South was right.

I remember being a teenager in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1960s, where WBAM Radio ("Rockin' the Cradle of the Confederacy with fifty thousand watts of power!") signed on and off with a rousing march arrangement of  "Dixie" every day, and no matter how many times I heard it, it never failed to stir my Southern heart.  You don't hear "Dixie" much any more, except for MIDIs on the web.

Our honored symbols are targeted for removal, our history goes untaught and our cultural differences are slowly being ground away.  What remains must be preserved; what is gone must be restored, and if that takes becoming our own independent republic, that's what we must become.

I believe independence is not only possible, at some point in the future, but imperative, or else we'll go under when the U.S. collapses, and that seems awfully close.  Pondering the death of the USA used to make me sad  (my indoctrination made me a very patriotic American for a while) but not now.  It's hard to feel sympathy for a country with a degenerate culture and a thoroughly corrupt and abusive government.  Indeed, the South may not have to rise again.  We're already head and shoulders above the rest of the country, anyway.  All we have to do is remain standing while the rest of America falls.
 
But first, those of us who need it must get back in touch with our "inner Southron."  You all have helped me so much with this and I thank you.  Thanks, too, for listening to me rant.  I'll try to keep my future posts a bit more focused and, hopefully, they will be as helpful to you as yours have been to me.

=======

Becoming a member of Dixie Perspective was like coming home. I loved it and I was very gratified that my "rise again" comment resonated with the members.

Not long after that, I started a little on-line bumper sticker and T-shirt business, Dixie Quips, promoting the Southron viewpoint.  I wanted to put the "rise again" comment on a T-shirt, but it was too long. So I truncated it, made the design, and heat-pressed the transfer onto several shirts.

Screenshot of Dixie Quips index page

That's how those 35 words became a 14-word sound bite.  It has since made its way out throughout Dixie's corner of cyberspace, and to the attention of at least one flogger.

I find it interesting that Rob Baker defines everything economically. Isn't that what yankees do?  Economics certainly wasn't what I had in mind when I wrote my first post to the Rebboard.  At least, not totally.  I was talking about the entire culture of the South -- mentioned it explicitly -- of which economics is merely a part. But to be fair, Baker had never seen my first Rebboard post, and did not know my "rise again" meme refers to all aspects of Southern culture.

Baker looks at the South as it is now, and questions whether it can rise again. He mentioned education as an afterthought to his economic assessment. Education in the South is the same as it is elsewhere -- under the federal thumb (or is it a boot?). The vindictive federal anything -- thumb, boot, ANYTHING -- rests heavier on the South than elsewhere in the country.

And the rest of the country takes its cue from the feds.  Hollywood, academia, the media -- how all of these portray the South cannot be used as accurate indicators of how the South would rise again, and what a risen South would be like without the negative influence and impact that currently exists.

I'll likely have a few more things to explore about a risen South in later blog posts...

Grrrrr!!!!

I've contacted the seller through e-bay. They have a terrific (99.7% positive) feedback rating. I hope they get my case and charger soon to me soon. Camera has a battery in it, but it must need charging because it doesn't power the camera on. Without the charger, I can't test the camera to see if it works; can't even test the battery to see if it takes/holds a charge.  Grrrrr.

I expect a seller with positive feedback that high will make this right. And I can't use the camera, anyway, until I buy some floppy discs... But still, I didn't get what I bought and paid for... Annoying.

 UPDATE   UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE 

Wonderful news. In less than 24 hours, I've heard from the seller, though ebay. Seller said there was a mix-up in shipping. They are sending me a battery, a charger a SOFT caseAND .... get this .... AN EXTRA CAMERA, same model! I told them that would certainly solve the problem, and I would give the seller a 100% positive feedback rating in response.

THAT is how pleased I am with their timely solution to the problem! The extra camera will certainly make up for having to take a soft case instead of the hard sided one! 

Incidentally, for those who may be wondering ... these "old technology" Sony Mavica cameras (that use floppy diskettes as "film") make far, far better pictures than my Fuji digital camera, or my husband's Nikon Cool Pix. I used to have one and was so disappointed when it quit working.... It was a first generation "FD-73" like the ones I'm getting through ebay. 

I don't know what the secret was ... superior lens ... superior method for digitizing the images ... I just know it handled light and sharpness better than later and more expensive cameras I've used.

A pic of my pop made with a Sony Mavica FD-73:

And another made with one of my other digital cameras (I don't even remember which one):

 

My "Grrrr!" has become "Yay!" So now I have to order a USB floppy drive,  and some 3 1/2 inch diskettes! This camera is gonna be great for taking pics of the house fixup (See my new Old Florida Meets Mid-Century Modern blog) ... and of big Confederate flags by the highways of Dixie!