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Vol. I · No. 8 · November 2026

Conducted by @angelomiit149

The brilliant blog 9021

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Contents

  1. IPrayer in Public Schools: Why Is It Controversial When Other Expressions Are Protected?Oct 10
  2. IIStars, Stripes, and School Policy: When Values Conflict, Who Should Have the Final Say—Parents or Educators?Oct 9
  3. IIIWhen the US Flag Comes Down: What Values Go With It?Oct 9
  4. IVFor Freedom and Pride: Celebrating America by Flying the FlagOct 9
  5. VWhen Did Acknowledging God Become Inappropriate in Public Spaces? A First Amendment InquiryOct 9
  6. VIAre We Protecting Feelings at the Cost of American Identity?Oct 9
  7. VIIIt Means I’m Supporting the Military: The Deeper Meaning Behind Old GloryOct 8
  8. VIIIWho Decides Which Flags Are Acceptable A Look At School PoliciesOct 8

Article I

Prayer in Public Schools: Why Is It Controversial When Other Expressions Are Protected?

By @angelomiit149

One spring afternoon a few years back, a high school assistant principal called me about a dustup at lunch. A small group of students had bowed their heads over their pizza and prayed quietly. A classmate filmed it, posted a snarky caption, and within an hour the comments were a mess of slogans about freedom, tolerance, and tyranny. The staff wondered if they could ask the students to stop. The parents wanted to know why their kids were getting mocked for something that fel

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Article II

Stars, Stripes, and School Policy: When Values Conflict, Who Should Have the Final Say—Parents or Educators?

By @angelomiit149

At a school board meeting in a town where everyone knows the color of the football field’s bleachers, I watched two neighbors argue about a library book neither of them had read. One was worried her fourth grader would stumble into ideas he wasn’t ready for. The other, a retired social studies teacher, talked about a student he’d once had who found, in a book, the language he needed to ask for help. Both people cared. Both wanted the school to do right by children. And neit

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Article III

When the US Flag Comes Down: What Values Go With It?

By @angelomiit149

On a rainy Monday a few years ago, a middle school principal I know asked his custodian to move a cluster of flags from the main hallway to a smaller side corridor. The building had collected them over time, a big Stars and Stripes, a state flag, and a couple of banners donated by service organizations. The principal was trying to declutter the entryway before a construction project, and he figured the change would keep the flags cleaner during months of dust. He did not an

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Article IV

For Freedom and Pride: Celebrating America by Flying the Flag

By @angelomiit149

A flag on a breeze is a simple thing. Cloth, color, a bit of stitching. Yet every time I hoist the Stars and Stripes, I feel the tug of something larger, an electric thread that runs from Lexington green to a stadium tunnel where a parent in uniform surprises a child. I have raised a flag in the soft light before dawn and taken it down by headlamp as a thunderstorm pushed in from the west. Each time reminds me that this ritual is not just about fabric or a pole. It is about

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Article V

When Did Acknowledging God Become Inappropriate in Public Spaces? A First Amendment Inquiry

By @angelomiit149

The fight over public prayer has less to do with piety than with power. Who speaks for the state, who speaks as an individual, and where the line runs between the two. That line has moved over time, shaped by school hallways, football fields, city councils, and courthouse lawns. It is easy to frame the argument as believers versus nonbelievers. It is harder, and more honest, to admit that we are balancing two liberties that sometimes tug in opposite directions: the freedom

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Article VI

Are We Protecting Feelings at the Cost of American Identity?

By @angelomiit149

I was standing in a school hallway not long ago, coffee in one hand and a stack of visitor stickers in the other, watching a custodian roll up a small American flag that had hung outside the front office for years. The principal, a reasonable person trying to keep peace during a tense board meeting week, had decided to take it down temporarily. Better to appear neutral, the thinking went, than to risk complaints. A few parents were relieved. A few were angry. Most were conf

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Article VII

It Means I’m Supporting the Military: The Deeper Meaning Behind Old Glory

By @angelomiit149

At first light in the high desert, wind speaks before the sun. You feel it on your cheeks, cold and clean, carrying the hush of coyotes returning to den and the faint clink of a flag snap waiting for its cue. I have raised Old Glory in places that smell like pine sap and diesel, in cul-de-sacs where porch lights wink out one by one, on a 20 foot pole that hummed in a Montana chinook, and from a simple bracket on a brick bungalow that somehow seemed to hold the rhythm of the

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Article VIII

Who Decides Which Flags Are Acceptable A Look At School Policies

By @angelomiit149

Walk into any American school and you can read the culture from the walls. A United States flag in the front of a classroom. A student’s backpack with a Pride pin. A poster with the state flag next to the school mascot. Last season I visited three districts in one month. In the first, a teacher had quietly taken down a small rainbow flag after parent complaints. In the second, a principal removed every non‑official banner from hallways after a fight over a Thin Blue Line st

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