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thedrifter
05-19-07, 08:35 AM
Long Island city lowers flags for troops
The Associated Press
Posted : Friday May 18, 2007 15:18:45 EDT

LONG BEACH, N.Y. — A city manager ordered flags to be flown at half-staff indefinitely to honor troops who died in Iraq — and to make a statement against what he views as a cultural focus on celebrities’ antics instead of soldiers’ sacrifice.

City Manager Edwin Eaton issued the order Thursday. It calls for the city’s American flags to be flown at half-staff until further notice.

“While our society and media outlets appear to be consumed by the antics and activities of dysfunctional personalities and the ’glitterati,’ we tend to forget that each day Americans are anonymously dying in Iraq,” he said in a memo to city department heads. “I think it only fair that they be remembered and honored.”

Traditionally, the American flag is flown at half-staff to recognize the death of a prominent person or on designated days of mourning, such as Memorial Day. But Eaton said he felt he “had to do something” about what he saw as disproportionate media attention to celebrities in a time of war.

“I’d sit with my wife, Carolyn, at night and watch this parade of Anna Nicole Smith and others — then ‘five dead in Iraq’ — and then back to Britney,” he said, adding “I had to put this in perspective.”

Eaton said he consulted informally with City Council members before issuing the order, which he said was allowed under a city charter provision giving the city manager power in “all things executive and administrative.”

Ellie