“I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did.” – Benjamin Harrison

Welcome to Memorial Day Weekend. Before 1971, it was called Decoration Day, which was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in US history, but until 1867, we had no national cemeteries in which to bury them. The Decoration Day holiday was established by a military general order issued by Gen. John Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. This is from Gen. Logan’s order:

The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land

Back then, it was America’s most solemn holiday. By the end of the 1860s, Americans in towns and cities everywhere had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

Decoration Day became Memorial Day when Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971, which moved most national holidays to Mondays, creating three-day weekends. So, along with the picnics, three-day sales, and celebrating the start of summer, let’s stop and remember the people who died in our wars. Let’s do that regardless of whether we “supported” a particular war. Make it a time of remembrance along with the bbq and beer.

There are no “blue” or “red” gravestones in our national cemeteries:

This week, banks became felons, but their bankers did not:

There was one airbag recall, but there should have been two:

Spring graduations are full of messages:

The fields surrounding the House of Wrong have two bluebird houses, and both have nests and fledgling birds. Here is a video of Eastern Bluebirds along with a Tree Swallow:

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

See you on Tuesday.

Wrongo and Ms. Oh So Right have left the country. No, not in protest about the letter the #47 Traitors sent to Iran, but for a few days in Costa Rica.

We will have occasional Wi-Fi connectivity and probably less frequent ambition to take on the great issues of the hour, so don’t expect much while we are in a nation where 12% of its land area is comprised of national parks.

Actual, thought-out writing should resume on Sunday, March 22.

Good Morning America, as you head off to your day, it is sad to report that America remained dysfunctional over the weekend.

It’s ok to be stressed out on Mondays. However, it was said better by the Bangles, who had a hit in 1984 with “Manic Monday“. The song was written by Prince. Here they are in 2010:

Consider these examples of our dysfunction:

Dysfunction #1: Bibi has a Boehner: Can you name another point in American history where the Speaker of the House of Representatives invited a foreign leader to speak to Congress as a rebuke to the US president? Probably not, although Sam Rayburn, the Democratic Speaker during the Truman Administration invited General Douglas Macarthur, who had recently been fired by Truman, to address a joint session in 1951.

Speaker Boehner’s idea is that Netanyahu’s speaking to Congress on Iran will help the Republicans pass increased Iranian sanctions. This could undermine Mr. Obama’s current negotiations of a game-changing deal on nuclear weapons with Iran. Would the Republicans want to do that? Yes, they would. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) a member of the Senate Armed Services and Select Committee on Intelligence acknowledged last week that ending negotiations with Iran was “very much an intended consequence” of a new sanctions bill. Surprise, surprise!

Dysfunction #2: Hedge Fund guy Steven Schwarzman says more money is not necessarily a fix for ailing American public schools, instead he touts using unemployed to help defray school costs:

If you can get unemployed people that cost nothing, that can have this dramatic difference, that costs nothing. I love things that cost nothing that have great results. Imagine if you laid on technology and other types of things, you could really set the world on fire with this type of stuff.

Doesn’t this sound suspiciously like another way to say, “Let them eat cake?” And this guy is investing in a private education company. And more than a third of his firm’s investment pool is money from public pension plans — that is, the retirement money of people like public school teachers.

Dysfunction #3: The Deep South has the country’s highest death rate of newly diagnosed AIDS cases, according to new research. Researchers at the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and the Centers for Disease Control analyzed the diagnosis and death rates of HIV and AIDS patients in nine states in the Deep South, including: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. They account for 49% of America’s AIDS deaths, despite comprising 37% of US population.

Why is the South on the wrong side of every social policy issue?

Dysfunction #4: Bob Dylan is giving away 50,000 copies of his new album to AARP Magazine readers. There may have been no better songwriter in the history of rock and roll, but does this mean that Dylan’s fans are really, really old? Now that the AARP is his target market, should Dylan retire?

Dysfunction #5: Your Thought for the Week:
Someone, somewhere, sometime, somehow, needs to address the dysfunctional myth that we shouldn’t tax the “job creators”. The myth is that a profitable company takes its profits and decides to hire some folks because, you know, they have this extra money just sitting there.

This is not reality. If a company needs or wants to hire people, then they do it during the year, in hopes that the new hire will contribute to the company and to its success. The owner/employer then pays that person a salary, gives them a desk, and a computer, or whatever they need to perform in their new job. By paying those newly incurred expenses the company reduces its taxable income, since these are fully deductible business expenses.

And if the person (or persons) hired are successful, they may help increase the firm’s profits and taxes by more than was spent in the hiring process. Is it so horrible to think that a company may have hired people and, together, they were so successful that now, profits have grown so much that the taxes due actually rise?

How did it become un-American to pay the taxes that keep America running?