Half-mast

The flags are at half-mast again today. I listen to NPR daily, follow a multitude of blogs, and just visited npr.org. No major tragedies as far as the eye can see. Maybe the nation is mourning because Texas State Fair's "Big Tex" was destroyed by a blaze. Or are we mourning because it's such a boring day?

Now I wonder if there's a national clearinghouse for flag owners to call in every morning and see whether to lower that flag that day. There must be, as they're always in sync. Or are the flagpoles motorized these days and synchronized by radio waves? Maybe WWVB, the NIST time signal radio station out in Ft. Collins that synchronizes everyone's atomic clocks, embeds a "flag is at half-mast today" bit into its transmissions.

I want to own a giant flag just so I never lower it.