The Bell Defecation Amendment

    The bell was what made that day so remarkable.  Not that any day a fox visits isn't memorable, but that old bell had hung from a pole in the chicken yard for as long as anyone could remember.  So long, in fact, that nobody really knew what it was there for, or took much notice of it, for that matter.  But the fox.  It snuck in when everyone was just clucking away in dreamland.  Almost everyone, I should say.  Ol' Bubba, the rooster, still had one eye half open.  When he caught a glimpse of that red tail, his minute bird brain just about popped out of his head.  He shot straight up, squawking and crowing, and, as fate would have it, came down square on the old bell.  The bell started ringing, and the more it rang, the more Ol' Bubba squawked and flapped his wings, and the more he squawked and flapped his wings, the more it rang.  Well, with all the squawking and ringing, the entire chicken yard was up in arms, or wings, shrieking like banshees.  On top of that, it got the farmer up, and he came running with a flashlight and a shotgun.  The fox evaluated the situation and took his empty belly elsewhere.
    When the yard had quieted down a bit, the hens started taking stock of what had happened.
    "You saved our lives, Ol' Bubba!" gushed one hen gratefully.
    Ol' Bubba blushed modestly.
    "Yes," said another thoughtfully.  "You and the bell."
    "You know," offered a third, "we sure do owe a debt to Ol' Bubba and the bell, but once they sounded the alarm, we all pulled together to scare that fox off.  From now on, whenever I look at that bell, I'm going to think of how we beat the fox, and I'll know that we can do it again."

    And so it was.  The bell became a revered icon to all the chickens of the yard.  When they looked at it, they fairly burst with pride.  It was a symbol of their unity and their strength in unity.  Consequently, that chicken yard became the safest in the neighborhood.  The foxes and weasels knew better than to mess with that united feathered front.
    Years passed, and Ol' Bubba was a mere memory of a fricassee.  But the legend of the bell grew and grew.
    Then a Terrible Thing happened.
    Spring had just come to the yard, and a young fryer named Hortense was scratching about in the usual way, looking for food.  While she was scratching, she felt the Call of Nature, also in the usual way.  It was then that the Terrible Thing happened.  Hortense didn't answer the Call in quite the usual way.  Instead, she fluttered up and perched on the bell.  Maybe she wanted a little attention.  Maybe she was just in a contrary mood.  We may never know for sure, but what we do know is that Hortense defecated all over the bell.
    All activity in the yard ceased.  Everyone on two legs gaped in amazement.
    "The Bell!" they clucked.
    "When did it get a capital 'B'?" asked Hortense.
    "She defecated on the Bell!"
    "Thrash her!"
    "Exile her!"
    "Feed her to the weasels!"
    "Um, excuse me?" squawked Hortense, starting to get a little worried.  "You want to kill me for pooping on a bell?"
    "Not just a bell!" they cried.  "The Bell!"
    "Now, wait a minute," interjected Gertrude, one of the senior hens.  "Hortense is right.  Anyway, the Bell is just fine.  That was a rude thing to do, but the poop doesn't detract from the Bell's significance.  We still know what it stands for, and we still respect it.  She hasn't really harmed us or the Bell."
    But the chickens were not satisfied with this apologia.
    "This is worse than the sky falling!" cried Chicken Big, who used to be Chicken Little, but had unaccountably survived to adulthood.  "Take it to the Supreme Coop!"
    So the case went before the Supreme Coop.  The Chicken Justices clucked and scratched and scratched and clucked.  Then they clucked and scratched some more.  Finally, they came to a decision.
    "You know," they said, "there's really nothing in the Code of the Yard to prohibit defecating on the Bell.  In fact, defecating when necessary is a basic chicken right."
    In a dissenting opinion, one old rooster declared, "Hortense has done a Terrible Thing!  Defecating on the Bell is sacrilege!  It will be the ruin of our society!"
    Nevertheless, the Supreme Coop had spoken.  What else could one do?  Chicken Big had an answer.
    "We must amend the Code of the Yard!" squawked Chicken Big.
    "I think the Code of the Yard is fine the way it is," objected Gertrude.
    "Fine?" screeched Chicken Big.  "Fine?  How can anything that permits defecation on the Bell be fine?  Here's the amendment I propose:  The Chicken Council shall have the power to prohibit defecation on the Bell."
    "Sounds like chickenshit law to me," said Gertrude.
    "All in favor?" bellowed Chicken Big.
    And the Bell Defecation Amendment became part of the Code of the Yard.  The physical integrity of the Bell, which had indeed acquired a capital 'B', was rigorously defended.  But somehow, respect for the bell was not what it used to be.  All of the chickens knew they had to keep their wings and claws off the Bell.  And they did, but now they only knew the Bell as That Which Must Be Respected Under Penalty of Law.  They didn't know exactly why.
    So the Battle to Defend the Bell had been won.  And with the triumph of this righteous cause, the victors could hardly be blamed if they failed to notice the foxes and weasels that were moving relentlessly among them beneath the silent bell.
 

 The proposed "Flag Desecration Amendment" follows:

"Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

For those of you who want to desecrate the flag of the United States, but don't want to violate the Constitution,  I have a few questions that I hope will prove helpful.  (We're looking for guidelines here!)

1.  Is a picture of a flag on a stamp a flag?  If so, would cancelling the stamp be physical desecration?
2.  Is a little flag sewed on a shirt a flag?  How about red, white, and blue stars and stripes underwear?
3.  Are the only desecratable flags those made by some official flagmaker, or do any flags with the correct colors and numbers of stars and stripes count?
4.  How about flags that don't have the correct colors or numbers of stars and/or stripes.  Is a flag with 51 stars a flag of the United States?  How about a flag that is green, black, and yellow?  Would burning a flag like that be physical desecration?  Or would making a flag like that be physical desecration?
5.  Is burning a flag physical desecration?  If so, how are we supposed to dispose of old flags? (Maybe we can never dispose of an old flag.)  Burning is a traditional method.  So, is burning to dispose of an old flag ok, but burning as a political statement not ok?  If so, we aren't talking about physical desecration anymore, are we?
6.  "Desecration" has a distinctly religious ring to it.  Is the flag now a religious icon?  Just checking.  Of course, the biblical prohibition is only against worshipping graven images, not woven ones.