Put Out Better Flags
CHAPMAN, STEVE
Put Out Better Flags Let's unfurl some new designs. BY STEVE CHAPMAN WHEN THE STATE OF GEORGIA hoisted a new flag over the capitol in Atlanta last month, it illustrated once again that many...
...It has everything a flag needs and nothing it doesn't...
...purpose of giving the bird to the nascent civil rights movement by harking back to slavery and secession...
...Some designers (Illinois, Massachusetts) made a perfunctory stab at originality by replacing the \ standard background blue with white, but the effect is distressingly reminiscent of a soiled bedsheet...
...All are handsome and dignified...
...Not much is required of a decent flag...
...Widely likened to a Denny's place mat, it was voted the worst in the nation by a group of flag experts called the North American Vexillological Association...
...In most places, this item is the moral equivalent of the vice presidency, being insignificant, largely useless, and deservedly ignored...
...Nobody, seeing one of these flags, would say: Uh, whose is that...
...Most state flags are what you'd expect if you asked a committee of accountants to come up with a design and gave them half an hour to do it...
...Telling these monochromatic flags apart is a task as challenging as categorizing beetles, requiring years of training...
...Israel has the ] Star of David...
...But representations of people are rare for good reason...
...In recent years, there have been many demands to junk that flag, and two years ago, the legislature approved a replacement, which shrank the old emblem to near invisibility...
...States that have little else in common somehow managed to show up at the ball wearing the same dress— most commonly, a blue rectangle with indecipherable doodling in the center...
...France's tricolor originated during, and pays homage to, the Revolution...
...The 2001 banner was so unpopular it contributed to last year's defeat of Democratic Gov...
...The Canadian maple leaf flag honors a beloved tree, as well as the country's vast swaths of wilderness...
...A flag should be at least slightly distinctive, making it easier to remember...
...South Carolina's white crescent moon and palmetto tree on a navy background is as simple and winsome as a child's drawing...
...Animals are a better idea than you might expect, as demonstrated by California's grizzly bear and Wyoming's buffalo...
...Some of the flags are not pleasing to the eye but at least attain their own character, which remains unique mainly because no one would want to copy it...
...But these are the exceptions...
...Roy Barnes by Republican Sonny Perdue, who promised to let his constituents vote on whether to restore the Lester Mad-dox-era flag...
...But if Georgia has discarded the nation's homeliest banner, there are plenty of solid claimants to the title...
...Tennessee's might get a passing grade if it didn't look so much like neighbor Arkansas's...
...Georgians, who are fickle about these things, have had several flags...
...Old Glory, for example, has a star for each state and a stripe for each of the original 13 states...
...The typical state flag, by contrast, is a study in confusion or clich...
...Not that anyone else is to be pitied for missing Iowa's verbose motto, "Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain" or Massachu-setts's "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem," which is not only wordy but unintelligible to 99 percent of the population...
...Maybe one reason Americans love Old Glory so much is that it has so little domestic competition...
...It helps to have bright colors—mauve and sage really don't do the job...
...In 1956, they adopted one with the obvious Steve Chapman is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune...
...So several obvious principles ought to govern...
...BY STEVE CHAPMAN WHEN THE STATE OF GEORGIA hoisted a new flag over the capitol in Atlanta last month, it illustrated once again that many people in that deep South state have a powerful attachment to a symbol most Americans regard with indifference or disdain: a state flag...
...George, St...
...It's no surprise that the flag experts gave the No...
...Andrew, and St...
...Rhode Island's gold anchor on a white field could have been filched off a cruise ship...
...Japan's red disc pays homage to the myth of the emperor as the descendant of the sun goddess...
...In most cases, it appears, the designers made a list of all the attributes a flag should have and then chucked it out the window...
...To find citizens passionately debating the design and purpose of their state flag is like seeing a huge rally for a sewer commission candidate...
...These emblems were originally meant to be easily recognizable even under challenging viewing conditions —at a distance, through the smoke of battle, amid other banners...
...Texas, with simple bars of red, white, and blue and a single white star, not only stands up well on its own, but elegantly complements the American flag...
...A flag needs a simple, clear pattern: A busy, ornate flag makes about as much sense as a subtle window-pane pattern on a football jersey...
...The British Union Jack combines the crosses of St...
...It means "By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty...
...Some departures from convention work well...
...But given what they and most other state flags have to offer the discerning viewer, why would anyone bother...
...For extra credit, it ought to be meaningful in some way...
...Alabama and Florida apparently got a group rate on their white banner with a red X. Other states would get marked down for belaboring the obvious...
...The familiar blue, star-spangled St...
...Connecticut's resembles Idaho's, which could pass for Kentucky's, which is a reasonable facsimile of Michigan's, which was cloned from Virginia's...
...There's no reason a nation of flag lovers should have so few flags that are worthy of affection...
...Andrew's cross on a red field took up a good two-thirds of the space...
...The newest model is notable mainly because it omits any facsimile of the old Confederate battle flag...
...In a compromise, they'll get to choose between the 2003 and 2001 flags, with the more controversial version no longer in play...
...Instead of striving for simplicity, many of them contain a flea market of images...
...Patrick, representing England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland...
...Even the most dedicated student of flags would have trouble distinguishing New Hampshire from Nebraska at 50 paces...
...A few states have made a success of their chief symbol...
...Citizens of Oregon, Kansas, and Indiana: Wouldn't you be able to identify the flag flying over the governor's mansion even if it didn't include your state's name...
...As for Maryland's weird mix of colors and symbols—well, if federal prosecutors want to get Martha Stewart to crack, they might fly one outside her window nonstop...
...1 ranking to New Mexico's red Zia sun symbol on a bright yellow field...
...So who's next...
...Alaska's North Star-over-Big Dipper pattern is a triumph of minimalism...
...Arizona, with a blue bar beneath a sunburst of red and gold, succeeds through sheer audacity...
...Georgians are to be commended for scrapping their pitiful old flag...
...Colorado's, with a big red C amid three fat stripes of blue and white, belongs on a baseball cap, somewhere deep in the bush leagues...
...Several have mottos that can be read only close-up, which is fine for flagpole sitters but useless to anyone else...
...George Washington's visage manages to make the flag of Washington look like a very old, very tacky campaign button...
...Some people objected because the Confederate emblem was so tiny, some because it was included at all, and some simply because the flag was drab and undistinguished...
...If this were an English class, a lot of students would be flunked for plagiarism...
Vol. 8 • June 2003 • No. 41
