June 26, 2015

Mississippi knows it needs a new flag.

And it's going to get one, though it's not enough of an emergency to call the legislature back into session during its summer break:
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said Thursday... "As has been my longstanding practice, I will not call a special legislative session for something other than a natural disaster or a major economic development project"....
What will the new flag look like?
In January 2001, Governor Ronnie Musgrove appointed an independent commission which developed a new proposed design, and on April 17, 2001, a non-binding state referendum to change the flag was put before Mississippi voters. 
Obviously, the proposed flag lost. (It was 64% to 36%.) But there was a specific flag:



You can see how a committee would derive that from the existing flag:



I know I'm an outsider, but I'd just like to make a suggestion, and it's a suggestion based on something Mississippi did very well: the state quarter:



Derive the new flag from that. It's a positive image that completely sheds the remnants of the Stars and Bars, yet it's rooted in tradition. Mississippi is — but please don't write this on the flag — The Magnolia State. And flowers have, over the years, appeared on various flags, for example:



So so it's not an absurd innovation in vexillology, like, say, putting an upholstered chair on the flag (furniture being Missisippi's largest manufacturing industry).

97 comments:

Scott said...

No flag can beat Maryland's flag.

Gahrie said...

How can a professor be so eager to erase history?

Unknown said...

Hey, people died so let's scrub the Confederate battle flag out of existence. And while we're at it:

http://news.utexas.edu/2015/06/24/task-force-to-review-jefferson-davis-statue-on-campus

This is truly disgusting.

Gahrie said...

We need to get rid of California's flag too. It represents the Bear Republic, when the White man came to California and subjugated the Indians and Californios.

Tank said...

gamergate

Tell them to fuck off and keep your flag.

Scott said...

The government of Fiji is currently holding a competition to redesign its national flag. I think that's a better way to do it than hiring a consultant.

rhhardin said...

A squirrel on a field of pink would be appropriate.

Shouting Thomas said...

Althouse and Meade are being called out daily by their former protege, The Crack Emcee, as virulent racists. So, a black man is actually accusing these two blackface fools of racism. Crack may be crazy, but the crazy are sometimes right.

Crack left the Althouse plantation in fury over Althouse's continual attempts to paint herself and her son as niggers. Meade, who apparently has a few white sheets in his background, is scurrying around the web accusing other white men of racism even as his former protege accuses him, correctly, of being a racist in blackface.

Professor, you and your husband need to slink away in shame and hide under a rock.

The University of Wisconsin needs a new law professor.

MadisonMan said...

A State without a Flag is like a Fish without a bicycle.

Or something.

Why do States need flags?

sparrow said...

It's not about erasing history; it's about choosing which ideals to honor. The symbols of the Confederacy are justly tainted by memories of slavery and Jim Crow. These symbols should be remembered but not honored. Just because these changes are proposed by the left does not mean they are inherently wrong, even stopped clocks ....

rhhardin said...

The civil war is a guy thing. Get over it, guys.

rhhardin said...

States need flags so that they know where their soldiers are in battle.

Hence the pussy cat suggestion.

sparrow said...

States need a flag because they are sovereign. It would be better for all if the states had more independent power - but our elites are overcontrolling would be totalitarians who despise dissent.

Clayton Hennesey said...

The flag Professor Althouse proposes has a vague, revolutionary Asian look to it, as if it were the flag of the 22nd Century hegemonic successor to Communist China which had finally swallowed the entire Pacific Rim.

I don't think they're really going to buy that down at the catfish house.

rhhardin said...

Althouse is an aid to reading the otherwise inexplicable media blitz. What do women want. Everything starts with feeling, but what the hell is the feeling.

Flowers are involved.

rhhardin said...

Maybe a prom dress should figure in the flag. That's an important event in girls' lives.

It's hard to know.

Anonymous said...

That flower flag is our future: we'll become a SAR of China.

That flag is the flag of Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, where you can vote for preapproved candidates, exactly the way leftists like to coronate their "leaders".

Anonymous said...

rhhardin said...
Maybe a prom dress should figure in the flag. That's an important event in girls' lives.

How about a vagina, nothing more important than that? Blue States will approve.

tim in vermont said...

I think that the semiotics (BTW, great band name, "The Semiotics") that bother liberals about the "rebel flag" have as much to do with rebellion against a central authority which they now control as they have to do with a 150 year old war.

Once the flag is gone, there will be one less symbol of resistance. They have already thoroughly demonized the Gadsden Flag. It's about making it harder for those who would oppose their dreams of an America which is controlled economically, socially, and politically by a tiny elite who know best for everybody, to organize.

rhhardin said...

Mississippi recovered from Katrina by helping each other. If you have a million victims, you have a million helpers. This is an anti-federal narrative so should not be mentioned on the flag.

Helplessness is the new rule.

Ann Althouse said...

"The flag Professor Althouse proposes has a vague, revolutionary Asian look to it, as if it were the flag of the 22nd Century hegemonic successor to Communist China which had finally swallowed the entire Pacific Rim."

I put up that Hong Kong flag just as a good example of the way a flower could be used on a flag. I think the magnolia, as seen on the coin, should be simplified and should appear large and centered as the only element on a flag. Probably the background should be blue (note the "Bonnie Blue" flag in Mississippi's history) and the magnolia should be white. But maybe some people will see that as embodying white supremacy...

rhhardin said...

The trouble with a vagina is that it's architecturally chaotic, not to mention unrecognizeable.

Also people would always be flying the thing upside-down. You'd need an UP arrow.

khesanh0802 said...

I don't agree with Shouting Thomas much - he is generally rude and abusive - but he is on to something with Meade. I have found Meade to be generally laid back and acute, but on the battle flag question he has been downright mean and, to say the least, feisty. I have been wondering why he has reacted so.

rhhardin said...

An orchid would be a compromise. That looks like a vagina.

rhhardin said...

Flowers are, after all, genitals.

rhhardin said...

A black widow would be a nice touch. How many states have spiders on their flags.

Guys gone, now ruled by women mating tradition.

Meade said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ann Althouse said...

"... to say the least, feisty."

Feisty, eh?

Meade said...

Louisiana could have the Flag flag.

rhhardin said...

Is there a famous Mississippi beer? You could have a bottle flag.

rhhardin said...

Judy Chicago's Red Flag is probably out.

rhhardin said...

This is all done to avoid offending whites who think that blacks are children and who can't read semiotics in the first place.

Otherwise they wouldn't so quickly think blacks are children.

rhhardin said...

Blacks are sort of like a flag to these helping whites.

These whites are aestheticians.

So helpless, like children.

How about a flower.

Henry said...

The city of Pass Christian, Mississippi has a magnolia on it.

rhhardin said...

Mississippi knows it needs a new flag.

What kind of knowing is this?

Is it a response to a challenge? No, I know that.

Is it unconscious knowledge? I know there's a coffee cup on the desk.

Is it a goldfinch? Might it not be stuffed?

Maybe it knows it needs a new flag to cut off debate. Mob knowledge.

Lucien said...

That so-called flag is actually a five-armed swastika, dressed up to look like a flower. Clearly a racist, fascist micro aggression.

(I'm going to my safe place now.)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

On form with the maxims this morning, rhhardin:


A squirrel on a field of pink would be appropriate.


The civil war is a guy thing. Get over it, guys.


There's more insight into the truth of the matter in these two little maxims than in all the verbiage heretofore strewn.

Peter said...

"Why do States need flags?"

So they can fly them underneath the U.S. flag, and thereby acknowledge the supremacy clause in Article VI of the federal Constitution?

mishu said...

1. I have a magnolia tree in my backyard. They are quite different from the magnolia bushes up north. It always has leaves year round yet also sheds leaves year round. You need to keep up with the fallen leaves as they are quite acidic and will burn your lawn. The flowers in real life aren't as pretty as represented on the coin. They do smell nice but overall magnolia trees are a pain in the ass. I would not recommend anyone getting them.

2. Perhaps Sheldon Cooper should weigh in:

https://www.google.com/#q=fun+with+flags&tbm=vid

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Do you have a flag?

Anonymous said...

Why don't we just blow up all of our history, so we can make it look like America is so pristine and perfect now that we have Obama as president. I am sickened that we are erasing our history. We might as well be Isis blowing up their history!! Are we EVER going to be happy enough banning everything we don't like?? What's next??

David said...

The Magnolia? Symbol of the plantation?

David said...

" I am sickened that we are erasing our history."

Actually, it's unearned history that is causing the change. Nothing is being erased here. It's a question of what we honor.

Mark said...

Okay, I have this sorted:

http://www.wikiart.org/en/georgia-o-keeffe/modern-flowers

Magnolia blossoms and vagina allusions. (It's Georgia O'Keeffe, after all). Stylize it and make it a flag. Heck, throw the stylized vagina (I mean blossom) over a over a red field/blue cross-without-stars to attempt to satisfy the traditionalists.

Where is this wrong?

Shouting Thomas said...

I've returned to study the work of R. Crumb recently. Crumb ruthlessly satirized blackface clowns like Althouse and Meade.

My first effort was a colored pencil portrait of Flakey Foont, Crumb's hopelessly naive young man persona.

Crumb's comics were produced in colored ink. I'm off to the art supply store to buy a set of colored pens.

One of my first project will be to produce blackface portraits of Althouse and Meade.

David said...

I see Sparrow already made the "honor" point. Here's to Sparrow.

Deirdre Mundy said...

Peacocks! In honor of Flannery O'Connor! Or maybe an O'Connor/Faulkner Mash-up.

Mississippi-- We make great literature!

Anonymous said...

sparrow: It's not about erasing history; it's about choosing which ideals to honor. The symbols of the Confederacy are justly tainted by memories of slavery and Jim Crow. These symbols should be remembered but not honored. Just because these changes are proposed by the left does not mean they are inherently wrong, even stopped clocks ....

Oh, but my dear, it is about erasing history. Gormless conservatives have been and will be conceding every other point on that clock face about "which ideals to honor".

It's not about Confederates, it's about white men. There is nothing white men have done in this country that the left doesn't "justly taint" with memories of evil. (Easy enough to do, because there is nothing in human history that isn't so tainted.) You think an honorable concession is being made - isolated from current political context, it is. They just smell blood.

Michael said...

I would go with the black flag. Works for everyone.

George M. Spencer said...

I think the City of Atlanta should hire ISIS to give it advice on how to blow up the massive rock carvings of Confederate generals on Stone Mountain.

Anonymous said...

Here's an interesting clip about how we choose what to honor.

It also illustrates by contrast a couple of inarguably positive aspects of Southern culture: Polite Southern gentleman with pleasant speaking voice is obnoxiously instructed on goodthink by obnoxious newslady with obnoxious speaking voice.

I think she was triggered by his addressing her as "ma'am".

Anonymous said...

rhhardin said...
An orchid would be a compromise. That looks like a vagina.

You are manspreading.

"The genus name comes from the Ancient Greek ὄρχις (órkhis), literally meaning "testicle", because of the shape of the twin tubers in some species of Orchis."

rhhardin said...

This will pretty much unmoor Eudora Welty. The importance of time and place.

Meade said...

"I would go with the black flag. Works for everyone."

Sure, unless you're a flying insect bug.

Helvidius said...

An upholstered chair... Why not Chairy?
http://peewee.wikia.com/wiki/File:Chairy.jpg

Meade said...

@Mark,

Deep. But if her Magnolia was a vagina, what was O'Keeffe's Petunia?

Michael said...

Meade

Perhaps you have never encountered a Mississippi gnat?

lemondog said...

An Omni-flag..... a compilation of all state flags.

An Oprah flag. She was Mississippi born, or a Muppets flag in honor of Jim Henson also Mississippi born.

exhelodrvr1 said...

The problem is that we are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

exhelodrvr1 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael said...

Deidre Mundy

O'Connor was a Georgian. Welty was from Jackson, Mississippi

JAORE said...

Not much to like about the committee flag proposed. I see 20 stars (one larger than the rest). Mississippi is the 20th state but this is a lousy presentation. Certainly not a trend Hawaii or Alaska should follow.

lemondog said...

throwing the baby out with the bath water.

More Flag symbol ideas.

Birkel said...

Leftists are under the misapprehension that one must physically burn a book to be the personification of a book-burner.

Leftists remain wrong.

Lyle said...

The magnolia blossom can be seen as a symbol of white supremacy too. Think!

Lyle said...

Wisconsin should change its flag. It's populated by only white men. Hate.

Deirdre Mundy said...

Oh! I guess I got confused b/c all her stuff is through University of Mississippi.....

What's the link, then?

Meade said...

@lemondog, brilliant!
and quick.

Lance said...

I kinda like the upholstery idea.

Freeman Hunt said...

A dolphin!

Freeman Hunt said...

Actually you could use the flower picture at that link. Plop that on a blue background.

Freeman Hunt said...

A bee in an armchair eating oysters.

lemondog said...

Mississippi born Fred Smith, founder and CEO of FedEx with a red, white and blue FedEx flag.... or is that too secessionist sounding?

Brill said...

Replace the battle flag section with the state seal or an oak tree covered in Spanish moss.

Fernandinande said...

They should put a bison on it because nobody can argue with a bison.

mikeski said...

"The genus name [of orchid flowers] comes from the Ancient Greek ὄρχις (órkhis), literally meaning "testicle", because of the shape of the twin tubers in some species of Orchis."

But the medical condition of having unusually small [ahem] is "microorchidism", so that's actually a perfect choice for this new flag.

exhelodrvr1 said...

What if the bison is actually a transbuffalo?

mccullough said...

The Jolly Roger would be cool.

Ole Miss has to change its nickname and mascot, too. I suggest the Pirates.

Smilin' Jack said...

Why do States need flags?

For the same reason that counties and school districts need flags.

furious_a said...

An extended middle-finger hand, rampant, over an airborne General Lee, charged.

Motto: "Gratia Deo Per Arkansas"

lemondog said...

What if the bison is actually a transbuffalo?

What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college?

furious_a said...

Why do States need flags?

So their children know how to paint themselves on Game Day.

Meade said...

"One of my first project will be to produce blackface portraits of Althouse and Meade."

Can't ya see I'm Donny Osmond?

Bilwick said...

The Stupid Left (where Saul Alinsky meets the Dumbest Generation) probably would like the current state flag replaced with the image of Che Guevara. You know, because they're so pro-freedom and all.

n.n said...

Not even a hint of responsibility by the social complex to sponsor prejudice and dysfunction through class diversity, selective-child, etc. policies. Pro-choice doctrine is good for the King/Queen.

James Pawlak said...

I suggest the "Don't Treat On Me" flag

Unknown said...

The magnolia image on the quarter is fussy and probably unrecognizable to the average person. The relief profiles of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln on other coins are simple, recognizable and convey history. The Kennedy half dollar was very popular (I think I still have some). Stick to a head, even if it has to be someone obscure (Bear Bryant maybe).

Unknown said...

Oh shoot, I thought we were talking about Alabama (thought they were the magnolia state).

Known Unknown said...

The Magnolia? Symbol of the plantation?

Wouldn't cotton be the actual 'symbol' of a place. I have a magnolia tree in the backyard of my plantat- er house here in Ohio.

Skyler said...

Vexillologists are quite proud of themselves and seem to think they are the only ones who have any sense about flags.

Rusty said...

Aunt Jemima!






no?

Rusty said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rusty said...

A cotton boll.





Nobody can find offence with a lowly cotton boll.



Oh, wait.

Rusty said...

Do tobacco plants flower?
Maybe a nice tobacco flower instead.

Rusty said...

Or that reclining naked girl that you find on mudflaps on big riggs.

Rusty said...

A great big pair of trailer hitch bulls balls.

On a field of blue.