South Dakotans are being beset with ideas to again replace the existing South Dakota flag. I have seen the proposed flag and think it looks like a design for a bag of dogfood or hogfeed.
Newspapers have examples of good and bad flags compliments of sites like those immediately following: Flag Survey of North American Flags and NAVA Flag Design Ideas
After looking at the links related to good flags and bad flags, and seeing examples of good and bad flags in newspapers, I do wonder how Vexillologicists or whatever have enough time to waste deciding which flags they like and why they bother. Also, their idea of what makes a good flag seems remarkably arbitrary to me.
No words, no seals, but stuff like a flag that has a top half blue and a bottom half yellow which we are supposed to know represents blue sky over wheat fields. It might as well be yellow diarrhea under water.
Horror of horrors, the SD flag has “South Dakota” on it twice.
These experts with more time than sense don’t seem to think that written language consists of symbols…symbols that in fact most of us can usually recognize immediately.
I think a good South Dakota flag could be made with “South Dakota” on it twice horizontally, and once along the slopes of a couple of symbolic mountain peaks. A good name can't be repeated often enough.
There is sense and nonsense in the expert ideas of flag experts. I don’t think we have any more reason to accept their values than we do with the expert wisdom of astrologers.
Some may think it is time to have something like the Native American "medicine wheel" in the flag. I think calling this place "Dakota" ought to be enough recognition of those stone-age cultures.
"Good enough" is the enemy of perfect. Our flag is good enough and the proposed change is far from perfect anyway. Our legislators apparently don't have enough to do to occupy even a 35 day session. They should get to something more serious like legislation to stifle free speech and urge public schools to waste time on bible study.
*** Stay tuned--South Dakota will still be around tomorrow with or without an unambiguous flag design--- Doug Wiken
The flag guy Montgomery interviewed did make a very valid point, though. If someone had been running around the blogs convincing people the SD flag needed updating, and had been selling the idea before unveiling a new flag out of thin air, it would have been received differently. The selling wasn't there. Now you're stuck with the same old flag and some flag guy just made his mortgage payment.
Posted by: Taunia | Jan 28, 2012 at 02:51 AM
Your feed bag comparisons are pretty funny. Thanks for that.
Blue and yellow are popular color combos. The orange is not so good.
Posted by: D.E. Bishop | Jan 28, 2012 at 04:52 PM