Happy Pioneer Day!

To continue my series of flags outside our house, today was Pioneer Day, the state holiday of Utah, one of the states where I have lived. So, I took my flag out, and put it out on my pole.

 

By the way, these pictures are a good reason why the people at the Vexillilogical Society recommend against putting words on a flag. You might think that we are flying the flag of HATU when looking at them. I probably should have gotten some pictures from the other side, but I didn't even think about it. I didn't realize that the flag was backward.

 

Speaking of that, there's a movement out there to make a new Utah flag that is characteristic and interesting, instead of bland and indistinguishable from more than half of the state flags out there. I'm all for it. I'd love to dump this ugly flag and add a new interesting one like this to my collection.

Support the Organization for a New Utah Flag (newutahflag.org). Their design is totally awesome, and something that all Utahns could unite around.

There's a really strong human tendency to stick with something even if it's terrible, because it's always been that way. Many people in Milwaukee are fighting tooth and nail to keep this flag, widely considered to be the ugliest flag in the world:

Rather than accept this beautiful and simple design representing the sun rising over Lake Michigan that won a contest to redesign the flag.

In articles I've seen online, the most frequent comments are that "we've had this flag forever and why should we change it?" or "don't we have better things to do than wasting time on choosing a flag?" All I can say in response to both of those is, "do you want the symbol that represents you to be something that sucks or something you can be proud to fly outside your home?"

After the third try in a row, the bill to establish a commission to investigate the possibility of making a new flag passed this past legislative session, and a huge victory on top of that was that the new flag design was named as the 125th anniversary of Utah statehood commemorative flag. That's a big step towards breaking through and normalizing it in the minds of those stubborn ones who refuse to consider anything different than they already know.

I think I might buy myself one of those commemorative flags of Utah, and fly it outside my house next year just to show my support. Then people can see my beehive flag and know that it is a symbol of Utah and not Hatu.

Anyway, this has gone on way too long for a tiny post that was just supposed to be a picture of the Utah flag outside my house, so I'm going to end it now, even though I could go on and on and on and on and on and...