New Mexico Associationalist (Accidental ) R.G., N° 27

A.A.R.G.-27, Albuquerque/Jemez Springs
from the Depths of the Tub

Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa, Europa

 A.

• 

  The stars are upside down.

 
• 

  The stars point outwards instead of in one direction.

 
• 

  The stars should be arranged like a face of a clock, which is not the case in this flag.

 
• 

  Correct flag.

B.

A Circle of Stars

C.

The Flag of a US Foreign Service Officer

13 stars with jaunty alternating positions....

D.

XII

12 hours on a clock (often IIII not IV but IX, BTW)
12 months in a year 
12 symbols of the zodiac 
12 Apostles 
12 sons of Jacob 
12 semitones in an octave (western music)
12 days of Christmas
12 Caesars chronicled by Suetonius
12 Olympian gods
12 labors of Hercules
12 tables of Roman Law

12 Hues in the color wheel, star or sphere (western art)

Vexillological Oddities

        

This is the last flag post for a while, promise........

22 FLAGS SCARIER THAN THE ONE ISIS FLIES.

I wouldn't call most of the flags on this list "scary"....although some are quite odd.  A couple are vaguely creepy.  I think some are beautiful....

Up top's a sample from the Kingdom of Benin:  A naked guy decapitating another naked guy, hey hey!  It doesn't matter that the actual provenance or use of this flag is not entirely certain, it's a great flag.  The name of the file is actually "unidentified West African Flag."

Wiki: 

"The 'flag of the Kingdom of Benin' is an unidentified West African flag that was brought to Britain after the Benin Expedition of 1897 against the Kingdom of Benin.  Debate exists over the origin of the flag, including which West African people created it."

See me wave....

The National Maritime Museum (UK) says the flag is "probably" Itsekri in origin.  By comparison, the flag pictured below is contemporary and used to represent the Itsekri people.  Perhaps the swords, and the red and white color scheme, led experts to attribute a Beninois origin to our "mystery flag?"  

The Itsekri are related to the Yoruba and both groups are concentrated in present-day Nigeria, which borders present-day Benin.  The historical Kingdom of Benin was actually within what is now Nigeria and was not the precursor of the modern state that bears its name, which was, until 1975, known as Dahomey.

What the flag refers to, historically or allegorically, I don't know.  Maybe a Cain and Abel-type situation?  Or Romulus and Remus.  Some kind of fratricide....a civil or tribal conflict perhaps? 

All the museum has is this:

....A red wool bunting flag with a linen hoist, machine sewn (italics added) with a rope halyard attached. The design is applied in white fabric with painted details....said to have been brought back by Admiral F. W. Kennedy from the 1897 Benin expedition. 'Kennedy' is inscribed on a paper label attached to the rope.

The Itsekri people acted as middle men between the Edo people....in the interior and the Europeans on the coast - the Edo would not cross or travel on waterways.

The Benin expedition was launched in reprisal against an attack on a British mission in the service of Niger Coast Protectorate by forces of the Oba of Benin....The towns of Guato and Sapobar were attacked by detached forces while the main part of the expedition marched on Benin. The town was captured and accidentally burnt....The famous Benin bronzes were removed as reparations stolen by the British.

National Geographic reports that the Kingdom flourished between 1200 and 1800 CE, and that human sacrifice was practiced there to honor its kings.  Could the flag reflect the practice of ritual beheading?  Could be; one visitor in 1838 was especially "disgusted by the sight of turkey-buzzards feeding on the carcasses of the beheaded."  Referring to sacrificed victims.  (see The Slave Trade, Depopulation and Human Sacrifice in Benin History, James D. Graham in Cahiers d'Études africaines (1965).

Maybe the flag was a gift to Kennedy for his role in "decapitating" the Kingdom of Benin?  Regime change and all that.  The Kings of Benin did have their excesses.

(Note that historians say reports of human sacrifice in Benin were exaggerated and that the actual practice was limited in scope; some evidence suggests those "sacrificed" were in fact condemned criminals.  No finger-wagging now.  Executions in 13th-century London were more brutal than what is suspected to have occurred in Benin -- 75,000 executions during the 38-year reign of Henry VIII alone....)  

In the US we can inject, shoot, hang, asphyxiate or burn our condemned prisoners alive.  Freedom of choice.  Just for perspective.  And if you think an injection is humane, bear in mind that "Lethal injection causes severe pain and severe respiratory distress with associated sensations of drowning, asphyxiation, panic, and terror in the overwhelming majority of cases."  Winning!

Here's yet another Kennedy associated with a head wound...and some etymologies have the name Kennedy itself deriving from a Gaelic word for...."head."  Of course, let's not forget Hoffman and Downard's King-Kill-33, the seminal conspiratorial text positing that the assassination of JFK was a ritual psychodrama, a "killing of the king" by shadowy Masonic forces....as part of their ongoing plan to usher in a "new order for the the ages."

Anyway, this Benin flag is just one of many curiosities on the list, and it's a fun read.  Flags, like coins, are great Ports of Entry into History.  I for one am digging these forays into vexillology and since you're reading (or not), I hope you are too.

By Thingsomyipisntvisable - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116797073

Oh, Toulouse!

Out with the old....

In with the new....

Toulouse.  "La Ville Rose," legendary rugby town, birthplace of Claude Nougaro and Carlos Gardel (maybe).  Zebda, Bigflo & Oli, The Fabulous Trobadors....

Toulouse.  Known for its vibrant hip-hop and graffiti scenes.  I just grokked a (Space) Invader piece earlier today, glued to the wall of the Café des Artistes, hehe.  Ate lunch at my son's flat, haha -- we called my 1st apartment the "flat sun" -- on a narrow street (rue Gramat) with facades covered from cobblestones to eaves with big works of graffiti.  Local rap collective La Dalle (The Hunger) filmed their video for their song Insatiable at the lad's "trap."  

"Get the hip-hop vinyls, Scarface and Halloween posters in the background...." 

"I got Scarface on RE-peat!"  Hey maig'n, I cain't hep it if'n I'm frum Tampa...."

If you look close enough you'll see one of those Dalle blighters wearing my HS class ring

Toulouse.  On the rue Gramat, elderly couples walk by with cameras, digging what's fresh.  Classes of lycéens sit and take notes as teachers explain the "graf."  The dealers sit perched at either end to sell off-the-truck smokes or "shit"--and it is shit--what they call hash here in France....all of it seems to work.

Untranslated articles, but the quantity alone indicates the little street's fame:

Rue Gramat (Wikipedia.fr)

La rue Gramat : des fresques vivantes et pleines d’histoire (Le 24 Heures) (Lively Frescos full of History)

Pourquoi la rue Gramat est-elle recouverte de graffs ? (Le Journal Toulousain) (Why is the rue Gramat covered in graffiti?)

Toulouse. Graff : la rue Gramat prend les couleurs de la paix (La Depêche) (Rue Gramat takes on the colors of Peace)

Toulouse.  A student town:  tolerant, diverse, bustling, working-class.  My home for 20+ years (most importantly, natch.  Croix-Daurade (The Gilded Cross), La Daurade (Eldorado), Côte Pavé (The Paved Slope....?)....Tolerant of gypsies, Cathars, soothtsayers, Jews, the homeless and the itinerant back in the Middle Ages, and still pretty tolerant today.  Early memory:  Hanging out in a speakeasy in the basement of a "hairdresser's."  We're watching the owner negotiate for a rack of off-the-truck shirts.  Me, 5 Ghanaian dudes, and a transvestite prostitute, .  A comely lass; 'tis a pity she was a whore, but she was cool.  No Bowiesque punch-ups...."like a dude...."

So, according to Kaye's 5 rules of vexillology, which Toulouse flag is better, the old (top) or the new (bottom)?  There actually is a right answer.

In your opinion, which one is better?

I'll say this:  remove the out-of-place kow-tow -- the obsequious curtsey -- to the fleur-de-lis weighing down the old city flag and you'd already improve it by a factor of appx. 92.2733 %.  Unless the market is depressed that year.

They were the best of flags, they were the worst of flags....

https://universe.byu.edu/2015/01/17/best-and-worst-of-city-flags-across-america/ 

This is a link to one writer's list of the best and worst of America's city flags. I don't agree with her "best" choices, but the "worst" flags are just awful.

I don't think she got the memo, because some of her "good" examples don't respect the vexillological standards of what constitutes a good flag.  Not using text (mottos, city names, etc.) or reproducing "busy" city seals, for example.  

Does it matter?  I for one am all for finding exceptions, and these "rules" are more like aesthetic guidelines.  The 5 rules are actually self-evident, once you've read them.  They confirm my inkling that genius is often merely stating the obvious in simple terms, about things which only become obvious after the stating.  We all knew it, somehow, but we just weren't aware we knew.  And like apes to space shuttles in terms of the distance twixt having a vague grunt of recognition and an actual articulation....

Indeed, the flags she likes which use text would indeed be much more effective without it!  Indeed.  Did I mention indeed?)

(Those 5 "rules" were enunciated by Ted Kaye in Good Flag, Bad Flag, legally and happily downloadable here.  The pamphlet is based upon the compiled wisdom of 20-odd leading vexillologists).

BTW, Milwaukee, your trainwreck of a city flag may just outdo that of my hometown, Tampa, in terms of garish suckiness.  But take heart!  Yours may not even be the worst in the list.  Provo?  Jesus wept.*

Enjoy this humorous TED Talk about American cities' flag problem.