Volume 5 Number 3

"Main Street, USA"

It was our great pleasure recently to help a local community spruce up part of their newly re-developed  business area with flags and all the necessary mounting equipment. Theirs was a joint project with the city, local Chamber of Commerce, the Lions Club and the Boy Scouts all helping to get the flags up in time for Veteran's Day.

What a nice example of civic pride, patriotism and cooperation!

Another New Flag

Wow! This year has seen the arrival of no fewer than five new national flags. here's the latest:

As of October 3rd of this year, on the occasion of 40 years of independence, Lesotho adopted its new flag. The Basotho hat ("mokorotlo") depicted on  the flag is part of the traditional dress of Lesotho. The Black color of the hat is to symbolize Africa (the "Black Continent"), while the Blue, White and Green bars represent Rain, Peace and Prosperity respectively.

Here at , we plan to have all sizes of the new flag available by the first of the year. Once again, we appreciate your patience during yet another historic transition.

Flag Animals
Part I: The Birds

In the past few issues, we've been exploring the use of stars and such on flag designs. Let us now direct your attention to the use of animals on flags.

Vexillologists (those who study flags) , tell us that the earliest flags were actual animals or their representations held aloft on staffs to identify groups (tribes, army units, etc.).

Below are a few flags with birds on them. Can you guess them all?

(As usual, try to guess the flag before moving the cursor over the images.)

"Factoids"

There are more than 6½ billion of us now. Stay aware. This may be our only planet.

The Personal Corner

Last issue we mentioned that we planned to exhibit at the joint fall conference for COFLT/WAFLT. The theme was "Many Languages, Many Cultures, One Vision" and it was a fine conference indeed.

We've been exhibiting at conferences for these teachers for nearly eighteen years and we can't help but comment on what a dedicated group of professionals we think they are.  Many thanks to all of you teachers for the important work you do with our youth.

The Old and the New

A fellow member of our local Chamber of Commerce just presented us with a book she had recently acquired. It is a hard back version of a special edition of The National Geographic Magazine (Vol. XXXII, No. 4, pp. 420, October, 1917), written by B. McCandless, and G. Grosvenor, and entitled Our Flag Number or Flags of the World. You'll be hearing more about this publication in future articles of this newsletter, but for right now, we'd like to quote from the opening paragraph:

Flags symbolize the noble aspirations and glorious achievements of the human race; they epitomize the romance of history; they incarnate the chivalry of the ages.

Boy. We don't write like that any more, do we?

Coincidentally, whilst using Wikipedia® to look up the term "vexillologists" for the accompanying article on "Flag Animals", we came upon a fascinating reference to a paper presented in 2003 by one Jonathan A Matusitz of the University of Oklahoma at a Convention for the National Communication Association. The title of the abstract of his paper is "Vexillology or How Flags Speak: A Semiotic Analysis". We quote from the abstract:

Flags are communication par excellence, as a new development determined by the fact that today’s society uses more visual signs than ever and that people rely on such signs for the information they need.

Did you ever wonder why we love flags so?

10% discount offer/quiz

Happy Holidays! Take 10% off any purchase made through the end of 2006 by entering the name of this flag in the "Coupon Code" field of the Checkout Page of your order. Coupon Codes are case sensitive, so please enter this one in all caps.

If you’re phoning or emailing in your order, just mention this offer and we’ll happily calculate your discount.

This offer is exclusive of any other offers and does not include Shipping and Handling charges.

Last Offer/Quiz Answer:
Last issue's flag was that of, not the movie, but the country of Madagascar.