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This week's Mini-Poll is an exercise in vexillology -- which sounds like it might have something to do with reading the local newspaper, but is, in fact, the study of flags.
Our country has a flag. So, too, does the state of Missouri. The Rams have a flag; the Cardinals have a flag. St. Louis County, apparently, does not have a flag, but its residents sometime borrow the City's. All these flags, particularly the national one, are the objects of veneration, pride, hate, and plenty of other feelings. St. Louis police officers and firefighters wear an American flag on their uniforms. Mayor Francis Slay and other City employees often wear tiny lapel pins modeled on the St. Louis flag.
Flags have a lot more emotional weight than their symbolic cousins -- the state animals, vegetables, and minerals. Ever wonder why?
Flags are a way that we identify our allegiances . . . to a country, to a City, to a team. Some flags are relatively new creations; others are venerable. The longer they wave, the more meanings, traditions, and practices they acquire -- including elements quite unrelated to either their original purposes or to their particular arrangements of colors and shapes. Some of the most predictable calls at the City Hall switchboard are the ones that call in to check on the authority under which a public building's flag has been lowered to half-staff. And a decision several years ago to remove a particular state's flag from the City Hall rotunda drew dozens of letters, pro and con.
What about you -- which flags do you wave? Does a tattered US flag or a vintage Confederate battle flag cause you more heartburn? Is it time for the City of St. Louis to find a new flag -- or adopt a symbol?
Let us know what you think, and MayorSlay.com will run it up the flagpole.
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