You Call This A Flag?

This guy must have a lot of time on his hands and is quite typical of the mentality of our alders. The city is sinking and he wants to redesign the flag. Leave it alone and do your aldermanic job, please!!

NHPLEB — you've got a rookie alder from the Yale ward. The powers that be aren't going to let him do much or have any say in things.

So if he wants to have fun and spread a little sunshine by leading a community effort to come up with a new flag, why not?

Personally, I wish Hacibey would work with Abby Roth, the City, TGSSD, downtown businesses, community organizations, etc to come up with a plan for the New Haven Green, (What a disgrace, and the Proprietors have failed as stewards.) That would be a real step forward!

But I do not begrudge him this, and look forward to seeing proposed new flags.

Do your job and cut the budget!

Nero comes to mind. The city is barreling toward bankruptcy and the Alder is worried about the flag? We need a new board of alders and a new mayor.

Maybe they should start teaching Latin again in the New Haven Public Schools. Perhaps, children's grades would improve with the corresponding rigor demanded of the subject. Perhaps, some still do. I do not know, as I home school my children. One of their primary courses is Latin. In fact, their new curricula (nominative plural) just came in the mail today. Alderman, it is not right for you to try to suppress the linguistic, cultural, legal, ecclesiastical, historical, traditional, et cetera (Latin for similar items to be inferred) ground on which the majority of Americans stand even if they no longer know their heritage. Besides, I guarantee you that the Spanish speaking citizens of New Haven can easily translate their flag even from a distance. You should not deny them their heritage, as their language is directly derived from Latin. This is why they are called Latinos: because they are LATIN Americans. Moreover, well over half of all English words are directly derived from Latin. You cannot change reality but you could at least try to assent to it.

I'm sure what ever he comes up with will be cluttered by the need for inclusion explain everything and blind us with a multitude of diverse colors all producing something that will require a committee and consultants approval and cause the final product to exceed its budget. Was he inspired by Sheldon Coopers "Fun with Flags"?

How about a County flag?

"The Brick-Oven City"; picture of a brick oven.

Done.

Now back to our regularly scheduled caterwauling about the budget.

Have the kids of the region compete to create a County flag.

Bring together the children - in whom we put our hopes and dreams about the future - to bring us together in regional unity.

If this is just about vexillology, I'm not particularly impressed by the idea.

We need leaders with huge ambitions. Set expectations high. Reach for something bigger. Don't settle on a small city flag. We're already the greatest small city in America. We can be America's Greatest Metro Region. That's where our sights must be set.

"If you have to label your flag or explain its symbolism, your flag has failed."

"Take the Chicago flag, for example. Its flag is decorated with four red stars in between two light blue stripes. The top stripe represents Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, while the bottom stripe represents the South Branch and the Great Canal. Each star represents a different event in Chicago's history from the Great Fire of 1871 to the Work Columbia Exposition of 1893. This simplistic yet meaningful symbol is adorned all over the city."

English Oxford Living Dictionary: simplistic: Treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are.

Yea leave the flag alone

Timothy G. ORourke Jr....

The reasons LATINOS Speak a Latin derived language is because the SPANISH invaded, colonized and FORCED them to give up their native tongue for the SPANISH LANGUAGE


Most colored people living in lands colonized by Europeans have no connection to their heritage...U were forced to speak your language in secret and hide your pegan religions and replace them with European language culture and rules of conduct

I took Latin 20 years ago in a NH Magnet School...It didn't inspire me in any deep way but what it did was help me see the relationship between French Italian English and Spanish....Im "fluent" in English BUT because of my knowledge and understanding of LATIN I can read French Spanish and Italian.

New Haven Flag....

A rainbow emanating from a big Y, with a pilgrim walking on it like Thor but he's carrying in one hand both a hammer and sickle and in the other uplifted hand a skillfully balanced pizza. And of course, sharing the rainbow is a black panther biting at the pilgrims ankle.

I agree! The city should definitely have a newly redesigned flag that better represents what New Haven is all about.

Personally, my idea was to have "the new flag" be colored Green and Blue. I'd pick Green just to represent the land and the trees. Then I picked Blue because of the clear skies and obviously New Haven has a lot of water. It also represents when a lot of settlers use to come in from the harbor to settle into New Haven. Lastly, I thought it'd be nice to have one gold star be in the middle of the flag to represent the people, the love, the successful times throughout the city's history and just how great New Haven is as a city. I was actually also thinking that in the background of my vision of the "new flag" that there should be a big white tree and then the gold star would be in the middle of that. But it sounds good to me.

Some of you guys seriously can't comprehend doing multiple things at once

AT: He could actually parse the city budget and look for proposals for reductions. These, of course, are never popular, as they mean reducing someone's perks, or job, or fun thing like a parade or a tennis tournament. Nonetheless, they would show him to be a serious alder, as reductions are needed. So far, in spite of being elected as an independent, he has shown no independence. Perhaps he could start by proposing an ordinance banning overseas funded travel without alder approval, and banning use of police resources to protect and drive the mayor on a regular basis.

@ Robn LOL!!!!! That flag u described sounds about right....BIG Y!? LMAO!!!

...and at the other end of the rainbow is a bar fight between a drunken sailor wielding the jawbone of a whale and a Native American wielding a broken ketchup bottle...

Smitty,
Oh, and how I wish we all spoke Spanish and looked like Indians instead of English! Unlike the Protestant English in North America, the Catholic Spanish actually assimilated "themselves" to the Indians to such an extent that Latinos today still have the phenotypes of Indians. I do not see many English speaking Indians. It took very few Spanish to convert the Indians to the true faith while in the United States the Indians were just eradiated, as the English came to take and not to bring the faith. The Indians who were converted by the Spanish evidence a predisposition man has to Christ and His Church. The Church, and the language it uses, is so completely apart of their heritage that one can readily see even members of Mexican gangs with tattoos of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This initiative to change the flag is really about denying New Haven's Christian roots and the civilization that grew from it. Even the Protestant New Haven Colony knew to pay homage to the language on which Western Civilization stands. All that being said, I am glad that Latin taught you some of the Romance Languages.

...and beneath the arc of the rainbow is three churches with parishioners of all creeds and colors (conveniently sorted into separate churches) singing praises to god and peace be to all. A clock on the center church counts down the single hour of the week that this sentiment is expressed....

...in the upper right hand corner is a smoke belching factory out of which marches a line of immigrant child laborers carrying rifles...

... in the upper left hand corner is a large pile of long ago emptied oyster shells sitting on the banks of a river with a gas can floating in it....

....at the top is a semicircle of 30 cages. This surrounds an empty bank vault on top of which rests an empty stuffed leather chair with the word "mayor" written on it...

We're not Chicago. You want my idea for a new flag? A plain blue background with a picture of two hands holding an opened wallet, and third hand reaching in and taking money out of it.

There you go. Represents what "New Haven" means to many of us. Now run along and get back to work, kid.

@ Mr. O'Rourke-- if you knew the depths of racism of the Spanish to the Indians and the Africans (and therefore the self-hatred that it caused amongst Latinos today) , you might not be so willing to change. I am happy being what I am. I'm sorry that you are unhappy with yourself and with the Christian roots of this nation. If I am off the mark, I apologize in advance. But not to worry: with the advance of time and the eradication of European Judeo-Christian heritage, we will one day soon join the ranks of the 3rd World nations we feel so guilty about. I wonder if they'll have mercy on us that they claim they did not receive from us.....

Where is the flag? This is a story about changing New Haven's city flag and the article includes a photo of the Alder and the flags of Milwaukee and Chicago but not New Haven.

????

[Ed.: City flag is added at the top of the story.]

Timmy ORourke:

The Spanish decimated native populations in South America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Millions of people died because of war, slavery and diseases all brought by the "Christian" Spaniards. The Spanish did not assimilate themselves to indigenous culture, they destroyed it. Rape is not the same as assimilation. The indigenous that did convert do not prove a predisposition to Christ, but actually show a predisposition to live, as the alternative was slavery and death.

The Spanish were conquerors bent on finding gold, land and other treasures. They also converted the natives in order to appease the Pope and to get his approval of their exploits.

If you read John Winthrop or anything about him or the Puritans that came to New Haven, from Boston, you would know that they did endeavor to convert the natives if they could. But, they were Puritans and being as such held the belief in predestination, therefore conversion would most likely be superfluous.

And, actually most, if not all North American "Indians" speak English. They have for a very long time.

The motive to change the flag has nothing to do with denying New Haven's Christian heritage. It has to do with representing the New Haven of the 21st Century and I'm sure if it is redesigned there will be homage paid to the past.

This thread is a true work of art. ('robn' gets most of the credit.)

@Robin, I nominate you to "The Comittee." You describe about how I saw the flag looking more like a 1970's era NY city subway car. What was Milwaukee trying to say with their new flag? We have no history, but you can watch the sunrise on Michigan.

Atwater,
The point is Atwater, and by the way nice to hear from you, is that everyone in the United States, more or less, looks white and everyone in South America, more or less, looks like an Indian. That is because, despite that trite and old narrative that the Spanish only came west to find gold and decimated the population, they were deeply Catholic and had it in their minds to convert the unbaptized as their eternally souls were in jeopardy. They converted the Indians with very little intermarriage as evidence by the phenotypes of Latinos today. However, the majority of the people of the United States just do not look Indian, even if some of the actual "natives" do speak English. As a policy, the English Protestants wanted nothing to do with them but to appease them until they could eradicate them. The United States has remained a "Puritan" nation to this day and most Latinos are Catholic.

Aarrgh,

It's Mutiny, I tell you!
Give the Ole Jolly Roger a Salty Salute!

This is VERY heavily sampled from a Ted Talk by Roman Mars. Search "Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you've never noticed" on YouTube.

Actually very interesting, but as others have mentioned, there may be bigger fish to fry right now.

Timmy O'Rourke:
You cannot seriously believe that the Spanish were more concerned with conversions than with plunder and conquest. There is a reason they called themselves Conquistadors and not missionaries. An even cursory knowledge of Latin American society would should a tier of classes, there were/are the Espanoles, of "pure" Spanish stock, then there are the Mestizos (those of mixed Spanish and native ancestry) and finally there are the indigenous people. There was not complete "assimilation" as you believe, but there was a rigid class system based on ethnicity and blood-lines. It's the same bs that permeated North America. To think that the Catholics were holier than the English just because they "mixed" with more natives is ridiculous. Call them Catholic or Protestant, they all destroyed entire civilizations in order to gain territory, treasure and power.

If the Catholics were truly worried about salvation, as you claim, then they should not have killed millions of innocent people, they shouldn't have started the trans-Atlantic slave trade and they really shouldn't have used god as an excuse to do it. I think past and current events have shown Catholics are perhaps the greatest hypocrites when it comes to morality, temperance and compassion.

Not sure what this has to do with the Elm City's flag.

This is a phenomenal idea, Hacibey. A perfect way to bring the city together!

Timothy: No, every one in South America does not look like an Indian. The indigenous population of Argentina was largely exterminated, and most Argentinians are of European descent. Brazil, the largest country, is still in the process of exterminating its Indians. Their are caboclos, mixed race people, plus blacks and mulattoes descended from slaves brought to harvest sugar, especially around Bahia. The south has a lot of folks of German and Italian descent. (All over Brazil, Catholicism is losing out to Pentecostalism.) In Chile, the indigenous population is largely limited to the Andes. The Mapuche have had many armed struggles, including during the time of Allende/Pinochet. Read "Bio Bio Sangriento".
https://lonquimaypatrimonial.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/biobio-sangriento.pdf
In Peru and Bolivia, the indigenous populations were enslaved to work the silver mines. The coastal elites of Peru have renewed their war against the indigenous populations with massive land grabs for mines and dams, and oil. (Google Puno riots). Only in the past decades have indigenous-blooded leaders come to the fore for Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In addition to those of Spanish descent, Peru, also, has Japanese (think Fujimoro) and blacks. If you get away from the coast, even in Cusco, you will find resentment to the Catholicism imposed by the Spanish. Peruvians will speak of how , when they paraded statutes of saints for the Spanish, inside the saint statues they placed mummified Incas. BTW, while Spanish is the language of government in Peru and Bolivia, the first language of most continues to be the ancient, pre-Columbian languages.
Of Columbian immigrants I know living here, some look strikingly indigenous, while others are mixed. In general, those of European descent are upper class and don't emigrate. I will say, a childhood friend from Bolivia had skin as white as office paper, and no indigenous traits.

Timothy: The Puritan settlers did proselytize. There were villages of praying Indians in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. In Connecticut, the Mohegans' Congregational Church in Uncasville provided the continuous records required for federal recognition. In Branford, Indians were members of the Congregational church and left Indian Neck to the First Ecclesiastical Society after the passing of their last, Asa, the Faithful Indian.

While I think Haci's efforts are better spent addressing exploding AMR calls on the green, guidance counselor cuts and taxes through the roof, I did realize today that the motto for Connecticut's flag is

QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET

or, translated from Latin,

He Who Transplants Sustains

In an era of national anti immigration sentiment I think this is something

1644 and Atwater,
I never claimed that everyone in South America looks like an Indian. But it would be foolish to claim, that generally speaking, most do. Also, I do believe that the Conquistadores had no choice but to believe that they must convert the Stone Age people of America. This is the inevitable consequence of all man: that a more advanced culture subsumes the less advanced or the less advanced is left behind. Excluding the obvious grave sins of all men at all times, whose intended ends never justify their evil means, even to the varying and mixed degrees of the purity of their intentions, nobody can honesty maintain that it would be better for the Asian (Indian, Native American, whatever) immigrants of America to remain in the Stone Age. The Conquistadores cannot be understood apart from the approach of the medieval knights of Christendom. Yes, they trailed a grosser form of chivalry but nonetheless a code from which they had no ontological choice but to follow. They really believed in what they were doing was morally correct. Again, obviously there were extremely unscrupulous men in their number. However, for the most part they were more principled than any group of men who have ever embarked on any concerted mission of corresponding magnitude. Again, the phenotypes of most South Americans are Asian. The Conquistadores did not remove the population that existed before they arrived unlike the Protestants did, no matter what degree the latter may have proselytized. And while I disagree with a strict caste system, nobody can honestly maintain that there is not an inherent hierarchal construct from which all men have no choice but to operate as their innate talents necessitate, as our conversation attests. Obviously not politically correct but true nonetheless. Also, most Americans still share the Puritan ethos of success based salvation and leaving one religion to start another religion is tantamount to claiming the same liberality. Continued:

Just want to say that you all are NO FUN!

And to expect the 22-yr old rookie alderman to come in and fix the City's financial problems? If he tried to do what you all want him to do, he'd be quickly ostracized and replaced.

Timothy G. ORourke Jr
I DO NOT look English ( I look African) and I would much rather speak several African languages PLUS latin languages (like most Africans do) BUT when you are born in America you are taught that English is superior and the only language worth learning...People even get agitated in the US when they hear someone speaking any language other than ENGLISH. They feel its rude..I think its jealousy. Much of the world is multilingual so I'm embarrassed to be fluent in only ONE language and a few dialects of English.

I have NEVER embraced any form of Christianity except when I still believed in Santa Clause...

As far as why so many colored people in general are devout Catholics and or Christians I must reinforce what my friend ATWATER said...We were FORCED to give up our spiritual beliefs AND language....Over time our culture AND languages faded into dark recessive corners. Most descendants/victims of slavery have been trained well to love and embrace the fact that Christianity was beaten into them..Slaves were Forbidden to speak their language or keep up their traditions and beliefs....They have forgotten the past BEFORE CHRIST before the 12 disciples before the 10 commandments...There was Heru/Horus there was the 12 zodiacs there was the SUN (which is displayed behind every man made image of Jesus btw) there were the 42 laws of Maat and other "Pagan" practices (truth be told a highly protected secret guarded by the Vatican) STOLEN and revamped by the Colonists.....

Indigenous Native Americans are NOT INDIAN....Christopher Columbus thought he docked the shores of INDIA...That idea has been debunked long ago and since we all know where INDIA really is and what real INDIANS look like.....Can we stop calling Native Americans INDIAN???

The line between the US and Mexico is imaginary..."Mexicans and "Native Americans" are the same people (bloodline) different tribes. A lot more Id like to say about Phenotype but I'm out of characters lol

And, finally, what this has to with the flag is that the Alderman has taken issue with the common intellectual and ecclesiastical language of the majority of America's ancestors. I feel they should be honored instead.

Timmy O'Rourke:

I hope you're joking. But I don't think you are. The natives of South and Central America did not live in the "stone age", they had highly advanced societies that thrived for thousands of years (Mayan, Incan, Aztec, etc.). To say that the Conquistadors were "principled" because they carried a cross is ludicrous. They were savages bent on complete domination of the continent. They did the same thing to the Philippines.

As for the caste (called the casta) system, it was imposed on the people of South America, in the similar way the caste system was imposed on people in several African nations (see Burundi, Rwanda, etc.). It has nothing to do with "inherent abilities", but was based on skin color, wealth and power. It was eugenics by a different name created to subdue the population and reinforce the power of the ruling class, the Espanoles. So, you're right, the Conquistadors did not remove the population, they simply exterminated them, as much they could. They destroyed their culture, their sciences, their land, their cities and their humanity.

As for the flag, the only issue the Alderman appears to have with Latin is that he cannot understand it. It is a dead language after all. It might have been an ecclesiastical/intellectual language in the 17th century, but so was Greek, yet there is no argument to put some Greek on the flag. Personally, I find the idea of a city flag a bit silly. We don't need anymore banners or flags, we have enough.

New Haven flag should have pizza and a pitbull on it at least..but why is this millennial smiling?

His generation faces catastrophe and cataclysm.....a world wipeout.....a mass extinction including our own. Just read Ten Billion by Emmett....or just the NYTIMES. Marriage and children are out of the question for these folks who should be focusing on survival and self-defense measures...and they will be lucky if they can afford the lessons.

Besides, I don't think that 'logo' is a Flag, I think it is a 'Seal'....
You can all now proceed with clapping your flippers and balancing a weighted ball on your nose!

How about a pirate flag,The red flag, when used by pirates, came to mean "no quarter given", meaning that no mercy would be shown on the taxes payers.

Actually, while the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans were certainly far from Stone Age in sophistication, there continue to exist "Stone Age" people (sans stone) in the Amazon jungle. And guess what? They are/were pretty happy with their "Stone Age" existence. The forest provided all they needed, at least until the whites and caboclos started cutting it down, creating farms and grazing land, damming vast areas of forest for hydropower, and ripping it apart for gold and iron. Occasionally, another tribe would raid and steal children, but otherwise it was a pretty good existence. Analogous, I recall reading an Atlantic article about a "primitive" tribe, whose existence pretty much consistence of partying, recovering from the party, and preparing for the next party. In therms of leisure time, they were far better off then us. Back in the Amazon, the men get to spend their time running through the forest with their dogs, looking for tapir, snakes, monkeys, and panthers. The women are stuck with the kids tending manioc fields, but at least the men aren't around. The women also get to spend a lot of time grooming, making jewelry, feather adornments, and painting intricate designs on their bodies with genipa juice.

The Puritans and well most northern European's leadership tended to frown on "Going Native" The Dutch where probably the most strict. Mr. O'Rourke Jr. Any family members of your family in Saint Patrick's Brigade? I do love how NHI's comment section can go off on it's own. Can anyone else see a flag battle in the future between "The Seal" and well what ever a New or "Progressive" The Committee comes up with.

The city is broke and he wants to change the flag? Who is going to pay for it?

"everyone in the United States, more or less, looks white. . ."

Really, Mr. O'Rourke? What mine shaft are you living in? Even adding "more or less" doesn't help your point. African Americans alone make your statement truly ridiculous, with every skin color from café au lait to very dark brown. And Latinos are a blend, depending on what countries they come from, of Caucasian (Spanish), indigenous peoples (Native Americans) & African.

The center of both the seal and flag, of course, is the Great Shippe, into which New Haven put all its hopes for a prosperous future nearly 400 years ago, never to be seen again (unless one counts apparitions). Maybe, one day, it will return, but surely not any time soon.