Nick thinks the city needs a flag redesign. Roger says: Start with those colors.

Yes, I know; there shouldn't be words on the flag. What if it's a hash tag? Here's the official flag of New Albany.

At The Aggregate, Nick's on a flag jag.

New Albany’s Flag Needs a Redesign

So, without being an expert (but perhaps a casual flag critic), and only being someone who loves his community, and his community’s history, here is my rough draft of a version of New Albany’s flag which I think the community could rally around and be proud of.

Click through, read the entire essay and tell Nick what you think. The Aggregate is a relatively new source for local news. Reading Nick's piece, it seemed to me that I wrote something about the city's flag fairly early in NA Confidential's run.

Sure enough, here it is -- from November 20, 2004.

---

Dissonance and New Albany's green and gold?

For those who may be curious about the description of the official New Albany flag, as described by B. several times previously, here's the way the official ordinance describes it:

CHAPTER 11: CITY STANDARDS

NEW ALBANY FLAG

§ 11.01 DESCRIPTION OF FLAG.
A green background, symbolic of our green hills and of the many different kinds of trees native to our area and Indiana, on which the following are emblazoned: white shield edged in gold, symbolic of the character and courage of the varied nationalities of our ancestors, with a gold torch thereon, representing enlightenment and liberty; and the numerals “1813,” the year of the establishment of the City of New Albany, all within a semicircle of 19 gold stars, representing Indiana as the 19th state; and a gold pilot wheel in the lower right-hand corner, symbolic of our historic background as a river city.

(Res. R-62-7, passed 10-1-62)

All this bears more than a passing resemblance to the color scheme of Floyd Central High School, which is the Floyd County consolidated school and a bitter arch-rival of New Albany (city) High School, which has the colors of red and black.

The blame for this multi-hued anarchy surely must rest with Floyd Central, which came into existence five years after the resolution describing the city flag.

Ideally, none of this should matter one jot when it comes to reproducing the city flag as a symbol of our "Somehow Transform New Albany into Something Quasi-Weird" campaign.

However, we must remember that New Albany's unofficial city ethos (never codified, but tangible) is "Arrested Development," and this implies allegiances to high school that go far beyond the norm, particularly as they reflect high school basketball. 

Just ask Chris Morris of the New Albany Tribune.

A certain number of New Albanians probably won't accept the flag for this most petty and senseless of reasons. Do we attempt (reviving) it anyway?

---

Late note (June 24): a comment by reader Randy Smith.

That website isn't allowing comments on the post, although it explicitly asks, "What do you think?"

I think there's a significant amount of revisionist history being put forth, but I'm willing to be persuaded I'm wrong. TO say that New Albanians were "ardent abolitionists" is the most objectionable. This region is also well known for it's "Copperhead" tendencies. I've never heard about New Albany being an abolitionist stronghold.

Incorporating the "Town Clock Church" into a municipal flag is not something I'd be happy with. I frankly question whether it is iconic. It exists and is appreciated by some, but it has nothing to do with the founding of the city and it barely represents any long-term aspect of the city's history. The inclusion of a piece of sectarian imagery is also inappropriate.

I will concede that New Albany has a slight Irish connection. The divisions in the Catholic church and the "riot" bear witness to that. But I would wager that NA had more Scots-Irish protestant residents when the Irish influx peaked. By the 1850s, if not sooner, the German influence was dominant.

It reminds me of a previous attempt to change a municipal icon. A local cop designed new patches for the police department and was compelled to include the fleur-de-lis. His rationale was a nod to New Albany's "rich" French heritage. There is no doubt that Louisville has a French Catholic heritage (Louis?) and Floyd County still has signs of its French-ness, but the only indications of a historic French influence in New Albany predates the city by decades. Yes, voyageurs encamped here. But French "settlement" was pretty much outside of the city and came much later.

Finally, if the clock were removed, Nick's proposed flag would make a decent 1970s rugby shirt. Beyond that, it leaves me cold. Analogizing to current affairs, if this sincere offering were one of the 24 Democratic candidates for president, Nick's would be the Tulsi Gabbard.

How paint has become a weapon in Macedonia's "Colorful Revolution."

Bear with me. This story is deeper than it seems at first.

How Paint Became a Weapon in Macedonia's 'Colorful Revolution', by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Paint-balling your way to fair elections.

Look at the aftermath of recent protests in the Macedonian capital Skopje, and you might assume a festival had just left town. Archways appear splattered with polka dot blotches of color, statues drip pink and blue streaks, and fountain water runs scarlet. This colorful makeover isn’t the result of some Balkan version of Holi, however. It’s the product of a protest movement whose dazzling tactics—dubbed Sharena Revolutsiya or “the colorful revolution” despite its overwhelmingly peaceful nature—has meant covering city walls and monuments in splashes of brightly colored paint ...

 ... Macedonia’s Colorful Revolution actually kicked off last winter following shocking revelations over the scope of alleged state surveillance in the country.

Macedonia became an independent country following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Since time immemorial, the geographical vicinity of present-day Macedonia (not to mention the Macedonians themselves, many of  whom live in Bulgaria and Greece) has been a regional bone of contention. Now, Macedonia finds itself astride a major refugee route, with geopolitical ramifications.

With the E.U. relying on Macedonia to stem the flow of refugees trying to cross the country from Greece, European governments have largely taken a softly-softly approach, concerning themselves more with brokering stability than pushing for regime change. All that has forced local protesters to get creative. Instead of throwing bricks or Molotov cocktails, they’ve been firing paint balls, scattering Macedonia’s parliament and public buildings with glaring color.

Here's the kicker. Macedonia's political crisis derives in part from ongoing efforts to plasticize and Disney-fy the capital city, Skopje.

That demonstrators are especially concerned with altering the capital’s appearance is not insignificant. In many countries this might come across as a wanton, self-defeating attack on public property that has served many governments, not just the current one. In Macedonia’s capital, however, those very buildings are often new, and represent the forces in the country that protesters loathe.

Skopje has in recent years been undergoing a massive reconstruction project to make it look grander and more imposing (and in Europe, it’s not alone in doing so). The ruling VMRO-DPMNE party has splurged on giving the city a neoclassical makeover that has smothered the city with Brobdingnagian monuments to Alexander the Great, bridges bristling with bronze reliefs, and endless hollow colonnades. At a mushrooming cost of €633 million ($722 million)—meaning that the country is paying out €10,400 ($11,860) every hour—the results are dramatic, oppressive, and hideous. It’s no wonder that these new monuments have been taken as symbols of the government’s grandiose delusions and petty oppression, stone and masonry canvasses on which people are now writing their frustration in day-glo paint. This isn’t just a case of protesters writing their anger on walls. In Skopje, the walls themselves are part of the problem.

Sound familiar?