Hello, everyone.
Welcome to this December edition of This Month in Flag News.
I am Vexillographer, as usual, and we begin our stories today– okay, national anthem,
of course.
I'm not a traitor or anything, I'm a... proud American, yeah.
National anthem.
There we go.
Okay.
I'm a proud American.
Please don't arrest me I'm not a traitor.
Welcome to This Month in Flag News.
Let's begin our stories today with this one coming out of the nation of India.
On November 30th of this year the Supreme Court of India ruled that every movie theater,
before every single film, must display an image of the national flag of India accompanied
by the national anthem.
In addition to that, every person who is about to watch the movie must stand during this
presentation.
All the doors of the movie theater must be closed so that no one can leave during this
anthem presentation.
So basically they are making it a law to be patriotic during this presentation of the
flag and anthem of India.
Uh... okay.
Is this a good idea or not?
Well, this is something that has been happening often when it comes to Indian nationalist
parties gaining power in regional and national governments.
And this makes sense, of course, because everyone who sits down while a multicolored piece of
cloth is flying... must obviously be a traitor to their country! Hunt 'em down!
Rahhh!
Seriously guys, is this really a good idea?
I mean, there have been people who were recently beaten because they didn't stand during the
flag presentation.
There was one guy who was disabled, so he couldn't stand, so he was attacked by the
couple behind him when he didn't stand.
Um, he's disabled; he can't.
And also, there were people who have been arrested.
At least 19 people this month that have been arrested for not standing during this flag
presentation at the movie theater.
Do you really need to force everyone to look patriotic before they watch whatever movie
they watch?
I mean, what if we did that here in the United States?
If you want to stand for the flag and the anthem, go for it.
If you don't, I'm fine with that too.
That doesn't make you an enemy of the state; that doesn't make you a traitor.
It might just mean you're tired.
Maybe you just want to relax and watch a dumb movie without having to prove your citizenship
all the time.
We need to go further!
Every YouTube video needs to show the national flag and the national anthem!
And don't you dare press "Skip Anthem"!
Oh, your traitor!
Who do you think you are, Benedict Arnold?
Err, you disgust me!
No, we need everyone to stand 'cause how else will we know who's the traitor?
Yes, every single TV show must start with the national anthem.
Yeah, that'll solve everything.
Yeah.
Yeah, let's do it.
Every single segment of This Month in Flag News should have the anthem.
Yeah, everyone should... yeah.
I don't know where I'm going with this bit.
So yeah, good job India; that'll solve everything.
Let's move on to the next segment.
In our next story, we're talking about– oh, of course, yeah, I'm a...
I'm not a traitor, I'm a good American.
There we go.
Okay.
Yeah, okay.
I'm a good citizen.
Please don't arrest me.
I'm a good citizen.
Please don't arrest me.
In our next segment, we are not talking about a specific one country.
We're talking about the international organization called the Unicode Consortium.
These are basically the guys who decide what characters and letters from languages and
writing systems from all around the world get included in the international standard,
so that they can be read by almost every computer and mobile device in the world.
This is how Wikipedia pages can show all these crazy characters from other languages, and
things like that.
So, these guys are also in charge of which emoji are considered part of the international
standard.
That's right: the Unicode Consortium is in charge of which emoji get in and which emoji
don't get in, basically.
And this month, they announced that in the first half of 2017, as part of their proposal
for the next year, they want to include regional flags as emoji characters.
So, if you were dying to show off your Scottish pride or English pride, Welsh pride, Floridian
pride, Wisconsinian pride... chances are, your flag of your specific region will likely
be included in a new emoji update in the first half of 2017.
So, uh, yay!
Or to put that in emoji... y'know, roughly translated.
Let's move on to our next story.
Our next story comes out of–
Our next story comes from the United States state of Texas, where the city of Cedar Park
has adopted a brand new city flag designed by Catherine Van Arnam.
It was announced on December 9, and it looks like this.
The blue represents the creeks of the area, the green represents the parks of the area,
and those four X's represent the four different names that Cedar Park has had over time.
I like this design.
Good job, Texas.
And I really like the presentation event they came up with.
They had fireworks, they had a huge stage, they had a screen.
Good job.
You guys know how to party with a new flag design announcement.
Good job, guys.
Let's move on to our next story.
And now our final story tonight comes from the–
Our final story tonight comes from the United States state of Alaska, where the city of
Seward has announced on December 12 its very first official city flag.
And I think it's a nice, simple, meaningful, colorful one.
You can see an homage to the Alaskan state flag with the Northern Star in the corner
there.
I think that's a clever little touch, as well as the representation of a mountain in winter.
I think this is a great city flag, and it's their very first official city flag apparently.
Now apparently, they used to just slap their logo onto a white flag, but thankfully this was
never official.
Oh my goodness, how many American city flags do that.
So thankfully, their first official flag is a good one.
So, well done, Seward.
And well done, Katelyn.
Well done, Katelyn Correa.
So, that was This Month in Flag News: the December 2016 edition.
Thank you guys so much for joining in.
I really appreciate it.
I hope you have a great 2017 and a great night.
Goodnight.
I'm Vexillographer, and goodnight.
Now I'm gonna go make a sandwich.
See ya.
Bye.
Oh, come on!
I'm just making a sandwich!