Uniting Our City Under a New Banner

From Cedar-Rapids.org, city web site, the new Cedar Rapids flag.

I am not really a flag person, but I like the new Cedar Rapids city flag, unveiled by the city on Sept. 18. Symbols have some importance--I wrote on this blog earlier about Mount Mercy's new Fall Faculty Series, and each series has been unified in its communications by a series logo.

When Mount Mercy College became Mount Mercy University some years ago, the unveiling of the U's new logo was a key feature of the big announcement.

Some flags cause consternation. The Nazi banner is illegal to display in Germany. Here in America, it's just in incredibly poor taste, although it, like the battle flag of the Confederacy, at least serves so the rest of us can quickly identify the most awful people among us.

And now we have a new flag, meant to represent the Cedar River, the land, some flood control and our protection via star-wielding ninjas.

Although, to me, the nice new flag also vaguely looks like it could be from some obscure Central or South American country. Perhaps my city has appropriated the proud national banner of Val Verde.

Another image from city web site--the new flag flies.

And thus, we have a new civil symbol. I’m not sure it was an important project during a pandemic, but I do think the green-blue, end-of-island shape is attractive. It replaces a city flag designed by the 1960s that was rather dated (see image in Gazette story in link in the first paragraph).

And whatever you might think of this proud new symbol of an OK small city, I think most of us could agree it’s far superior to our other prominent civic symbol—the toilet brush of five seasons. Five. Why five? Four seasons and a fifth one to scratch your head and wonder.

Wikimedia commons, image from Eric James. The "Tree of Five Seasons," which never looks like a tree.

So what do you think of the new city flag?