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Flag elements meet fashion: a swimsuit that suggests pernicious patriotism?

Strangely enough, this isn’t the first time I’ve covered flags and swimwear.  It’s not even the second time.  Judging from the tallies of the two topics, the count on flags vastly exceeds those of swimwear.  I do love me some flags.  As an (extremely) amateur vexillologist, I enjoy not just their origins in heraldry but

It takes more than an Old Line to draw the Lone Star.

I’ve fixated on flags more than a few times over the years, and I’ve honed in on the Maryland flag a disproportionate amount—perhaps more than it deserves. No offense intended to Marylanders, but the fact is it’s easy to spot the Maryland flag because 1) it’s a good flag and 2) people wear or display

Tourist traps and coastal cosmopolitanism—a profitable pairing.

The trendy tourist trap town offers more than a chance for alliteration (which I obviously can NEVER pass up). It affords great opportunities for analysis, because, nine times out of ten, this funky community with abnormal appeal differs from the surrounding areas in numerous other ways beyond the dollars it racks up in out-of-town visitors.

The Maryland flag: anything but a flop.

Sure, each one of our nation’s fifty states gets two senators to represent its constituents federally through the legislature, and each state claims an individual vote on amendments to the Constitution. But on matters of the House of Representatives, votes for the Electoral College, budget allocations and just about every other consideration, not all states

From offal to awe-ful: branding the Meatpacking District.

Forgive the awful triplicate pun, if you can, and step back in time for just a moment. If we were to take some fashionable New Yorkers from 1986, shove them into a DeLorean, then shuttle them to the present, can anyone imagine the shock on their faces if this were the first thing they saw

Some cultures go full bloom; others are happy to remain bulbs.  

Considering that our landscapes are replete with signifiers, why is it that we typically only notice the big, garish ones? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon—or a semiotician—to answer that question: big symbols tend to dwarf little ones, so they nearly always get an upper hand in their ability to convey a message. If this

It takes more than an Old Line to draw the Lone Star.

I’ve fixated on flags more than a few times over the years, and I’ve honed in on the Maryland flag a disproportionate amount—perhaps more than it deserves. No offense intended to Marylanders, but

The Maryland flag: anything but a flop.

Sure, each one of our nation’s fifty states gets two senators to represent its constituents federally through the legislature, and each state claims an individual vote on amendments to the Constitution. But on

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