So Is Maine Getting A New State Flag Or Not? Let’s Find Out…

In the last few years, there's been this debate going on here in the fine state of Maine, about whether or not we should change our state flag. In fact, I feel like about the only more useless thing that's often debated and gets about as much traction, is whether or not to do away with daylight saving time. But that's a whole other rant.

The on again / off again proposal would have us switch from the blue Dirigo flag we are all familiar with, and change it back to a previous design from 100+ years ago. And honestly, from this man's perspective, the blue Dirigo flag is kind of strange. The depiction in the middle is a bit odd for a flag.

It features what I'm assuming are a farmer/soldier of some kind, standing adjacent to what I'm also assuming is a fisherman/seaman of some kind. They're both standing next to an image of a pine tree with a moose laying in front of it. Plus there's swords and anchors, making it doubly over the top. It looks like this:

The new version, is actually based on the original flag for the state. And although in some ways, it's a more straightforward approach without and swords and anchors and such, but it also looks kind of like a Fisher-Price drawing of a flag. It's a bit too cartoon-y and simple to really be a state flag, in my humble opinion. It looks like this:

So the question is, after all this debate.... Are we getting a new state flag or what? According to WABI - TV5, we are not. Nope, not this time. This came up before in 2019, and basically got no legs, nor did it pass. And the same is true again. And it's not like the vote was even close. It was defeated soundly 91-53.

I gotta believe that there's better things to do with committees than sit around discussing our flag options. Let it be a people's vote if you really want the opinion of Mainers. Until then, stop fussing about with our weird flag. Maybe someday, we can bring back that kid's flag, but for now... How about just fixing the potholes?!