How many times has this happened to you? You’ve been scrupulously minding your own business when suddenly you acquire a country, a province, or a city. How did you end up with such an expanse of land and the people, economies, and nuclear weapons that go along with it?
Perhaps you inherited it. Did you think to ask your parents, “Will you be leaving me a country?” I suggest people do so.
Perhaps you own stock in a large corporation, like Amazon(tm), for example. Amazon is growing by leaps and bounds all the time, so it’s plausible to assume that they might buy a small country or parts thereof, to help lower distribution costs.
Perhaps you simply saw the deed to the country on a sidewalk and picked it up.
So, there you have it. You’ve yourself a new country. But won’t the once old country be angry at you? You betcha! Won’t they be chomping at the bit to diversify your retirement portfolio be regainging their independence? Absolutely. Can they do it? Yes, if they ally with some powerful nation, or huge hedge fund, and attack you.
That is the nightmare scenario. The only way to stop this coalition from forming against you is to fool the world into thinking your country isn’t new; that it’s really part of either an old and peaceful nation or portfolio. How do you do this?
Simple, pick a flag that looks like the one from another country, province, or city. How do you do that?
May I suggest limiting the colors of your new flag to calming green and white? There are simply scads of wonderful countries that use only green and white in their banners. Here are my favorite green-and-white flags in order of coolness and usefulness. And you know the saying, “Cool flags, cool people.”
1. North Caucasian Emirate
The North Causian Emirate had flag sported a white happy face on a green background. It was the coolest green-and-white flag ever.*
Was.
Unfortunately this Islamic stated existed for less than a year during the Russian Revolution of 1919 to 1921. Then communists forcibly absobed the North Causian Emirate into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with their boring-hammer-and-sickle-on-an-endless-red-background flag. Friggin’ commies.
2. Pakistan
Pakistan has a green and white flags in the world. It possesses nuclear weapons. So if you acquire Pakistan, from playing poker perhaps, you also get its thermonuclear capability. That would come in handy when confronting medical insurers who refuse to bill you correctly. Oh, and bothersome neighbors.
3. Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia flag also uses a green-and-white flag. The Arabic inscription says, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” The sword at the bottom will deter people coming to your house to sell a tree-trimming service. And what kind of monster comes unannounced to your front door, anyway?
4. Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island’s flag causes excitement wherever flaps in the wind. (Pretty much just on Norfolk Island.) You just can’t get around ithe green tree in the middle of its flag. They could have put a spoon, a bug, or an advertisement in the middle, but they didn’t. Well done, Norfolk. Your neighbors will never doubt your commitment to Go Green when you run this flag up your flagpole.
5.Nigeria
The Nigerian flag is the same as Norfolk Island’s, but with no beautiful tree in the middle. The theme of “simplicity, simplictity won out in the nationwide competiton.
6. Rotterdam
The city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands has its own flag. It is the Nigerian flag rotated 90 degrees.
7. Siberia
Siberia’s green-and-white flag boldly dispensed with the boring rectangles prevalent in so many of the world’s flags. Yes, it had two triangles, which I like to think pay hommage to the Pythagorean Theorem. The green triangle represents Siberia’s vast forest. The green triangle stands for the White Russians who fought for the Tsar’s and against the Communists. I prefer to think it stands for the snow that blankets Siberia. At any rate, the green-hating Communists, Philistines everyone of them, threw this flag away in favor of their dreary red banner.
8. The regions of the regions of Saxony, Andalusia, Antioquia, and Esmeralda
The down-to-Earth inhabitants hailing from these lands went with simple white rectangle on top of a green one and left it at that. Unpretentious, you bet.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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