Few conflicts are as external as the conflict between lovers of geometry and its haters. A few other spats come close: wars of  aggression, sibling rivalries, lutefisk vendors and people,  spam callers and call blockers, and road repair and activity.

Geometry lovers wax rhapsodic over the ability to determine the height of a distant building without every going near it. Wow! All you need to have is a tree between you and the building and a few distances. What can be more beneficial to humanity than calculating that?

Alas, evil people, geometry haters stalk the land, people fell asleep during geometry class, people who snap after being asked to prove the Pythagorean Theorem one time too many. These people are the reason we can’t nice things. These folk constitute the hard-core unemployed. All those jobs that requiring calculating building heights, remain forever shut to them. Indeed these people find no jobs at all in the construction industry. Would you trust erecting a skyscraper to a ne’er do well who won’t measure angles? I didn’t think so.

It’s hard to spot a feral geometry hater on the street. You need to make repeated visits to people’s homes or diners. A geometry lover, GL, will often cut his cheese sandwich into two pieces diagonally. A geometry hater, GH, never.

Over the centuries, GHs took control of most countries and eliminated all traces of triangles in their nation’s flags. In these lands, GHs relentlessly persecute geometry lovers. The coup d’état remains the only way for GLs to assert their freedom. You can tell these plucky lands by the triangles in their flags.

And now, the roll call of FREEDOM

1) American Samoa

American Samoa remains firmly in the grasp of the Order of the Triangle, OT, or Overtimers as the underground resistance calls them. This wondrous land features nested triangles with a heavily armed and rather pissed-off bald eagle ever ready to defend geometric freedom.

2) Antigua and Barbuda

Oh Antigua! Oh Barbuda! How the Sun blesses your happy shores! Indeed, contentment here runs riot to such an extent, that this Eden proclaims its joy with five flags, five! (See if you can find them all.) The poly-coloric–Yes, that is now a word, by decree–triangles reflects the two islands’ committment to diversity and to the land’s influential painters. community.

3) Bahamas

The colors of the Bahamian flag represent the three main groups of the island chain: black-haired people, golden-haired people, and, of course, the teal-haired people. (You really should visit and see all the wonderful ‘dos.) Anyway, the black triangle also stands for the graphite pencils and black-ink pens favored by the GLs. Although diverse in geometric sentiment, Bahamas is no mathematics tyranny. The dominant GLs freely share power with the GHs. If only we could all be like the Bahamas.

4) Bhutan

Such a happy land! It loves triangles. The Bhutanese don’t see things in black and white; they view the world in yellow and orange! How wonderful is that? The joy of the land often erupts in games of Four Ball. (The dragon in the flag below holds a ball in each of its four claws.) In Four Ball, the side that collects and then defends four balls, wins. But it’s a friendly game; the winners treat the losers to triangular scoops of lemon and orange sherbets.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.