Ep. 75: In Franglais-man's Terms w/ Evan Stewart

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got the boss and a few image matters. You
might even get to standards and what kind of represent
Just tick my voices and a lit try to understand
this logic podcast, Cause a flat book, cont.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Flag food count, what's up? Backsads, and Welcome to episode
seventy five Somehow A flag for content, it's the only
podcast that makes you question which Georgia. It's also a
flags for Good podcast, and you can head on over
to Flags for Good dot com slash flagged four content

(00:46):
for like the number, pick out any flag you like.
They're growing every day in u choice and popularity. Uh.
And once you get those all on your cart, you
can use code flagged four content spelled the same way
with that for at checkout. Give yourself a nice ten
percent bonus, uh, and give the show a little bit

(01:07):
of a let's call it a bonus as well. Not
a whole lot else to get into this week. I
did want to mention that Evan is a returning guest
and part of the reason for that is because he
has been on our link tree. If you go to
the link tree, which is linktree dot com slash flagged

(01:27):
four content all spelled out, there are a ton of
links on there, including stuff that I don't even talk
about on the show. But there's also a guest submission
form where you can put in yourself. You can suggest
another guest. Obviously you'll have to reach out to them,
but you get it. Anyone you would like to see
on the show, or if you would like to be

(01:49):
on the show. That's a good place to start. That's
where Evan started. And man, this episode is amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think the only other thing I had on my
list of mind was that if you are interested in
more Anglo Quebec proposals, go on Reddit, go elsewhere you
know find them, because we are only going to get
to a few on this episode. Obviously, I think we
got to the most popular ones, but there are so

(02:19):
many out there that we didn't get to dig through
them on your own. There's a lot of interesting stuff
out there. Anyway, all that aside, I would love to
quit doing this intro and go ahead and get into
the episode with myself and with Evan Stewart and let's
just do that. Now Here we go, Bexads. We've got

(02:44):
a returning hero to the show this week. You know
him as the Disport's top Maryland flag supporter. You know,
h from claiming expertise after scanning one wiki and you
know his inability to maintain a simple flag Instagram.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Stuart. Yeah, I tried to list my three best properties
there best qualities. So I feel, you know, I feel
pretty good about that.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Intro right goes hard for a flag claims expertise and yeah, yeah, yeah,
like I'm busy, I got a lot going on, so yeah, no,
I feel honestly these three things, if you change a
word or two, would also describe myself. So yeah, speaking

(03:30):
of stuff going on, Yeah, what's what's life been thrown
at you recently?

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah? No, since the last time, when was that like
eighteen months ago? I think I mentioned then we are
moving have since moved. So my backdrop is the different
is a different ceiling and a different Yeah, and yeah,
my my wife and I or my wife and I.
I was there, but I did nothing. My wife gave

(03:55):
birth to our second child a little over a year ago,
so now too small terrorists running around my house and uh,
controlling my life. So you know that's been basically other
than that, just hand, same old Samel. You know, it's
one of those just get to the age where just
life seems to be all rhythm and whatnot and which

(04:16):
is weirdly comforting while also a little depressing.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah no, uh that makes sense. Yeah, I was gonna ask,
how have you been keeping up at all with the
row House xolology project? I know that's the instagram from
the intro, but.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
So kind of there was you know, we moved and
I got a flagpole bracket up on the door, and
then we had a big windstorm last like May that
ripped it off. And then I think I talked in
the discord about like trying to figure out some solutions
and I did get it replaced. That took me way
too long, because that is yeah, how long everything breaks

(04:53):
these days. And then I just I realized that I
was not changing, like the flag is all and I
would like and I was like almost like dreading the
like Okay, what blurb do I have to do for
this flag? And blah bla. I just like you know what,
I'm an just kind of sunset for now, the instagram

(05:14):
and the blue sky. I mean, I still fly plenty
of weird flags. I think I have spoken up right now.
Oh cool, Yeah, and get you know, get comments from
neighbors who are like what the hell is that? So yeah,
now if you're if you're in my very small pocket

(05:35):
neighborhood in uh in Baltimore, you will you will definitely
see the flags still right on, right on.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Good deal. Well, I we'd love to talk more about that,
but we've got a lot to cover and not enough
time to do it today, So we give the ves
heads a rundown of what's on the flagpole. For this one,
we got our usual over and underrated flags. We will
mostly be talking about Anglophone Commune in Quebec, both their

(06:01):
flags and their culture. We're going to touch on some
proposed flags for those communities, go over a quiet revolution
and I'm going to drop a bombshell at some point
you'll just have to see. But before we get to
any of that, Evan, I like to ask my guests,
what's your current favorite flag? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:20):
So my current favorite flag is the flag of Montgomery County, Maryland.
It's a yes, it is that one. Yeah, which I
didn't even realize when I said that, how it had
flirtolis on it like the flag of Quebec.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
I was suspecting that's why you asked for these two. Honestly, No,
that was.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Like most things with me, it was just a happy
accident because I can't plan for shit, Hey, I know
the feeling. Yeah, So Montgomery County, it's a it's a
suburban county of Washington, d C. Just a little bit
south of of where I'm at in Baltimore. And it's
it's a it's a banner of arms, and I really

(07:00):
well done one. It's a based off of the arms
of the Montgomery family. Shocker, And I don't know, I
just I like the color, I like the symbolism. To
kind of describe it, I guess it's it's got four quarters.
The upper fly and lower hoist are red with like

(07:26):
a ring on them, and then the reverse of the
upper hoists and the lower fly are blue with a
flirtal lee on them, and then the vertical divider is
it's not straight. It's got a like notched pattern to it,
which I actually just realized and kind of like looking
a little more into this flag is supposed to represent

(07:46):
the borders of a local government, which is a very
interesting way to phrase that, because I thought it was
something like when I read that initially, I was like, Oh,
is that what part of Montgomery County? Kind of looks
like and not really. There's only like one border that
may be kind of like that, but I think it's
just supposed to represent like, oh, this is a border.

(08:07):
This is the idea of a border, as opposed to
just the kind of more just straight division that you're
used to seeing. Yeah, but no, I think it's a
really good design. I think it's very distinct. There's some
stuff in there about pantone matching to like the US
and Maryland flags with the reds and yellows and blues,
which not going to comment on because as we know,

(08:27):
the blue and the American flag could be a testy subject.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah. Yeah, I was just talking to somebody earlier today
about that.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, the Wikipedia, they claimed that, but sure whatever, moving on. Ye,
But yeah, no, I think it's I think it's a
good flag. It's it's really good, especially for like a
US county, because a lot of county flags even worse
than a lot of city flags in my experience, they're.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Just yeah, they're they're very much afterthoughts and pretty much
all cases except I mean, yeah, except most of the
Maryland ones you've shown me, this one and others. On
my end, I am just now realizing why So I
got married in October of last year, and Evan sent

(09:16):
me three flags in advance of that, and was and
asked me at the time, like, do you know why, like,
and you guess why I sent you these specific ones.
One was Maryland. Yeah. I was like, Okay, mary Land
getting married? Sure this one. I was like, Oh, it's
because it has the little like rings in the corners,

(09:38):
you know, like they look like engagement rings or wedding
rings or whatever. And I think you said no, But
then I think we maybe moved on to a different topic.
I'm only just now getting that it's because of this
like crinilation, like the border thing in the middle, or
at least that's what I assume, because that's on my
flag for content flag or is there like a third thing?

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Way over thinking it, I sent you. I sent you
the Maryland one just to be shit heel, And then
I'm trying to remember what the there's the third one
Baltimore County or Baltimore City County. Okay, So it's the
basically the Maryland with the.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
THEW with the yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
Then across lands it's got a gear in one quarter
and a plow in the other. Right, that's the one
I sent you.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Oh, maybe it's the Baltimore City one. I thought it
was the one with the it's just the calvert and
it has like a seal in the middle.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
And that's the city. That's the city city. Okay, yeah, okay,
so yeah, so okay, so my lot, my truthfully my logic.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I do want to know this now.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
I send you Maryland as like to be a ship
heel okay of you being like, I will never own
a Maryland flag. I will never fly a Maryland flag.
And I was like, well, fuck you, I can fix
at least one of those things. That's the Baltimore one.
I think I sent you just because of even though
I lived in Baltimore County at that time, because it's

(11:02):
kind of like representative of where I live, Like it's
basically like the flag of where I live, even though
I don't technically live there anymore. And it's not it's
not a great flag in my opinion, but it's pretty
solid and spacifically a local pride around it, like you
do see it a fair amount in the city off
of private residences and whatnot. And then I was like,
all right, I'm sending him two flags that I don't

(11:24):
think he's gonna like. I was like, what's another flag that, like,
I think he will like? And it literally was Moco
or Montgomery County sorry Moco for short, because I was like, Okay,
this is a cool flag that I think you'll like.
I'm like ninety nine percent sure he's never seen it

(11:45):
before in his life. So that was the extent of
the logic. It was like, all right, I'm gonna piss
you off with these I know one for sure, and
probably the other one too, So let's like but like, hey,
you're getting this cool thing as well.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
So yeah, okay, all right, I get it. Yeah, I was.
I was. I always read very far into that. I
was sure that it was going to be the crenilation thing,
this like middle.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Border that I had missed that cool detail though.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
It is a cool kind of shout to the flag
for content wherever I there's normally one of my background
but whatever. Anyway, so yeah, no, and and you were
also correct, I do very much like this flag. It's
not like, you know, a lot of people like their
favorite flags are these like quartering ones like Maryland, this one,

(12:33):
I mean Quebec that I've got behind me. I tend
to like Scandinavian crosses like, but you know, they're not
like exclusively. We all like a lot of different things.
And yeah, this one did really do it for me
as a as as kind of a couple things that
I don't always go for. Want a banner of arms
and to a quartered banner of arms, I guess like this. Yeah,

(12:55):
I do really like it. I like the colors. I'm
concerned they don't pop as well on my screen here,
so I'm gonna put it up as a jpeg on
the on the video. But yeah, any any last any
other notes on like why why this one's your favorite
at the moment.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
No, it's purely aesthetic, I have no I mean, yeah,
not a county in Maryland, but it's like more suburban
DC nonsense, gotcha. So it's like a little bit forgettable
in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah. Yeah, fair very wealthy.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Though, because it's a DC suburb and most of those
suburbs are were you know.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah. The tracks, all right, well let's go ahead and
get into over an underrated. Then I'm gonna pull them up,
so feel free to start with whichever one you like.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, so I will start with underrated, just because it's
the cooler flag. So it's the flag of and I'm
gonna butcher this pronunciation, but I literally have the key
up right now, so I will too bad onto non
ne Revo, which is the capital of Madagascar. And I

(14:03):
actually discovered this flag in Flag All when they have
the like bonus round where it's uh, select the cap
the flag for the capitol. I saw it once and
I was like, that's a badass flag. When it gives
you the answer, I was like googled and looked it
up and then it added it to I actually maintain
a like flag wish list, which isn't really a wish list,

(14:25):
it's more just like these are cool flags that maybe
I would buy some day, maybe not like put it
on there, and then promptly forgot about it. And then
a few weeks or a month later it was on
another flag ale and I saw it again. I was like,
that's a bad as I had the exact same reaction
like that's a badass flag, and went and looked it
up and got all the way to like putting it

(14:46):
on my like wish list before realizing it was already there.
And I literally done this exact same song and dance before.
But what is a theme of today? I was gonna say,
you have it right, yeah, today, at least right it
is a quartered banner of arms and and even more

(15:07):
so it two of the quarters have flertalis in them.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
But yeah, So the basic description is the the upper
hoist and the lower fly our yellow background with a
black and white bullshead on it. That is a specific
breed which I looked up and I can't remember the
name of, but it's one of those like Indian and
African cowbreeds that has the big hump behind it. I

(15:36):
fell down a nice little rabbit hole for about forty
five minutes going into like different types of cattle breeds
and all that. Yes, yes, that's right. As zebu. It's
it's apparently like a traditional wealth symbol in Madagascar society.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Right, oh wowal.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Society, you have more cattle, you're richer. But anyway, the
other quarters, the lower hoist and the upper fly are
blue with yellow flirtalize on them. The yellow looks to
be the same color as the background of the the
other quarters, but maybe not. Maybe that's just the render
that I've seen on my computer. And then there are

(16:16):
there do appear to be some like black borders between
the quarters and around the flirtalize. Again, not totally sure
how official that ends.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Versions.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yeah, but no, I think it's really cool. I think
the color combos very breaking. I really like the design
they use for the for the bbo head, for the
cow's head. I think that that's very cool. It looks,
to my very uneducated eye because I've not read that
wiki yet, it looks non European to me, which I

(16:47):
think is cool for for a non European country. Right,
Like this looks maybe a little elast African or something,
or at least, like I said, like, it doesn't look
like a heraldic bulls head you'd see in European heraldry. Yeah,
it's my train, and I just I just think it works.
I think it looks really cool and I mean it's

(17:11):
it's really simple. And I actually prefer the bull's head
on the flag to the one on the coat of arms.
Okay I was beforehand. Yeah, I'll just I'll drop that
in the chat for you, which uh doesn't have. Like,
first of all, it's blue, not like the black and white,

(17:32):
and it it looks much more European like traditional European
heraldry to me. But it also doesn't have a second
color to contrast. So the contrasting color to the blues
bull's head is the yellow background, which like doesn't work
as well for me. I don't know it. It doesn't

(17:52):
pop in the same way as the flag does.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, I could see that. I Oh man, I'm honestly,
I'm going back and forth between which one I like better.
I kind of do like the stylized bulls on the CoA,
but I agree with you fully on the colors thing too.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, that colors thing doesn't really work for me.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I'm concerned the white part of it may fade into
the yellow, but that's like pretty minimal as far as
one things I care about, and two like just the
total area of it generally speaking. But yeah, I had
the same thing as you, because like, well, for those
who are not in the discord, which one you should
be too. We have a whole like flag games channel

(18:36):
in there. Mostly usually it's just Flaggle, the one with
one G because there's Flaggle with two g's as well,
but they're all great games, but normally it tends to
be that one. And yet I'll ask you Okay, if
you get once you guess the country's flag or territory,
then guess the capital flag. And like Evan stated, like said, yeah,

(18:58):
it'll give you just a few jumble of other wrong
answers too, And yeah, I think this was the wrong
answer like twice, at least twice in a week or something.
And yeah, yeah this one. And there was one other
one that both you and I noticed. I can't remember
what it was. Oh it was somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula.
We were like, the colors on this really pop. But yeah,
this one and that one, Oh no, it was the

(19:19):
Katari happened the Katari one?

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, no one too.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
But yeah, this one stood out to both of us individually,
which I thought was pretty telling as far as especially underrated,
which is what we're talking about here. Yeah, this one
is maybe not even rated because not enough people know
about it.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
But yeah, it's a country that, like most people don't
ever think about, like even when you're thinking about African
countries never right, well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Like and well, depending on how much you played risk
in your childhood. But I was going to say, also,
like if as a like Vesat, if you're thinking about Madagascar.
You may like stop at the national flag because it's
just not good or intriguing. Really, there's been so many

(20:11):
contests to redesign it. You may get to that one
and just assume, like, well, if the top level flag
is that, I can't imagine any of the lower level
subdivision ones are any good, and you'd be wrong in
this case. Yeah, fully fully agree with you. And like
you said, it fits the theme of today too.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
So the unexpected theme, which you know just goes back
to my my lack of ability to plan things out
or figure things out ahead of time.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, no, mine too. Although let's go ahead and plan
to go into the overrated flag about now. Oh yeah,
good plan.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
With Ohio for two main reasons. Although one get straight
into it, not sure if it's actually factually true, but
so anyway, well anyway it'll make I find the design
kind of busy, like I don't know the the I

(21:09):
don't know what it is about that flag versus like
a similar flag like Puerto Rico or Cuba. But like
I just find it to way way more busy and
just not as attractive. And that's even kind of before
you get to like the swallowtail thing. The like non
rectangular aspect of it, right, which is another reason I don't.

(21:30):
I don't really like it because you know that increased
the manufacturing costs. So yeah, I have a theory which
people have refuted in discord. I'm sure fine. I have
not spent much time in Ohio. Yeah, I don't know
that to be an expert, right, even if I have
read the wiki that because of the you know, non

(21:55):
rectangular shape, which means more expensive manufacturer. Like, that's just
a fact. You would see it flown less frequently off
of well really anything, but especially private residences and private businesses.
Right places where you see like the Texas flag or
the Maryland flag or the Colorado flags similarly highly rated

(22:15):
state flags, you know that you see a lot in
those situations. I've been told I'm wrong, which fair. I've
only spent probably a grand total of like ten days
in Ohio, mostly between Dayton and Cleveland, Lucky, and a
lot of that, especially in Cleveland. I was I was
like downtown for like a conference, Like I wasn't in

(22:37):
a part of the city where you would have the
opportunity to see that. So yeah, that might just be
me projecting, and who knows what the hell I'm talking about.
But I I don't know. Man, even if you probably
made it like rectangular, like kind of like Draighten those
top and bottom lines out and you know, got rid
of the triangle out and made it like a rectangular version,

(22:59):
I think the design to me would just still be
really busy. I think it mostly has to do with
how many stars and whatnot they like pack in that triangle,
and then you have that like round al symbol in
there as well. So it ends up to me just
looking like I mean, kind of like a really busy
like Puerto Rico.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Okay, yeah, I so many things I want to mention there,
but yeah, yeah, the Puerto Rico one for sure. I'm
on the wiki page since you know, we're wiki experts,
and if you look down, there's a there's a rectangular one. Sorry,
trying to get back to where it says there's a

(23:40):
rectangular one in front of the benecta road covered bridge
in Ashtabulah County. Weirdly, I have been to this exact
covered bridge because my dad is from Ashtabulah County. I
don't remember seeing that flag there for what it's worth,
and the bridge is not super important to the story,
But never have I seen it look more like a

(24:01):
Puerto Rico flag than in that picture, even though it's
like kind of kind of obscured a little bit by
just the way that it's flying. But but yeah, I
definitely agree with you on that. I do think it's
rich to call a for a Marylander to call it busy.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
You know, I don't really have any for that.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
No, but I mean point point absolutely taken. You're not
like that doesn't make you incorrect. I agree with you this.
I think I've said it before on here. I I
kind of go back and forth on this one, but
I would agree that it is overrated. And because I
think for the reason that you touch on, like what
we talked about in the discord, is my dad, like

(24:49):
I said, having been from Ohio. I've been up there
quite a bit, and I did see this the Ohio
flag many many places, including on private residences like in town.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
That's fair. That's fair.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
So it seems to either not be a deterrent or
they've kind of got some like I don't know, maybe
if you're an Ohio flagmaker, you've just got that as
a preset. Right. I know there's still going to be
some like wasted material and stuff. It's not perfect. But yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
To me, it's the extra labor because you've got four
extra cuts. Yeah, right, and then if you're hemming it,
that's I mean, that's well, now I want that actually
might be less linear. I don't know. I'd have to
do the trig to figure that out. Yeah, but so

(25:41):
actually the hemming costs might be similar enough. So maybe
it's not as big a deal as it was in
my brain. And maybe this is just like trying to
come up with a reason to be like, no, that's
that flag. It's silly.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Oh wow, Now I didn't realize Wikipedia had a it's
folded in seventeen steps. Oh so you just roll Okay,
this is crazy folding thing. Yeah, it's like a little
gift dude.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
For a while, because I was so I was a
boy Scout and one of the things you do in
the Boy Scouts in the US, or at least that's
where I learned it. I don't know how the standard is.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
We did it too. If you're going where I think
you are, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
You're taught how to told the US full the US flag.
And it's a very particular way that you end up
with the triangle, and the triangle is all the blue
field of stars. And for a long time I thought
that was just how you folded flags, and just in
general by a long time, I mean like until adulthood,
which in defense, like when the hell am I going

(26:44):
to be exposed to that? But I saw like, yeah,
I think it was some like ceremony and like maybe
Arlington National Cemetery or something where they were taking down
and folding flags and then they folded a non US
one and they just like just folded it into a
little square like what would be delivered to you if
you ordered it in the.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Mail, like something for fresh flags, like they were getting
it ready for me on instad you.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Know exactly what they were doing, right, And it just
it like clicked. It was like, oh, I guess that's
just the US specific flag thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because
there's so many rules around the US flags, some of
them which are.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
For sure. All right, Well, I think this is about yeah,
a good time to get out of part one, move
into commercial and then part two. So yeah, stick around
with us. For part two, we'll be talking about all
those Anglo quebecer flags. I'm going to drop the bombshell
at just a random moment so you don't know where
to skip to. And yeah, we'll be back with more

(27:47):
from Evan Stewart and myself. Catch all then cope, all right,
back SAIDs. We are back, and we've got plenty to

(28:10):
talk about in this main part. Yeah, Evan, if you
want to give us kind of a breakdown of like
who the Anglo Quebecers are, I mean, we can guess
from the name, but give us some type of background
on like what this community, where they come from.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah, so my whole most recent fascination with it because
I think I've read you know about this population probably
three or four different times, but most recently it actually
came from a Patreon show you did on Franco Canadian Flags,
and I remember that. The day after that I listened

(28:47):
to that, I was bitting in a very boring meeting
at work, Like I work in marketing, but I'm not
a marketer, if that makes sense. I do data science,
So when get the whole marketing team together, I generally
struggle to pay attention sometimes. But anyway, it's one of

(29:07):
those meetings, you know, ninety minute long corporate meeting on
on zoom and I was just kind of like poking
around Franco Canadian flags and then like stumbled upon Anglo
Quebecer flags as a kind of natural related thing, and
and that's where the fascination and the like reaching out
like oh no, hey, we should talk about this man.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
But but yeah, so, like the Anglo uh Quebecer English
speaking Quebecer population is a minority population within Quebec. From
what I understand, it's it's pretty well established at least historically.
Like large parts of the population of Montreal to this

(29:51):
day are English speaking, like you know that their home language,
that's their native language or first language, first official language.
There's a bunch of different ways you can kind of,
you know, define these things. But like even Quebec City,
which now has like a ninety plus percent population that
francophone was historically in the eighteen hundreds was majority English

(30:12):
speaking really and then yeah, a lot of it because
I was looking looking into this, and a lot of
it has to do with basically when when the UK
got got that territory after I think it was the
French and Indian War, right, the the which was like
the seven years o years. Yeah, Yeah, they important like

(30:37):
a a lot of English speakers settled there, but also
like the kind of like ruling class became a lot
of English speakers too, write they the the Brits installed
their own their own people. It's kind of like the
ruling class, right, Okay, what don't even see Like century

(30:59):
my Treal was the economic center of Canada before Toronto.
You know, this was like early twentieth century, and a
lot of those big offices in Montreal were English speaking offices.
They were not French speaking offices because they were like
the Canadian headquarters and also the kind of economic domination

(31:23):
that the English speaking population held. But there's also other example,
like so there's an area of Quebec called the Eastern Townships,
which shits south of the Saint Lawrence River, kind of
like that wedge of Canada that sits like directly north
of Vermont and New Hampshire and New York up to

(31:43):
kind of the Saint Lawrence. It's like like kind of
a skinny com right there that was settled predominantly by Americans.
Actually what you know, some of them post revolution, right,
some of them were kind of the United Empire loyalists
that didn't go to like Ontario or Nova Scotia, but
also later the there's a group called the New England

(32:05):
Planters that moved in like when America was a country,
and so that area has a long history of English
speaking population. Yeah, you know, like I said, the Montreal,
especially the west end of the island, has a really
long history that continues to this day of an English speaking,
predominantly English speaking population.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah. I forget just how close Montreal is to the US,
although I've been there. I went there on spring break
one time, as I'm sure I've mentioned on an episode
or two. But yeah, and I know, like the borders
of Maine, not obviously recently, but like those borders were
redrawn several times or at least proposed several different ways

(32:49):
to kind of, I'm guessing figure out some of that
well quote unquote figure out some of this population stuffs.
Kind of a fraught topic. But yeah, yeah, I get
like exactly what you're talking about, Like how much this
area truly was like in flux, not just like socio politically,

(33:09):
like with drawn borders, but also just like you know, culturally,
like people coming from here going there, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, then one of the really interesting things is that
with successive waves of immigration into especially Montreal but Quebec
at large, people would generally, especially like groups of people
would integrate into one of the two language groups. One

(33:37):
of the only thing things is that behind English ancestry,
the second most claimed ancestry for English speakers on the
west of the island of Montreal, which is like one
of the hubs, is what Italian oh so like because
when they were success when there were Italians that moved

(33:59):
to Montreal, that was the community that they integrated into,
was the English speaking one, not the French speaking one,
And which is actually something that you can read about
in some more recent politics, like the Francophone the more
the more aggressive Francophone parties, right, Yeah, And also that

(34:21):
a lot of the First Nation is a lot of
the native tribes became English speakers more so than French
speakers for just any number of reasons, Like there's there's
whole native communities, especially in the north of Quebec, where
knowledge of French is pretty low, and like they're actually

(34:45):
knowledge of English is, you know, higher, And there's a
whole thing about like access to services and blah blah
blah blah blah. Yeah, but it's it's interesting that it's
not like this community as it exists now is just
like the descendants of English and Scottish and Irish, you know,
kind of the what you would think. But it's also

(35:05):
right right the natives and some other non you know,
British immigrants who have integrated to it, like the majority
of Montreal's Jewish population are English speaking, not French speaking.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, it's it's always interesting how things like that shake
out as far as because a lot of times it's
just kind of like when you get there, like we
touched on it, like and what the quote unquote prestige
language is at the time, Like yeah, like you mentioned
access to services. I mean, I'm sure that's ongoing still now,

(35:39):
but like even back then, I'm yeah, I'm sure it
was the same same then if this was like posts
French and Indian War, like seven years war you said.
And so the English are like kind of like.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
There were English speakers there because Montreal was an economic hub,
but like that's when the populate like when when the
Brits got it and post American revolution were the main
I get, yeah, waves from my understanding, I.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Guess what I'm comparing it to in my mind, and
I know Acadia and Akkadians are different, although they are
also French speakers in the eastern seaboard of Canada roughly
it's more precise than that, but I know they went
through a few waves of like expulsions where the English
speaking community was like, no, no, we're not not having

(36:28):
you here. Anyone else who comes, even if they are French,
they're going to learn English, like you're talking about the
Italians did, et cetera. So yeah, it's always fascinating to me,
especially as someone with a BA in linguistics that I
hardly ever used, but to kind of and I'm going
to do a little bit more research maybe for the
Patreon even, but into kind of like how those There's

(36:51):
so many different things at play that decide all that.
It's it's fascinating. It's usually just a prestige language. Who's
in charge right now? You know, what can you offer
me by learning this versus what can they offer me
by learning that.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
One type of physically, where do you end up settling
is like an immigrant group? Oh yeah, yeah, because what
do your neighbors speak? You know, even more so than
like economic access and that sort of thing, it's just
you know, living your day to day life. What's the
more youthful life.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Yeah yeah, okay, so all right, so we've got a
decent baseline for the Anglo Quebecers in general.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
And I guess the only the only other thing I'll
say kind of is it is it is a shrinking population. Okay,
that there was in like the fifties and sixties, there
was this phenomena in Quebec called the Choir Revolution, which
had a lot to do with the states over social
services from the Catholic Church that the emphasize the emphasization

(37:55):
of the Catholic Church as an important social health education,
you know, that kind of of an institution. It also
was I don't know, this is probably not exactly the
right way to think about it, but somewhat of like
a national awakening for Francophone Canadians generally, but especially in Quebec.

(38:18):
Like this is where you see the birth of the
Party quebec Qua, the sovereignist party that has been in
and out of power in Quebec on a provincial level
since basically then.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
That's the.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Or now the Block or the federal party, the Party Quebecqua.
Actually Canada has their their provincial and their federal parties
are completely separate. They share a lot of names sometimes
and there are like relationships, but they're not.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
I see it.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
So so yeah, the party Quebecqua is the provincial one,
the Block is the federal one. But yeah, when the
you know, the Quiet Revolution happened and then you have
the first party have a Quak government come in and
one of the things they do is some language laws
about the privacy of French. And so because of a

(39:14):
lot of that, those important Canadian offices companies, a lot
of them actually moved to Toronto, and also a lot
of the English speaking population left as a result of that.
Like if you look at the population demographics over over
the decades in you know, in nineteen fifty one, that census,

(39:38):
it was almost fourteen percent of the population of Quebec
had English as their mother tongue. In twenty eleven it
was seven and a half percent. Even though the number
actually those numbers are very much the same, but population
growth right right, And some of the areas, like I

(40:00):
mentioned the Eastern township that was very heavy English speaking
and also Quebec City that was you know, majority English speaking,
Like historically those areas are now majority French speaking, right, Yeah,
so there's been a bit of you know, demographic collapse
might be a bit of a strong way to phrase it,
and it's a lot of it has been in response

(40:21):
to uh, employment opportunities moving, right, Like if you worked
at the Canadian headquarters for a company and it moved
to Toronto, you probably moved with it. But also just
a general not not agreeing with a lot of the
seccessionist and Francophone focused policies of various political parties. So

(40:45):
it's now, I mean, it's still present. You know, it's
still a large minority group, but it's not it's not
nearly as large comparatively as at once as it once was.
And then it's not hard to find kind of a
standard op ed written every every year or two about
the collapse of the the Anglo Quebec population, right Like

(41:07):
it's it's kind of standard op ed stuff for that
part of the world.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
From sure. Yeah, So okay, now now that we've got
like the background, the foundation here of who they are,
let's go into the as you put it in the notes,
these symbols for them. I'll let you go in whatever order.
The flag of Montreal I will say, I think is
the only one I know specifically from what we've got here.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah. So, and looking into this, first of all, there
is no like widely adopted or agreed upon flag are
really even symbols for Anglo Quebecs.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Right grit large, there's not one like there is for Acadians.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Exactly exactly, like that does not exist. So in terms
of like symbols that generally get used, it seemed to
fall into kind of like three categories, like the local
symbols for where they live. So the flag of Montreal
is a good example of that. Canadian symbols, so the

(42:15):
flag of Canada.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Or you know a.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Local yeah yeah exactly, and British symbols or or like
almost colonial era symbols. So one example of that is
actually Quebec's old flag. They had a blue ensign which
is much like most colonial blue ensigns. It just has
the coat of arms slapped there in the in the

(42:43):
field on the fly side right which has got the
the coat of arms, has at the top three flirt
of lease, in the middle it's got the English line,
and then at the bottom it has three maple leafs.
Kind of similar to that one proposed Canadian flag design
that I'm like ninety percent for everyone.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's a red enzent or whatever.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's very similar to the Canadian red
ensign of about the similar era.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Oh oh yeah, yeah, I see, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
It's it's you know, it's the same design. Just that's
Canada's coat of.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Arms, right Pierson. I think.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Those appear to be like symbols that the population that
the community has kind of like gravitated to. In addition
to like the coat of arms of Sherbrook, which was
an important town I believe in the Eastern township that
had a large Anglo speaking population, other heraldic symbols for
some of the small cities on the island of Montreal

(43:45):
that were English speaking municipalities before that municipality reorganization where
the City of Montreal basically ate everything on the island.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
I mean that's all well and good, but those aren't
you know, Like the Canadian flag is supposed to be
a symbol for Canada, the flag of Montreal is supposed
to be a symbol for Montreal, a city which I'm
pretty sure actually has a majority Francophone population, And like
the historical flag of Quebec is an interesting choice in

(44:21):
my opinion too, not just because it's a blue ensen
and I kind of hate blue ensigns, but so yeah,
it led to you know, a lot of conversations in
like the usual places you'll see Reddit proposals which run
the gamut from decent to absolute garbage, and you know

(44:43):
some like contests that various organizations have run of pseudo
official structure is maybe a good way to say it.
I don't know of like, hey, like this is a
population that's here that exists very similar to for example,
like Franco Ontarian's right next door and them having some

(45:08):
symbols of their own is not a bad idea.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, yeah, this is where, Yeah, this is where I
got interesting when I started to look up the ones
that you were sending or just like proposing and everything
I had not seen, and especially after having just done
the like you said, the Patreons, it was a like
a ended up being a two parter. Although you talked
about this just after part one about those like Franco

(45:38):
kind of the opposite of this, like Franco Canadian flags
French speaking people into other parts of Canada, although including
Quebec and a Kadia rit large. But yeah, I never
really I guess took into account the opposite of that,
because sure, I don't know. Yeah, just it was never

(46:00):
really something that came up. But it's which one is it?
I'm sorry, I'm stumbling over everything right now, but there's one.
I think it is that Franco Ontarian flag. It's only
you sent me. That's kind of a not like a
rebuttal is the exact word they would not want me
to use, but like it's a compliment. Yeah to that one.
Where where was that that Anglo you?

Speaker 3 (46:23):
That was what I met you? I think three off
of Reddit, and that was one of the Reddit ones. Yeah,
I can drop that.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I've got it in the I see
in the discord.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Yeah no, that that is that is my favorite of
the three, So I guess yeah, we can. Well let's
start there talking about the flag. But it's it is
basically a compliment, and I think the proposal in the
Reddit post he actually the designer says that, but it's uh,
it's kind of the same design. He's got both the
two to one and two to three. I think I

(46:57):
prefer the two to three ratio rather than the two
to one. But you know, the Canadian flag and ratio
and whatever, but both work. On the hoist side, it's
a white field. On the fly it's a red divided
an equal parts, again exactly like the Franco Ontarian. And
then on the white side on the on the hoist

(47:18):
is a red rose. He says he used a tutor
rose because of like the connection to the English language.
I maybe this is because of my American and vaguely
anti Heraldic persuasion. Don't see it as a tutor rose.
I see it as a rose. But that is an
English symbol to my eyes, so I immediately got what

(47:39):
it was going for. And then on the fly side,
on the red field has a white flirtally, so basically
it's I mean, you know, the Franco Ontario one being
green and white with another flower the trillium, although much
more dialized version, and then a flirt as well. I
mean you it kind of instantly to me communicates what

(48:03):
it is if you're at all familiar with. Yeah, the
Franco Ontarian flag, which I don't know how much that
flag gets used, but I got to imagine that I'm
pretty sure it's the third largest French speaking population behind
Quebec and New Brunswick slash at Katia. So like, if
you're going to run into it, frank flag, it probably

(48:26):
is the Franco Ontarian one if it's not one of
those first two, right, Yeah, and also being geographically right
next door that would lend to some So no, I
think that's the best design out of the ones, the
ones that I've looked at.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, I haven't seen too many, but agreed on that,
Like I like it more the like two to one,
one to two whatever. H I would love to see
it next to like an actual printed or your you
know sown version of this flying next to the Franco
Ontarian one, because yeah, it's such a good whichever principle

(49:05):
it is of like be distinct or be related, this
is so related and they're they're each so distinct from
anything else like around them too, like that you can't
get them confused for anything. I think it's it's interesting too.
The I mean, I don't know how interesting, but like
the fact that the uh Franco Ontario one uses the

(49:28):
flurtially and then the local like Ontario the Trillium or
is the Anglo quebecer one uses the tutor rose and
then the flurtially. You almost wish there was a more
solidly like Quebec symbol or like French Canadian symbol because
the fluid ly being in both like works visually and

(49:49):
for historical reasons, but one being the trillium, one being
the Tutor rose. I get why they did it because
it's anglow, not you know, specific to U to Ontario,
but I don't know, I I it almost makes me
wish there were a more specifically French Canadian symbol they
could put on the side instead of the floor to
lee that like the original that accomplished the same thing

(50:12):
the trillium does for Ontario, right, because the trillium is.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
On the original Montreal coat of arms. Maybe so in
the first arm they didn't have that flur de lee there.
They had a beaver there for the for the Quebequa population.
And yeah, now that beaver has become a national symbol.
M hmm, it's not just a French Canadian but yeah,

(50:38):
I see what you're saying. Like because even although I
don't know contextually though in Canada, like the Florida lee,
I feel like probably given that local context it's not
it's not like a French symbol as in like relating
to France or even like the global Francophone world. I
feel like it's a French symbol and relating to that

(51:01):
French speaking population and even to some extent more towards Quebec.
But that might just be because that's the like the
center of at least population wise, Francophone politics culture. I
mean you know, like like yes, they're French speakers everywhere
in the country, and these populations, the Acadians being good example,

(51:24):
that have their own history, that have their own symbols,
but like just in terms of influence and size and everything,
like it's it's Quebec, It's the Qebec.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Quah, right, Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's tough because like
I find myself even like disagreeing with myself at times too,
and like, yeah, everything that you just said absolutely makes sense.
And the more you were saying it, the more I
was realizing. Like also, the flutally is a royal French symbol,
Like you're not going to see it on many modern

(51:54):
I mean, you know, you they still use it on
in France on you'll still see it on bill things,
stone work things, like that whatever. But modern France tries
so hard to be the Republic and all this other stuff,
like they kind of like, it's not a whole ton
of flortallyies. But obviously when the House of Bourbon, I

(52:17):
guess it would have been yeah, colonized Montreal, Quebec, et cetera,
that was probably everywhere.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
I guess my only.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Lament is just that it's yeah, no, it's I don't know. Yeah,
I'm disagreeing with myself again. I do find it a
good compelling symbol of fringe Canada in the absence of
anything else too. Like you said, the beaver has changed
meanings and is tough. It's it's easy enough heraldically like
on Montreal's old flag with the Saltier, but it's tough.

(52:50):
It would be tough on like a very simplified stylized
flag like the Franco Ontario one or the Anglo Anglo
Quebec jesus.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Yeah, it's like something like the Oregon flag simplified down.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yeah, one of Christos hated silhouettes, right or something like that, right,
But yeah, I don't know. I I personally like the
flurtally usage of it, just because I do think that
in this age it's a strong symbol for Quebec, And like, yeah,

(53:34):
that symbol has, especially in the Canadian context, changed what
it means. You know, it was a royal symbol at
one point, it is now not. I would I wouldn't
be surprised if most people who like are most attached
to the flirtally is an important symbol of them are
probably not monarchists. They probably are republican. Yeah, in that sense,

(53:56):
right right, Just if I had to guess it could
be wrong, probably I would.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I would take.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
H So, you know, symbols change meaning and context matters and.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
And all that.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
But like I, yeah, I get what you're saying, but
I don't know. I I think that flirtally is a
good symbol. It's very distinct, and.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
I've talked myself around on it.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
When I see it, especially if I'm like looking at
Canadian things, it's like, oh that's French Canada, probably Quebec.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Mm hmm yep. All right, do we have any other flag,
flag proposals or anything else.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
To spend the bulk of it talking about and looking at?
And you know, started started with the best one, in
my opinion, so only nowhere to go but down.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yeah, So what do you got next for us?

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Yeah? So I guess I'll go to the one that
is the only only one that I've seen online where
someone had actually made it, Like there's a there's a
photo of it flying in reality, and it is in
the links. It's it's the lower one on the Flags

(55:18):
of the World page for for listeners, what what this
flag is? It's basically, take Saint George's cross, put a
white flirtally right in the middle, put red stars in
each corner, and then across the middle, but like kind
of behind Saint George's cross, put a pale blue stripe

(55:41):
that basically takes each quarter and divides it in half.
But the effect is probably like uh yeah, I'd say, yeah,
like you have this wide blue stripe horizontal across the
middle that you then put Saint George's Cross over top of,
and then there's other little details the stars on the floor.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
To me, can I take a swing on it? No?

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Absolutely not. It's not your show. Okay, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Go to me, when I see it, I think it's
the shade of blue. But to me, when I see it,
I think, okay, take the current flag of Chicago. Now
take those four stars out of between the two blue bars,
put them in the corners and make them five pointed
now where they were, just draw red straight through there,

(56:27):
bisect that with red like vertically, and put a white
flirtally in the middle of it. I think it's just
something about that shade of blue, and I know it's
not exactly the Chicago one, but it's lighter that like.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
Baby blueish, Carolina blueish, and the.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
Fact that, yeah, and it's got the red on there too.
It just reminds me of the Chicago flag redone, very
much redone.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
But that makes me like it a little bit more
because I'm not I'm not a fan of it, and
it's one of those flags that just they tried to
like put two much symbolism in it, Like from reading
the blur of the red costs represents the Anglophone culture
of north, South, east and West. The central flurtally represents Quebec.
The four red stars or the Anglo Quebec people in

(57:13):
all four corners of the province. Wait didn't we just
reference that, but the cross corners, not the north south,
not the Yeah, the blue symbolizes the waterway of Quebec.
And I've seen somewhere that the white represents the piece
between the Anglos and the Francophone pop. Like to me,
it's like not dog. It took the Saint George's Cross,
an English symbol, which kind of makes sense. We got
it slapped the flurtal lee on there for Quebec pool

(57:37):
and then like loose for waterways or like it gets busier,
like if you simplified it down it could work. Yeah,
I just think it's too busy.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Yeah, although I will say, and I'll have to see
if I can find this photo again, the actual photo
of it flying in real life does look better than
the JPEGs I've seen. Yeah, Like I do think that
that actually does look better.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
I still can't tell the width of the cross, like
compared to the other stripes.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
The width of the like are close, They've got to be.
They look close to the same.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
They look close.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
But yeah, and then like is there black border slash
fimbriation on the Saint George's cross looks like maybe, but
like is that a jpeg artifact? You know? Like who knows?

Speaker 2 (58:33):
I do think it's weird to those like five pointed
mullets like stars that uh I don't know that are
kind of like Chonkier for lack of a better word,
always remind me of like Yugoslavia.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I mean I do know why, but like they remind
me of like Yugoslavia and former yugoslav stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
It feels like a weird choice for plus five pointed
stars don't really scream glow like they scream on.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
I kind of red thread about this flag where somebody
made the point which I have no idea about this,
but they said, like that the star is associated with
Republicans in Canada, so like non monarchy basically, and they
made the point like that is not a lot of
the Anglo Quebec population, right, And I was like, huh,

(59:26):
all right, I mean I didn't know that, but given that,
you know, that kind of makes sense. Like if it's
again like that's local context of the symbols, right, like yeah,
if the star means that in Canada and that's not
something that the majority of the population will agree with, wow,
webly don't include it.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Yeah, it seems odd that it's on there then.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
Yeah, So I don't know, I don't I don't like
this one. I think though ironically it's one of the
better ones of the other proposals that I've seen. The
other ones that I.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
The other one on this uh oh yeah, we'll get
into that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Okay, we'll get into But the other the other ones
that are largely acceptable to me were two Reddit posts
which you basically take the flag of Iceland, make it
a non Scandinavian cross, right, make it leg across like
Saint George's. And then in one they have the basically

(01:00:24):
the Quebec portalese in the four quarters and the other
one they don't. And I'm like, cool, it's pretty clear
what you're getting. I mean, one of them is literally
the flag of Quebec basically defaced with Saint George's cross. Yeah,
pretty clear symbolically where that comes from. But to me,
that really does scream Iceland. And like, so, is this

(01:00:45):
like a French speaking population in Iceland? Is this because
I think I didn't confirm this, but I think that
actually the largest Icelandic population slash people of Icelandic descent
outside of Iceland is in like I know there was
like I would make an actual colonial project in Canada

(01:01:05):
for Icelandic settlers, So like this almost looks like a
flag for that population, though very very small, because the
Icelandic population is very very small.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
So yeah, it's just like I see.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
Where they're going for and it's like, not a bad flag.
They are certainly attractive in my opinion, but just like
I don't know, the symbol isn't there. I don't love.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
It's not a bad flag, but it's, uh, it's bad
for this, I think, Yeah, I think it's it's it's
not effectively communicating what it's symbolizing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Sure, sure, and I mean but it's like anything like
I always say, like, you know, if it may not
scream Anglo quebecer in the void, but if it gets
adopted by that community, gets used for that, is it
going to scream Anglo quebecer in twenty thirty years. Absolutely,
it would write like that's the development of symbols, that's
part of it. But if we are starting from almost

(01:02:06):
like zero, which is kind of where it is, these
seem to be doing a disservice to having it be
really clear off the bat.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yeah okay, yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it.
And honestly, I think with that very well put statement,
let's go ahead and go into another break. We will
talk about the other ones that you wanted to talk about.
This is just going to be a good time for
a break. So yes, when we come back, we will
go over the rest of those the rest of this topic,

(01:02:39):
and I don't know, we'll see if we get to
that bombshell I've been talking about and when I know, right, anyway,
we'll see y' all. Then, all right, we are back

(01:03:07):
with that coveted part three that I mentioned earlier, and
let's just stay stuck into these Anglo quebecer proposals. Evan,
I will let you pick whichever one you want to
get to next.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Yeah. Perfect. I think we're kind of going, in my opinion,
in like degrading qualities.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Yeah, I don't know if it was the moment, I
believe you're right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Yeah, that's rough, folks. You'll know when we get the bottom.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Yeah. It's by Ben corn Gevil. I probably butchered that
last name, but he actually has u it's on Flags
of the Wild or Flags of the World his proposal,
but he actually it links through to a little page
that it looks like he put together and I don't
know two thousand and three, so you know twenty years
ago look through. Yeah. Yeah, it honestly look like in

(01:04:00):
nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
I was gonna say, yeah, it looks yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Word pressy as hell. But it basically references kind of
exactly where like I started of the the Franco Canadian flags,
and he's like, hey, why not for this linguistic minority.
And then he's got some interesting first drafts that or
you know that he kind of looked at a lot

(01:04:24):
of them, incorporates exactly what some of the existing symbols,
right Like they go back to British, they go back
to Canadian symbols.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
First one is literally the flag of montrealal blop the
uh the blue field or sorry, swap the white fields
for blue, the red cross for white, and then put
a maple leaf in the middle like basically where the
the tree is on the current flag of Montreal.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
And then he goes through like this devolution of the
Quebec flag where he takes two of the quarters in
the Quebec flag and replaces them with red fields with
the white maple leaf on it. He's got one where
he literally takes the Union jack and then just slaps

(01:05:11):
flirtalize in the board like corners, like is on the
Quebec flag. And then he's got one that takes this
one is a lot. He takes the Quebec flag, puts
the Union jack in the canton in that quarter, and
then in the opposite so in the lower fly quarter

(01:05:34):
he has a red field with a white maple. It's
just like it's like, yeah, it's like the UK colonized
Quebec again, you know, like yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot.
So then where he ends up is interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I'm baffled by where he ends up because like normally
when it's like, okay, this was the process I started
with this, we filtered it through this, we got to that,
there were some problems, then we ended up here this.
I'm like, okay, I saw I see the process, and
I have no idea how you landed on what you
landed on given the process.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
Yeah, like yeah, so it's like it's a blue peel
and then the kind of skewed off to the to
the hoist is a badge that has four flowers in it,
an English rose, a Scottish thishle, an Irish clover, and
then a Welsh lily. I think is what that is. Yeah,

(01:06:35):
a Welsh lily, which again, if we're representing the major
sources of the Anglo speaking population, that shouldn't be Welsh,
that should be an Italian symbol. But whatever, we'll go
with it. So, you know, there's some like there's a
lot of similarity to the Montreal flag, right, yeah, except
they're in like this compass rose cross formation in a
white circle, which is kind of interesting, and that would

(01:06:59):
have been okay, but then he has this white stripe
that like starting in the middle of the fly, goes
towards the hoist maybe a little less than halfway, and
then dives down towards the bottom, but at an angle,
and it looks like from the images I've seen, it
also starts narrowing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
Yeah, okay, I can account for why. Well, the only
thing I could think of, so that white line is
supposed to be which does follow that rough shape on
a map, and it does get way, way way wider,
like by the you know, it's Saint Lawrence River is
not that wide, for example, like Quebec city, but by

(01:07:42):
the time you get out the gasp, it's huge, incredibly wide.
So like maybe that's what he's going for, but I
don't know. Man, this one, this is actually, I think
a really good example of like there's a good flag
in there some where.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Yeah, but this is not it. Yeah that that like
Ted K's like every I don't know if he likes
to use bad flag, but every subpar flag has a
great one just trying to get out, Like, yeah, there's
something in here. I'm concerned that the great flag that's
trying to get out of this already exists and is

(01:08:22):
just the Montreal flag.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like maybe where you were going, right,
color shifted Montreal basically. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, that's
that's totally a fair point. And I also think that
because of the like two thousand and three quality of
the website and graphics. Yeah, and it not being vector
and looking like bit map, so like those diagonal lines

(01:08:46):
and like the details on those flowers just totally fall apart,
right right, So it just a bad looking image to
begin with. Yeah, of a bad looking design.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
You know, Sorry, Ben, I mean, I'm sure you've got
some good designs out there. I just don't know if
this is one of them. But yeah, yeah, and also sorry,
to the viewers because these images that you see on
screen are not going to be very high quality. I
don't have anywhere else to pull them from. So it's
not like, just don't blame me, don't shoot the messenger anyway.

(01:09:17):
As a last brief aside, because we do need to
move to the next one. But I think I actually
like the you know where there's three that are horizontally
laid out, the one with the like UK flag in
the top left. You know, you see the ones I'm
talking about right on the screen. Oh yeah, I kind
of don't hate the third one where it's like the

(01:09:39):
Quebec flag, but the like top fly and bottom hoist
are red fields with maple leaves. I don't know if
I like it for this exact reason, but as a
general design, I don't hate it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
It's like the Iceland flags kind of thing. Like, as
a design, it's not a bad design. And then it
goes back to the it basically looks like a banner
of arms, Yeah, a quartered banner of arms, like you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Know, so I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
I don't think that that one is bad design. It's
just like to me, that almost looks like more if
like put back in the rest of Canada were like
a federal state or something.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Yes, yeah, that you know what I mean, like yeah,
which like, oh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
God, I'm not gonna dwell on that statement, because you
know there was who failed constitutional Yeah yeah, reform that
we're all about that in Canada. So anyway they can't
figure it out themselves a washed suburban data Maryland certainly
and kind of figure it out.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Fair enough. I couldn't have said it better. Let's move
on to these last few the why or why ones,
because as you said, we're kind of circling the drain here.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
So yeah, the this is the last last group of
flags that I ran that I ran across, and it
was it was a contest in twenty twenty run by
this organization Why for Why Quebec, which near as I
can tell, is a youth support organization for English speakers
for Anglo Anglo Quebecers, and they ran this flag design

(01:11:11):
contest for the Anglo Quebec population and had submissions and
you know, kind of the traditional way in reading some
of the coverage, they did a couple of things like
that I thought were really interesting. They initially one of
the first things they did that why for Why the organizers,
They reached out to a fair number of Francophone organizations

(01:11:34):
and like, hey, what symbols like do you think as
a Francophone we should stay away from we should use
like you know, like how what do you think we
should kind of start as? And according to the article
I read, the most common thing that those frankphone organizations
said was like, don't use Canadian sentence fair, which completely

(01:11:57):
and totally makes sense because the minute like they use
Canadian symbols, it's saying you're not Canadian to the French
speaking population. Right again, that plays into some long standing
issues between those populations. And they did have a vexillologist.

(01:12:18):
They said, I forgot the name, and I don't think
I'm gonna be able to find it quickly. But they
did say they consulted with the vexillologists, but from reading
the articles, it sounded like it was way, way, way
too late in the process and it was kind of
like token because the results are ship.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Yeah, I mean they they the three like silists, the
three winners. And here's the thing that both Evan and
I said off air too, is these seem like really
nice people, really smart people with their hearts and heads
in this in the right place for this and everything.
It's just I don't know how they could end up

(01:13:00):
on these three, but uh yeah, whatever order you want.
In brief, yeah, these are the three winners or three finalists.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
I'm was a little unclear on exactly how, but yeah,
so we'll start with the weirdest one, I guess. So
there's the white field that has some very small mountain
details on the bottom. It has I don't know what
you call that across the very top, like will that

(01:13:31):
are supposed to symbolize maybe wind or cloud.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
I thought, yeah, like kind of a wispy cloud, the
kind of rend me of some of the.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
Starry night details from that picture, like all the swirly
stuff in the sky.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
That and the battle flag. How it has like early
I think maybe it's just because of that color that
like defoam greenish, yeah, but but definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
Yeah, I don't know, stylized small detail like it's just
a small strip across the top or like the small
at the bottom too, like like super into the crop
out accidentally. And then my favorite detail is on both
the fly and the hoist are very small black I
think triangles pointing inward that just are there they are.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
You can't say they're not.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
There, yea. And then the thea. There is a stance,
this thimble in the middle that I think maybe best
could be described as a vagina with wings.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Yeah, I was going to go that, or moth man. Well,
moth lady lady, I don't know, ye however, moth identified right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:48):
Yeah, it's god, I I really it's abstract thing that
vaguely looks like a bird. But I think maybe that's
like because it's above the mountains too, so it's kind
of like an in flight thing.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
I think. Yes, it's also like it's weirdly like what
you haven't mentioned is well, like everything else on this flag,
it's asymmetrical, like even the mountains at the bottom can't agree,
the clouds can't agree at the top. And then this
thing is is just.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
And it's very colorful. It's got what this bird thing
has yellow and oh yeah we got purple and blue
and green maybe another blue, maybe another green. Nope, there's
two greens in there. I think there's two blues. And
some segments are like frimbriated or slash outlined. Other segments
are not, I mean, honestly to me, like this is

(01:15:47):
a very interesting piece of abstract.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Yeah, it's it's interesting in general, but it's not a
flat No, it's sorry, y'all. Sorry, whye war y so
and then that god man, uh yeah, let's hit these
next two.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
So then the next one. The field I think I
can only best describe as like a stained glass motif,
in that you've got mostly geometric blocks of various colors
separated by white. There's like an orange of purple, blue, maroon, black, green, yellow,

(01:16:31):
light blue, orange, green, red, I don't know, you know,
the colors, yeah, like eight or nine different colors. And
then and it's it's kind of a little bit of
an abstract like there's no like definitive pattern. It's a
little kind of sort of moving from top left to
bottom right in general, but not totally.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
There's implied movement, just not in any specific direction.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
It seems like that probably yeah, yeah. And then the
main the charge I guess if you will, which is
general a blue flurtally that basically the bottom is at
lower hoist and then it's roughly diagonal, or it is diagonal,
but it doesn't align with the top of the fly.

(01:17:15):
It's kind of almost like almost like uh one of
the Seychelles, right one of like the rays. Yeah, so
it's intersecting with the top. Also, it's been like lopped off.
It doesn't have like that point. It's got like three
points at the top, which I think is just a
dialistically different flurtally Ye think, I don't know if that

(01:17:37):
represents anything specific, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
It it reads like the flur de ly doesn't want
to be there anymore than I wanted to, Like yeah, no,
and trying to just derealized like disassociated or something.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
Yeah, it's it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
It's because and I'm not saying you could pull a
great flag out of this necess Sarahly, but you could
definitely pull out a better one if you kind of
just like made that smaller, made the other things make
a little more sense. Like I don't know, this one's.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
Yeah, like if you made like I think, if you
made like that stained glass thing into like diagonal rainbow
almost like disability pride, and then like put the flirtally
over it, probably i'd want that oriented vertically. Yeah, that
maybe work.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
M hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Maybe, I don't know, Maybe it would be an improvement.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Let's let's get to the middle one, so we have
time for the bombshell on the outro oh sure, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:39):
Yeah, sorry, yeah, And the best one of the three
is a field green on the bottom, blue on top. Hey,
I wonder why they got that. There's a curve to it,
you know, like the curved horizon kind of thing. And
then in the middle there's on the right so kind
of skewing towards the fly is uh tree, it looks

(01:19:01):
like a pine tree, some sort of coniferous. And then
to the left in roughly the shape of a sea.
But I don't think that's intentionally supposed to be that letter,
just kind of an art that's facing fly are a
bunch of flowers and some leaves, And this one's not bad, honestly.
My main complaints about this one has to do with

(01:19:21):
like level of detail, Like on both the flowers and
the tree, there's this which are both white. There's like
yellow details and shading, which just like get rid of
that off.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
The back, yeah, or just made all yellow of white,
but don't do both yellow.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
Yeah, that's fine. The flowers, some of them look maybe
a little complex, but if you look at them, it's like, hey,
is that a thistle? Is that a rose? Are we
kind of going back to like, yeah, the heraldic Montreal
flag thing maybe certainly not as obvious.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
The individual flowers like the thistle, shamrock rose, yeah yeah,
but yeah, the fact that it took me a secon
is not a ringing endorsement.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
And like, there's definitely other flowers on there that to
me read as just hey, here's a flower. Yeah yeah
like that, So it's definitely the best of the three.
And I think honestly, like you clean up that shading thing.
The shades of the blue and the green are maybe
a little like muted in my opinion. I don't know,
they just read yeah wrong for a flag to my eye,

(01:20:25):
if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
And also this is just the Franco tin wall flag, right,
I mean, this is the Franco off flag. Yeah, but
instead of the flurtally snowflake, there's a pine tree and
instead of the penis bear, there's flower thing like it
really really I'll put them real screen at the same time.

(01:20:50):
But like, to me, that's what it is shouting out
or like going toward, which which again like you know,
would be distinct be related all that. Okay, so yeah,
that's a flag for the French speaking community. There, I
get why you could take that invert it. I don't
know if this is how I would invert it, but
and then kind of play off of it. I get that.

(01:21:11):
But I mean, like you said, it is the best
of the three, so it probably away was a bit
of that to being what I would be surprised. I'd
be surprised if it's not based somewhat off the Franco
ten Wall flag. And I think that might be.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
I didn't see that, but there, Yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
Actually it took me a second too. I was like, honestly,
it took me focusing on that weird like curvature of
the green field at the bottom to be like, I know,
I've seen that before, and I've seen a symbol to
the right and left of it. Where did I write,
right the penis bear who's even kind of doing the
same angle with his body as that, uh the kind

(01:21:53):
of flower?

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah that I'm not going to
say that a failed project, but yeah, I don't think
the results are great.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
Let's call it on going. Yeah yeah, but yeah, yeah,
thanks for bringing all these to my attention. I I
think I had seen maybe one of them tops and
even then I'm trying to go back through. Actually, I
may not have seen any of these now that I

(01:22:31):
think about it, probably just from our correspondence. Oh no, no, no, okay.
I think I had seen the one that looks like
Iceland but centered and with the flor de Leze. I
had not seen the one without them.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Oh right, yeah, back to face with George.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
Yeah, I think I had seen it years ago and
been like okay, and just never thought about it again.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
Yeah, because like, that's a flag. It's fine, it's good whatever.
But what's your French speaking population of ice?

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
So do we have a favorite that we can decide on?
Is it that first one for you?

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):
Or I think my favorite is that first one? The
red rose white blurtally.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Okay, and do you like it? In two to three?

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
I think I do like it in two to three.
I don't love the do to one nature of the
Franco Ontarian flag.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
I think it's because the two segments are perfect squares
in that point and that that to me looks to
my eye like it's two flags.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Okay, yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
It's a weird thing to say because most flags aren't squares.
But I don't know. I think it just it always.
I don't love that two to one ratio being bisected vertically.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
Like that fair enough, well not just so that we
have different favorites, but I am going to pick the
second favorite, but n a two to one ratio so
that technically we have different favorites. And yeah, I fully
hear all of your gripes about that and don't disagree
with all of them, but for some reason, I I

(01:24:00):
don't know why, I kind of like it in the
two to one. Yeah, And I'll leave it at that,
because Evan, are you ready for the bombshell that I've
been teasing for the last I don't know hours, So
let's just do it, dude. This one is so I
wanted to have you specifically on this episode, but anyway, Yeah,

(01:24:25):
that's true. I've never wanted to have you on an episode.
You just keep popping up with these requests and all
this shit. Outside of that the bombshell. The reason that
I wanted you on here was to tell you that
I think I kind of like the Maryland flag now

(01:24:49):
I think I kind of get it. I this is
the one that you sent me along with the Moco
and the Baltimore ones, and I did it for fresh flags.
And I think I even made the comment when I
posted the answer, like well, all right, I want to
get this one off my porch as fast as possible,
blah blah blah. But the more I looked at it flying,

(01:25:13):
the more I was like, fuck, I get it. I
get it now. I don't know. It's not going to
be maybe my number one favorite or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
That's how it darts thought.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):
And this is like my own you know, I say
this on the show all the time. You need to
see a flag flying, not just as a jpeg on
a screen or a logo you're part of a logo, whatever.
You need to see it flying. And I've seen the
Maryland flag flying on TV. I've watched Ravens games or
you know whatever, but I've never seen it flying from
my back porch, surrounded by objectively inferior flags. And for

(01:25:50):
all of that, I will apologize to you here publicly.
You have to promise not to mention this in the
discord until the episode comes out, but that should be so.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
My lips are sealed.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
That should be very soon. I'm going to try and
have a quick turnaround on this one, since I'm away
for the weekend. But I just thought having you on
the episode and having had that realization a few days
ago kind of kis met right there. Yeah, I owe
you an apology. It's not my favorite, but I get it,
and it is a I'll even say, a good flag.

(01:26:24):
Fuck is you a great flag? You know what? Yes,
it is a great flag.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
So now you need to redo your state tier ranking
that I'm sure you've got to my.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
State tier ranking. I have to redo, like so many
intros to this show talking about because people bring it in,
which it's a process.

Speaker 3 (01:26:46):
It's okay, welcome you here on the side of right
and truth and justice. And it's okay that it took
you a while to get here, but better late than never.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
Oh man. Uh honestly, if I hadn't told you to
probably come up with a separate outro, we could just
use that. But thank you. I I do appreciate you
welcoming me into the community and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
We're very we're very welcoming. You know. It's a it's
a large community, and we have crabs. It's not the food,
although some of us probably have the STD as well,
but just be.

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
Oh my god, all right, I don't know where else
to go from there. I think it's good to end
on a crabs joke.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
I want to go.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
You have to go to a meeting? Yes, like right now?
Do you have any way to walk us out of this?
Or should we just end on the crabs joke?

Speaker 3 (01:27:43):
I mean, I think I'll just say that that you
all need to be more like Andy and realize that
the Maryland flag doesn't stay cool.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Oh as much as I hate ending on that, we're
gonna and we'll see y'all next time. Catch you on
the fly side.

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
I have a good one who all right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
Flag for Content is proud to be sponsored by Flags
for Good. Go to flagsfor Good dot com for more information.
Flag for Content is hosted, produced, edited, occasionally written, and
always nitpicked over by me Andy Richardson. Catch you all
on the fly side, vexheads,

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Ep. 75: In Franglais-man's Terms w/ Evan Stewart

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