BLOGGER WONDERS IF IT'S TOO LATE
TO MAKE FUN OF NEW IRAQI FLAG

SEATTLE -- Scott Jacobsen, 29, who writes about progressive politics on his blog Get Your Left On, has been wondering whether it's too late to ridicule the new Iraqi flag, sources reported Monday.

The new flag was introduced by the Iraq Interim Governing Council on April 26, 2004. The design, created by Iraqi artist Rifat al-Chaderchi, inspired instant controversy and protest due to its omission of traditional Arabic and Muslim colors and symbols.

"I laughed out loud when I saw the new flag," said Jacobsen. "They used the same colors as the Israeli flag, instead of green and black for Islam and red for Arab nationalism. And they got rid of the Arabic script reading 'God is great.' Can you believe it? I mean, hello... this is a Muslim country!"

"I was going to write a whole post busting on the Bush Administration for such a terrible insult to the Iraqi people," Jacobsen continued. "But I couldn't decide whether to use a satirical format, like an Onion-style fake news article, or to write a straightforward opinion piece. And then the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke, and a couple of weeks later the Nick Berg beheading video hit the Internet, and I just got busy and forgot all about it. It's too bad, because I had some great jokes lined up, like where I was going to say that the new flag looked like a logo from an Internet startup circa 1998."

Never accepted by the people of Iraq, the new flag has quietly faded from view. A slightly modified version of the red, white, black, and green flag developed by Saddam Hussein in 1991 was displayed at the transfer of power ceremony on June 28, 2004. Iraqi athletes carried the 1991 flag at the Olympic games in Athens, and it flies over the Iraqi embassy in Washington.

"I guess it would be pretty lame to blog about the flag now that everyone's forgotten about it," said Jacobsen. "But it's such a waste of good blog material. That awful flag was a potent symbol of Bush's fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East and its culture and politics. I suppose I could have woven a reference into some of my anti-Bush diatribes leading up to the election, but from the administration's fiscal irresponsibility to the Federal Marriage Amendment, there was so much ground to cover. And now that Bush has been reelected, it's all pretty much irrelevant."

"Maybe I should just write about it if I want to," said Jacobsen. "I only have fifteen readers, so it doesn't really matter."

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/09/2004 11:45:00 PM