Star Tribune
What’s a design expert’s verdict on Minnesota’s new state flag?
The dust has settled, and Minnesota has its new flag, a blue-and-white, star-and-shapes configuration that’s much simpler than its soon-to-be predecessor.
So how does the new banner rank in the pantheon of beloved state and country flags, and in the minds of flag experts and scholars?
Ted Kaye, who wrote the 2006 guidebook “‘Good’ Flag, ‘Bad’ Flag,” gave Minnesota’s new design an “A” and called it excellent.
“You can’t make everybody happy, but Minnesota will come to be extremely proud of this flag,” said Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). “The state has seized a wonderful opportunity to improve its symbolism.”
He said he believes it would rank in the top 10 among the states and provinces of the United States and Canada were NAVA members and the public to be surveyed.
Kaye, in an interview with the Star Tribune last month, had suggested changes to the original draft of “Polaris Tricolor” by Andrew Prekker of Luverne that the state’s flag commission ended up incorporating.
The original included a white, green and light blue stripe representing the snow, the land and the state’s waters. But a majority of the commission members favored eliminating the stripes for a solid light blue color to make it simpler, as Kaye proposed.
Social media posts proliferated from people who said they missed the stripes. But Kaye said the green didn’t work because it was too dark and didn’t contrast enough with the dark blue on the left.
He also thought the green of forests and rural areas it was celebrating wasn’t unique to Minnesota.
“Although Minnesotans love their verdant nature, it is not distinctive for Minnesota; nearly every state has green nature,” said Kaye, who lives in Oregon.
The four weaker “points” of the North Star were replaced with eight stronger ones, another of Kaye’s suggestions.
Kaye said he divined five separate meanings for the star on Minnesota’s new flag, which he praised for its simplicity.
That includes the star looking like a compass rose that points to the north, while maintaining a rotated Dakota Star symbol, honoring the Native American community. This star also adds the M shape on all sides.
Prekker said that he is “very happy” with the final product but acknowledged he is still getting used to the changes.
“It might take a bit to get used to, but I love the new flag,” Prekker said. “It keeps all my core concepts, but improves upon it.”
While a lot of posters on social media sites like X and Facebook have been critical of the new flag, some are warming to it.
Bill Lindeke, who has written books about Twin Cities history and sells St. Paul’s and other city flags online, initially favored the “L’etoile du Nord” design, which had a white star or snowflake overlapping a yellow four-point star.Lindeke also wanted to keep the tri-color stripes at first.
But Lindeke said he’s reconsidering. “Honestly, I think I might be changing my mind. We’ll see, it’s growing on me,” Lindeke said Wednesday. “I think it will for a lot of people.”
Lindeke said he ordered a 3-by-5-foot version of the flag to hang in his house, along with stickers of it. And he thinks it will translate well digitally. If you send the new flag as an emoji symbol in a text, for example, Lindeke said he thinks the design will hold up and look good.
The final selection could also be customized easily for some situations, Lindeke said, such as adding rainbow stripes over the right side to make it into a Pride flag.
Kaye echoed that he thinks the flag is customizable, and he thinks it won’t be long before someone gets a tattoo of the new flag, as many have with the Chicago and Washington, D.C., flags.
“It’s going to become iconic in Minnesota, and the design elements will become remixable,” Kaye said. “You’ll see all kinds of things using that star.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
