While watching a recent World War II documentary, I noticed the U.S. flag with 48 stars in a six-by-eight matrix. Of course now we have 50 stars, with alternating rows of five and six. This raises several questions. When we add a state, who makes the decision on how the stars will be arranged? Is there a Senate subcommittee on star arrangement? Or is it done by some bureaucratic pencil pusher–another example of the American public having no say in matters of national importance? Finally, if the District of Columbia becomes a state, how the heck would one arrange the stars? Isn’t this the real reason D.C. will never become a state? –Mark Thornquist, Seattle
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Could be–I always thought that Jesse Jackson stuff was a smoke screen myself. Fortunately, I have solved the problem. But first this: the general appearance of the flag–13 stripes, a star for each state, etc–was set by Congress in 1818. The star arrangement, however, is up to the president. The deliberations within the Eisenhower administration on this burning issue prior to the admission of Alaska and Hawaii were cloaked in secrecy. So we don’t know if Ike convened a late-night cabinet meeting, consulted experts in the science of tesselation (mosaic pattern arrangement), or just worked it out himself with David’s blocks. No matter–in the end, it was a completely arbitrary exercise of presidential power.
Luckily, today we’ve got people like me to keep things on a professional basis. A 51-star flag? No prob. When President Quayle calls in 1997, I’ll tell him to make it six rows with alternating rows of nine and eight. For 52 stars try eight rows, alternating six and seven, and for 53 seven rows, alternating eight and seven. That takes care of D.C. and Puerto Rico and leaves us a spare for emergencies. Semper paratus, that’s me.
