“O, say, can you see, bub …”

I challenge any of my fellow Mainers to climb up a rampart – choose any rampart, the more perilous the better – and, by the early light of dawn, successfully differentiate our state flag from that of Michigan, Vermont, New York, or any of the dozen or so other very un-spangled state banners bearing a seal over a navy blue field.

We do deserve symbols that richly describe and honor our state. But we have plenty of those, from the Seal of Maine, which will endure despite losing its position on our flag, to our license plates to, indeed, anyone in dirty Bean boots with a bottle of Allen’s who challenges, “Dirigo!”

For our flag, we also deserve the same kind of clarity offered by that original star-spangled banner, which has rightly become an immediately identifiable symbol.

For these reasons, I heartily endorse voting in November for the new model state flag, design recently unveiled, with a blue star and soaring pine, and for the unquestionable “proof through the night” – or any other obscuration – that it is indeed still there.

Paul Shinkman
Brunswick