It’s Flag Day, So Here’s a Picture of a 7-Year-Old Athena Distraught That Her Flag Has Touched the Ground
Posted on June 14, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 21 Comments
It’s the worst thing to happen in the history of ever!
(For those deeply concerned: a) she’s acting, b) this was, like, eight years ago, so even if she weren’t acting she would be over it now.)
Hope your own flag day is lovely and that your flags, if any, remain undropped.
We don’t have a flag day, or anything remotely resembling it, in England. On the other hand, I was in Paris recently and was surprised, and pleased, to see pairs of Union Jacks and les Tricoleurs every 20 metres or so down the length of the Champs Élysées.
It was part of the commemoration of the Normandy landings 70 years ago…
I can so see her saying, “You all did see that on the Lupercal. I thrice presented him a kingly crown,. Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?”….
:-)
Her father’s daughter.
I think this picture needed a trigger warning.
Until recently (the flagpole broke, and is still waiting for repairs), the company where I work flew a large flag every weekday, and I’d occasionally be the one who ran it up the flagpole in the mornings.
Doing that flagwork (the unfolding, hooking it up to the clips, raising it up, and, yes, being careful to not let it touch the ground) was surprisingly moving, and helped revive my shriveled sense of patriotism and pride every morning I had the task. It felt good.
(Then I’d go home and spoil that mood by watching TV news or going on the Internet. Dammit!)
I hope my employers fix the flagpole soon.
This is a wonderful pic, but it looks more like she’s crying out for “Braaaaains!” Her pallor accentuates this.
Ah the William Shatner school of acting.
Yes, Miles. It’s pretty advanced for a 7 year old. Shatner, too, is advanced…for a 7 year old.
The sarcasm is strong in that one… like her father before her.
Best picture ever.
As a Boy Scout leader, that photo is making me cringe.
We don’t have a Flag Day or anything like it here in Australia. About the nearest we get are the periodic competitions where some group or other puts up a prize for the “best” design for a new Australian flag, and we wind up with an assortment of different efforts in which green and gold colour schemes, kangaroos (either boxing, street-sign, or QANTAS-logo varieties), or stylised Southern Crosses feature heavily, and nods toward the Indigenous Australian flag appear occasionally. Nobody has yet managed to come up with anything which could be designated even a moderate improvement on the one we have (despite some of these competitions having formal government backing). But it’s an occasional sport here, none the less, and tends to be revived as a side issue during any debate about an Australian republic.
Why, whY! Aren’t the dandelions blooming!
Oh Why do they bloometh not in this green and verdant field?!
They are no more in this verdant and green pasture because, oho my lady.
I poisoned them. Please be pleased, oho, to sup this almond wine.
And. . . that’s as close as I get to Shakespeare.
–
About that flag pole? Ceremonies like that are fun.
and: Mr Downer here? Hi. Place I used to buy beer? The ice truck backed into their big tall sign pole. After a month I asked the
girleighteen year old ish female attendant why it was still on its side and she said “yeah, they’ve cashed the insurance check, I’m fired next Friday because they’re closing this place.”I have never seriously wondered if/how much the owners paid the ice truck guy to knock over the sign pole.
Not old ish. Quite young. About twelve or fourteen so far as I could see (but obviously old enough to sell alcohol). I only saw her reflected in the glass fridge doors lifting her shirt to smile at her tummy a few times. She always had her shirt back down by the time I turned around.
Eighteen ish, I guessed.
Funny semi-related thing, I could only picture John, Jane, and Zoe as looking like you, your wife, and your daughter during The Last Colony. Imagined Zoe as looking something like this when Enzo died.
Also, still can’t get over how funny the idea of combat-unitards is, mental-picture wise.
I really that girl of yours! :)
This is begging for a little photoshop fun :)
Megpie @9.24: Canada’s national flag day is February 15th. It’s for when we got rid of the old red ensign (similar to the Australian and NZ blue ensigns, only red!) for our current flag. Next year is its 50th anniversary.
It’s always puzzled me why Australia and NZ haven’t gotten new flags of their own. Especially since there is a serious republican movement in Australia, where the one in Canada never seems go get any traction.
Anyway, happy belated flag day!
When my daughter was a child we spent every summer in Normandy, and I walked all of the D Day beaches; every single one of them was downright terrifying. During the 50th anniversary we met some of the Canadian veterans who had taken Juno Beach; perhaps when that generation dies Canada will develop a serious republican movement…
Oh, Trent Baker, you’re evil. So, apparently, is my brain, because all sorts of evil ideas are coursing through it. Keeping in mind that this IS a picture of a little girl, that still leaves plenty of opportunities for (appropriate) evil.
I’m no good at Photoshop, fortunately, so my evil will stay in my brain, where it belongs.
I used to work for a company that gave Flag Day off. It was really neat.