Sting operation

You might remember when (1998) some people in Minnesota thought it would be a hilarious prank to vote for a professional wrassler to be their governor. "This oughta show them politicians!" was their battle cry as they chortled while voting for Jesse "The Body" Ventura (born James George Janos) as their state's chief executive.

The whole plan went awry when no one thought to limit the amount of people who were in on the joke, and as a result, the great state of Minn. was a joke for the next four years.  "PPPPP" should be the mantra of all those who propagate practical jokes - Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

Now we turn to Mississippi, where the state has finally decided to get a new official flag to replace the old one that had the Confederate flag smack dab in the middle of it. They invited one and all to submit their designs, and The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) is winnowing out the choices.

But...

Someone submitted this one for consideration.

Funny stuff!  Thomas Rosete, who is a deckhand on the Yazoo River and is therefore very much in touch with the mosquito population, told the Clarion Ledger newspaper that he works with a guy who didn't want a new flag, so he came up with this salute to the bug whose name comes from the Spanish term for "little fly."  Little fly, big annoyance, and probably more so than anywhere on the river. So Rosete turned in his flag design and probably figured the joke ended there.

The MDAH went through over 1,000 ideas, and you have to figure there were good ones and bad ones in the stack, but some people really took to the mosquito design. “Personally, I love the Mosquito Flag. ... the cheekyness (sic) of it is on brand,” one Mississippi resident tweeted.

And so mosquito fans were excited when the Rosete design wound up among the finalists, but the excitement, like a mosquito itself, turned out to be short-lived.

“The mosquito flag advanced to Round Two due to a typo in a list of flag numbers submitted by one commissioner,” the MDAH said in a statement. “That commissioner has requested that the flag be removed from the Round Two gallery, and MDAH staff has complied."

It makes me wonder. A typo is when you type "yellwo" instead of "yellow." Typing "your" when the word called for is "you're" is not a typo. Perhaps the commissioner who submitted that bug flag was being cheeky.

I hate to see that sort of humor being slapped down.

Anyhow, the commission will have a final vote among the top five flag on September 2. Watch this space for news about the new Mississippi vexillum!