Happy Georgia Day!

State Flag of Georgia. Image Credit: Xrmap (Public Domain)

     On this day in 1733, the U.S. State of Georgia was established as a British colony under a royal charter issued by King George II of Great Britain and Ireland, in whose honor the colony and state are named.

     Georgia was founded by General James Edward Oglethorpe, who had arrived with a group of British settlers on the same day. They made peaceful contact with the Yamacraw Indian tribe under its chief, Tomochichi, with whom Oglethorpe worked to secure land for the establishment of Georgia and its first city and capital, Savannah.

Georgia State Capitol Building which houses the Georgia General Assemby in Atlantia. Image Credit: Ken Lund via Wikimedia Commons cc

      It was established under the royal charter for two reasons: to provide an alternative route for Britons who had landed in debtors prison - which was the brain child of Oglethorpe as a Member of Parliament and philanthropist- as well as to create a "buffer" colony to protect the other southern provinces, such as South Carolina from the Spanish in Florida. The philanthropic aims of Oglethorpe and his associates were expressed in the Georgia's original motto: non sibi sed aliis, a Latin phrase which means, "Not for themselves, but for others."

The Avenue of Oaks on St. Simon's Island. Image Credit: Bubba73 (Jud McCranie) via Wikimedia Commons cc

     Originally governed by a board of trustees, Georgia outlawed slavery in part because Oglethorpe was against the practice and wanted the colony to prosper from the efforts of free men, and for this reason, Georgia stood apart from the other colonies in North America. However, with the booming slave-based agricultural trade in South Carolina, the anti-slave laws were repealed, and Georgia took on the character and economy of its neighbors. It became a Royal colony under the direct authority of the Crown in 1752.

     Georgia was the last of the thirteen British North American colonies that had been established along the Eastern Seaboard. Along with the other colonies, it declared independence in 1776, and became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. It seceded from the Union in 1861 to become part of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and was the last state to be re-admitted nearly ten years later.

View of Downtown Atlanta. Image Credit: Arashboz via Wikimedia Commons cc (Public Domain)

     Today, Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South, and its current motto is Wisdom, Justice, Moderation. It is the 24th largest state in the Union by area (the largest east of the Mississippi River), as well as the eighth most populated, and its capital and largest city is Atlanta. It is also geographically diverse - from containing the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northern part of the state (which is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain chain), to the Piedmont plateau in the central area, and finally the flat coastal plains along the Atlantic Ocean.

     Notable Georgians include Martin Luther King, Jr. (civil rights leader), Jimmy Carter (39th President of the United States), Jackie Robinson (baseball player), Samantha Power (UN Ambassador), Ted Turner (media magnate), Clarence Thomas (Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court), Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts), writers Alice Walker and Flannery O'Connor, and musicians such as Johnny Mercer, Ray Charles, and Jason Aldeen.

River Street in Savannah - Georgia's first city. Image Credit: Aude via Wikimedia Commons cc

     Georgia is also home to several leading institutions of higher learning in the States - including the University of Georgia (UGA), the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Emory University. It counts tourism, media, agriculture, logistics, and manufacturing among its industries, and is also home to the headquarters of fifteen Fortune 500 companies, including Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola, and Home Depot.

     Georgia also plays host to the global headquarters of the Cable News Network (CNN) and the world's busiest airport - Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. In addition, the former state capital city (and my hometown) of Savannah is the fourth-busiest and fastest-growing cargo container port in the United States, behind Long Beach and Los Angeles in California and New York/New Jersey.

A large container ship entering the Port of Savannah. Image Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District via Flickr cc

      In 2015, it ranked tenth in the nation among state economies with a gross state product (GSP) of $493.4 billion and if it were a stand-alone country, Georgia would be the 28th largest economy in the world.

     With regard to its relation to the United Kingdom, there's a British consulate located in Atlanta which serves Georgia and the neighboring states of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina. Furthermore, two Georgia cities are officially "twinned" with two UK cities as part of Sister Cities International Alliances: Atlanta with Newcastle-upon-Tyne and LaGrange with Craigavon, County Armagh.

     And that is but a brief overview of my home state of Georgia on it's 283rd birthday!

BBC Super Bowl and a British NFL Team (?)

NFL signs gracing Regent Street in London in 2013. Image Credit: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons cc

     When one thinks of something that is uniquely American, there a few others that spring to mind aside from the sport of, well…American football. Of course, our football was developed from rugby and football (a.k.a., soccer) as it is known throughout most of the world, but it is nonetheless something which we have made and perfected as our own.

     Perhaps even more so, we have developed and perfected the spectacle that is the very pinnacle of that game: the Super Bowl. It has now become an annual American institution that is firmly ingrained into our society and culture – so much so, that one may be mistaken to believe that the Supreme Court would rule it to be unconstitutional if the game was not played. When it is, well over 110 million of us are tuned in to our television sets – and perhaps many more on radio and the Internet – to listen to home-based broadcasters and commentators giving calling the plays and giving their take on the game in action.

     This year for Super Bowl 50, as the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos took to the field of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, I decided to do things a little differently and listened to the coverage delivered by the BBC while watching the television broadcast on CBS.

     As a person who takes a keen interest in the United Kingdom and all things British, I was somewhat anticipating to see what a British broadcast of such a thoroughly American sports event wound sound like. In fact, the three-man team for Beeb featured only one Brit – Darren Flecther, who was the main play-by-play commentator. For color commentary, he was joined by Canadian sports radio host Greg Brady and former NFL linebacker Rocky Boiman, who played for the Indianapolis Colts when they won Super Bowl XLI in 2007.

     So with a Brit, Canadian, and American fronting the coverage for BBC 5 Live, I turned my television volume down and the radio team took over from the on-screen all-American commentators. The experience of listening to the broadcast was quite engaging as the three men did a very good job of keeping me and the rest of the audience informed of what was going on.

     Darren Fletcher certainly seemed to be well-informed about the game, the rules, the teams, the players, and generally just about everything you would expect any American football broadcaster to know for purposes of covering the Super Bowl. It was a bit interesting to see this knowledge on display from a person hailing from a country which revels in the other sort of football, though to be fair, Fletcher did mention that he had covered previous Super Bowls, and so in that sense, it is not surprising that he is well-versed in our football – more so than I can admit of myself! For my part, it was fascinating to listen to a person with a British accent calling the game as it was played, and doing so in that was very British in an American setting. One thing I found particularly interesting was how he enunciated a hard “t” in the name of Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton in a way that could be described as right and proper, as opposed to many of us in the States who would pronounce Newton with a light or nonexistent “t”.

     He was very much into the game, as were his colleagues, Greg Brady and Rocky Boiman, who helped to provide statistics, expert analysis, and light humor and anecdotes. It was during this broadcast that I could discern a difference between the more sophisticated Canadian accent of Brady contrasted to the grittier American accent of Boiman. At times, it was like a game to figure out which man was speaking, but it became clearer – I believe – towards the end.

     During the broadcast, there was surprise voice which belonged to Martin O’Neill MBE, the manager of the Republic of Ireland national football team. O’Neill, who recently led the ROI to Euro 2016, had brought his whole squad to the big game as treat, and was invited to the broadcast booth to give his commentary on the proceedings in his very distinct Irish accent. He was not as knowledgeable as everyone else around him, but was otherwise engaging during his brief spell in the studio. O’Neill compared Cam Newton to his assistant manager Roy Keane and commented on how American football featured changes in momentum for one team or the other that is not seen in other sports.

San Francisco 49ers vs. the Denver Broncos in London, 2010. Image Credit: Thomas via Flickr cc

     Indeed, the discussions that took place sometimes focused on the differences between football here and football everywhere else, and how perhaps lessons shared between both. For example, they discussed how American football uses the draft process which allows poorly performing teams to select the best players coming out of American colleges and universities, so as to balance out the playing field and give those lower performing squads a fair chance to improve themselves, and how this is in contrast to the European system of promotion and relegation, which promotes better performing teams to higher divisions within a league and relegates the poorer performing ones to lower divisions.

     There were also discussions about why superior offenses tend to win games for teams in the regular season, but defenses win during the play-offs and the Super Bowl in general. Indeed, for this game, the discussion was particularly apt because neither team well particularly well offensively. Cam Newton of the Panthers – in his fifth season in the NFL – found himself effectively neutralized by the fast defense of the Denver Broncos, while 39 year old Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning battled age and injuries to do just enough to get his team over the finish line, especially in the fourth quarter when they put the game away in the final minutes to make the score 24-10.

     Perhaps because of the defensive struggle between the two teams, it was a very dramatic game with – as Martin O’Neill observed – multiple momentum shifts where one team would find itself on a roll, only to be stymied by its own poor offensive play and/or solid defense from the other team.

     At any rate, it was an exciting game to watch and I felt that the BBC gave proper justice in its coverage of this event, which at least partly gave a British take on this great event and sport. As the great British poet Robert Burns said: “O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!”

     One thing that was unusual was the lack of commercials during time-outs, and if the Super Bowl is known or anything aside from football, it is the commercials – with some people saying they only watch the game for the advertisements. However, according to Sarah Swanson, the NFL's head of marketing in UK, “advertising has never been part of the Super Bowl experience in the rest of the world”, and the BBC, which has exclusive rights to air the big game in the UK, decided to fill the advertising time by having the commentators and experts explain to the home audience what they are watching on TV or listening to on radio.

     For me, this was a bit refreshing because I do like the commentary, and some ads are cringeworthy and overhyped. For the audiences in Britain however, the actual goal as reported by the Huffington Post was to convert “casual (if somewhat confused) U.K. spectators into loyal NFL fans.”

     On this point, it must be said that the NFL already has a large British fan base, and in recent years, more NFL games have been played in London as the league expands its International Series and demand for more games grows. In the upcoming 2016 season, three games will be played in London – two at Wembley and one at Twickenham – and at least one of those them is already sold out. With this in mind and the home-grown increase in NFL popularity, the inevitable question for the last couple of years has been whether the league will establish a permanent team in the UK’s capital city.

London NFL game featuring the Miami Dolphins vs. the Oakland Raiders. Image Credit: Daniel via Flickr cc

     This is something on which I have mixed feelings. It is one of those which would be intriguing to see happen, because the UK is like the US in many ways and having a football team would strengthen the already strong cultural relationship between us. Make no mistake, a British NFL team is something in which I would take a huge personal interest to see how it works out and I would probably be among its biggest fans because it would be such a unique enterprise in my favorite country in the world outside of my own.

     However, I do feel that it would be quite unusual for something so American to be permanently established in the UK. Yes, the football developed in Britain is in the United States, but it is a global sport in a way our football is not. Britain already has a firmly-rooted culture in what we call soccer, and it is difficult to see the NFL coming in to coexist with that. The potential fan base for a British NFL team in London would have to display a certain sort or amount of demand and enthusiasm in order to make such an investment worthwhile. Furthermore, there are the logistical issues of transporting the London-based team and the other teams across the Atlantic on a regular basis for home and away games, which will place much stress and strain on the teams and individual players.

     Nonetheless, Chancellor George Osborne is keen on bringing the NFL to Britain on a permanent basis, in part because of the foreign investment that it would bring, and has said that he will assist in whatever way to make it happen.

     For now though, it is probably best to keep the current system the way it is with the occasional games, and I would argue that the league should try out holding games in other big cities of the UK, such as Birmingham, Glasgow, and Manchester. The NFL is obviously popular in Britain and there is a base of fans who wish to see more, but the league needs to think long and hard before making such a grand leap across the Pond.

Two Flags, One Special Christmas Ornament

     As Christmas approached last year, I searched the web to find a suitable ornament featuring the Union Flag and Stars and Stripes (or some kind of US-UK symbol) for our Christmas tree, and though there were some good selections from which to choose, they were either too expensive or not what I was really look for…or both.

     While at my job (and with time running short till Christmas), I began thinking about making my own ornament and took some time thinking about its size, materials, and feasibility as something that I could do on my own.

     From an arts and crafts store, I purchased a set of thin balsa wood slabs, glossy model paint for three colors (red, white, and blue), paint brushes, and enamel thinner/brush cleaner. Also purchased was a tool kit with a wood cutter and a small hand drill bit for drilling a hole for the ornament hook.

     Even then, and later when I got home, I had no real plan for making the ornament. There was only the most general of ideas of how to do it, and I more-or-less figured things out as I went along.

     First, I researched to find the correct dimensions of the Union Flag, including the measurements for each of the three crosses contained within the flag for St. Andrew, St. George, and St. Patrick – the patron saints of Scotland, England, and Ireland respectively. These were scaled down proportionally to the size of the balsa wood slabs, with their short side used a reference point. The long side being too long for the project, it was cut to size on one of the slabs.

     With the dimensions accounted for and the slab properly sized, I drew the outlines for the respective colors of the flag so that the painting could be done properly and an as cleanly as possible. For extra security, it was decided to use painter’s tape – a form of masking tape – to cover over the areas not being painted at a particular time and thereby ensure a smoother and less messy job.

     The project got properly underway with the painting of St. George’s Cross using glossy red model paint.

     After I had allowed this to dry for a few minutes, it was followed by the painting of the blue field derived from Scotland’s flag. This was done in stages in accordance to the placement of the painter’s tape, and to speed up the progress, I painted in two areas at once – usually in the opposite quadrant from each other after the paint had dried in the other quadrants.

     The final bit of progress made on that first day of the project was the painting of the white border (or fimbriation) around St. George’s Cross, which is derived from the English flag and divides it from the blue field. For this, several pieces of tape were used to prevent the white paint from bleeding over into the other colors, and with white being a light color, these areas required several coats of it to fully cover the vanilla of the balsa wood. After completion, this was left overnight to dry.

     On the next day, I further touched up on the white paint from the previous night, and after I was satisfied, I removed the tape to reveal the Union Flag taking shape quite nicely on the balsa wood.

     Now it was time to work on the diagonal crosses – or saltire’s – of St. Andrew and St. Patrick, which are “counterchanged” so that the position given to the white St. Andrew’s Saltire in one quadrant is the same as that given to the red St. Patrick’s Saltire in the diagonally opposite quadrant. This counterchanging, or pinwheeling effect means that the UK flag is not symmetrical, and is therefore the reason why the flag cannot be flown or drawn in just any way which does not respect the correct positioning of the two crosses.

     Since Scotland – along with England (and Wales) – became part of the Union at its inception on May 1, 1707 and Ireland did not join until nearly a century later, St. Andrew’s Saltire is placed uppermost in the northwest quadrant near the flagstaff, which is also known as the hoist end of the flag and considered the most honorable position in heraldry. St. Patrick’s Saltire received the second most honorable position – being uppermost in the northeast quadrant, the fly end of the flag. St. Andrew's Saltire leads this pinwheeling in the clockwise direction

     For this project, six spaces were created between the lines in each diagonal of the flag in accordance to the actual dimensions of a standard flag. In each diagonal, four of the spaces are painted white and two are painted red, with the result that the two crosses sit side-by-side along the center lines of the diagonals and a fimbriation is formed to prevent St. Patrick’s Saltire from touching the blue field.

     So first, I painted the three white spaces which form St. Andrew’s Saltire in each quadrant, and after several coats, it was left to dry for much of the day until I returned to remove the tape.

     Then I proceeded to paint the fourth white space, and following several applications of the color, it too was left to dry for several hours.

     Upon the removal of the painter’s tape from here, St. Andrew’s Saltire and the fimbriations around it were complete.

     Now came the time to paint St. Patrick’s Saltire of Northern Ireland into the remaining space within the diagonals. This was left overnight to dry.

     Upon the beginning of day three, a final coat of red was applied to St. Patrick’s Saltire and the tape was peeled away to reveal a finished Union Flag!

     With this half of the project completed, I moved on to the Stars and Stripes.

     As with the Union Jack, I started work on my country’s flag by researching to find the correct dimensions – including the measurements for the thirteen stripes, the blue canton in the upper left corner, and the fifty stars within the canton. With the measurements being accounted for, they were scaled down proportionally to fit the size of the balsa wood slab, and with this completed, the real work could begin.

     First came the drawing of the stripes, followed by the upper left canton.

     Paintwork was then commenced on the stripes representing the thirteen British colonies which became the first states in the Union in 1776. The red stripes were painted first – with the first, third, fifth, and seventh stripes being painted before the second, fourth, and sixth due to the constraints via the painter’s tape. Upon completion and drying out, the tape was removed to reveal seven near-perfect red stripes.

     Now it was time for painting the white stripes, which were done a bit more quickly because I had found a way to sufficiently cover the whole of all of the red stripes as I painted the white ones between them. After several coats, this was left overnight to dry.

     On the next morning, day 4 began with the unpeeling of the painter’s tape to show the completed thirteen stripes. Following this was probably the hardest part of the whole project: the fifty stars representing the fifty states of the Union today against the upper left blue canton.

     The stars themselves would be quite tiny and required precise locations in order to make the overall flag look right. To this end, I drew lines down and across the canton in reflection of the measurements on an actual flag, and once this was right, I drew in dots at the relevant intersections as placeholders for the stars. As one can see, there was a significant amount of erasing going on as I worked to get the placement as accurate as possible.

     Next, I proceeded to paint the fifty white stars. With no realistic way of trying to paint through a cut-out of the stars or anything of that sort, I resorted to painting them one by one with varying degrees of success to say the least.

     Following this was painting the blue canton around those stars. This proved quite tricky since I was trying to negotiate around the stars that were already painted, and as it was, I did mess up on some of the stars, but pressed on with the painting.

     After allowing this to dry overnight, day 5 opened with the retouching of the stars that had been damaged by the blue paint. What ended up happening was a back and forth battle between getting white stars and the blue field as accurate as possible. This alone took a whole day to do because in some cases, I had to allow one paint to dry before using the other paint, lest the colors mixed and created a bigger mess!

     Finally on the sixth day, the project was complete. The hand drill bit was used to drill a hole at the top in order to place an ornament hook through it, and a spot on our family Christmas tree was found for the newest addition among its decorations!

     One year later, and I must say that I am still very much proud of producing this special ornament which celebrates the Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. It beautifully graces our tree in a position where both sides are prominently featured and can be appreciated for being a work of art and craftsmanship. Indeed, it shows what can be done when a person puts their mind (and patience) to it.

     During the Christmas season, I hope that all of us will certainly have a mind for being with our families, giving to others, and counting our blessings. It’s unique time for joy and celebration under any flag, and we’ll do well to remember the importance of striving towards “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

     Merry Christmas!