{"id":32013,"date":"2019-06-12T13:42:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T18:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=32013"},"modified":"2019-06-14T08:29:11","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T13:29:11","slug":"as-seen-in-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=32013","title":{"rendered":"As Seen in Target"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last night after work I stopped by the nearby Target. I needed a new pair of shoes &#8212; the soles to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=31785\">the pair I bought when Payless went into liquidation<\/a> had already worn through to the insole &#8212; and Target was convenient. Fortunately, I found a pair I liked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I also found some camping-themed story cubes. I&#8217;ll add these to my collection of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.storycubes.com\">Rory&#8217;s Story Cubes<\/a>..<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I found this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20190611_204422-1200x1600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32012\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I looked at this, among Fourth of July-themed merchandise, and my first thought was, &#8220;That&#8217;s not right.&#8221;  I picked it up and took a look.  A flag-themed infinity scarf for summer.  My second thought, &#8220;That doesn&#8217;t look like the United State flag.  It looks like a Confederate battle flag to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s compare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped first wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"384\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/usa-flag-640x384.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"32015\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?attachment_id=32015\" class=\"wp-image-32015\"\/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"384\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/csa-navyjack-640x384.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"32014\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?attachment_id=32014\" class=\"wp-image-32014\"\/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On the left (or a mobile device, the top), a United States flag.  On the right (or bottom), the Confederate Navy Jack or Army of Tennessee battle flag.  (The Army of Northern Virginia flag was similar, but square.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The scarf resembles the latter <em>infinitely<\/em> more than the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at it, I understood the design process.  Someone at Target HQ said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s make a cute scarf out of the American flag.  It will have stars and stripes, and it will be red, white, and blue.  The white stars obviously have to go on a blue background, but a giant block of blue wouldn&#8217;t look good, so we&#8217;ll vary stripes of blue (with the stars) with stripes of red, and the stars themselves are the white.&#8221;  I could <em>totally<\/em> see this design meeting in my head, and people looking at mock-ups, and someone saying, &#8220;Go!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, the result looks far more like the right (or bottom) than the left (or top).  The scarf really is alternate stripes of red and blue in parallel, separated by a thin white line, with white stars on the blue stripes, resulting in a blue stripe of white stars surrounded by a field of red, exactly as on the Confederate Navy Jack\/Battle Flag.  If I were designing a scarf that was intended to resemble the Confederate battle flag, it would look a lot like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the record, the design was salvageable.  Simply add a white stripe to the mix.  Blue stripe with stars, white stripe, red stripe.  There&#8217;s still a chance the scarf would be misinterpreted, but that chance would be lessened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This certainly wasn&#8217;t the sort of thing I expected to find in a Target in 2019, that&#8217;s for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><i>Header photo &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jeepersmedia\/14752377717\/\">Target<\/a>,&#8221; by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jeepersmedia\/\">Mike Mozart<\/a>, licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">Creative Commons CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night after work I stopped by the nearby Target. I needed a new pair of shoes &#8212; the soles to the pair I bought when Payless went into liquidation had already worn through to the insole &#8212; and Target was convenient. Fortunately, I found a pair I liked. I also found some camping-themed story<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=32013\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;As Seen in Target&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4072,4445,4789],"class_list":["post-32013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-civil-war","tag-confederate-flag","tag-target","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}