I met my representative, Steve King, for the first time. Before delving into deeper discussion, I broke the ice by admitting that television makes everyone look better (the implication being he's ugly, which he kind of is if I'm to be completely honest; he took it in stride). We ended up talking about some serious things that aren't necessarily talking points, although I wasn't able to get to him on the one about wallabies. I'm disappointed that he was at the political townhall meeting, actually, because he brought so many people that I wasn't able to have as much time with the person that I really wanted to talk to, Skyler Wheeler, my local representative in the Iowa congress.

As you all know, I care about vexillology. When I started talking to Skyler Wheeler, I prefaced myself by saying "I don't plan on making a difference on the major issues that everyone's talking about, so I'm choosing to get more bang for my buck by proposing something less discussed that I'm very passionate about." I had printed off my update of the Iowan flag. It's basically the same flag, but with the word "Iowa" removed. A flag is a symbol, and a symbol doesn't need to be labeled. I think that all of the other elements are plenty enough. In fact, even those are excessive, but I'm keeping my goals simple. I'm not asking to overhaul the flag. I'm not asking to remove all drawings and all words. Just the one most glaring detail.

To my pleasant surprise, Skyler liked the idea. I said that I tried figuring out the idea committee to mail my proposal to (he suggested the Iowa Senate's State Government Committee), but in lieu of uncertainty, I decided to approach him first. He's not totally sure what procedure one must go through in order to change the flag, actually, since it's never really been done before. I said that I considered mailing my flag design and proposal to Governor Kim Reynolds, although I doubted that my envelope would get opened among all of the other mail that she gets. He said that she's actually very good at responding to mail, and encouraged me to go through with mailing to her. So it seems that I will.

It's hard telling where this could go. On one hand, it's so incredibly simple that it should be easy. On the other hand, it would seem to trivial to most congressmen that they wouldn't even bother advancing it. I'm sure that they'll think to themselves about the time two years ago when then-Governor Terry Branstad made a formal request to the Federal Government to officially codify which star on the U.S. flag represents the state of Iowa, and people said "He has a state to run and he's bothering with useless stuff like this!?" To which I think, "It takes, like what, ten seconds to wonder that out loud?" Surely, our leaders can wonder these sorts of innocent questions out loud. It isn't like Branstad halted his schedule and when on a quixotic campaign just to get the answer to end all answers about Iowa's place on the national flag.

Anyway, hopefully sometime this year I will find the time to make it down to the state capital of Des Moines and meet several senators, and I can bring enough passion that they'll think, "Sure, why not?" And get it over with in a couple of minutes. Hopefully a pitch like that can work. And I can say that I actually made a proposal to a state legislature that changed something!

Representative Wheeler, by the way, said that I tossed him a "soft ball." He was expecting me to ask him about a really challenging issue, and was pleasantly surprised. That's encouraging. If enough politicians think that way, and are relieved that a citizen is making a demand that doesn't give them a headache over the thoughts of the impeding partisan battles ahead of them. Perhaps the next time we meet, I can ask Representative Wheeler if there might be any way that we can encourage a culture where more people run marathons, because I want to increase the probability that a teenager from Iowa will beat Beverly Paquin's 50-state-marathon age record and keep the mantle comfortable in Iowa.

Also, I'm still wondering what I can propose in the way of a replacement for Iowa's current, sucky state anthem. It sucks. So much.