Some forward-looking Illinois lawmakers set up a contest to design a new flag and put it to a vote. In a landslide, a winner ...

And it's the current flag ... bald eagle before a rising sun, a shield in its talons and in its beak, a banner expressing the Prairie State's dual tenets: “State Sovereignty, National Union.” ...

That would be (state) “Seal on a Bedsheet,” the derisive moniker with which some have burdened the Illinois state flag, a gleaming white banner emblazoned with the state’s bald eagle-themed ...

Flags engender such loyalty and pride, they often become very personal emblems with quirky or quaint nicknames: Old Glory, Union ... flag, a gleaming white banner emblazoned with the state's bald ...