New Flags for Indiana, Iowa, and Mississippi

There are a number of flags out there that need fixing, but only require minor alterations.  This could be because they used to have a perfectly good flag, because a major city has a nice one that could fit the whole state, or maybe they just need some text removed.  I'm going to deal with a few of these today, starting with Indiana:

This is an overall nice flag, the stars are symbolic, it has unique imagery, and it is a fairly simple design.  However, it also gives the name of the state, which needs to go.  No matter how well designed your flag may be, it needs a fix as soon as you start putting text on it.  The obvious alteration here would be to just remove "Indiana."  Sadly for me, someone has already done that and in the name of originality, I'm going to come up with something else:

This is from the blog Your State Flag Stinks, and I like it a lot, so I won't devote too much time to trying to one-up it, just give a suggestion of my own:

This is the flag of Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana.  Both the city and the state claim the motto "Crossroads of America" and so this flag could work for both.  Admittedly, it looks like a traffic circle if you stare at it long enough, so let's move on:

Iowa, land of corn and . . . um, caucuses, I guess?.  Their flag is intriguing since it is based on the French tri-color (the French were the first to explore the area and it was part of the Louisiana Purchase) and has the bald eagle in the center.  But here again, we have a text problem, plus the eagle looks like it is trying to  be a ribbon dancer, so let's do away with all that, shall we?:

Removed the ribbons and the text and re-centered the eagle.  It could probably be simplified more, but I'll save that for some sort of "Fix the Fixes" post in the future.  On to our last competitor:

On aesthetic merits, Mississippi's flag looks pretty good, but that is not so much the case in an historical or racial setting.  I've long thought it was a shame that the Confederate battle flag has become so intrinsically linked with slavery because it has such a great look, but them's the breaks and we'll just have to live with it.  In light of that, here is my suggestion:

Behold, the flag of Mississippi during the Civil War.  This flag would allow Mississippi to maintain their link with their Confederate past, but without the pesky implications that come along with the use of St. Andrew's cross.  Plus the tree is a magnolia, another symbol of Mississippi (it is the Magnolia State, after all) and one which also avoids reference to past racial injustice.