I am watching CBC's coverage of the US mid-term elections because they're slightly less annoying than CNN/C-SPAN/Fox/ABC/etc. All the Canadian News people are wearing poppy pins, which led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole on how the poppy flower is a symbol for remembering military service members. It dates back to a WWI era poem, and also inspired France to do create a similar bleuet de France.

It also led me to this 2015 article in which some Canadians considered it "defacing" the symbol to use a safer pin design than an inches long stick pin. I'm just glad USians aren't the only that get mouth-frothing stupid about arbitrary symbols. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/remembrance-day-poppy-pin-that-won-t-fall-off-1.3311799

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[–] 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The Royal Canadian Legion sells a black centre pin for use with the disposable poppys that are distributed every year. I have had one for a long time, it's the greatest.

Edit to say: I've only seen the defacing argument with regard to using a random pin (ex. a tiny Canadian flag pin) instead of something that maintains the integrity of the symbol by still looking like a poppy.

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