What's In My Name?

I've heard that to rouse a slumbering person from across a room, you simply have to whisper their name a few times. I tried it on a sleeping girlfriend, she woke up, and I told her that I was conducting an experiment. She was pissed, but she proved the point.

The point of that article, and another one I read about names, is that our name is the most beautiful sound we will ever hear. Apparently all of us are narcissists.

I was leafing through one of those 'How to Win Friends'-type books, and it told me to say a person's name as often as I could when talking to them. As in, "That's a great idea, Bob." Or, "I'll tell you something, Sid..." Or, "You have fantastic breasts, Janet."

I don't know how scientific all this is, but it would seem to make sense. Hearing our name means someone is listening to us and might even be paying attention to what we're saying. As long as the person saying your name isn't your wife banging on the motel room door, it's probably a good thing.

If you have a good name.

My name is not good. Not because I don't like the name 'Sean,' which is said to be an Irish version of John, but because no two people seem to say it the same way. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but after three decades on the planet, it gets a bit old.

When I was a kid, I had no problem with the idea that S-E-A-N was pronounced 'Sh-awn.' The kindergarten teacher didn't tell me that I was spelling it wrong when I signed my fingerpaintings, so it never entered my head that there was anything wrong with my name.

It was in third grade that funny things started happening. My mom or my dad bought me one of those iron-on shirts, the ones where people would put their names on the back in case they forgot who the shirt belonged to when they pulled it out of the drawer. On the back of that shirt was written SEAN. So it was my shirt with my name. I can't remember what was on the front, but it was probably an iron-on Twisted Sister logo or something.

Anyway, I put on that shirt and went to school. All day long people called me 'Seen,' as in, "I have seen the light." I had no idea why they were calling me this, until I realized that they were ripping on my name. Since that day, I have probably been called 'Seen' about 5, 342 times.

It isn't always the smart-asses that call me Seen. People from east of the Rhine and into Asia also call me Seen, because they think that's how it's pronounced. Filipinos especially have a tough time with it. They see my name on a Hello My Name Is tag or on a piece of paper, and they say, "Hello, Seen." They're just trying to be friendly, and I smile and nod all the same, but in reality I want to punch them in the face.

Non-English speaking people always screw up my name. To the Chinese, I am "See-Awn" or "See-Ann." To the Japanese, I am "Sen." The Greeks and Indians make me feel like I'm back in third grade, because they call me "Seen." To some some idiot from the Czech Republic, I was "Soon." How the hell he got Soon out of S-E-A-N, I have no idea.

It isn't just the foreigners, either. My name is extremely vulnerable to accents, unlike say, Ken. Pretty hard to screw up Ken. A Ken by any accent is still a Ken. But not Sean.

To the English and South Africans, I am 'Shown.' To someone from the deep South, I am still Sh-awn, but with a bizarre twist on the last syllable. The fact that my name doesn't have more than one syllable doesn't matter. They put one in anyway.

Sean is a bummer name on two counts: people can't say it, and people constantly need to be told how to spell it.

Here's a typical phone call when I'm calling an airline or a hotel desk (granted, these are not Mensa candidates).

"Yes, I have a few questions."
"What's your name?"
"Sean."
"John?"
"Sean, S-E-A-N."
"S...Sean?"
"Yes, Sean. Like 'Sean Connery.'"
"Oh, Sean Connery! Right!"
"Yeah. I just wish I had his money."
"Ha-ha-ha."

Mine is one of those names that you say and spell in the same breath. I learned long ago not to wait for someone to ask how it's spelled, because they always ask how it's spelled. So if I am talking to someone for the first time, my name is always, "Sean-S-E-A-N." I knew a girl whose last name was Grey. She told me that she had the same problem, and that her name was always "Grey-with-an-E."

I only use the same-breath-spelling-routine when I know I will have to see the person again in the future. If not, I use "Steve." This is very useful at a fast food restaurant, or a Starbucks, where they have taken to asking your name and writing it on your cup. Rather than go through the "Sean...Not John, Sean...Like 'Sean Connery'..." stuff, I just say Steve and save myself thirty seconds.

Poor Sean Connery. I have had to use his handle so many times, I should be paying him residuals. His name comes in especially handy when dealing with foreigners. They struggle over my name, trying to pronounce it five ways from Sunday, until I say, "Sean Connery."

Their faces immediately light up with recognition. They say "Sean Connery! James Bond!" And we have a great big laugh as I dream about them drowning in the Danube. I wonder what Sean Connery does when he calls a hotel to make a reservation. "Sean. As in Sean Connery. As in me, you damn fool."

"Sean" causes trouble around St. Patrick's Day, too. Suddenly everyone thinks I know the history of St. Patrick's Day, and they take for granted that I'll wear an Ireland soccer shirt and drink green beer until I turn green and puke same.

Not true. I have been to Ireland once. I played golf, and I liked it. But I do not know any Irish folk songs, nor do I enjoy drinking green beer. Unlike the Irish, I enjoy Budweiser as much as I enjoy Guinness. Makes no difference to me, either what beer I drink, or what color it comes back up in.

My family came to Canada sometime in the 1700's, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes me Canadian. If a person's grandparents were born in Canada or the States, then that grandchild has no right to call themselves Italian, or Irish, or German, or whatever. Done deal. The so-called "Irish" people in Boston are full of crap, likewise the "Italians" in New York City. You're American. If you can't give me directions from Genoa to Rome without consulting a map, then you aren't Italian. Get over it.

So this is me, Sean the Canadian. A Sean by any other name is still a Sean. Unless he's a Soon. Or a See-Awn. Or a whatever the hell.

Pleased to meet you.

Getting On

"Seventeen months after Katrina, nearly 200 people uprooted by a hurricane still live in Mt. Olive Gardens, whole families packed into 200 square-foot FEMA trailers they now call home....There were 5,596 words in the President’s speech last night, and reaction to the fact that not a single one was either Katrina or Louisiana was felt not only here in tiny Mt. Olive Gardens, but all across the Gulf.... Words like ‘relief’ and ‘recovery’ now seem as empty to them as last night’s presidential address."

— CBS’s investigative reporter Armen Keteyian, January 24 newscast.

I was taking a turn around the internet horn this morning when I found this quotation on Brent Bozell's site. I guess Keteyian wanted to tug at the heartstrings with this piece, and it could have worked, had he not mentioned that it's been 17 months since Katrina.

17 months?

I may be a hardhearted SOB when it comes to some things, but I am not hardhearted at all when it comes to people that have lost everything. I feel for people like that, and I want them to do well. I don't like hearing about people that lose their house to a fire, or their lifesavings to some corrupt Wall Street scumbag.

But 17 months? That is a hell of a long time. I can't remember where I was 17 months ago (eighteen, now; that news report was filed in January), but I know that I worked for a different company. Last year -- for a couple of different reasons -- I decided to move on and get another job. So I quit the one company, looked around for a couple of weeks, and latched on to something else.

I am not trying to compare my professional life with a family that has lost everything. However, the line that struck me most in the piece above was this one (emphasis mine):

"Nearly 200 people uprooted by a hurricane still live in Mt. Olive Gardens, whole families packed into 200 square-foot FEMA trailers they now call home..."

I hope that is just the reporter laying it on a bit thick. If the heads of these families are seriously calling a FEMA trailer home, then these families are in serious trouble.

The idea of the hardworking family man is not what it used to be. Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath had images of men hunkered down in the dust, worrying about their families ('figuring,' Steinbeck called it), and struggling to find a way to put food on the table. They'd pick oranges for next to nothing, and they'd drive thousands of miles in old jalopies to find work.

Work is all they wanted, however they could get it. They weren't too proud to do anything that would help their children, and they didn't apply to anybody for an assistance program. Assistance programs didn't exist anyway, so they had to roll up their sleeves and get things done themselves, as best they could.

That doesn't seem to be the case today. I didn't see the CBS broadcast, but I will bet millions that Keteyian didn't ask any of these family's adults, "Have you thought of just striking out on you own and not asking for another year's worth of 'relief?'"

Doesn't seem a proper question, nowadays. But honestly, 17 months of sitting in a FEMA trailer is not exactly a portrait by Norman Rockwell. Besides, what is more relief going to bring? It is not going to rewind the clock and make Katrina die in the Gulf without ever reaching the shore. The very definition of relief is that it is temporary. Immediate pain is done away with, so that you can get on with your life. So relief for the victims of Katrina is not the problem. It's the 'getting on' that's in short supply.

I have no right to tell these people what to do, and they would be completely within theirs if they told me where to go. But people must learn to carry on with their lives if they expect to have a life worth living. Starting over is tough, and leaving behind fond memories can be a killer. One shouldn't compound it by reliving the worst memories over and over again every time they fill out another piece of government paper (in triplicate, no doubt).

The one thing that will make bad times disappear is to get your ass in gear. Keeping busy and looking for something new will cure almost every ill that can affect the soul. Sitting and waiting is not the answer to any problem. The longer you wait, the closer it is to the time you are forgotten.

Once you're forgotten, you've only got yourself. Oddly enough, this is what you had in the first place. So you might as well get on with getting on. The sooner the better.

Courtesy Flush, Please

Oops. My mistake. I didn't do enough research into the whole 'in case you need to pray while taking a dump' thing.

Check out the link above (click the title) and you'll see that the Brits are also worried about their number 1's and 2's. Apparently you have to face Mecca while sitting on the john. Makes sense. To steal from Britain's own Monty Python, I suppose you would have to face Mecca while on the can, lest you fart in its general direction.

If one sentence can sum up how ludicrous this stuff is getting, it must be the following one from Fox News, talking about Ibrahim Ramey, director of human and civil rights work from the Muslim America Society:

"Ramey said he was unaware of any specific complaints regarding the direction of toilets in U.S. prisons."

Roses All the Way

I went out for a night on the town in Buenos Aires and got a look at what the city has to offer these days. I haven't tooled around in Buenos Aires in a couple of years and it's good to see that things haven't changed much.

The booze is still relatively cheap, the ladies look fine, and the locals are as gregarious as ever. As one buddy of mine said, "People here just seem to age well." He's right. There aren't that many old-looking people in Buenos Aires. I'm not sure if that's because the plastic surgeons are working overtime, or if people just die a hell of lot earlier around here, but my friend has a point. People dress well, eat well, and look well in these parts, and the obesity rate is to be envied because you can't find any fat people.

I did, however, run into a couple of little girls at 3AM. One of them was trying to sell a crummy looking rose, and the other was trying to sell a crummy looking arts and crafts project. I don't know what the thing was, but the kid seemed to think that I would want it if she said "Por favor," fifteen times in twenty seconds.

Those two kids got me thinking about where their parents might be. It's not often that you find two eight-year-olds hawking stuff at three in the morning. I took it for granted that these children are probably on that same street corner every night, because they knew the nightclub bouncer's name, and he didn't try to shoo them away unless they were being a pain in the ass to the customers trying to get in the club.

After asking me a hundred times if I wanted to buy their stuff, they sat down on a bench in front of the bar. It was mildly depressing to see that they were actually about fifty years old. Ten seconds before, they'd been plying me with the cute faces and the sing-song voices. As soon as they sat on the bench to take a load off, they looked like any construction workers during a lunch break: tired, bitching about a long night, shaking their heads and muttering to each other. Through their body language, I could almost translate the conversation:

"Cheap gringo won't buy a damn rose," says one.
"Roses don't sell anymore," says the other.
"Better than that cardboard crap you've got."
"Cut me some slack, it's all I could find."
"You think that lady's got money?"
"With those shoes? No way. Let's keep working the drunks that come out of the club. They always have spare change."
"All right, but gimme a minute, my feet are killing me."

They didn't look poor. They had well-combed hair and they looked as if they'd had three squares that day. Yet here they were, life's little lost ones. Their eyes darted from tourist to tourist and drunk to drunk, looking for a sucker or someone that wasn't paying enough attention to their wallet. They knew more about the street than I ever would, and they weren't old enough to enter high school.

And that's the way it's going to go for them. Roses, to heroin, to jail, to infection, to death in no time at all, and we'll still be going to the clubs and telling the next generation that we don't want their crummy flowers.

Headlines

From Breitbart.com:

Muslim chief slams 'police state' Britain, like Nazi Germany

Speaking outside the mosque shortly before the prayer session began, [Mohammad Naseem, chairman of Birmingham's Central Mosque] compared the current situation, and anti-terrorism legislation introduced in Britain in recent years, to Nazi Germany.

"The German people were told the Jews were a threat. The same thing is happening here. The Muslims are now the bogey people," he said. "It's a small community. It's easy to pick on them. That's what's being done."

A chairman of a mosque hiding behind the Jews. Interesting. I'll bet he doesn't have much to say when Ahmandinejad says Israel should be wiped off the map and all Jews should be exported to Europe.

As for what Naseem says about Muslims now being Jews in a Nazified Great Britain. Um, no.

I read a very good book last week by Richard J. Evans called The Third Reich in Power. It's the second in Evans' trilogy about the Reich, and it's the best book written about the Nazis since Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's chock full of info that nobody mentions anymore, and it shows just how evil the Nazis were, should we care to remember it.

Great Britain's anti-terror laws are not comparable to Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews. Nobody's laws are, except Sharia Law itself, and the call to jihad for global domination and the destruction of the infidel.

Here's a small sample from Evans regarding Nazi Germany's laws vis a vis their own perceived infidels:

- people with two Jewish grandparents had to get permission from the Committee for the Protection of the German Blood if they wanted to marry a non-Jew.

- Jews were not citizens, but rather subjects of the state. They had no rights, including the right to free speech.

- the Law of 7 April 1933 banned Jews from the civil service, universities, teaching professions, and the judiciary.

- in 1935, a law was passed that declared Jewish and non-Aryan foreigners could not receive German citizenship.

- Jewish businesses were not allowed to advertise in the press from 1933 onwards.

- by the end of 1936, laws were passed that banned overseas transfers of Jewish-owned funds.

- Jews were banned from sports fields, public baths, and outdoor swimming pools.

- municipalities were authorized to ban Jews from streets and districts.

- Jews were banned from carrying firearms and offensive weapons.

- The Reich Chamber of Culture banned all Jews from cinemas, theaters, concerts, and exhibitions.

- Jews were stripped of their rights as tenants. They could now be evicted at any time.

- Municipalities could order Jews to sublet parts of their houses to other Jews.

- by 1939, all tax concessions were removed from Jews, including child benefits. Jews were now taxed at a single rate, the highest one in the Reich.

- all insurance payments owed to Jews after the 1938 pogrom were confiscated by the government; Jews had to pay for and clean up the mess left by the rioting.

- on February 21, 1939, all Jewish cash, securities and valuables (except wedding rings) were ordered to be put in blocked accounts; the Reich eventually seized these accounts.

And then, once the war started, the Nazis murdered millions of them. Great Britain like Nazi Germany? I think not.

From the Daily Mail (UK):

Global Warming Sees Polar Bears Stranded On Melting Ice

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice.

Although the magnificent creatures are well adapted to the water, and can swim scores of miles to solid land, the distance is getting ever greater as the Arctic ice diminishes.

"Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one," said Dr Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service.

"They just kind of float along and kick. But as the ice gets farther out from shore because of warming, it’s a longer swim that costs more energy and makes them more vulnerable."

Bummer.

I don't know what to say about this global warming thing anymore. In the 70's it was global cooling. In the 80's it was warming. Then in the 90's it became 'climate change,' which was a great turn of phrase for the enviro-boobs and unemployed people that wanted to yell at lumberjacks. With the words 'climate change,' bitching about mankind's sins became an all-season sport, snow or shine, blizzard or heatwave.

I studied anthropology in school. That's what the degree says on my wall, anyway (both the degree and the wall are made from tree products. Apologies all around). During those classes we had to look back at history and count the number of ice ages and such. The theory then was that there were three big ones and a bunch of smaller ones.

Not so long ago, Toronto was under a mile of ice and the Great Lakes didn't exist. The ice had to recede in order to leave those puddles behind. So I guess one would have to say that global warming is a damn good thing. Without it, there would be no shopping on Yonge Street, and there would be no forests for the enviro-weenies to run around in.

The conceit of human beings is astounding. The idea that we parasites could affect this planet in any major way is a laugh. It's also a great chuckle watching the National Geographic specials and hearing the narrator give the Obligatory Guilt Trip. At the end of every episode, they always manage to say that such-and-such a thing will cease to exist if Man doesn't change his evil ways. Why? Because the ecosystem is fragile.

Fragile?

Tell that to the people in central Florida. A fragile tornado dropped out of the sky the other day and obliterated a town, killing 20 people in the time it takes to make toast.

Katrina, she didn't look too fragile, did she? We stewards of the Earth gaped in slack-jawed wonder at her power, cowered beneath concrete, and watched as she kicked over levees as if they were anthills.

Or the tsunami (Random Aside: can someone tell me where tidal wave went?) That surfer's wetdream wiped out thousands of people and destroyed entire villages and towns in less than ten minutes.

We're supposed to protect the environment from us? Please. More like the other way around. We're nothing on this spinning globe. Anytime it feels like it, it can give one big belch and we're history.

The Earth is not fragile, and to refute the article above, neither is a bear's grip. Timothy Treadwell could tell us that, were he still around. He's the guy who took his girlfriend up north to live with his furry friends. Treadwell's method of approaching bears was to slowly slink up to them while singing "I love you" in a high-pitched voice. He and his girlfriend are now bear shit.

Our conceit is limitless. The Earth has been through ice ages, massive earthquakes, hurricanes, innumerable volcanoes spitting sulphur into the sky, catastrophic meteorite impacts, so forth. But hairspray and unleaded gas will be the planet's demise?

Ours, maybe. But the Earth doesn't give a damn about us. Ask the next skydiver whose chute doesn't open how fragile the Earth is, and how much it cares. You'll get two four letter words in response. The first is shit!, the other is thud.

From the Herald Sun (Australia):

Row Over Washrooms

A ROW has erupted over Muslim-only washrooms at La Trobe University that can be accessed only with a secret push-button code.

Muslim students have exclusive access to male and female washrooms on campus, sparking claims of bias and discrimination. The university and Islamic leaders have defended the washrooms as vital to Muslim students' prayer rituals.

Yes, if you like to pray while taking a dump, I suppose.

There is no doubt in my mind these days that Islamic fascists were wildly successful on 9/11. Lenin once said that the purpose of terrorism is terror. That's true, but it runs deeper than that. There was a Palestinian terrorist who said that before terrorism and plane hijackings became the norm, the Palestinian cause got nowhere. Once they started shooting people and blowing things up, the UN listened and they got their concessions.

The above example adds weight to the insipid idea that terrorism works. It puts a people's cause on the front page, and we weaklings bend before it.

Think back to before 9/11. You didn't see Islam in the news every day. I bet you didn't once think about 'people of cover.' You wouldn't have known about Ramadan as a religious holiday, and there's no chance you contemplated giving Muslims separate bathrooms at universities.

Then 9/11 happened. For the first few months, the story was about us, and the pain we suffered. But slowly and surely, the headlines changed. Now the story is about what we can do for them, and how we are a discriminatory people that must make allowances for people that want nothing to do with our culture and our way of life.

And with each concession, the divide deepens. When strung together in the past, separate washroom were two vile words. Now they are 'vital.'

Welcome to the new world order.