The Name Game

I recently was forwarded a mail by a zealous pastor commenting on the US elections. Whilst I fully agree that everyone is entitled to their own opinions I was disturbed by the playground politics angle, where he chose to associate the name McCain as "son of Cain" and place it into a biblical context to denigrate the Republican candidate. Now, I do not suport McCain even in he slightest, but it makes me angry when people in positions of influence (like the pastor) try to whip up a frenzy of fear over NOTHING!!! Good Lord, there is enough legitimate shit to bash McCain and the Republicans over, why be so pathetic as to choose his name? It just makes you look as damn stupid as those who point out Obama's middle name is "Hussein".

Anyway... you know me, I couldn't resist... here is my reply:

Dear Sir,

I was forwarded this mail by an ex-colleague and was intrigued. Whilst being from the UK I am not a registered US voter, and despite the fact that I personally would like to see Obama become President, I find your analysis of John McCain's name not only gob-smackingly ludicrous in it's assumption that a name from a non-English background would have a literal English meaning without tracing the translations, but also borderline superstitious in the assumption that the name we are born with will dictate who we are.

The commonly accepted history of the name McCain is that it is the Scots equivalent of the Irish McKean, which is itself an anglicisation of Mac Iain, or "son of Iain" - not "son of Cain"!. With Iain / Ian being a variation of John the surname McCain is essentially the same as the surname Johnson. Another less likely origin is that it is a contraction of "McCathan", meaning "son of a warrior" which, whilst perhaps ironic in this case, certainly does not make all McCains violent!

But if you are going to judge a man on his name have you considered where the name Obama comes from? The surname Obama appears when the Europeans colonised Africa and enforced family names on tribes who had, until then, only had first names. What most did was (as in our own cultures) take their fathers name as a surname (I believe the word "surname" derives from the idea that it was your "sire's name" anyway), which in this case was first bestowed on Barack Obama's grandfather. The name is taken from the Luo verb meaning "to be twisted" or "to be slightly bent", probably relating to a deformity that B.O.'s great-grandfather may have been born with. In any case "twisted" and "bent" are two connotations with which the Senator probably would rather not be associated!

Please, please... vote Obama. But do not be so childish as to take McCain to task over his name! It just makes the whole thing petty.

Cheers m'dears!

Identity - the meme

Okay, I am a bit slow on the uptake here but it has come to my attention that the aviating vermin has tagged me with another mo'fo'ing meme... and you know I HATE those things! But in lieu of any other form of inspiration for my random drivel I am inclined to take him up on the task...

So this one is 8 true facts about me with one utter porky. See if you can guess which one is balderdash...

1) I once acted in a popular British soap opera. No, I won't say which one. I still feel unclean. Suffice to say no-one I know even recalls ever seeing me in that role.

2) An ex-girlfriend of mine once contracted chlamidya... in her eye. It took the doctors weeks to work out what the problem was. And I'm sure many of them have dined out on that story since.

3) My favourite playwright is the relatively obscure Olwen Wymark, who was married to actor Patrick Wymark, twice celluloid-portrayer of Winston Churchill as well as Oliver Cromwell in Witchfinder General.

4) Despite growing up right by the sea (and I mean about 10 meters away from it at high tide) the highest swimming certificate I ever achieved was the 50 meters. And that was doggy-style. Err... I mean, 'paddle'!

5) I once full-on snogged a moustachioed man. There were extenuating circumstances. And it wasn't nice. Especially for him as I had been eating tuna from the tin 15 minutes previously.

6) I once lived two doors along from the scriptwriter for Roland Rat and The Krankies (sorry, non-Brits... you'll have to look those references up!). The latter I met in person at his house. It was not one of those hero-worship moments.

7) My father once stood in for Ian Anderson when he was unable to sing with his band Jethro Tull during auditions for a new drummer. Although that was around the Catfish Rising years, hardly a legendary period.

8) A picture I painted when I was only 16 can be seen behind Bob Dylan's head on the cover of his album 'World Gone Wrong'. It was hanging in the Camden gallery where Bob's photo shoot took place. For some legal bollocks reason I am not entitled to any royalties. Which is a bitch.

9) Yesterday on the MRT (tube / subway / metro, depending where you're from) another passenger accidentally showed me a picture on his phone of himself sitting on the toilet with his cock blatantly in shot. Oh, how we laughed.

If you get it right you get a nice little e-mail from me... but don't let on to anyone else! Oh, and Doc M., Kim, Sarah, FMC, Footsie... tag, you're it!

Cheers m'dears!

Deja vu?

So... another day, another Aussie gets sentenced to death for smuggling drugs. Capital punishment - what a deterrent, eh?

Woah... back up, Binty! Been down this road before, methinks! Let's not do another anti-death-penalty rant, everyone is well aware of how you feel.

Okay - let's look at Australians instead then. Now, I have some mates who are fair dinkum and all that, so I don't want to paint an entire country in the colours of a few stupid cunts. But, for fucks sake!

Exhibit A: the rioting against immigrants (hmmm - forgetting ones own lineage, it seems).
Exhibit B: the double-standard of uproar at Nguyens hanging in Singapore whilst ignoring other Capital Punishments the world over.
Exhibit C: both Nguyen and the Bali 9 thinking for even one second that smuggling heroin through or into a country where the death penalty is in force might be a sensible idea.

"I even beg them not to take the terrible risks that these young people have done... How on earth any young Australian can be so stupid as to take the risk is completely beyond me." (John Howard, Aussie PM)..... don't know about you but I always knew that Neighbours and Home and Away rotted your brain!

So what now for the dead-men-walking? I wonder how long it will be before the people who didn't give a shit about them back home (they are, after all, not 'white') start crying foul over the neanderthal laws of a backward country? Indonesia's foreign minister Hasan Wirayuda is steeling himself for such a response by using offence as his defence, shedding an obvious light on the reason that he received no protests from Australia over the death of Bali bomber Amrozi. "...Australians were victims of the Bali bombings. But in the case of drug-trafficking, the victims... were Singaporeans or Indonesians."

So, once again - another potential addition for Exhibit B. Australia, I know you don't give a fuck what one poxy blogger thinks, but do us all a favour - drop the hypocrisy and either accept their punishment or start lobbying everywhere, including the US, to end the death penalty.

Oh...... and bloody well stop smuggling through South East Asia, you dumb cunts!

Cheers m'dears!

Hypocrisy abounds!

Australia and South East Asia has been all a-buzz recently with the trial of Nguyen Tuong Van, the Aussie heroin smuggler, in Singapore. In recent editions of the Daily Propoganda and on countless news-based websites there have been letters from Australians, half of whom are stating that "all of Australia" condemns the fact that Singapore intends to follow the letter of it's laws and execute the guy, the other half likewise declaring that "all of Australia" stands behind Singapore's sovereign right to follow it's own rules without interference.

Now, aside from showing a problem with basic mathematics in Australia, this issue has raised some points of contention. But before I go into them I must be honest about my personal feelings.... I am against Capital Punishment and always have been. That, incidentally, does not make me wishy-washy or 'too-forgiving'. I believe that punishment should be appropriate to the crime, as hard as is necessary, but with it should come the opportunity for remorse and a chance to change. And I believe that no-one has the right to take a life, not even in the "eye for an eye" context (constantly quoted by the religious right, despite the fact that it's appearances in the Old Testament, Exodus 21:23-25 and Leviticus 24:19-20, are superceded by Matthew 5:38-39 - look it up if you don't believe me). But this is not what I am intending to bang on about in this post.......

One point noted in pro-execution letters is the hypocrisy of many anti-execution Australians. Do they cry out at the injustice of it all when it isn't their countryman facing the noose? Of course fucking not! Very few people do. And of course there's the fact that Singapore is it's own nation and shouldn't dilute it's laws at the whim of it's neighbour. Y'know what? I actually agree with that one. Of course by that I partly mean that I think Singapore should come to it's senses of it's own accord, but that's not the only reason. If bigger nations bully smaller nations into accepting their values then all they do is cause resentment and eventual backlash... the US and it's allies are already experiencing that.

Of course this type of hypocrisy is not only visible in attitudes toward Singapore but also in those emanating from there. Recently it was reported that Singapore is looking at introducing laws to prosecute it's citizens for commiting offences against Singaporean law in other countries where the laws may be different. The case in particular refers to an island barely an hour away where the legal age limit for sex is as low as 14. Men from Singapore apparently travel over for the express purpose of screwing girls barely into puberty. I don't like the idea of it myself, but that is considered a suitable age in that state. It might perhaps be one thing if this was being done to protect the girls in question but the reason behind it seems to be more that these actions do not hold up to Singaporean 'moral standards and laws'. Hmmm... much like Capital Punishment appears not to hold up to current Australian laws and standards.

I cannot say how old someone should be before they have sex - I'm not even sure that 16 (UK limit) is old enough. I certainly wasn't fucking mature enough to handle it properly until way after then. But the point is how can Singapore prosecute someone for not breaking a law somewhere just because the Singaporean government thinks it 'should' be a law? How long before other countries try it? If I go to Amsterdam and smoke pot will I get arrested in the UK? If an American citizen crosses the road at a place where crossing isn't designated in the UK, will he get arrested for jay-walking on his return to the US? Will an Englishman who has returned from France get locked up because whilst there he drove on the right instead of the left? How fucked up do we want to make this......?

In defending it's own sovereignty whilst simultaneously challenging that of its neighbour Singapore proves that hypocrisy and double standards are alive and well... but then regimes in virtually all countries seem to have an air of 'Do as I say, not as I do"....

Cheer m'dears!

Continental identity crisis

Some news organisations have been asking questions recently about whether Europe will ever manage to give up all it's national identities and create one European identity, inclusive not just of all native Europeans but also of immigrants to Europe. This is, undoubtedly, in response to the riots in France recently which have been proven to NOT be about religion (so people can stop using the word 'Jihad' every other sentence) but about social issues and the hardships endured by ethnic minorities. But the question I ask is should nations give up their identities at all?

I for one have no intention of giving up my national identity. It has played a part in defining me, but is not the be-all-and-end-all of me. Yes, I am a European. Put me in a non-European country and that will show in my different takes on situations. But I am also a Briton. Put me anywhere else in Europe and the same applies. In fact, within Britain I am also from one of the four smaller kingdoms, another differing factor. And when it boils down to it the county and town I am from can show me to be different. But it's these differences that play a part in making us all unique, and I for one celebrate them.

This does NOT make me racist or xenophobic. I love visiting other countries and experiencing other cultures, but if we are forced to lose our national identities then will we have a Europe where we are all the same? Will we lose those things that make us interesting to each other? And if citizens of this new Europe are to have only a European identity will we be forcing those immigrants who have made Europe their home to ditch their own history and culture too, thereby losing the richness their diversity can bring?

Here is the keen difference between patriotism and xenophobia - a true patriot will love his / her country, but not unconditionally. They will recognise the faults of their society and strive to rectify them. They should also embrace those from other cultures who wish to live in their land - I mean, what a compliment that is! Xenophobes, on the other hand, often blindly see their own country and way of life as 'the best in the world' and shoot down anyone who dares to question it If there is a fault in the xenophobe's country you can bet it's the fault of those 'damned immigrants'. And the last thing they would want is a 'johnny-foreigner' living next door. Where it gets confusing is that the word 'Patriot' is often claimed and proclaimed the loudest by the xenophobes.........

I am a patriot. There is much to love about the land I am from. But there is also much to despise, and I do that as a patriot too. I know my country is not 'the best in the world', but I would like it to try to be the best it can.

And finally, we should all remember that much of the progress made by human kind since year dot was inspired by the meetings of cultures, the ideas that were spawned by the coming together of people from different backgrounds and with different takes on things. Being unique is the one thing we all have going for us!

Cheers m'dears!


Wow - managed a whole post without swearing once! Fucking amazing!