That’s what Heh, Indeedy tells me about the Glorious Revolution.
I’m signing up for Applenacht, because I really want to bust up some insufficiently hip iPods.
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How did you become estranged from your own name, to regard it — as opposed to yourself — as vanilla, white, female, and American, and to think of that combination in a negative way?”
Seriously, how many people identify with their middle names? Hell, even my mom, who went by her middle name for most of her life, went back to her first name a few years ago. But more importantly, if you really are one of those people who believes in breaking down racial and gender barriers, then why not find a way to redefine yourself as something other than what you were raised as, and other than what your culture would like to define you as?
I don’t mean to derail the thread, but something must be said about this ticker that’s circulating on prolife blogs:
“Since the start of the Iraq War 6,829,874 American children have died from ABORTION.”
This might be predictable to some, but I’m floored. It deserves its own blog post. Here’s a link and the code:
http://usr-bin-mom.com/index.php?page=entry&id=1463
<table width=“135” height=“143” border=“0” cellpadding=“0” cellspacing=“0”><td width=“135” valign=“bottom”>http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z118/leesw/abortion_ticker.png</td></tr><tr><td height=“33”><span class=“style1”>Put the abortion ticker on your blog or site. </span></td></tr></table>
Carry on.
Lets see ... a bunch of teenagers does something designed to piss off insufficiently self-aware and prissy elders.
It works. News at 11 ... oh wait, that isn’t news.
Who is more the fool?
I, for one, welcome our multiracial teenage fascist overlords!
But more importantly, if you really are one of those people who believes in breaking down racial and gender barriers, then why not find a way to redefine yourself as something other than what you were raised as, and other than what your culture would like to define you as?
Thanks for finally spelling out what I find so obnoxious about people who get all judgmental about giving your kid a nontraditional name or a name from a different culture than the one you happen to belong to. It’s like, seriously, the world is not going to implode if there exists a white kid named Yuki.
Also, wait, there’s a whole movement of young people who are LITERALLY changing their middle names to Hussein? If this is actually true and not just internet braggadocio, wow, what a way to piss off your parents… If my middle name wasn’t the one part of my name that honored my mom as opposed to my dad, I’d hella change it to something scary and Muslim.
I asked my 12 year old what he thought of this. He said that he wouldn’t do it, because he actually knows a kid with Hussein as a middle name. As well as a family friend with an obvious muslim name, and the kid he doesn’t like on his soccer team whose name is Tariq.
Of course all of the Anne Outhouse’s and Impotentpundits of the world are going after the kids themselves for being so silly and dim and disconnected from larger reality, rather than the larger reality of continuing economic, social, and racial segregation that drives them to such symbolic gestures that kind of miss the mark (unless, of course the mark happens to be similarly isolated adults).
symbolic gestures that kind of miss the mark (unless, of course the mark happens to be similarly isolated adults).
I don’t really get why A) changing your name to Hussein “misses the mark”, or B) why you’re not allowed to have a name outside your culture if you happen to know people of that particular culture. I know lots of Iranians, but my “secret/hypothetical future baby name” is still Afsaneh (after someone I actually know, no less). And I refuse to apologize for or downplay eventually giving my kid that name or one like it, or another name that is not Jane or Elizabeth or Kevin.
Opponax, that is because you are NOT isolated like these kids are. You would use such names as names having meaning to you and others around you, not to make a political statement.
These kids are trying to make a political statement, and it is kind of cute, really. The are rebelling against their enclaved isolation, but I have to agree with some on the other side who tag it as a “stuff white people like” maneuver. It has that whiff of sillyness about it.
What isn’t being said is that their name changing is lame - yet shocking to the adults around them and impotentpundit - BECAUSE all of them are so isolated from other cultures. People like you and I are not so isolated, and such a “gesture” is not worthwhile as a political statement for that reason. It doesn’t mean anything when your coworkers already have names like “mohammed” or “Riza” or “Xing Li” or “Ravi” etc.
I wish every parent would give their kid a name thats 1)easy to spell 2) easy to pronounce.
It would make the world a much simpler place.
“rebelling against their enclaved isolation”? duh what? I really hope you don’t drop sentances like that into everyday conversation.
It’s a joke, poking fun at the paranoid and xenophobic, just like we of the internets are still mocking that dufus from Fox with the “terroist fist tap” comment.
The girl they interviewed made the tactical error of trying to be all deep and thoughtful about this organization, which is basically a bunch of people with a facebook group, of which one of her uncles is a member. Then again, the girl quoted is So Damn White I forgot her name allready. Huh.
Yeah, I mean, there is an aspect of this that reminds me a little bit of hippies who are into the whole “eastern spirituality” thing, but probably don’t know anyone of those religions (or even that those philosophies go hand in hand with actual religions) re-naming themselves things like Bodhi and Shiva. It seems vaguely immature and culturally isolated. But, you know, it works for them, so whatever.
The main issue with formally changing your middle name to Hussein is that a year from now it will be irrelevant. Either Obama will be the president and having Hussein for a middle name will be no more momentous than having Taylor as a middle name, or McCain will be president and what Barack Obama’s middle name is will be yesterday’s news.
“I’m signing up for Applenacht, because I really want to bust up some insufficiently hip iPods.”
...so in the future, we should expect to be randomly stopped by a man in a black coat who, speaking English with a thick German accent, will ask “Show me your iPod, please…”
I’m signing up for Applenacht, because I really want to bust up some insufficiently hip iPods.
I thought those insufficiently hip were using any MP3 player not an iPod.
I turned to the darkside a month back after my new car had an iPod dock and I wanted to listen to iTunes distributed podcasts.
Freakin’ lazy podcasters whom use nothing but itunes . .
The main issue with formally changing your middle name to Hussein is that a year from now it will be irrelevant.
And…? Geez, it’s not as if they’re getting tattoos or something.
“I’m Spartacus!”
“No, I’m Spartacus!”
“I am Spartacus!”
Et cetera.
How did you become estranged from your own name, to regard it — as opposed to yourself — as vanilla, white, female, and American, and to think of that combination in a negative way?
What I find funny about this is that women are expected to just up an change their last names when they get married. Does that also make women “estranged from their own names”? Why is your middle name - which almost no one uses for much of anything - supposed to be more special than your last name?
I think I’ll change my middle name to Spartacus.
Fascist, eh? COOL!
Unfortunately for us younger Obama supporters, the conservatives/neoconservatives/Republicans (with their fear mongering, torture, social authoritarianism, illegal wiretapping, secrecy, corruption, and rabid nationalism on the world front) that hold all of the truly fascist ideas.
I suppose our personality cult will simply have to settle for fascist-lite. Maybe something along the lines of North Korea (stalinism) “communism”.
I wish every parent would give their kid a name thats 1)easy to spell 2) easy to pronounce.
It would make the world a much simpler place.
Um, easy to spell and easy to pronounce according to whose standard?
(my apologies if you were being sarcastic and I missed it)
And…? Geez, it’s not as if they’re getting tattoos or something.
Formal name-change procedures are pretty expensive and time consuming. And I’m pretty sure that, ultimately, it’s subject to a judge’s discretion as well, which means that after you spend your $500 bucks changing your middle name to Hussein, and then next year spend another $500 bucks to try and change it back, some judge might decide to be a hardass and not let you for whatever bullshit reason. And, then, yeah, it’s pretty much exactly as if you got a tattoo.
You’re right that you can just informally start signing your name Joe Hussein Schmoe, but that hardly has the permanence and seriousness of intent that a formal name change would have.
Opp - changing your name is not expensive. Your name is what you say it is, unless you are attempting to defraud (changing your name to Bill Gates, etc). It can be a pain to get your passport, driver’s license, etc cahnged, but you can start calling your self Rainbow Shakti Seagull tomorrow, and nobody can say it isn’t your name.
The original NYT’s article does specify that the name changes are “informal”. The people they interview have added Hussein as their middle name on Facebook or address one another as Hussein. They aren’t actually spending $500 bucks to officially change their names, just FYI. And I don’t think it is meant as a serious long-term commitment, more of an “I am Spartacus” symbolic gesture of solidarity type thing.
unless you are attempting to defraud (changing your name to Bill Gates, etc)
If you don’t think there are conservative pain-in-the-ass judges out there who would decide that trying to formally change your middle name to Hussein had something to do with fraud and refuse to let you do it—or decide that changing your middle name twice in a year must have something to do with fraud and refuse to let you change it back, you must not have left the urban Northeast, like, ever.
But I get that we’re talking informally, like on facebook. I might go change my middle name to Hussein on facebook right now, actually. Gonna have to get rid of the hijab profile picture first, though…
They’re all duped by the Scientologists, I tell ya!
Oh wow, what a spectacular example of not getting it (on Instahack and Althouse’s part). These kids are, as someone else said, doing a sort of “I am Spartacus” thing with a sense of humor about it. They’re not REALLY changing their middle names. Jesus Christ.
I should add that though I can’t see the NYT article being talked about over there, the first time I saw the middle-name adoption was on barackobama.com, and it was clearly meant in jest, because “Hussein” was in frigging quotation marks. It amused me, even more so now that I see that it bugged the wingnuts.
and it was clearly meant in jest, because “Hussein” was in frigging quotation marks.
This made me think of how almost every politician here in Louisiana has some stupid nickname, in quotation marks, that is part of their official listing on the ballot. For example (these are real public officials, just a few who first come to mind out of hundreds with such names): Emile “Peppi” Bruneau, Clayton “Snookie” Faucheux, John “Big John” Illg, Gary “Goose” Fontenot, Jerry “Truck” Gisclair, Albert “Nookie” Romero. The number of politicians with “Buddy,” “Bubba,” or “Sonny” as part of their official ballot name is extraordinarily high.
So, if our elected officials can call themselves things like Snookie, Nookie, and Truck, then I don’t see what the big deal is about people adopting “Hussein”.
For example (these are real public officials, just a few who first come to mind out of hundreds with such names): Emile “Peppi” Bruneau, Clayton “Snookie” Faucheux, John “Big John” Illg, Gary “Goose” Fontenot, Jerry “Truck” Gisclair, Albert “Nookie” Romero.
Wow, that sounds more like a list of guests at my family reunion than a list of elected officials
Not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just cracking me up….
My favorite Louisiana Politician Nickname: “Moose” Delcambre, running for sheriff.
And I really want a front yard sign for “Nookie” Romero… : }
Oh wow, what a spectacular example of not getting it (on Instahack and Althouse’s part). These kids are, as someone else said, doing a sort of “I am Spartacus” thing with a sense of humor about it. They’re not REALLY changing their middle names. Jesus Christ.
That’s Jesus <b> H.<b> Christ.
Could the “H” stand for…
Multiracial Teenage Fascists might be the best band name EVER.