Great nooz!

Federal Judge: Enough With the Stupid Names
March 2, 2008 · 234 Comments

By Bill Matthews

After Judge Cabrera’s historic ruling, little Clitoria Jackson will likely undergo a name change.

(DETROIT) In a decision that's expected to send shockwaves through the African-American community, and yet, give much relief to teachers everywhere - a federal judge ruled today that black women no longer have independent naming rights for their children. Too many black children and many adults bear names that border on not even being words, he said.

"I am simply tired of these ridiculous names black women are giving their children," said U.S. Federal Judge Ryan Cabrera before rendering his decision. "Someone had to put a stop to it."

The rule applies to all black women, but Cabrera singled out impoverished mothers.

"They are the worst perpetrators" he said. "They put in apostrophes where none are needed. They think a 'Q' is a must. There was a time when Shaniqua and Tawanda were names you dreaded. Now, if you're a black girl, you hope you get a name as sensible as one of those.

Few stepped forward to defend black women—and black women themselves seemed relieved.

“It’s so hard to keep coming up with something unique,” said Uneeqqi Jenkins, 22, an African-American mother of seven who survives on public assistance. Her children are named Daryl, Q’Antity, Uhlleejsha, Cray-Ig, Fellisittee, Tay’Sh’awn and Day’Shawndra.

Beginning in one week, at least three white people must agree with the name before a black mother can name her child.

“Hopefully we can see a lot more black children with sensible names like Jake and Connor,” Cabrera said.

His ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by a 13-year-old girl whose mother created her name using Incan hieroglyphics.

“She said it would make me stand out,” said the girl, whose name can’t be reproduced by The Peoples News’ technology. “But it’s really just stupid.”

The National Association of Elementary School Teachers celebrated Cabrera’s decision.

“Oh my God, the first day of school you’d be standing there sweating, looking at the list of names wondering ‘How do I pronounce Q’J’Q’Sha.’?” said Joyce Harmon, NAEST spokeswoman. “Is this even English?”

The practice of giving black children outlandish names began in the 1960s, when blacks were getting in touch with their African roots, said historian Corlione Vest. But even he admits it got out of hand.

“I have a niece who’s six. I’m embarrassed to say I can’t even pronounce her name,” said Vest, a professor at Princeton University. “Whenever I want to talk to her, I just wait until she looks at me and then I wave her over.”

ROTFLMAO. Read a story about some kid named Marcos going to a year's in juvie for using a box cutter to slash the throat of Tyquane Parker-Greene, who bullied him. I googled "fake black names" and this story came up. One of the commentors expressed her outrage at this racist story. (In fact, qite a few of them failed utterly to see the satire for what it was....Diagnostic?) The following commentor wrote to her, "Here's your crown, Queen Stupid." I'm still laughing.

Who could say no to him?

"You want some money and the keys to the car? Sure. Here ya go."

From the ghetto to the ashram

The evils of globalization and modern technology:

A snarky aside

If the Catholic Church has decided that it cannot provide special Masses, etc. for homosexuals, lest it condone their immoral behavior, why does it provide them for massive numbers of criminals who are in continuing violation of the law?

VDH on illegal immigration

Something the traitorous American Catholic bishops and the legions of bleeding-heart nuns should read, even if they miss ExCathedra's POV.

I lived for many years --and became a citizen of-- a bilingual country, Canada. What an incredible waste of time, energy, effort and money on the whole French/English game. Were it not for the fact that doing so would split the Maritime Provinces from the rest of the country, it would have been better for everyone to let Quebec go.

I have noticed a trend --anecdotal impressions only-- that when liberal Americans despair of the homeland, as during the Bush years, their impulse is to leave. I supposed part of that is the large number of Western places that are more decayed, uh, I mean liberalized, than we are: nearby Canada or EuroDisneyland. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend either to look for places within America where they can be more left alone --Wyoming or Idaho-- or they imagine the break up of the country so that people who are essentially in a cold civil war can part ways and leave each other in peace.

NYT solves Biblical mystery!

The authorship of the New Testament's Epistle to the Hebrews has long been a mystery.  Beyond the obvious fact, from its content, that it was written by a Hebrew, it was hard to attribute securely. Now the NYT has solved it. Who said the Grey Lady was doomed?

Buried within a biobituary piece we discover that Hebrews' oft-quoted phrase (referencing Abraham's mysterious visitors in Genesis 18) in 13.2

Continue to offer hospitality to strangers,
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares

was actually written by William Butler Yeats! Who knew that Yeats was a Jew? To say nothing of, a time traveller.


HT to GetReligion, which follows the Fourth Estate's constant and invincible ignorance about religion.

Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev's 15th century version of the Hospitality of Abraham,
allegorized by Christians into a revelation of the Holy Trinity.
I have a copy of it in my entrance hallway.

 While I'm at it. Two liberal religious memes that irk me: that Christianity "stole" the Old Testament from the Jews and that it is "anti-Semitic" to read the Old Testaments --or even to call it that-- as prefiguring Christ. Christianity began as an utterly Jewish project. The New Testament was written by Jews (with the possible exception of St Luke) . Hebrews is a classic example of one of them re-reading his Scriptures as a prefigurement. And as for the "stealing" part, I quote to this earlier post.

And while I'm at it, let me once more smack the highminded and uninformed who accuse Christianity of "appropriating" the Hebrew scriptures. The first Christians were all Jews and the Jewish scriptures were imposed, if you want to be adolescent about it, on the first Gentile converts.  Saint Paul's battle was to liberate Gentile converts from the burdens of accepting the whole Mosaic Law in order to accept Christ. They were all "Jews for Jesus." The first Church Council was about precisely this. That Council continued, in a way, Jesus' own freedom in re-interpreting a holy text while leaving the words on the sacred page. (Rabbi's are not untalented about this either!)

The only serious challenge to the Old-plus-New Testament Bible came from a second-century bishop, Marcion, who found the Jewish writings and their complicated God incompatible with his view of Jesus as purely good and benevolent. He not only rejected the whole Old Testament but reduced the New to St Paul's letters and a single Gospel, a shorter St Luke. It didn't fly.

But if Christianity had, like Islam, asserted its own holy book uniquely and rejected its predecessor, the world would be a quite different place, I think, and Christianity a very very different religion. Alternative history speculation to follow at some other time.

Shots in the dawn

Some reactions to the morning's cybernews and bloggery:

Over at PrayTell, the whining and foot-stamping continues. Part of the shock amongst the liturgistas is that most Catholics adjust to the new lingo without a tantrum. Rather than seeing this as an indication that the PT folks have overreacted, they judge the PiP (People in the Pews) to be listless sheep, or victims so beaten down by evil patriarchal clergy that they lack any hope in their own power. God, it's silly. Some of the priests are going to the barricades and using the old translation and two regular commentors in particular continue to devolve. One is a woman named Sandi, whose only comments have ever been in the Che Guevara style, the so-called "prophetic" stance: full of bile and contempt and utterly unveiled wishes for death on the Catholic powers that be. The other is a pathetic ball-less male named Sean, who whines over and over: "It was the only Mass I have ever known and they took it from me. They took my Mass away from me." The owner of the blog is a Benedictine monk who has a big problem with the process of the translation as well as the outcome. Unfortunately, by letting voices like these remain unblocked, he let the whole thing come off as proof positive that Chicago Cardinal George was right back in 1997(!) that "liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project."

An award-winning American journalist-rabbi posted an editorial which feared that if Tim Tebow wins the Superbowl, the next things you'd see is hordes of evangelical Christians torching mosques, bashing gays and beating up immigrants. Some days, despite my counterbalancing instincts, my anti-Jewish nerve gets really provoked, making me think that Kevin MacDonald has a valid point. And it is precisely Jews like this who do it.  It's people like Rabbi Hammerman who create the very anti-Jewish emotion that they fear and then wonder why people hate them. Usually it's secular Jews like Chomsky or Zinn or Alinsky. In this case the arrogant, offensive moron is religious. (Unless he's a Reform rabbi, in which case that's up for discussion.)

GK Chesterton said that "America is a nation with the soul of a church." (Sorry, Rabbi, if that bothers you.) The politicians sound like preachers and the preachers like politicians. I thought of it yesterday when passing on the street a member of a group I do not like. An ethnic group. It dawned on me that nowadays the religious function of exhorting people to benevolence has become the message of the government. It is now distinctly un-American, according to the hierarchy in cultural and legal power, to harbor suspicion or dislike of any ethnic or behavioral group...except, of course, white rednecks and Republican Christians or the 1% (outside Hollywood or the Democrat party elite). To mandate a default moral attitude of benevolence to strangers is not the role of the State. But in churchly America's liberal State religion, that has been the message of its bully pulpit. Extraordinary. Canuckistan PM Pierre Trudeau famously remarked that "the State has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." Even less, in our souls.

I don't like Rick Santorum. He's a prig. But in standing up to the traitorous American Catholic bishops about illegal immigration, he has my support.

None of the current crop of Republican contenders for 2012 is an unmixed bag, as you will learn both from the very busy Democrat-loving media and from intra-conservative debating.  True enough. But compared to the feckless affirmative action poseur currently and so offensively in that role, any of them will do.

An un-first, it seems

Apparently conservative Christian Touchstone's blog did not reject my comments on samesex marriage. I went back and found another post on the subject, with a gay man commenting quite vigorously in opposition to the editor. I tried again and my comment showed up. Musta been technical.

OBTW 3

Inspector Lewis, of the Brit Masterpiece Mystery! series, always solves his crimes, of course, -it's in the script -but in every other way is a total asshole.

Fox vs The Rest

CABLE NEWS RACE
VIEWERS NITE OF 12/12/11
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,271,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,168,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,030,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,440,000
9 million		52%
CMDY DAILY SHOW 1,642,000
CMDY COLBERT 1,281,000
3 million		17%
MSNBC SCHULTZ 877,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 830,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 797,000
MSNBC MADDOW 722,000
3.25 million		19%
CNNHN GRACE 696,000
CNN COOPER 634,000
CNN PIERS MORGAN 604,000
2 million		12%