HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-11-08, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2000. PAGE 5.
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And your name would be ...?
Ay, caramba, deadline looms and I
cannot find the quote, but trust me on
this one: once upon a time, Marshall
MacLuhan, that Merlin of Canadian
Consciousness pronounced something to the
effect that: A person’s name is like a curse: a
pronouncement that they will carry with them
to the grave.
Okay?
That said, let us consider Bruce. And Arnold.
Not to mention Ralph.
In the 1950s (trust me — I was there) the
most popular boys’ names to tag a newborn lad
with were John, Robert, James, Michael,
David, Stephen, William, Richard, Thomas and
Mark.
By the 70s, the preferences had morphed to
include Matthew, Brian, Christopher, Jeffrey
and Daniel.
And in the nether reaches of the century we
had descended to Duane, Todd, Stuart and
Brad.
But no one was going to bat for Lee.
Harvey. Or Oswald. A Louisiana no-account
ex-Marine, born in 1939 and adorned
serendipitously with all three monikers,
managed to marry a passing acquaintance with
a mail-order rifle and a Presidential Cavalcade
into an historical rendezvous.
And in that marriage, managed to insure that
no sentient North American neo-parent would,
for the foreseeable future, think of
encumbering his or her offspring with the
names Lee, Harvey, or Oswald.
You’ve got to be careful what you name your
kid. It can come back to haunt you both.
I’m sure that, prior to President Nixon’s
disastrous reign, Richard was considered an
excellent male moniker.
Comparing Aborigines and Indians
I could only watch so much of the Olympics
in Australia before I started looking around
for other things to examine in that country.
It did not take long before I decided that it
might be a good time to look at their native
problem and see how similar it was to the one
we have in Canada. It took only a little bit
longer before I came to the conclusion that
there were far more similarities than there were
differences and I will leave it up to the reader
to decide how right I was in this assessment.
While Australia is about the same age as
Canada as far as countries are concerned, the
natives or aborigines as they are normally
called came to the island about 50,000 years
ago and not surprisingly were from southeast
Asia. When the British arrived in the late 18th
century, there may have been about a million of
these natives, but by the beginning of the 20th
century this number had dropped off to about
50,000. By the end of the century it had
increased to almost 400,000 or about two per
cent of the total population.
For most of the past century the prevailing
idea was to assist in this reduction by such
things as taking mixed children from their
aboriginal mothers and putting them in
institutions. It was hoped that such actions
would eventually breed “the colour out of
them.”
This policy continued until about the 1960s
but even since then the Australian government
has been slow to acknowledge aboriginal
rights. Only in 1971 were they even included in
any census.
There has, however, been some definite
progress in the field of land rights. Two court
decisions in the 1990s were in favour of the
aborigines and at the present time about 15 per
cent of the total Australian land mass is owned
and controlled by them. These decisions
Arthur
Black
And have you noticed how few Canadian
newborn boys carry the name Brian these
days?
But that could change. There was a time
when Arnold was considered a wussy name. A
monosyllabic Austrian with polysyllabic
muscles who answered to the name Herr
Schwarzenegger changed all that.
When I was a kid, the name ‘Bruce’ was
sniggered at — thought to be just a tad ‘fey’.
Messrs Springsteen and Willis turned that
around.
And then there’s Ralph. What good
words can you possibly say about the name
Ralph?
The most famous Ralph in the history of
popular culture?
Ralph Kramden, the sad sack, red-faced,
overweight and usually idiotic bus driver
portrayed by Jackie Gleason in The
Honeymooners.
Ralph — a name so sad that it has became a
synonym for booze-induced nausea — “No
kidding, Tiffaney, after three of those
Margueritas, I was ralphing into the
aspidistras.”
Ralph. A tragically unfortunate name to
lumber a child with. Until you think about it a
bit.
What about Ralph Lauren, the fashion
thingy?
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
resulted in a large number of native land
claims, some of which overlap each other but
the resolution of these claims has been
excruciatingly slow.
About a third of the aborigines live in their
rural areas and attempt to maintain their
traditional lifestyle. Another third live in a
small towns and villages. The other third live
in the cities and lead a life that is not much
different from that of “non-native” Australians.
However, when taken as a group, there is
little comparison when it conies to lifestyle.
Their-life expectancy is about 15 years lower
than that of the average Australian,
unemployment is four times higher while drink
and drug problems are widespread. Housing
standards are often quite poor while native
children drop out of school at an earlier age
than other children.
Many of the natives get in trouble with the
law and frequently end up in prison where they
often stay until they die. In some areas no less
l " ~ ~ 1
Final Thought
When you steal from one author, it’s
plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s
research.
- Wilson Mizner
And Ralph Fiennes, the Hollywood leading
man?
Has anyone noticed that there is a Ralph
currently running for election to the Oval
Office? To wit, Ralph Nader, the world’s most
famous consumer advocate and perennial
gadfly on the butt of the American body
politic.
And speaking of gadflies (or butts, your
choice) — what about Canada’s own Ralph
Klein?
I think Ralph is coming back to claim its
rightful place within the pantheon of righteous
male names.
But then that’s the thing about names.
Even if you pick a good one, you can never
be sure what the vagaries of history will do to
it.
Sometimes it doesn’t take the weight of
history. Sometimes a well-turned phrase will
do the trick. You don’t hear the name Chauncey
much anymore do you?
The reason for that might be an exchange
that occurred between U.S. President William
Howard Taft and one Senator Chauncey
Depew about 90 years ago. President Taft was
a dirigible of a man, so huge in girth he had to
have a bathtub specially made to accommodate
his girth. Senator Depew on the other hand was
a man with substantial gonads — so much so
that he dared to twit the president about his
size. One time he had the temerity to ask the
president if he ‘was expecting a boy or a girl’,
and what he would name it.
President Taft looked at the senator and
intoned, “If it’s a boy, I’ll call it John. If it’s a
girl, 1’11 call it Mary.”
“But if, as I expect, it is just wind, I’ll call it
Chauncey.”
than seven out of 10 people in jail are
aborigines, due mainly to the mandatory
sentencing policies in effect in those areas. The
Australian federal government has so far had
little success in persuading the areas to modify
these policies.
Now and again there are some successes. An
agreement was recently made with native
landowners to allow a railroad to be built
between Alice Springs and Darwin in the north'
central part of the country. Other aborigines are
being employed in the field of tourism where
their knowledge of the land can be put to good
use.
In addition, a whole industry has grown up
around native art and artifacts, both of which
are selling well.
This will give you some idea of what is gong
on down under as far as the aborigines are
concerned. Certainly Australia and Canada
appear to have a long way to go before either
country can say the task is well in hand.
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Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
The sour bit of
‘Oranges and Lemons’
And now for something a little light and
fluffy. There was an old woman who
lived in a shoe. She had so many
children she didn’t know what to do. She gave
them some broth without any bread, then
whipped them all soundly and sent them to
bed.
Well, it should be light and fluffy.
With the arrival each weekend of our music
loving young grandson, Loreena McKennit,
B.B. King and Green Day give way on the CD
player to the bouncy strains of nursery rhymes.
And after listening... and listening... and
listening to them, I have become convinced
that the person who decided these were for
kids was the owner of, if not a demented mind,
than at least a dark one. Forget Freddy
Kreuger of Elm Street fame or the hockey
masked Jason from the Friday the 13th saga.
There are lines and characters in nursery
rhymes and fables that are equally as
terrifying.
Not to mention socially unacceptable in our
liberal society. The corporal-punishing mom
from the aforementioned tale would, I’m sure,
soon find her shoe a little less full in today’s
world — that is, at least until she could take
some parenting courses and counselling
sessions to help her deal with her aggressions.
But let’s look at the violence. There are
those poor little blind mice whose tails are
chopped off with a earring knife. And my
personal favourite, Oranges and Lemons. This
particular little rhyme with its incongruous
soothing melody, lulls us right up to the last
few lines— Here comes a candle to light you
to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your
head.
Lifev ise we have the morbid. My daughter
absolutely refuses to listen to or smg Rock-a-
bye Baby. The thought of w hat happens to this
poor little infant as the cradle plummets to the
ground is a picture she’d rather not conjure up.
Now, while I’ve never noticed a child who
has sustained any particularly long-term
damaging effects from our innocent
introduction to the darker side of Mother
Goose and company, I must admit revisiting
these verses with my grandson has made me a
little curious. Having heard long ago that
nursery rhymes are actually political satires
originally meant for adults, I went on the
internet to see if I could find what is behind
some of these gothic tales.
One website offers two explanations for the
mother of the poor living accommodations.
The one that seems most likely is that the old
woman is a metaphor for the British
Parliament and the shoe is the British Isles.
The children are the colonials and the
whipping was the act of parliament appointing
James I to the throne.
With regards to others, the poor little rodents
were apparently noblemen who upset Queen
Mary I. Rather than cut them, however she
had them burned at the stake. Also, according
to the source I discovered, the son of King
James II was the baby blown from his bough
by the ill wind of William of Orange.
My nonsensical little exercise was
somewhat interesting, though unfortunately, I
am still in the dark about the nasty little
chopper.
I don’t know how the evolution from
political satire to children’s rhyme came, and
certainly there are cute ones, but in the case of
some, it was kind of a bizarre move to make.