ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Observations category.

On the Origin Of Names (IV)

I came upon an interesting realization today that the Yoruba cultural system has solved for the world long before now, one of the most pressing issues of predestination. I should preface this, perhaps, with a disclosure that my undergraduate university project was called The Multimedia Dictionary of Yoruba Names. I have been fascinated with the concept of naming and the thinking processes that go into them since a very long time. According to the Yoruba belief system, a child is named usually with a view in his/her potentials as well as the conditions surrounding his birth. Read more here.

The Western world, however, is a different case entirely, depending on a totally arbitrary system of child-naming. Not only is there no special day when the name of the child is declared to the world, it is perfectly acceptable to call someone Lemon or Bush, or Focker, Iron or Stone. I mean, what were the parents thinking? A few months ago, Congressman Anthony Weiner became a news item not just for what he did wrong, but for how his name had not served as a warning to anyone around him since he was a kid. A last comment on strange associations will go to the strangeness of calling people who practise same sex associations fruits. I’ve never understood why this is the case, but when CNN’s first openly gay man happens to bear the name of a real fruit, it makes one take a second look at serendipity. (No slight intended here, seriously).

I do not want to cheapen this subject so I’ll stop here. But let’s hear what George Carlin has to say: “Soft names make soft people. I’ll bet you anything, that ten times out of ten, (guys named) Nicky, Vinnie, and Tony would beat the shit out of Todd, Kyle, and Tucker.” I return to Yoruba roots where everything has already been patiently explained. Ile la n wo k’a to so omo loruko. A name is not just a name. A rose called by any other name might not always smell as sweet, so if you are naming one, be careful not to name it after a killer bee or a poisonous cantaloupe.

(The three previous precursors to this post are also worth checking out. Check the “related post” section down below.)

On the Origin Of Names (IV) was published on October 3rd, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

Three Worrying Things

1. According to some reports, about 700 people were arrested yesterday for their role in the Occupy Wall Street protests. Many have also been pepper-sprayed by the NY police or attacked just for participating in the protests that has now spread to many states and has received endorsement from many activists.

2. An American-born terrorist (so-called because of his not yet disclosed links to the Fort Hood shootings and the Underwear Bomber of 1999) has been assassinated in Yemen through a direct order from the current Administration. Repeat: He is an American, the first in recent memory that has been denied the due process of law before any allegations against him has been proven. Most of what has been proven about this man is that he engaged in hate rhetoric.

3. Salman Rushdie, a writer known for his brilliant prose as well as for the number of years he spent underground being protected from a draconian death sentence placed on him by an Islamic (police) state has just gone on television to defend the extrajudicial killing of the man referenced in #2. On Bill Maher’s show last Friday, he opined that when someone has been accused of treason, they lose a certain percentage of their rights (and can therefore be killed without being brought to trial).

Worrying times!

Three Worrying Things was published on October 2nd, 2011, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the Observations, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

The Blood Bank: Two Years After…

I’m happy to inform you that two years after I reported a discriminatory practice in blood donation by the Red Cross on our campus, the situation has been remedied, at least on campus. I walked up there with a friend today, as I’ve done for the last two years, to check their list of exemptions. Nothing in there mentions “Nigeria”, or “sexual contact” as it did the last time, although – now more understandably – people who have travelled to “malaria-prone” zones of the world are required to wait for about three years before donating blood. The science and the common sense are now finally catching up with the other.

Update: On the other hand, the Red Cross website still has the following under its eligibility criteria, under the topic of HIV:

You are at risk for getting infected if you: … were born in, or lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea,Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria, since 1977… had sex with anyone who, since 1977, was born in or lived in any of these countries… (http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requirements/eligibility-criteria-alphabetical-listing).

Could someone please inform the Red Cross that you are at risk of getting HIV if you live anywhere on the surface of the earth today and you do things that put you at risk?

 

The Blood Bank: Two Years After… was published on September 28th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Observations category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Facing Mississippi

Under the banner of the Gateway Arch, the tallest monument in the country, his body perfectly aligned as a human compass, he ponders.

Here ahead is east where the sun rises. Washington DC lay ahead, as well as New York, Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island and all those other early states where settling pilgrims first set foot from across the Atlantic and where Irene caused some damage a few weeks ago. Here where he stands was a frontier. To think that all the country was in space are ended right here by the banks of the river. Then came the Louisiana Purchase that gave the country a new lease of life and a chance for the whole of the body of land for a country. Lewis and Clark stood here with boats and tools as they set forth to discover the source of the river, and what else lay out west.

It is easy to ponder what would have happened if another country began from right here which spoke only French. Even without that, all the language influences remain in the town names all around here: Edwardsville, Maryville, Fayetteville, Collinsville, Louisville, Carlinville, Belleville, Taylorville, Greenville, Catonsville, Merrillville, Vermontville, Danville, Warrenville, Romeoville, Pinckneyville, Nashville, Shelbyville, Jacksonville, Lawrenceville, Naperville, Libertyville, Higginsville, Aullville, Boonville, Wentzville, Noblesville and the very many dozen -villes dotting this area and the Mid-western landscape.

On the last frontier at Arizona, Nevada, Texas and California (which, in this position, would be behind him) was of course the other country whose language was mainly Spanish. What is exceptional, in the end, is the way the circumstances were turned to an advantage, and the luck of being able to forge one country that occupies a distinct geographical space.

Standing here, facing Mississippi, even without the positioning of the sun, the moving waters carrying debris from everywhere, left to right, point to the direction of the south. That’s where Katrina went.

Facing Mississippi was published on September 18th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Here Comes Trouble

Michael Moore’s new autobiography follows the sometimes ordinary, sometimes extraordinary, life of one of America’s most controversial commentators. His movie Fahrenheit 9/11 is the highest grossing documentary of all time. Aptly titled Here Comes Trouble because of the perception of the author and movie maker during the first few years of the George W. Bush administration and his war in Iraq. He describes in great detail and with sufficient personal reflection what it felt like to criticize the administration on live television during his first Oscar win acceptance speech, and the turbulence of his life after he became public enemy number one.

The memoir-writing style of American writers (mostly public figures) has often amazed me in their ordinariness. No attempt at lyricism or any special verbal sophistication. Just facts, told sometimes with a flourish, and with humour. Not much with any real attempt at literary brilliance. This commentary of mine is ironic, of course, because the straight-forwardness of the narrative makes it a fun and light-hearted read. But it ends there. I’ll remember the facts in the book more than the beauty of how the facts were told. In short, it doesn’t challenge me even though the recollection surely delights. I’m sure this makes some sense.

Michael Moore is a controversial figure, and holding his book with me around campus has already got me a few stares. We no longer live in a George Bush America but it is still fascinating the kind of response his name elicits. A few minutes ago, a student saw it on my desk and asks what I thought could be a tricky question: “So you like Michael Moore, eh?” “I like his work,” I replied. It seems like the safest answer to give given the circumstance. As the book shows, he is however a man bold enough to take risks, and who because of those risks – and some other coincidences in life – has lived a truly remarkable life.

Here Comes Trouble was published on September 15th, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Observations category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.