What's In A Name?

This journalist, like many others, fervently believes the hand poised on the Made-in-Iran Launch button is connected to a brain with sub-code wiring. The proof is in statements like these.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday.

— Associated Press (AP), via Yahoo! News

Drastic, yet absurd measures to preserve the purity of the national language from the onslaught of corruption by foreign influences. By golly, it sounds so dreadfully familiar. But the prospects for comedy are good. I look forward to the day when I can yell, Roti liat, satu! (One "elastic loaf", please!) at my neighbourhood mamak stall, while enjoying a "short talk" with whatever friends I have left after twenty-odd years of separation, and mulling over the building of a "small room" somewhere in Langkawi.

I'm sure my "elastic loaf" would taste great, too.

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And why didn't I hear of this in the local mainstream news? Is this the reason why the Government has its entire digestive tract in Gordian knots over unfettered, free-for-all reporting via online media? Checking the related news sidebar on the BBC page, I'm starting to see a pattern, and for once, I can't blame them.

What takes the cake about this ban is that the names of animals, insects, fruit, vegetables or colours are involved. If this piece of legislation is actively enforced, it presents a particular dilemma for a certain minority. Words like huang (yellow), lan (blue) or ma (horse) are used as Chinese surnames, while long (dragon), feng (phoenix) or lin (unicorn) are powerful names for those with high expectations for their offspring. There are other words like feng (bee/wasp), hou (monkey), or ying (firefly).

No matter. As this post demonstrates, creativity is boundless.

If You See Red, Don't Go Green

Will Greenpeace See Red?
I've always been ambivalent towards green groups like Greenpeace. Over the years public sympathy and funding have morphed them from a free-floating fringe group into something akin to a political party. As everyone knows: When a group professing altruism becomes political, things invariably go wrong.

I remember an old Readers' Digest article about how their "Save the Seals" campaign, led by that witch Brigitte Bardot, ruined an Inuit community by depriving them of a livelihood. Today, the Inuit are hunting seals again, as well as - what I regard as a slap-in-the-face for Greenpeace - Canadian fisherman, who partake in an annual seal slaughter to eliminate the competition for cod, pollock and salmon, while earning a profit doing it.

How long will it be before they cross over to the dark side and employ the terrorist tactics so favoured by loony legions like PETA and various animal welfare groups, who pick the easy battles and ignore the good fights?


Life After Whales
It confounds me that Japan, a well-spring of innovation and improvisation, is in no hurry to find a solution for the sword of Damocles hovering over dozens of fishing communities who supplement their income by killing or capturing whales and dolphins: "What the hell do we do, once we drive them all to extinction?" There's one Japanese fisherman who has given up whaling and dolphin hunting to organise whale watching tours. Others may not be as receptive to the radical idea that a live whale is just as valuable as a dead one.

Maritime patrols would be a good career path for former whalers. Pirates? Terrorists? Straying North Korean vessels? Suicidal Greenpeace pontoons? Imagine the large metal shank of a harpoon several feet long protruding out of the eye-socket of some stubborn captain of a trespassing ship. What other "Don't Bleeping Mess With Us" message could be more straight-to-the... -point?

Being Real Sports

So they're dumping RM490 million into a sports complex in the UK? The lifestyle changes brilliantly proposed by the Government must be working; they've saved enough for another prestigious monument. Personally, I don't think it's necessary, since we've already got the infrastructure and training plans in place.

Don't believe me? All the runarounds the civil service and government departments put us through has the whiff of a secret exercise regime. Once the wild goose chase ends, you'll feel the after-effects of an entire Iron Man race, complete with the mental and physical agony. We do, after all, love our flatbreads and sweet pulled tea.

Our Government cares. Really.

Whale Safari, Redefined

Whale-watching tourists in Norway were given a first-hand look at the country's whaling industry when an animal they were watching was harpooned. The carnage was not taken well by the tourists. I wonder if any children were on deck at that moment?

The blood flowed and it wasn't a pretty sight. This really wasn't what we came to see.

— Leontien Dieleman, Dutch tourist

No shit, Leon. Whale-watching-slash-whaling tours, while economical and possibly educational, will never catch on. Not until the nasty bits of the business are resolved, anyway.

While Japan stoops to bribing poorer countries in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for control over whaling restrictions, Norway doesn't even bother with politics or pretensions. This, however, goes beyond "rubbing it in your face".