Pages

Blog Archive

Labels

Thursday, September 13, 2007
Well, Hugo Chavez is at it again. This time he has introduced legislation that would ban all but the 100 Spanish names that are okay with him for use by parents in naming their newborns.
As if Hugo Chávez doesn't have enough ways to repress his countrymen, a new parliamentary edict has been introduced to prohibit Venezuelan parents from naming their newborns anything other than 100 officially sanctioned Spanish names. Fed up with whimsical, hard-to-pronounce, or politically incorrect monikers such as Haynhecht, Yornaichel, Hochiminh, or (¡horrores!) Kennedy, officials want to go back to basics, according to The New York Times. Supporters of the legislation say it will protect children from ridicule. But efforts to purify cultures have not gone well historically. And what's next? Venezuela itself is said to have been named by an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, who in 1499 christened it "Little Venice." Could "Chavezuela" be far behind?
Any guess as to whether "Hugo" will make the cut?

0 comments:

Recent Comments

Widget_logo

Darius' book montage

The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel The Main Thing
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
Overcoming Sin and Temptation
According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible
Disciplines of a Godly Man
Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem
When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves
The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
Respectable Sins
The Kite Runner
Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak
Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, ... anabaptist/anglican, metho
Show Them No Mercy
The Lord of the Rings
Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass
The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
The Chronicles of Narnia
Les Misérables


Darius Teichroew's favorite books »