Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Names and things

Winona LaDuke, founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and two-time Green Party vice-presidential candidate:

“Julius Caesar’s calendar is something that belongs to one culture, and I always have this problem with naming large things after small white men. Like, you know, who was that guy? Why do we have one whole system of time named after him?”

*

“I don’t mean to repeat this, but I have a problem with the naming thing — big mountains after small men. This whole continent is badly named.”
From the Kitchen Sisters’ podcast Fugitive Waves , episode no. 51, “Harvest on Big Rice Lake.”

comments: 2

Frex said...

Not an exact correlation, but I hope still relevant?--this reminds me of a 2004 quote from Bob Dylan, re changing his name:
"You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.”

The "wrong names, wrong parents---that happens" bit is what struck me.

Frex = Fresca

Michael Leddy said...

“Wrong names, wrong parents”: I can think of people who fit that description. Self-reinvention can be a mighty good thing.