On Saddling Your Children with Names That Control Their Future

Naming your child "Lucky" is going to ruin him. "Princess" and "Honey Boo-boo" are likewise fucked.

Today I add a new one: Never name a young black boy "Kenyan."

That's like naming a little Jewish boy "Israel." Like the guy running the Pakistani Deli down the block from your apartment telling you his name really is "John Paki."

You're essentially just guaranteeing that your kid is going to chased continuously throughout his life, first by bullies on the playground, then by about 40,000 white people trying to make it to the tape at the 2012 2013 New York City Marathon.

Well at least he'll have great cardio strength. That might just be enough to combat his genetic predisposition for heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

A Two State Solution

AT&T sent me a form email a few days ago, just to notify me of basic service changes. I figure it was just because we briefly added tethering to one of our data plans for work and then switched it back. No biggie, as you can see here:

You may notice something askew with the bullet points. They are in Hebrew.

Aleph. Bet. Gimel. Dalet.

It's like my cell phone plan is suddenly playing a game of dreidel with me for the holidays, and if I win, I don't get charged hidden fees for another month.

On the other hand, there are two ways to read this that would each be valid. The first would simply be as lettered bullet points, aleph, bet, gimel, and delet being the first four letters of the Hebrew alphabet, equivalent to A, B, G, and D [think Greek ordering].

Or they're numbers, as Hebrew plays double duty as both an alphabet and a numerical system, though Arabic numerals are the standard resultant of international usage. Letters or numbers, either way it's still Hebrew.

Which, I'm pretty sure, is the only two-state solution Israel has any intention of agreeing to.