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Outstanding Names


Gus Mears

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24 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Her sister, Bargain, thinks so. 

Wait until she marries her boyfriend, Pete Saboteur. 

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3 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

"A Namibian politician named after Adolf Hitler says he has no plans for world domination after winning a sweeping victory in local elections."

Surprisingly unambitious for a politician.

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The story behind his name sounds quite similar to one I read in Trevor Noah's book about a friend he had in South Africa called Hitler. Here's the passage where he explains it. I'll put in spoilers for people who don't want to read and don't want to have to scroll past it all:

Spoiler

"Hitler, although an unusual name, is not unheard-of in South Africa. Part of it has to do with the way a lot of black people pick names. Black people choose their traditional names with great care; those are the names that have deeply personal meanings. But from colonial times through the days of apartheid, black people in South Africa were required to have an English or European name as well - a name that white people could pronounce, basically... Nine times out of ten, your European name was chosen at random, plucked from the Bible or taken from a Hollywood celebrity or a famous politician in the news. I know guys named after Mussolini and Napoleon. And, of course, Hitler.

Westerners are shocked and confused by that, but really it's a case of the West reaping what it has sown... White people don't talk to black people. So why would black people know what's going on in the white man's world? Because of that, many black people in South Africa don't really know who Hitler was. My own grandfather thought "a hitler" was a kind of army tank that was helping the Germans win the war... For many black South Africans, the story of the war was that there was someone called Hitler and he was the reason the Allies were losing the war. This Hitler was so powerful that at some point black people had to go help white people fight against him - and if the white man has to stoop to ask the black man for help fighting someone, that someone must be the toughest guy of all time. So if you want your dog to be tough, you name your dog Hitler. If you want your kid to be tough, you name your kid Hitler... It's just a thing.

... We weren't taught [at school] that the architects of apartheid were big fans of Hitler, that the racist policies they put in place were inspired, in part, by the racist policies of the Third Reich. [All we were taught were] facts. Memorize them, write them down for the test, and forget them.

There is also this to consider: The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important and that's especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium's King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson.

I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don't have... is documentation... And that's what it really comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It's harder to be horrified by a guess...

So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa he's just another strongman from the history books. In all my time hanging out with [my friend] Hitler, I never once asked myself, "Why is his name Hitler?" His name was Hitler because his mom named him Hitler."

 

 

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37 minutes ago, Statto said:

"Adolf Hitler of Namibia" is also a candidate for that Twitter bot that posts Wikipedia article titles that can be sung to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme.

Which also scans to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme - it's pretty much a toss-up every time I see Tweets from that account whether I go with Rangers or Turtles in my head.

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49 minutes ago, Statto said:

"Adolf Hitler of Namibia" is also a candidate for that Twitter bot that posts Wikipedia article titles that can be sung to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme.

Doesn't fit!

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24 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

 

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"

... We weren't taught [at school] that the architects of apartheid were big fans of Hitler, that the racist policies they put in place were inspired, in part, by the racist policies of the Third Reich. [All we were taught were] facts. Memorize them, write them down for the test, and forget them.

There is also this to consider: The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important and that's especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium's King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson.

I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don't have... is documentation... And that's what it really comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It's harder to be horrified by a guess...

So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa he's just another strongman from the history books. In all my time hanging out with [my friend] Hitler, I never once asked myself, "Why is his name Hitler?" His name was Hitler because his mom named him Hitler."

 

 

Hear, hear. 

Something a bit closer to home: you may have seen the NJPW posters using Nazi German imagery for their design theme (short of using the actual swastika). You may have also seen the "Hitler Fried Chicken" shop in Thailand, or their markets that sell cutesy Hitler cartoon-based t-shirts and tat. This is because, in east Asia, nobody's really taught what the Nazis were about, and what Hitler actually did. It's just too distant for them. In most of east Asia outside Japan, Emperor Hirohito or Hideki Tojo would be the ones to cite to get a Hitler reaction, for what Japan did leading up to and during WWII, including the Rape of Nanking, the Comfort Women, the the Siam-Burma Railway, etc.

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