In thinking about content for this blog, there’s a lot I don’t think I can either write 500 words about, which is my warm-up minimum word limit for these blog posts, or do the research to get that much, by which time I would feel I need 5000 words to cover the topic. So what I’ve decided is that I would collect these into posts until I get 500 words and post them. If nothing else, they will serve as a repository for me for potential future posts. Hopefully, they will be enjoyable, if not thought-provoking, for you.

Why are the most individualistic countries have “United” in their names?

The two most individualistic countries in the world are the United States, and the United Kingdom? United??? What are they talking about? Very generally and in comparison to the rest of the world, of course, they’re a bunch of people out for themselves, often at the cost of others or walking over others, only caring for others afterwards like they noticed they had some residue of a conscience left over. So how hypocritical is it they have “United” in their name? The only reason they’re “United” is because one subgroup or another within them, once upon a time, have subdued others over time, and brought them under their umbrella somehow. They do this all for the power to subvert more, but at many points, they’ll walk over their own for their gains within. United, you say?

Should the Tomahawk Missile and Kansas City Chiefs be renamed?

The Kansas City Chiefs just lost the Super Bowl so this is going to feel like kicking them when they’re down, but I’m not trying to. I was cheering for them because I cheer for cheetahs like Hill, not cheaters like Brady. Anyhow, they’re yet another sports team with an Indigenous name in the spotlight. While it’s not a blatantly derogatory name like the now unnamed Washington Football Team, or with the logo like the Cleveland Indians, it’s still a name I’m sure many Indigenous people of America object to. A lot is being done about this, like renaming of some teams and banning of the “tomahawk” motion in “cheering”. That’s great, but it’s not complete. They should go all the way to at least remove all such Indigenous names from professional and school teams, unless it’s a really local organization that has the permission from the local Indigenous group/s.

In thinking of the names and the tomahawk chop used by fans of some teams, I thought about the Tomahawk missile that’s so prevalent in the American weapons arsenal. If they’re renaming sports teams who only play games, why wouldn’t they rename a weapon that kills people, even if it’s designed to minimize that with surgically targeted strikes? Do they or you think many or any cultural group would like to have their oppressors name a missile that killed people in the name of one of their cultural artifacts? I do realize that renaming a missile is a whole different challenge than renaming a cultural icon like a sports teams, with a lot of other life and death priorities to be concerned about for weapons of war. You wouldn’t want missiles not firing because someone forgot to change a line of code to match the names the thing is called by from one system to another, for example. Still, I can’t imagine the Indigenous peoples of America are keen on having a missile strike enemies in wars so distant from them, with the name of one of their artifacts on that weapon.