November 30, 2007--Fanaticism XCVIII: Teddy (Roosevelt) Bear
Remain calm but during the Thanksgiving weekend Rona and I bought a taxidermied bear cub. For our living room. It was not killed but rather died a natural death more than 100 years ago up in the Adirondacks. So we’re not feeling too guilty. A little pretentious maybe, but not politically incorrect.
After finding just the right place for it we next turned to selecting a name for him (at least we think it’s a “him”). We’re Jewish and thought we might call him Max, after the Jewish boxer from the past—Max Baer. Or Blacky since he is a black bear. Gummy was another possibility. Not entirely happy with any of these we decided to wait a bit to see if we would naturally come to call him one name or another.
Then the news broke all over the place about another, very, very different situation surrounding the naming of a bear. This one is a toy bear that belonged to a class of 7-year-olds in an elite private school in the Sudan. By now you know the story—
Their British teacher began a project on animals and as part of it asked her students to suggest names for the bear. Overwhelmingly the class voted to name it Mohammad. Ms. Gibbons then asked them to take the bear home, photograph it, and write a little something about it. After they brought what they wrote back to class she bound all the essays into a book that she called, My Name is Muhammad.
When word got out about this she was arrested and charged with blasphemy, inciting hatred, and insulting Islam. It is considered to be a grave offense, a crime to do anything that might be viewed as an insult to the Prophet. In her case, and she was convicted yesterday, she could have been sent to jail for quite some time and received 40 lashes. She will spend 15 days in jail but will not have to endure the whipping. (See NY Times story linked below.)
Considering the stakes, Rona and I are now being a little careful about what we call our bear. One thought, which we rejected as too obvious, was to consider calling him Teddy after the ubiquitous stuffed bear of that name.
Now, beyond feeling that that name would be too common, there is another reason to keep searching for one that works for us and him—The teddy bear after all is also named after a person, admittedly not quite equivalent to the Prophet, President Teddy Roosevelt. And we wouldn’t want to do anything blasphemous in regard to his memory.
Suggestions?
After finding just the right place for it we next turned to selecting a name for him (at least we think it’s a “him”). We’re Jewish and thought we might call him Max, after the Jewish boxer from the past—Max Baer. Or Blacky since he is a black bear. Gummy was another possibility. Not entirely happy with any of these we decided to wait a bit to see if we would naturally come to call him one name or another.
Then the news broke all over the place about another, very, very different situation surrounding the naming of a bear. This one is a toy bear that belonged to a class of 7-year-olds in an elite private school in the Sudan. By now you know the story—
Their British teacher began a project on animals and as part of it asked her students to suggest names for the bear. Overwhelmingly the class voted to name it Mohammad. Ms. Gibbons then asked them to take the bear home, photograph it, and write a little something about it. After they brought what they wrote back to class she bound all the essays into a book that she called, My Name is Muhammad.
When word got out about this she was arrested and charged with blasphemy, inciting hatred, and insulting Islam. It is considered to be a grave offense, a crime to do anything that might be viewed as an insult to the Prophet. In her case, and she was convicted yesterday, she could have been sent to jail for quite some time and received 40 lashes. She will spend 15 days in jail but will not have to endure the whipping. (See NY Times story linked below.)
Considering the stakes, Rona and I are now being a little careful about what we call our bear. One thought, which we rejected as too obvious, was to consider calling him Teddy after the ubiquitous stuffed bear of that name.
Now, beyond feeling that that name would be too common, there is another reason to keep searching for one that works for us and him—The teddy bear after all is also named after a person, admittedly not quite equivalent to the Prophet, President Teddy Roosevelt. And we wouldn’t want to do anything blasphemous in regard to his memory.
Suggestions?
posted by Steven Zwerling at
1:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home