A Meaningless Title

“The Hawaiian flag…is suggestive of the prominent political elements of the Islands. It is part French, part English, part American, and is Hawaiian in general.”

 - Mark Twain, Letters from Hawaii

There’s something strange about the sight of the Hawaiian flag, about seeing a banner with the Union Jack so prominent flying over a part of the United States. And yet, the more I travelled in Hawaii, the more appropriate its design seemed to be, the more its presence seemed to sum up the history and character of the islands.

It’s not the only American state flag to incorporate elements of a foreign country’s ensign; Iowa is built around a French tricolour, while Florida and Alabama uses the old Spanish Cross of Burgundy. But Hawaii seems different to them – the Spanish connection in the latter two are too obscure to stand out, while Iowa adds a bald eagle to proudly indicate its American identity. Hawaii, though, the British flag remains recognisably unchanged, and while the stripes feel American, the addition of blue to the familiar red-white pattern gives a sense that this is a culture still not entirely American.

The borrowed crosses of the Union Jack seem quite at home as symbols of Hawaii. They form an eight-pointed star to go with the eight stripes for eight islands. And as the symbol of a foreign nation, they also make it hard to forget that Hawaii was itself a sovereign state, that this is not just the flag of an American state or territory, but of a nation outside the American sphere, whose people did not wish for annexation or absorption, but wished to carve out their own identity, like that of the other empires and kingdoms they'd encountered.

For that matter, the Union Jack in the corner calls to mind less Britain itself, but so many other flags built around that design. It almost seems like a symbol of Pacific identity, a reminder of the ancient connections between Hawaii and its neighbours - Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, New Zealand, and the other nations of Polynesia that use such a design.

The more I saw the flag, the more I liked it. Kamehameha I could not have planned it when he designed his new kingdom’s banner, but the symbolism of it still works beautifully.

There’s a Falun Gong/Anti-Communist China protest pretty much permanently set up near where I do my shopping, and I took a look at their signs today to see what, specifically, they were protesting. There were, as you might expect, signs protesting the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and the lack of respect for human rights in China, but the largest single sign was not exactly what I was expecting.

As far as I could tell, their primary complaint about the government of the People’s Republic of China was that… it agreed in 1991 to cede its claims to parts of Outer Manchuria and Mongolia lost to Russia by the Qing Empire in the mid-nineteenth century.

Truly, the most contemptible act committed by the PRC.

Cerberus, the name of the three-headed dog that guards the river Styx, is the Latin form of the Greek 'Kerebos'. Some etymologists speculate that name is related to the Sanskrit word ‘karbarah/karvara’, and may be either derived from it or share a common root from the proto-Indo European language.

And what does that word translate as? ‘Spotted’.

Because, after all, even if you’re the god of the underworld, Spot is still a good name for your dog...

Well, it’s new pope time, and that means it’s time to pick a new papal name! Unfortunately, in recent centuries, the list of names chosen has become rather staid and boring, with Pius after Pius broken only by the occasional Paul or Leo. Benedict was a good change, but still not going far enough – looking back only a mere hundred years. For the next pope, might I suggest looking a lot further back, and picking one of the underused names that haven’t seen much attention in the last millennia? So many to choose from!

He could be any of these if he wanted:

Sixtus VI
Lando II
Cletus II
Dionysius II
Hilarius II

Should none of these catch the pope’s fancy, might I suggest he at least pick John XX, and finally fill the gap created by a nine hundred year old numbering error?

Been doing research for my thesis on the American occupation of Haiti. One thing that struck me was noticing that, as late as the 1920s, ‘Zombies’ were still unknown in America – a fair number of writers, talking about superstition in Haiti, seem to think zombie is a type of ghost.

It’s weird to realise zombies have only been part of English-speaking pop culture for less than a century. They don’t feel that recent – zombies feel perfectly at home in medieval European-style fantasies, they don’t feel like foreign intruders like monsters from middle-eastern or Asian folklore would. They’ve certainly lost any specific connection to Voodoo or Caribbean culture.

Then again, most of the modern ideas about Vampires and Werewolves entered popular culture through film at about the same time; the 1930s was a remarkably influential era for horror. One wonders if the Zombie would have gone on to have the same impact had the early film industry developed in another country, or if the United States hadn’t been occupying Haiti at the time the industry was looking for new supernatural beasts…

Was walking down the street today, and a guy commented on my Che Guevara T-Shirt I was wearing.

It was kind of awkward, because my actual feelings towards Che are rather ambivalent. I own the T-shirt more for the kitsch value than anything else. The man’s ideals cannot be criticized, I feel, but his methods ranged from the brutal to the incompetent; his attempt to lead a revolution in Bolivia that lead to his death was almost comically inept. And the cult of personality that developed around him after his death is very much about the romantic image of the revolutionary ideal at the expense of the more complex reality of his life.

So, as I said, it’s awkward when I’m wearing the shirt and someone comments on it, because I am sympathetic to the point of view that he wasn’t an individual that should be immortalised in the way that he has been, while at the same time, the right-wing Latin American governments and their American backers weren’t really open to any sort of compromise with the left, so I’m not willing to complexly condemn Che’s revolutionary socialism either. It’s a complex issue, and not one that it’s easy to have with strangers I meet on the street.

Of course, as it turned out, the whole situation ended up a lot less awkward – for me at least – once it became clear that the guy thought Che was a musician…

Disappointment of the day: Finding out that the Immortals film I saw a poster for the other day isn't a remake of 300 from the Persian point of view...

Incidently, while checking on Wikipedia, I found the Byzantine Empire at one point fielded units known as 'Immortals' in reference to the Persian soldiers - because, apparently, being a Roman Empire based in Greece defended by an elite force of Viking mercinaries wasn't enough of an anachronism stew for the Byzantine emperors.

Anyone got any theories why the McKinley assasination is such an obscure part of American history? I mean, sure, the Lincoln assasination gets more attention because, well, Lincoln, and Kennedy's still in living memory - but McKinley seems to struggle to get attention even compared to Garfield...

Is it just that McKinley himself tends to be completly overshadowed by Teddy Roosevelt in histories? Or is this a recent change, and sharing a name with a cartoon cat has given Garfield a sudden boost in prominence in the popular mind?

Had a debate the other day over whether Latin or Ancient Greek would be a better language for a time traveler to learn, assuming they had no idea where or when they'd end up... Greek's more useful in the ancient world and the middle east, but if you end up in medieval Europe or the Americas post-Columbus, Latin might be more likely to be recognised.

Anyway, what are the East Asian equivalent languages? Would modern Chinese be enough to scrape by in, say, Kublai Khan's court, or is there a better choice? Sanskrit? Would that be well known enough that someone in China would at least be able to identify it?

Hmm - or would Hebrew be the best overall choice?

A decent film, rather disappointed that it’s not getting a proper release anywhere. Hypatia’s story is one that deserves to be repeated, and the collapse of Alexandria’s intellectual culture in the face of fanatical uncompromising religion is one that still resonates today.

( On the most shallow level, the visuals are <i>gorgeous</i>... )