There are men lost in jail
Crowded fifty to a room
There's too many rats in this cage of the world

And the women know their place
They sit home and write letters
And when they visit once a year
Well they both just sit there and stare

See how we are
Gotta keep bars in between us
See how we are
We only sing about it once in every twenty years
See how we are
Oh see how we are

Now there are seven kinds of Coke
500 kinds of cigarettes
This freedom of choice in the USA drives everybody crazy

But in Acapulco
Well they don't give a damn
About kids selling Chiclets with no shoes on their feet

See how we are
"Hey man, what's in it for me?"
See how we are
We only sing about it once in every twenty years
See how we are
Oh see how we are

Now that highway's coming through
So you all gotta move
This bottom rung ain't no fun at all

No fires and rockhouses and grape-flavored rat poison
They are the new trinity
For this so-called community

See how we are
Gotta keep bars on all of our windows
See how we are
We only sing about it once in every twenty years
See how we are
Oh see how we are

Well this morning the alarm rang at noon
And I'm trying to write this letter to you
About how much I care and why I just can't be there
To draw your bath and comb...and comb your hair

Last night in a nightspot
Where things aren't so hot
My friend said, "I met a boy and I'm in love"
I said, "Oh really... What's this one's name?"
She said, "His first name is Homeboy"
I said "Could his last name be Trouble?"

See how we are
Ah Homeboy... Isn't that a Mexican name?
See how we are
We only sing about it once in every twenty years
See how we are
Oh see how we are
Yeah see how we are

I hope people are still reading this.

I work in an English-only preschool in Taiwan, which gives me some authority on this subject. Here's the deal, you may think this practice is racist, but you're not seeing the big picture about names. First names like BoHao and JingMing (my Chinese name) aren't pronounced the way you're now thinking them in your head. They're not. Try all you want, and you will never pronounce it correctly unless you're a Chinese speaker and understand what tonality is. When Chinese people emigrate to English speaking countries, they mostly take English names because English speakers will either: a) make a big deal out of trying to learn the exact pronunciation of their Chinese names, which they never will do because they don't understand the rules; or b) butcher the name to such a degree that the person will be embarrassed, annoyed or otherwise put out. Furthermore, people almost always already have an English name, given during high school to use during widespread mandatory English classes, if not earlier (as in my three-year-old students' cases). English naming of Chinese people isn't racist, it makes natural sense. Names are a way of easily referring to an individual--that's why we have them anthropologically speaking. That's why people often insist you call them by their English names.

All that said, a law requiring renaming or an agency outside the family or the individual him/herself generating these names is, of course, racist. I'm not arguing that anything like that is acceptable. I'm saying that you can't just learn how to pronounce Chinese names (or Polish or Serbian for that matter) by reading them or mimicking what you think you're hearing. Many languages have distinctions that speakers of other languages just cannot hear or create with their mouths. People don't just get English names because they want/have to be more Western. They don't. Really. They do it because that's what the want to be called.

There was a shop teacher at my high school whose last name was Hunt and first name was Michael, but he went by "Mike". I kid you not. Bummer is, it's funnier when it's a joke. Seeing the guy 5 days a week for four years, and you just stop caring, like i imagine he did decades before.

Leaf Phoenix?

Really?

And I thought River was a bad first name!!!

1. I cooked dinner for Motley Crue.

2. I had my first real kiss while on a boat in a lake in Canada. She couldn't speak English. I couldn't speak French.

3. Some of my ancestors were pirates in Ireland.

4. I've wrecked 3 cars.

5. I fractured my neck (see #4).

6. I'm planning to be frozen by Alcor when I die.

7. I'm a formerly recovered sift addict who has fallen off the wagon.

8. I was a level 80 warlock in EQ2

9. I like cigars.

10. I grew several pounds of fantastic weed in a small closet.

11. I have an electric guitar that I've never played.

12. My first words were "wow" and "no".

13. I've seen a UFO.

14. I'm part Blackfoot Indian.

15. My first computer was a C-64 w/ a cassette tape drive.

16. I love the ocean. The salt air .. sound of the sea gulls ..

17. I sing like shit but do it loudly anyway.

18. I was on a first name basis at the emergency room when I was a kid.

19. The beauty of the sky at night and the expanse of space leaves me struck with awe every time I look up.

20. I'm terrified of bees and I think they know it.

21. If I could only ever have one video game, it would be Morrowind.

22. The only movie I've ever been to with my father was Star Wars. It's also the only time I remember an audience standing up and cheering at the end.

23. I sleep with the TV on so I don't have to hear myself think.

24. I procrastinate finishing things.

25.

Dignint pink

the first name is from owen wilson's character in the movie "Bottle Rocket" and the second half is from Steve Bushemi's (sp?) character from "Resevoir Dogs"

i've never heard her first name before... only as Chan Marshall

I used to play in that band when I was in the military. I never had the honor of meeting Nils Olav, but I met the guy he got his first name from.

Lots of comics make racist jokes. Carlos Mencia and Lisa Lampanelli are two that I can think of off the top of my head. They aren't being mean, they are merely making a joke. Carlos Mencia makes it a point to insult every race, color, and creed as much as possible because he feels we should all be able to laugh at ourselves. He feels that we should all be able to laugh at ourselves because we all have strengths and weaknesses to some degree, might as well laugh about them.

This comic has a job... make people laugh. If one person can't take it for whatever reason then they should leave. I love his Zulu joke BTW.

BTW, I am Italian. I have had my share of Italian jokes - even aimed at me. I laugh. My first name is Marco. I have had hundreds of people say "Marco Polo" when they hear my name. I don't care. I turn it back on them and pretend I have never heard it my life. Then they go off for about a minute trying to explain the (pretty much lame after several hundred times hearing it) joke to me. Inevitably they will mention kids playing Marco Polo in the pool. At that point I jump in and tell them that as a kid I only played "Marco {my last name}" in the pool. The look on their face when they realize that I got them is priceless. Sure I could get mad that someone is picking on my name. Instead I get creative and make their joke far funnier. One person told me that she told her son about it and her son told her, "mom, how can you be so gullible?" That was great to hear.

One of the person that tried this on me was an HR person at my current job. Later when she explained the company's no-name calling policy I threatened to report her for her "Marco Polo" jokes. She knows I am not being serious. I often remind her that I am stopping in later so she can help me fill out a complaint form against her. She still makes Marco Polo jokes. It's funny and we both smile.

Life is short. If you can't laugh at yourself then life will only seem shorter.

I would imagine compulsary voting would lead to a lot of people just voting for the first name they see, there is nothing that insures that voters are informed.

As for lines, when I was in and out in 15 minutes but I got there at 6:30a and a huge line grew quickly behind me (like streching down the street), but I live on the edge of West Hollywood and prop 8 is driving a bunch of votes.

The last few weeks somehat shocked me. I found out that there are not just some really, really stupid people out there in the world but obviously there number is huge. All this "Barck HUSSEIN Obama" thing... There really are people who think that a middle name says something about one's believes or whatever. If that's so does having the same first name as a well known psychopath and mass murderer make you also one? What about all the people in Austria that go by the name "Hitler"? Folks are just so plain ignorant when they try to reduce stuff to easy-to-swallow bits and pieces. Why try and actually read political programs? Look up the biography of a candidate? No, that's all too much hassle. Just find some nice clichee and stop thinking for oneself. I would feeld ashamed of myself to go out on the streets and shout "Hussein Mohammed Obama". It would just show that i'm stupid for the most part of it, but also that i'm ignorant (Mohammed isn't the name of Obama), racist (because i project fear and hate into a name and / or a religion) and that i'm a willing tool for crazy spindoctors. Luckily the internet doesn't forget anything and there's a realistic chance that those people will be confronted with their stupididy again in their lifetime. Maybe then they'll see just how incredible closed-minded that was. I really feel sorry for them, their families and for their country for which they are so proud of. I don't think that's the america that was once so loved by all.

Mr. Beck spells his first name with two N's. It's 'Glenn.'

Let's ask Wikipedia.

"MacGyver's first name remained a mystery until the final season; whenever he's asked about it, he says he dislikes his first name and changes the subject. Consequently, most of his friends and colleagues call him by his last name or simply "Mac." The script for the series pilot gave MacGyver's first name as "Stace", but this information, while mentioned in promotional material, did not appear in the finished episode. His first name is finally canonically revealed in "Good Knight, MacGyver", in which he learns of a 7th century Scottish ancestor, Angus M'Iver, and admits that they share their first name; and repeated in the series finale, which introduces MacGyver's son, whose middle name is Angus. It is also revealed on the packaging of the MacGyver DVD season sets."

Real first name: Stinger Assassin Palin

NetRunner: Stinger Assassin Palin

Apparently when naming me, she wouldn't blink, or second guess it.

"Dude, please call me by my first name." -Todd