...this should clear it all up for you.
From the DailyMail Online: "Eurocrats Want to Spend 1.1 Million Pounds Changing English Channel's Name"
Without it there would be no British Isles, no White Cliffs of Dover and Captain Matthew Webb would never have found fame as a nifty swimmer.
Yet the mighty English Channel's status could be reduced to that of a mere creek if Brussels has its way.
Officials want to rename it 'the Anglo-French Pond' as part of a plan to bolster the notion of an EU superstate.
More than £1million, much of it coming from the British taxpayer, is being spent drawing up a new map to be distributed to schools and bureaucrats.
It defies centuries of history by wiping out current national borders to foster 'cultural identification' between regions and encourage greater integration.
So the idea here is to eliminate national sovereignty, arbitrarily redraw borders and indoctrinate school kids into accepting the notion of a singular Eurostate. The English folks need to man up and form some Tea Party-like groups post haste. Beat back the Eurotwits!
Can you imagine something like that happening here? Sure, there are the conspiracy theorists who believe that sinister plans are afoot to merge Mexico, the US and Canada into one huge EU-ish amalgamation. And who knows - they may be right. But I'm talking about the renaming of landmarks, or bodies of water, or what have you - all in the name of fostering "cultural identification" and other political correctness hooey.
As it turns out, I can imagine it....
(It's 30 years in the future...)
Grandpa LarryD sits in his hover-rocker, for his allotted 15-minute time period as permitted by Section 4125, paragraph VI, section iii of the 2034 Obama Therapeutic Furniture Usage Addendum to the Omnimegamaxi Final (And We Really Mean It This Time!) Health Care Bill Resolution of 2029, on a crisp spring afternoon. He enjoys the sunshine from behind the specially treated UV panes of glass surrounding the porch of Upper Central Midwest Region Wellness and Quality of Life Center for Non-Union Retirees, which looks out over 32-square acres of solar panels. In the distance, he can make out the fields of majestic golden wind farms, the blades rotating rhythmically, like a performance of the Sisters of Perpetual Heresy liturgical movement troupe.
He sighs.
"Mr LarryD," says a gruff voice behind him. "Your policy don't cover sighing."
Grandpa LarryD turns around and squints at the orderly. The man looks like a bloated cluster of Concord grapes bursting out of a pair of khaki pants, with an ugly bearded oversized beady-eyed gourd for a head. Purple is not Grandpa LarryD's favorite color. "It's called breathing, you Fruit-of-the-Loom reject."
The orderly's face turns as purple as his shirt and is about to respond when the door connecting the porch to the main building of the Wellness Center slides open, and a second purple-shirted orderly steps onto the platform. "I'm here to tell Mr LarryD that his grandson is here to see him."
The orderly holds up his hand. "Nuh-uh. You're s'posed to tell me his grandson is here. Then I tell the retiree. Your SEIU Communications grade only qualifies you to talk to retirees within the main building, but not on the porch. You're s'posed to tell the Porch Orderly, and then I tells the retiree. Git it?"
"Stupid unions," Grandpa LarryD mutters.
The second orderly nods and turns to go back inside. "Tell Mr LarryD that I'll be bringing his grandson out in a minute." Then he leaves.
"Mr LarryD?" the Porch Orderly asks.
"Let me guess - my grandson is here and he'll be out in a minute."
"Who tol' you?"
He shakes his head, and increases the speed of his rocking ever so slightly. His disgust quickly evaporates, however, dried up by the warm thought that one of his grandsons is visiting today. He wonders which future Indentured Servant of the State it is this time.
The porch door slides open again, and the squeaky sound of sneakered feet makes it way towards his hover-rocker. With a whoop and a whoosh, the lithe and slender form of a nine-year old boy lands in Grandpa's lap.
"Grandpa LarryD!" the boy exclaims.
"Thomas!" Grandpa LarryD replies, a bit of wind taken out of him by the exuberant impact. He feels the hover-rocker descend several inches before the tare weight balancers recalibrate. "You keep getting bigger every time I see you. I'm glad you're here."
"Me too," Thomas tells him.
Grandpa LarryD glances at the porch floor and sees Thomas' gray computer bag lying beneath him. "So, you've come here straight from school?"
Thomas shakes his head. "It's Community Service hour," he says. "I gotta go back. But I would come even if I didn't hafta."
The old man smiles. "What kind of crap they teaching you now?"
Thomas grins, and leans close, his voice a sly whisper. "I'm not supposed to say that word."
Grandpa LarryD keeps smiling. "You didn't say it, sport."
Thomas giggles a little, as if he were protecting a vital secret. "Well, I have Spanish, Chinese, Gender & Racial Sensitivity, 'rithmetic, Whole Language Metrics and History."
"History, eh? What you learning about?"
"North American Union stuff mostly," Thomas answers. "The rehabil...rehabili...rehabilitation," he finally pronounces, "of the former American Empire."
Grandpa LarryD clenches his dentures, and his rocking speed starts to increase again. "The former what?"
"American Empire," Thomas repeats. "At least, that's what they call it. You rememmer, don't you grandpa? You were living then, during the Tea Party uprisings, the occupation of Afghanistan, the founding of the North American Union. Rememmer?"
Grandpa LarryD grunts. "I remember."
"Today they taught us about the Great Lakes and stuff."
"Really? I know those. Let's see...the acronym is HOMES. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Am I right?"
Thomas raises an eyebrow, his face a question. "What? Oh, not anymore, grandpa. They've been given new names now."
"What? Since when?"
"Lessee...Lake Superior is now called Lake Ordinary. Lake Ontario gots changed because it was unfair to New York. It's now called Lake Share. Ummm, Lake Michigan gots changed too, when the states were joinded up. It's now Lake Reparations. And then the other two were offensive to Native Americans, so now Lakes Huron and Erie are Lake Emancipation and Lake Liberty. They spell out 'ROLES' - they say it's to remind us we all have a role to play."
"It also spells LOSER," Grandpa LarryD tells him. "What about Lake St. Clair?"
"Oh, that was changed too, 'cause of the saint part. It's now just Lake Clair. The St Lawrence Seaway was changed too. It's now The Larry King Seaway."
Grandpa LarryD tries to focus on the wind farm off in the distance. The blades are slowing down now, or so it seems. So much changed in so little time.
"You know what, Grandpa? My daddy says that the name-changin' is stupid. He says it takes away our identity and destroys what it means to be American."
He looks down at his grandson. "Your daddy's right. Things were different when he was your age. Better."
Thomas looks out over the glittering solar panels. "I like the old names. The new ones sound...made up. They don't mean anything."
The Porch Orderly puts his hand on the back of the hover-rocker, guiding it to a stop.
"Fifteen minutes is up," he says.
Thomas slides off Grandpa LarryD's lap, and the orderly assists the old man to his feet. As he is about to head towards the main building, LarryD takes a last look at the wind farm. The blades are slowly starting to spin the other way as the wind changes direction.
