Istanbul, Not Constantinople

We're having a process vs. substance debate? What? Why did nobody tell me? All I remember from that earlier exchange was me saying that the media/legal establishment tends to create a false equal-and-opposite dynamic that muddles where the truth really lies. You responded with a post juxtaposing (and thus equating) "Air America" with "Fox News", with no examination as to whether either network was a more reliable source of truth. Alan's trenchant analysis FTW!

As to the Burma vs. Myanmar split, there are several rules that we could follow with regard to country names. Here are the ones I've thought of:

1) What their government designates as the country name.
2) What they call themselves.
3) What they are known as to others.

If you respect 1), then the country is Myanmar. The government -- those who have a monopoly on the use of force -- calls the country Myanmar. No, the government isn't democratically legitimate, but that doesn't make it not the government. Wishing that the men with guns weren't in control isn't going to change the fact that the men with guns are in control. And deliberately failing to call a country by its designated name is not only the most token of token oppositions (how, exactly, is a name supposed to overthrow a junta?), it's also probably the single most petulant form of protest. We might as well call it Silly Bunch of Jerks.

If you respect 2), then survey the country and figure it out. Even that, of course, has limits. Should we call Germany Deutscheland because that's what they call themselves? Even pronouncing the names gets tricky -- I don't go pronouncing Turkey as "Turk-kee-yay" (mostly because I'm not a total douchebag), even though it is the proper Turkish pronunciation. And of course the country's residents may not even agree on the country, let alone the name -- Northern Ireland, anyone?

So I'll go with 3). A country should be called whichever name most easily and accurately communicates the region/country to the newspaper's readers. French Guyana probably doesn't want to be called French Guyana, but we need to call it that to seperate it from the Guyana next door. Sorry, French Guyana. Sometimes names have to change, like when a country turns into a different country (Bohemia + Moravia + Slovakia --> Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia - Slovakia --> Czech Republic). But China has always been China, regardless of whether it's the Qing Dynasty, the Republic, or the People's Republic.

Since I have the same level of awareness of Myanmar/Burma regardless of the name -- it's that Southeast Asian country that isn't the one with the good food, the one we fought in a pointless war, the one Nixon bombed, or the one that is Laos -- I say that "Burma" should win out, in deference to Mission of Burma.

Maybe that should be another rule:

4) Whatever is most punk.

- A