2/10/2025

My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

            Did you enjoy the game? We had more fun guessing what the adverts were selling than watching the Chiefs succumb. Since our hostess doesn’t see well, about every five minutes she would ask “who has the ball, now” & every time we’d say, “Philly.” Cooper DeJean’s interception/touchdown amused us for several minutes as we explored the implications of having such an exhilarating moment when one turns 22. It doesn’t get much better than that!

            I understand that you’d like me to call the body of saltwater bordering AL, FL, LA & TX, “the Gulf of America,” & the Geographic Names Information System is being updated to reflect this change. I wonder if this will catch on.

            Since I am a free person, who can use whatever name I’d like to refer to that body of water, I will call it the “Dolphin Sea” since that’s the most common animal that lives there

You will notice that I am using the term, “Sea” rather than “Gulf” because according to the Ocean Literacy Portal at UNESCO that body of water is the 15th largest sea on the planet. I was surprised to learn that the 3rd biggest is the American Mediterranean Sea (AMS). You could use that name for the mediterranean dilution basin that includes the Caribbean Sea & the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a bigger body of water & you like big things.

Naming places after their floral & fauna would prevent the confusion that comes from having different names for the same places depending on which country one lives in. Rather than calling the water between Korea & Japan, East Sea or the Sea of Japan, let’s call it “Octopus Sea.” The disputed waters called, “South Sea” by China, “Eastern Sea” by Vietnam & West Philippine Sea by others, could be called “Shark Sea.” In my perfect world, we’d be mindful that the marine life are the true owners of those waters & every time we talk about their home, we would evoke an image of them. Doing so might help us avoid another disaster such as the Deepwater Horizon incident.

            While we are naming places after the animals that inhabit them, let’s start calling “Burma,” “Peacock.” That was the official symbol of Burma's last kings, the Konbaung dynasty. Peacocks are threatened in the wild because folks poach their eggs & feathers. The junta does not have the bandwidth to protect them so they could go extinct.

Calling the land “Peacock” might remind the world that bombs kill everything, not just soldiers.

WINTA.

            BYBS,