Although I've never worked in one, and babies terrify me, I always enjoy dropping by the maternity ward, because it's the happiest place in the hospital.
Most of the mums are positively glowing, having demonstrated once again that women are stronger than men.
And I like to kid the first-time dads by assuring them that sleep deprivation is not ALWAYS fatal.
So I was glad to see this delivery went well.
The Trudeaus are welcoming another member to their family today. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced the arrival of Hadrian, weighing in at 8 pounds and 3 ounces, on Twitter Friday morning.
And tweets like this one made me smile...
But then there was this one...
Which was struck me as unpleasantly weird.
I found this article disgusting.
Hadrian, who reigned from 117 to 138 A.D., is commonly called one of the five good emperors because of his economic stewardship of the empire and his lack of belligerence in launching wars on his neighbours. Arguably Rome’s most enigmatic emperor, he also built a legendary wall separating England and Scotland to keep the Scots at bay.
But he is reviled among the Jewish community. During the Third Jewish War, Hadrian crushed a Jewish uprising using almost genocidal force, killing upwards of 500,000 and destroying almost 1,000 villages. The Talmud follows his name with the curse “Crush his bones.”
And I'm sorry to say I feel the same way about this post.
For why one anyone seek to burden a baby with the bloody legacy of a Roman Emperor who lived so long ago?
When I rather like the name, and the only problem I can see, is that some Québécois or Québécoise might have trouble pronouncing the hard H. So some of his friends might call him Adrian.
Big deal.
You know, I realize that we live in Harperland, where the partisanship of the Con regime has corrupted this country and dragged us all into the gutter.
And I realize that some people hate Justin Trudeau as much as others love him.
But all I would say is if you have problems with Justin's policies, criticize him for that.
And leave the innocent alone...
And of course all hail baby Hadrian !!!!
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4 comments:
Warren kinsella had a few words to say on his blog about the "tweet/twit" who make the comments about the new baby's name. Obviously this Ivison person doesn't have enough to do. This one day old cute little human obviously must be very powerful for Ivison to have gone to all this effort. Ivison needs to get a life and work on his charm.
Congrats to the Trudeau family on this latest addition and the new baby has a cute name.
What kind of sickos would attack a newborn baby? Oh yeah, the National Post, John Ivison and the sicko in chief, Stephen Harper.
I think it's great. I've always loved those wonderful historical names. We named our first-born son Alaric. We were going to call his little brother Diocletian but my mother made a fuss and threatened to cut us out of her will.
None of my business, but why did they choose the English version of this name? It is Hadrien in French, and no hard H. Adrian is almost a taboo name here, at least for some, as Adrien Arcand was a notorious Québécois fascist.
More pleasantly, Hadrien was famed for his deep love for his "favourite", Antinoüs. Of course male same-sex relations were part of life in ancient Greece and Rome, but the depth and importance of this relationship were comparable, perhaps, to Alexander and Hephaestion.
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