-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tim May wrote:
While it was not Tim's intention to make Jim look like a criminal, the use of a defendent's full name is often used to connote criminality.
Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Milhous Nixon, William Jefferson Clinton... there are many examples.
George Washington Carver, James Fennimore Cooper, Richard Dean Anderson, Clare Booth Luce, Robert Anton Wilson, Francis Scott Key,.....
We don't usually think of these people as defendants.
(Sometimes people have three names, sometimes two names, popularly used. Criminality has little to do with it. For example, Richard Speck, Charles Manson, John Walker, Aldrich Ames, Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols. Most of them presumably have middle names.)
I did not say that the use of middle names was required for defendants.
Oh, and as to divining what Tim's "intention" was, this mindreading and psychoanalysis shtick is getting old.
My opening sentence was intended to be friendly. It was supposed make clear that it was not suggested that you thought Jim Bell was a criminal. Certainly that was obvious, but a little redundancy never hurts. It looks like the meaning didn't convey properly, so I'm sorry if I seemed to be psychoanalyzing you. It's generally considered courteous to call people by the name they wish to be called. Jim Bell seems to go by the name "Jim Bell". (This would not hold if somebody makes an inappropriate request such as asking to be addressed as "James Dalton Bell, Defender of the Faith, God of Vengeance, and Lord of the Universe.") Back to the original point, I believe that it's hard to find instances in which two-named people are involuntarily converted to three-named people when they are not charged with a crime. Lee Oswald became "Lee Harvey Oswald" after the Kennedy Assassination, for example. I've also noticed that Wardens have a marked tendency to refer to inmates on death row by their first name, even when speaking publicly. As in, "Don's death was very upsetting as it was obviously very painful." (Paraphrased from a real example.) I believe the wardens are expressing a few things with this name choice. One is that they have complete power over the inmate. Teachers call children by their first names, and it seems to me that there is an element of that here. (Admittedly, this is a troubling image.) Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNGpi1JaWtjSmRH/5AQEsLwf9H4ZmvsVVkQgh9WU/HOUZYdet7+9p9nBf frvYBTgRNoOPiM0pl7Yusl/GhAK6nhCpEb0dCUaWjFLW889I5CyvrbqkzWoA6tj0 k5ULieQs390JEzGAn1LEkvzUCjlEBn5WFgpzJCFYzWpAMaQPT6qcczRIXqoCPG7l R822+EBuL9eikWruy+8V6Bt45mQyB/aHemhmIa/V4YKCn7mc8FmfZ/qQHknaPdFP wJz3cXmw1im4Br/0UkLv9bD2CfZCqcq74VpbujMvUFnsAOmbrWJVqlSV+Gs1MDXf Zli7VCarhzAU9j4sPU9gbTBYsuApRYd8IrJtvOfQcDDMw0dEd9/tjA== =Az6E -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----