Old Beatrice & Uncle Tom

 

   It has been two weeks since I last posted and it is raining so I will attempt one now. It will be based, I think, on stories I just read in the Sunday papers. You will be relived to know that they are not "news" stories, since most such stories are rather bad these days.

  I will begin with the benign one about Beatrice. The picture above is from the North Sea off the coast of Scotland where the oil rigs, like the one on the right, are being replaced by the wind turbines on the left. There will be over 80 of them and the 50 square miles will be known as "The Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm." Her name was also on the old oil rigs. 

  You will not be surprised that I noticed the name "Beatrice", since I have written often about such names, mostly because they are being replaced. You will also know that I am not generally in favour of such replacements since the history behind them is often more interesting and illustrative than the monikers manufactured by the new toponymic totalitarians among us. 

  Although HRH Prince Charles of Wales reigned over the official opening of the "farm" in the Moray Firth, Scotland, old Beatrice is not British.  She was the wife of old T. Boone Pickens, who has his name all over the campus at Oklahoma State University. Old T. Boone was very rich and his story is more interesting than this post (see below for sources.)

  At this time I don't think anyone is suggesting that Beatrice be removed, but remember that the hummingbird "Anna" is being attacked for being named after the wife of a French naturalist. "Uncle Tom", as in "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"  is causing problems, even in Germany where "Onkel Toms Hütte" is the name of a subway station in Berlin. Blacks would be very much offended by being referred to as an "Uncle Tom" and the one pictured above objects to the station name as do many others. She is not alone and the naming authorities will probably have to re-name a Bauhaus housing development and the street, Onkel-Tom-Strasse. Just as I did not say much about T. Boone, I will say little more about the Uncle Tom controversy in Germany, since it is the type of  "news" story, of which there are already too many. If you can't figure it out, sources are provided, along with some other interesting bits.

Sources:
   For information about Beatrice see: "Giant Wind Farms Arise Off Scotland, Easing the Pain of Oil’s Decline," Stanley Reed, New York Times, Nov. 27, 2022.
   For Boone Pickens see the very interesting Wikipedia entry. The money he has given to OSU could save Laurentian U. and revitalize the entire industry of higher education in all of Canada. If you are a golf fan you will finally understand why so many of the foreign (and domestic) top PGA tour professionals ended up in Stillwater rather than, say in San Diego. 

  Information about the "Onkel Toms Hütte" controversy is found in this article, from which the illustration above was poached: "A Berlin Subway Stop is Called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Some Black Germans Want Change," Meena Venkataramanan, The Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2022.

The Bonus:
   There is no doubt that you are still looking for something better to read on this dreary Sunday. Here is a suggestion, which allows me to plug some of my old posts. When discussing the various naming controversies, I have usually mentioned George R. Stewart. His name and book were mentioned in this article which also contains many other good book suggestions: "BY THE BOOK: Douglas Brinkley Would Like to Invite Thoreau to Dinner," New York Times, Nov. 27, 2022. Here is his answer to this question:
"What's the last great book you read?"
"During the pandemic I was transfixed by George R. Stewart’s “Earth Abides,” perhaps the most frightening doomsday thriller of all time. Most of American civilization collapses because of a strange disease, but a Berkeley ecologist is one of the rare survivors of the epidemic. Stewart wrote the book about 75 years ago, but his description of empty cities and the power of nature unleashed seem very contemporary in a world of Covid and climate change. It holds up well, and Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a fine introduction for the 2020 edition."
For more about Stewart and some of his other books see: George R. Stewart (1895 - 1980)
 My last post about geographic name changing is:  "British Columbia or Sasquatchia?" There are many more which surprises me.