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"Name No Laws Or Holidays After Me"

A formal election made while you're still alive
  (+13)(+13)
(+13)
  [vote for,
against]

You don't know how you're going to die. It may be in some tragic way that inspires future lawmakers or your family to decide to declare a national holiday named after you, e.g. "Phundug Day", or enact some new law that, instead of being named for the crime it's supposed to prevent, becomes known as "Phundug's Law".

If you're opposed to such decisions being made after your death, you should be able to formally elect that in advance. Then, no matter how tragic or cruel your death may be, no holidays will be created in your honor and no laws will be named after you posthumously.

Your driver's license could hold a checkbox that you mark to select these options; or it can be a standard clause in a will.

phundug, Oct 22 2008

Wikipedia: Trademark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
[theGem, Oct 22 2008]

Dr. E. Henry Thripshaw http://orangecow.or...etches/wrongord.htm
A little Monty Python nostalgia... [Canuck, Oct 24 2008]

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       Phundug's Law - No matter what your intentions, someone will use your name in a manner you disagree with.
normzone, Oct 22 2008
  

       Would this also apply to SI units?
4whom, Oct 22 2008
  

       The crowning ambition of most medics is to have a disease named after them ....... straaaange people ......
8th of 7, Oct 22 2008
  

       "Don't cry for me Argentina" Eva got a Broadway play named after her and I bet her family didn't get a nickel out of it.   

       A way to make this work might be to register your name as a Trademark. I'm not sure you can do his with just any old name. Any lawyers out there? Then someone wanting to use your name would have to pay your family naming rights.   

       theGem®™ No theGem Avenues without greasing my palm.
theGem, Oct 22 2008
  

       Palm grease ? Is that like palm oil ?   

       Can you get fries in that ?
8th of 7, Oct 22 2008
  

       Oh no, I'm not going there.
theGem, Oct 22 2008
  

       Dr. Palm? Good guy. Died in a nasty fire while trying out new oil mixtures in his deep fryer. Had trouble with the ladies, so it goes.
daseva, Oct 22 2008
  

       You can't use Jimi Hendrix's name for anything without his family and their lawyers coming after you.
Texticle, Oct 23 2008
  

       I'd rather opt for no diseases being named after me.   

       One more thing: "Don't be so humble. You're not that great."   

       -Golda Meir
MikeD, Oct 24 2008
  

       This brought Dr. E. Henry Thripshaw to mind, the quack. (link)   

       phundug, how about a sandwich, then? Or maybe a dance step?
Canuck, Oct 24 2008
  

       Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher should trademark their names in the spirit of their political attitudes, but then let their names be used eponymously for a fee. Actually, no. One of _us_ should trademark their names and use them in accordance with their political attitudes and apply it to something utterly against them, then charge them royalties for using their names themselves.
nineteenthly, Oct 24 2008
  

       \\I'm not sure you can do his with just any old name.\\ There was a story a couple of years ago about Paul McCartney trying to trademark his, but I'm not sure if he ever got it past a judge.   

       \\then charge them royalties for using their names themselves.\\ Nice, idea but people are allowed to use their names in spite of any trademarks. That's how the McDonald clans have been getting by over the years.   

       I remember going to a talk by a guy that had been wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison for decades before being released. After he was set free, the police reopened the case, but the media continued to refer to the case as the [innocent man's name] murder.
hidden truths, Oct 24 2008
  

       Of course, who knows what this site would be called if Pierre L'Alfbakerie had signed one of those forms...
phundug, Oct 24 2008
  

       //One of _us_ should trademark their names and use them in accordance with their political attitudes and apply it to something utterly against them//   

       [19thly] here’s another way to approach it.   

       During the current American election campaign, a group of Republican women, who were Pro choice, objected to Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee because of her anti-abortion views. So they took the money that they would have donated to the Republican campaign and donated it to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin name. She should shortly be getting the thank you notes from PP in appreciation for her generous gifts.
theGem, Oct 24 2008
  

       Wouldn't congress just get around that by calling it fundog day or something similar?
quantum_flux, Oct 26 2008
  

       Yeah, that Murphy guy got a rough break.   

       I already named myself after my divorce- "x" so&so, therefore my moniker [xandram]. There should have been a law...+
xandram, Oct 26 2008
  

       Worse than laws or holidays--how about housing projects? Given that 100% of such housing projects (at least in the U.S.) turn into disaster areas, why would anyone want one named after him?   

       Some city decided to name a sewage treatment plant after President George W. Bush. They probably thought they were being funny, but a sewage treatment plant at least serves a useful purpose.
supercat, Oct 26 2008
  

       Generally laws and to a limited extent calender days are named to commemorate a tragic, often sudden, death. If you realize that that contaminated burger you ate contains a lethal flesh eating bacteria and you have less than two days to live i doubt that the "Bob Watson Meat Contamination Prevention Act" is the first thing on your mind.
WcW, Oct 26 2008
  

       [+] love the idea, although there is little chance of this happening to me unless society decides to start honoring people for being royal pains in the ass...   

       It strikes me that movies are a greater danger than lawmakers... Norman Baites was a perfectly good name until 1960.   

       Come to think of it, other people with the same name are a must worse danger: How many John Hinckley, Jr.'s have there been since March of 1981? They even changed the last name of the main character in the series "Greatest American Hero" from Hinkley to Hanley mid season that year.
James Newton, Oct 27 2008
  

       I wonder if Martin Luther King Jr. would have elected this?
phundug, Oct 27 2008
  

       If only Johannes Diderik van der Waals would have checked the box...
TheZoo, Oct 29 2008
  

       //It strikes me that movies are a greater danger than lawmakers... Norman Baites was a perfectly good name until 1960.//   

       Hollywood has a rule, IIRC, that requires movie makers to check to ensure that the number of real people who would share a name with a character is either zero or exceeds a certain minimum. Some movies have had character names changed between the draft scripts and production because it was discovered that some real people (but not enough) had the same name as the characters.
supercat, Oct 29 2008
  


 

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