On Beer Pong versus Beirut

I apologize in advance for the nature of the article you are about to read. The Daily Poup is probably not the most apt venue for the advocation of this point, but the only alternative to Blogging is actually printing shit out, and I don't think people read stuff on paper anymore. So it goes.

Beirut was invented during the Lebanese Civil War, and those who named it thought the dropping of Ping Pong balls into cups was analogous to the dropping of bombs on civilian households in the Lebanese city of Beirut. I think that even the douchiest of douchebag's can acknowledge the immaturity of this analogy. With the Hezbollah-Israel conflict in such recent memory, I think we can all make an effort to quell the use of this insensitive term. It is one thing to take part in debauchery in times of global conflict, it is another completely to mock the struggles of those in need.

Those who defend the name Beirut will inevitably cite the second meaning of the term Beerpong: a game invented by Terry Jacobs and played with paddles, as a source of confusion and thus impracticality of the term's use. To them I say this:
We have all come to accept that the word Football can be used to describe two very distinct and separate sports. The first being 'American' Football, a pillar of our society dating back to Columbus, and the first Thanksgiving day football game, when they played with turkeys. On a thursday. Thus, 'Oh, Turkey Thursday Football'. The second being, of course, the game they play in Europe with the wickets and the intermissions for tea and crumpets. If we have unanimously accepted that the name Football represents two distinct sports, one being quite obscure, why can't we accept Beerpong's dual meanings.

I point out the obscure nature of these secondary meanings simply because I cannot imagine a conversation going like this:

hey man, want to play some Beerpong?

nah, I don't have any paddles.

or like this:

hey man, want to play some Football?

nah, I don't have any wickets or tea or crumpets.

In other words, the secondary meanings are sufficiently obscure as to avoid any confusion in typical, day-to-day use of the terms.

Also, wikipedia says it's Beerpong.

-jake