Latest / The Kevin Stone Podcast / Episode #19 "Lake America-Yeah I'm Still Calling It Lake Ontario"

Transcript

Episode #19 "Lake America-Yeah I'm Still Calling It Lake Ontario" · The Kevin Stone Podcast

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  Speaker 1: The content of this program is for entertainment purposes only,
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  Speaker 1: mainly the entertainment of the program creator. If at any
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  Speaker 1: time you find any of this program to be offensive,
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  Speaker 1: you should immediately rewind the program to the beginning and
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  Speaker 1: listen to it again. The sarcasm presented by the content
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  Speaker 1: creator is so accurate it is illegal in 14 states.
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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the Kevin Stone Podcast, broadcasting to
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  Speaker 1: you from an unknown location. Customized listening. Let's begin by
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  Speaker 1: cleaning those ears. Who am I? I'm a nobody. I
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  Speaker 1: just happen to have a camera and a microphone and
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  Speaker 1: an internet connection, which makes me a superstar. There's vulnerable.
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  Speaker 1: There's vulnerable. There's vulnerable. There's vulnerable. Spit it out. I
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  Speaker 1: have beef enchiladas in the oven. What? Yes. And you
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  Speaker 1: made them or are they frozen? Well, they won't be
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  Speaker 1: frozen in about 35 minutes. Lake Ontario, Lake America And
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  Speaker 1: I have a problem with that. Actually, I've got the
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  Speaker 1: same problem with this one that I had with changing
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  Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Why?
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  Speaker 1: What did we accomplish? Because I'm still calling it Lake Ontario.
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  Speaker 1: I'm still calling it the Gulf of Mexico. And while
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  Speaker 1: we're cleaning up controversial geographic classifications, Pluto is still a planet.
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  Speaker 1: I said what I said. Okay, Charlie, before I start ranting,
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  Speaker 1: let's establish what actually happened. On August 27, 2026, President
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government
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  Speaker 1: to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America. This isn't something Trump
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  Speaker 1: said at a rally. It's an actual executive order. The
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  Speaker 1: order directs the Secretary of Interior, working with the Board
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  Speaker 1: of Geographic Names, to make the change within 30 days.
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  Speaker 1: It also directs the Federal Geographic Names Information System to
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  Speaker 1: remove references to Lake Ontario and replace them with Lake America.
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  Speaker 1: And federal agencies are supposed to use the new name
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  Speaker 1: on maps, contracts, documents, and communications. Now here's an important distinction.
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  Speaker 1: Trump hasn't magically changed what Canada has to call the lake.
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  Speaker 1: Canada can keep calling it Lake Ontario. Other countries can
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  Speaker 1: keep calling it Lake Ontario. And I can definitely keep
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  Speaker 1: calling it Lake Ontario, which I will. So now we've
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  Speaker 1: created a situation where the same giant lake can have
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  Speaker 1: different official names depending on which side of the border
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  Speaker 1: you're standing. That's progress, folks. Apparently. Now, I want to
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  Speaker 1: be fair here, because if we're going to criticize something
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  Speaker 1: on this podcast, we're also going to tell you what
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  Speaker 1: the other side says. The White House argues that the
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  Speaker 1: United States has played an enormous role in protecting and
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  Speaker 1: maintaining the Great Lakes. The executive order points to American
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  Speaker 1: investment and environmental protection, Coast Guard ice-breaking operations, shipping, commerce, defense, energy,
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  Speaker 1: and historical importance of Lake Ontario to the United States.
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  Speaker 1: And you know what? Fine. I'm not going to argue
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  Speaker 1: that Lake Ontario isn't important to America. Of course it is.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to argue that the United States hasn't
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  Speaker 1: invested money and resources into the Great Lakes. Of course
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  Speaker 1: we have. What I don't understand is how any of
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  Speaker 1: this leads us to, therefore, we need to rename the lake.
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  Speaker 1: Those are two completely different things. If I help my
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  Speaker 1: neighbor mow his yard every Saturday, eventually I might deserve
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  Speaker 1: a thank you. But I don't get to rename his yard.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where I disagree with President Trump. And
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  Speaker 1: let me make something clear. This isn't one of those
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  Speaker 1: shows where I'm going to twist myself into a pretzel
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  Speaker 1: trying to defend something just because a politician I might
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  Speaker 1: agree with on some other issue did it. No. If
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  Speaker 1: President Trump does something I think is good, I'll say it.
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  Speaker 1: If he does something I think is stupid, wasteful, or unnecessary,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to say that too. And I think this
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  Speaker 1: is unnecessary. I didn't like changing the Gulf of Mexico
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  Speaker 1: to the Gulf of America. And I don't like changing
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  Speaker 1: Lake Ontario to Lake America. Not because I'm offended by
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  Speaker 1: the word America. I'm an American. I kind of like
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  Speaker 1: the place. The problem is that government doesn't do anything
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  Speaker 1: for free. Changing federal geographic names means somebody has to
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  Speaker 1: process the order. Somebody has to update databases. Federal maps
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  Speaker 1: and documents have to be changed. Federal agencies have to
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  Speaker 1: implement the new terminology. The executive order itself requires those changes.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what the final taxpayer cost of all
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  Speaker 1: this is going to be, and I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: make up a number just to sound outraged, but it
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  Speaker 1: isn't zero. Government employees are doing this work. Government systems
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  Speaker 1: are being changed. Federal resources are being used. And my
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  Speaker 1: question is extremely simple. For what? What problem did we solve?
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  Speaker 1: Is this a tit-for-tat because of the current tariff wars
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  Speaker 1: going on with Canada? For ordinary American Kevin Stone, it
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  Speaker 1: sure looks like what's going on. Did Lake Ontario become cleaner? No.
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  Speaker 1: Did shipping become more efficient? No. Did anybody's taxes go down? No.
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  Speaker 1: Did groceries get cheaper? Nope. Did we pay down some debt? Nope.
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  Speaker 1: Did anybody wake up Friday morning and say, Thank goodness.
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  Speaker 1: I've been lying awake for years wondering when somebody would
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  Speaker 1: finally do something about Lake Ontario. Probably not. It's symbolism. Now,
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  Speaker 1: symbolism isn't automatically bad. Names matter. History matters. National pride matters.
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  Speaker 1: I understand all of that. But government has limited time.
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  Speaker 1: Limited resources, and despite how Washington behaves, limited money. And
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  Speaker 1: when the federal government spends resources doing something, I think
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  Speaker 1: taxpayers are entitled to ask, what did we get for
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  Speaker 1: our money? In this case, I don't see much. We
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  Speaker 1: got a new name that millions of people aren't going
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  Speaker 1: to use anyway. Now this is where it gets strange.
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  Speaker 1: Because Google Maps has already changed the name for users
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. American users now see Lake America.
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  Speaker 1: Canadian users continue to see Lake Ontario. And users elsewhere
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  Speaker 1: may see both names. So apparently geography now has regional settings.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to need software updates to know where we live.
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  Speaker 1: You cross the Canadian border. Welcome to Canada. Please wait
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  Speaker 1: while your lakes are renamed. Drive back to New York.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to America, updating bodies of water. I just want
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  Speaker 1: to look at a map. There's another reason I'm not
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  Speaker 1: particularly interested in throwing away the old name. Ontario isn't
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  Speaker 1: some corporate branding campaign Canada invented 20 years ago. The
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  Speaker 1: name has indigenous roots and predates the modern countries of
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  Speaker 1: both Canada and the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Mark
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  Speaker 1: Carney pointed out that the name Lake Ontario existed before
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  Speaker 1: both Canadian Confederation and the American Declaration of Independence. The
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  Speaker 1: Seneca Nation has also strongly objected to the name because
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  Speaker 1: of the lake's indigenous history. Now, you can debate all
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  Speaker 1: the politics surrounding that, but I think there's a similar point.
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  Speaker 1: Lake Ontario already had a perfectly good name. Nobody was confused.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody was demanding directions to the giant mystery lake between
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  Speaker 1: New York and Canada. We knew what it was. We
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  Speaker 1: knew where it was. Problem solved sometime in the 1600s.
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  Speaker 1: And this is probably the most important part of the episode.
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  Speaker 1: My objection isn't really about Donald Trump. It's about government priorities.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want Republicans wasting taxpayer resources on symbolic nonsense.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want Democrats doing it either. And I don't
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  Speaker 1: care which party came up with it. If President Trump
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  Speaker 1: spends government resources changing the name of a lake for
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  Speaker 1: no meaningful practical benefit, I'm going to criticize it. If
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  Speaker 1: the next Democratic president spends government resources changing it back,
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  Speaker 1: guess what? I'm going to criticize that too. Because then
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  Speaker 1: we'll have paid for this thing twice. That's how ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: government can become. One administration changes something. Then the next
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  Speaker 1: administration changes it back. Then another administration changes it again.
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  Speaker 1: An American taxpayer is standing over here holding a receipt. Maybe,
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  Speaker 1: and stay with me because this is a radical concept,
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  Speaker 1: we could just leave the lake alone. Same thing with
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  Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico. The federal government calls it the
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  Speaker 1: Gulf of America now. Okay, Kevin Stone doesn't. It's the
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  Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico. It was the Gulf of Mexico when
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  Speaker 1: I was a kid. It was the Gulf of Mexico
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  Speaker 1: when I learned geography. It was the Gulf of Mexico
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  Speaker 1: when hurricanes were coming across it. And if a hurricane
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  Speaker 1: comes through here tomorrow, I'm still going to say there's
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  Speaker 1: a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not protesting.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not starting a movement. I'm not making a political statement.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just not participating in unnecessary geographic rebranding. And while
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  Speaker 1: we're here, Pluto. Planet. I know. Charlie is already pulling
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  Speaker 1: up the International Astronomical Union definition. I don't care. There
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  Speaker 1: were nine planets when I learned them. Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. Pluto. Done.
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  Speaker 1: You people can issue all the scientific papers you want.
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  Speaker 1: I'm grandfathered in. And apparently that's my position on geography
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  Speaker 1: now too. If it had that name when I learned
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  Speaker 1: it in school, you're going to have a hard time
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  Speaker 1: getting me to update the firmware. And all kidding aside,
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  Speaker 1: here's what bothers me. Government accountability only means something if
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  Speaker 1: you're willing to apply it to people you like. It's
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  Speaker 1: easy to criticize politicians you already oppose. Anybody can do that.
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  Speaker 1: The test comes when somebody you agree with sometimes does
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  Speaker 1: something you disagree with. I'm not interested in political terms.
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  Speaker 1: I'm interested in whether government is doing something useful. And
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe renaming Lake Ontario accomplishes anything useful. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't believe renaming the Gulf of Mexico accomplished anything useful either.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe somebody can explain a tangible benefit I'm missing. I'm
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  Speaker 1: willing to listen. But national pride doesn't require us to
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  Speaker 1: stick America on everything. I don't love this country because
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  Speaker 1: somebody renamed a lake. America doesn't become greater because Lake
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  Speaker 1: Ontario gets a new label on Google Maps. America becomes
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  Speaker 1: greater when we actually solve problems. When government uses our
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  Speaker 1: money responsibly. When our communities are stronger. When our infrastructure works.
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  Speaker 1: When people can afford to live. When government remembers that
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  Speaker 1: the money it spends came from somebody who worked for it.
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  Speaker 1: Those things matter to me. The name on the lake?
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  Speaker 1: Not so much. So President Trump, on this one, I
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  Speaker 1: disagree with you. Leave the lake alone. Leave the Gulf alone.
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  Speaker 1: We got bigger things to worry about. And if anybody
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  Speaker 1: from Washington is listening... please don't rename the Arkansas River
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  Speaker 1: because I live around here and I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: wake up one morning and discover I'm living in the
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  Speaker 1: Freedom River Valley and Pluto still a planet. I'm Kevin Stone.
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  Speaker 1: This has been the Kevin Stone Podcast. I'll talk to
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  Speaker 1: you next time. This concludes our broadcast day. Good night,
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  Speaker 1: and God bless America.