You say Padilla, I say Padilla ...

Road trip with my son, J., to and from Santa Fe for Thanksgiving holiday at his home in The City Different. Spoke of many things, mostly political. He asked why the broadcast media was mispronouncing the name of Jose Padilla, "the enemy combatant former known as the dirty bomber" (homage to Prince).

BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) somewhere between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Since his arrest some three years ago, Padilla has been asking that both L's of his name be pronounced; not the Spanish pronunciation of the LL (ya). The media has been inconsistent; no explanation has been given.

BFO -- if P and B are somewhat interchangeable in Semitic languages and only Arabic speakers pronounce the initial "ayn", in Arabic Padilla becomes Badilla becomes 'Abd'Allah (or Badi'u'llah as suggested by Juan Cole). Of course, Jose Padilla (or Youssef 'Abd'Allah) himself has been in solitary confinement since his detention and unavailable to answer questions (or to even ask questions, like: "Why am I here?" i.e., habeas corpus.) So I guess it will be some time before we ever really know...