Geography: Not America's Forté ! - by TPO

Preface by TPO ...

Americans strike out again ... in the area of world geography! 

Back in the Seventies, I heard about an interesting moment at a cocktail party here in the States.  One of the guests was a Nigerian student, and he was being introduced by the host to some of the hoity toity upper class guests there. One of the guests, an elderly socialite lady, asked the young man what his nationality was.

He said, "I'm Nigerian."

The old lady shot back with consternation in her voice: "You mean Algerian, don't you, dear?"

Czech Republic: We’re Not Chechnya * by Daniel Polti SLATE, April 20, 2013 It seems there were so many people on social media who thought the country of origin of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was the Czech Republic that Petr Gandalovic, the country’s ambassador to the United States, was compelled to keep the record straight. In a statement  posted on the embassy website, the ambassador makes clear this wouldn’t  happen if people just took a look at a map:  As many I was deeply shocked by the tragedy that occurred in Boston earlier this month. It was a stark reminder of the fact that any of us could be a victim of senseless violence anywhere at any moment. As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities—the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation. As the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman noted in his message to President Obama, the Czech Republic is an active and reliable partner of the United States in the fight against terrorism. We are determined to stand side by side with our allies in this respect, there is no doubt about that. ################################################################### Slate Readers' Comments: JC: Some of the most geographically knowledgeable people I've ever met have been American. Some of the least, too.  Big, big country. -------------------- Bill in San Diego: Some years ago I heard a story on NPR (yeah, I'm a lily-livered lefty) about how some guy from New Mexico wanted to get tickets to the Olympics in Atlanta. He called the number (in Atlanta) necessary to order the tickets. The administrator told him he had to go through his embassy. He asked why. She said that Mexican citizens had to go through the Mexican embassy. She didn't believe that there is a US state called "New Mexico". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Frank: Americans can't be bothered to know basic facts about geography. It's all they can do to keep up with the minute-by-minute sizes of all the Kardashians' kiesters. -------------------------------- lastreagandemocrat: Considering that about 1 in 3 Americans can't correctly point out Afghanistan on a map (despite being at war there for nearly a dozen years), it's not a big reach to conclude that they couldn't get this right, either. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- san jose: It's next to the Czech Republic, right? ----------------------------------------------- DANERTANT: what?, Kim's kiester ? -------------------------- san jose: No, her kiester is closer to the Banana Republic (just kidding--she'd never wear retail). -------------- Vinnie: Wait...you mean Americans...are bad at world geography? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ rwlorenz: We're Americans, we shoot first and ask questions never. If the name looks foreign and is hard to pronounce, that's close enough for us. ----------------------------------------------- cartago: It's not just the US, I was surprised when living in Turkey to meet people who thought New York was in Europe and Tokyo was in China and had never heard of Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. --------------------------------------------- Jacob10: Yes, but you were speaking to Americans in Turkey, no? ___________________________________________________ * Source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/04/20/

The Art of Drowning - by Billy Collins

The Art Of Drowning ---------------- by Billy Collins (1941 - ) I wonder how it all got started, this business about seeing your life flash before your eyes while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, could startle time into such compression, crushing decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds. After falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat. How about a short animated film, a slide presentation? Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph? Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash? Your whole existence going off in your face in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography- nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned. Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance here, some bolt of truth forking across the water, an ultimate Light before all the lights go out, dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage. But if something does flash before your eyes as you go under, it will probably be a fish, a quick blur of curved silver darting away, having nothing to do with your life or your death. The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom, leaving behind what you have already forgotten, the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.