I took a Greek Mythology class this summer, and halfway through a girl sitting behind me remarked: “I’ve never heard of Helen of Troy before.”
Now, I’m reasonable. I don’t think everyone needs to know the details of Helen’s parentage and the plot of the Iliad. But for heavens’ sakes, shouldn’t people at least have heard the name before?
I related this story to my brother and his friend. My brother was shocked and horrified, his friend admitted that he had never heard of her either.
My fouth grade teacher thought that if you went around the world, you’d switch from going east, to going west on the other side, then come back around to where you started. I wasn’t up to the challenge of explaining to her that you’d keep going east ( or west) the whole way around. ( I spent a good amount of time trying though.)
My mistake. I was actually basing my statement form a world map here at work, which is laid out flat but concave so as to mimic the curvature of a globe. Thereby squishing the ends (including Alaska to fit the curve. On it Alaska looks comparitively smaller (and longer) than it should be. It’s been a long time since I actually paid attention to a Mercator projection.
Thanks for the clarification.
Depends on the situation. Many ballparks, music concerts, and their like serve beef hot dogs because pork is neither Kosher nor Halal. By serving beef dogs, they don’t have to worry about cultural dietary restrictions to things like that.
Though, if you go to a supermarket, it’s pretty much pork unless it says otherwise.
I never understood that either. I probably should have asked my teacher. It’s not like it’s needed for meter or rhyme. Maybe we could make a GQ out of that? It’s such a burning question and all.
Five fat fickle females sitting sipping scotch…
Not only are they memory games, but they make for fun drinking games as well. I actually learned that one from a teacher friend of mine who uses it as a memory game for her students (without the potent potables of course).
Absolutely nothing. Except of course the sequence of increasing challenging sentences to remember.
Excellent! Thanks Godzillatemple for sentence number ten. Regarding Don Alphonso vs John Alverzo, given the rhyme of the names I conclude that either your version or my version evolved from the other.
My pleasure. (mischievous grin)
Interesting. I rarely see any other world map than a Mercator projection. Thanks for explaining your conclusion. It makes sense to me now. As my link indicates, all flat maps have some level of distortion. I made an incorrect assumption about what you were referring to.
Good one. Except that I can’t even say it because it’s too much of a tongue twister. (embarrassed smile)
Er…that should read convex. I thought convex, and told myself I wasn’t going to put concave, but somehow did it anyway (and didn’t someone earlier have a post about convex vs. concave, I think that post psyched me out or something).
In addition to the Nifty Fifty, we also had to learn this gem (sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle)
The 16 counties in our State are Cumberland and Franklin,
Piscataquis and Somerset, Aroostook, Androscoggin.
Waldo, Washington and York, Lincoln, Knox and Hancock
Sagadahoc and Kennebec, Oxford and Penobscot!
I will never forget this list (a fact that becomes painfully aparent when it gets stuck in my head on auto-repeat during long car rides).
I’d think by now the “race card” would have been played so many time it’d be all greasy & dirty from over use- and it seems that I’d be right. Looks at the ridiculous arguements used on your first cite (they are talking about why the Mercator progection was used): “when colonial exploitation required that maps be used to navigate correctly”. :rolleyes: I have a surprise for them- even NON-“colonial” powers need to “navigate correctly”. And then this “teacher” taught her students that the mercator map was “wrong” and the Peters map “right”- whereas the Peters map, although a pretty picture I suppose- is the wrong one- not only distances, but shapes are distorted in order to get a “PC” view of how the world looks. I can only hope that the next time this idiot “teacher” take a flight, that they use her “peters” map- then we’ll never see her again. Ya want to get an accurate world map- look at a globe for god’s sake, don’t distort the map to fit your odd political views.
I never even heard of the “nifty fifty”- well, until now.
Well, if you asked me about it, I may have heard, but I couldn’t remember, nor care less. It’s like me saying I can’t get over how people, when they look at a static budget variance, can’t figure out that if they did the flexible budget variance, they’d be able to get an efficiency as well as a price variance for some products, which will better allow them to see why it occurred. Now if you had an interest in cost accounting, you should know this, but if not, why should it be surprising you don’t? Again, there are tons of names in history I heard, so it’s not a big deal to forget them. There are people who are still alive today and I forget their names, and some of these I know. The only Greek I remember is when someone had a big fat wedding, and I’ve forgotten their names as well. :smack:
No, it’s not like that at all. What you’re talking about is specialized knowledge. I’m a programmer and I don’t expect people to know about programming. Helen of Troy being described as “the face that launched a thousand ships” (by Marlowe) is one of the most famous lines in the English language and everyone who speaks English should know it. That, if nothing else, should make her memorable. LaurAnge is right to be surprised (as I am).
Have you read the entire thread?
No, thought not, can I be so bold as to suggest that you go back to the beginning and work your way forward before posting.
First off, I just want to clarify what I was trying to do. In my first post, I only meant to acknowledge that there has always been controversy over maps, and I mentioned it because it seemed like a parallel issue with my personal midjudgment of the size of New England relative to the rest of the US. That’s all. I find arguments regarding the mercator maps interesting because of how maps shape people’s perceptions, but I don’t have some fierce desire to go changing every map. Education on the issue would be enough to counter the misleading effects of such maps, I think. I mean, how many of you knew that maps distorted the world that much? How many normal people have any idea? I had an inkling, but I didn’t realize the severity of the distortion until college.
The issue of education leads to DrDeth’s post above. I don’t see any arguments in the article I linked to. I don’t see where the author says non-colonial powers didn’t need to navigate accurately. It was a statement of fact on how it was colonial powers who developed the map to begin with, nothing more. The author didn’t even take a position, specifically stating, “Whether or not Mercator meant consciously to diminish the South, it is worthwhile to focus on the effect of its widespread use today.” That points to effect of the map, not its creation.
And I don’t see where the teacher told the students the map was “wrong”. I thought this was a very reasonable statement and the point: “I did not want my students to take my word, nor anyone else’s, without questioning. I wanted them to both use mathematics to read their worlds and to see the value of doing so - that is, to also develop a particular disposition towards using mathematics for social analysis.”
Personally, I saw the article as a story about teaching critical thinking and using applied learning as it comes to education and race. And I think that knowledge and education is the key here to understanding what supports racial attitudes in our lives. Does the author seem to have her own beliefs? Sure, but we all do. To teach critical thinking, you have to challenge establish thinking. That’s the whole point.
A side note: I never understand why the “race card” isn’t a valid card to play when played fairly and honestly. It’s more conspicuous to me when it’s avoided. And calling it a “card” is redundant. Every argument is a “card” – the “race card” seems to one of the few that gets its own name.
BTW, globes won’t fit in my glove compartment. Just sayin’.
Ya want to get an accurate world map- look at a globe for god’s sake, don’t distort the map to fit your odd political views.