Well, not so much obscurity as that his advances didn’t take. But at least someone was trying to do away with the encomienda system.
Really, that was him? Hmmm, it’s been a long time since I took Latin American history, I’ll have to dig up my old books if I can.
[nitpick]
Humans and other apes (like gorillas and chimps) all evolved from a common ancestor, who was yet another ape.
Think of it like this:
Eric (that’s me) and other Geeks (like my two brothers) all evolved from a common ancestor, who was yet another Geek.
[/nitpick]
And, if you had seen us growing up, you’d definately see the resemblence the analogy implies 
Can you possibly cite that. I don’t doubt it, but I learned the Common ancestor theory and that implies a pre-ape.
In my school, they taught the slave trade but they talk about the slave trade like it is only the Europeans that were kidnapping people from villages. Never mention that some African tribes actually were involved in the trade themselves.
hmmm… lemme see…
I love google (human ape common ancestor)
Reason why I was willing to say before I had a cite: All apes should come from one common ancestor. The pre-ape would have been not the last common ancestor, as it has some non-ape qualities. I think the pre-ape would link the apes and the monkeys.
(google pre-ape monkey common ancestor) this cite doesn’t really go in depth, but it does mention how the pre-ape came from the ape “line”.
To keep with the family analogy, the pre-ape could have been my grandfather, from whom we get not only the “Geek” family, but also the “Freek” family. Now freeks and geeks may be very similar, but don’t confuse one with the other, or they’ll go geekshit on you!
Um, you type in the first number, press the “X” key or the “/” key, depending on what you want to do, type the second number, and press “=” right?
What’s wrong with that way? It always gets you the right answer, doesn’t it?
No, seriously, how do they teach it? If I guessed that it was meaningless and formulaic, (as in, then you move this number over here, add it to that one, and put the result down here, and add it to this one…) would I be close?
Regarding Columbus watching the ships “sink” into ocean, I know he wasn’t the first to do this, but he probably did do this, no?
We’re going to send you into orbit with a sextant and a slide rule and see how you fare. 
It is taught in a way that is literally backward; you start with the minor digits and work up to the major digits. The end result is that students don’t learn how to approximate or drop out unneeded significant figures; they think they need to work the entire problem in order to get an order of magnitude result. Working it from front to back–that is, transposing one number and running the calcuation so that you get the most significant figure first, followed in reducing order, makes a heck of a lot more sense. It is also, once you learn the method, less computationally intensive. See the Trachtenberg Method. I worked out something similar, but less complete in fourth grade arithmatic to help with multiplying nxm numbers. Unfortunately, the teacher wouldn’t–or perhaps couldn’t–try to understand what I was doing and nearly flunked me out of that grade. Bucktoothed bitch.
I also contend that conceptual concepts in calculus and geometry could be taught in primary grades to the later benefit of students. Oh, but we can’t do that…it’s too complicated for them to understand (i.e., too complicated for teachers to understand.)
And don’t even get me started on the so-called science they teach in school. “Energy makes it go!” Indeed.
Stranger
shrug You can disagree, and I won’t say that you’re wrong; but from what I’ve seen, the South (that is, the states south of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia) and east of Texas (excepting southern Florida) have a cultural belief system that is distinct from the rest of the country; in my admittedly short time in that region, I found that there was the default assumption that one must have some kind of acceptance of organized (evangelical Protestant Christian) religion; that literature and other intellectual pursuits were suspect; and that the South collectively had some grasp on morality that the rest of the nation lacked. “Damn Yankees” wasn’t just a cliche there but an actual term that people used frequently and with vehmenence. There was also a subtle but distinct undercurrent of racism as well; not the burning cross type (though I did have the lovely experience of seeing a Klan rally at Stone Mountain when I was there) but a more apologetic “we hate to say it, but it’s all black-on-white crime” type of statement. I noticed this as especially pronounced in Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, and I got the sense that a lot of people didn’t quite believe that “The War” was really over.
It just gave me the skeeves, and several Southern states have liquor laws that make the Byzantine laws of Pennsylvania look rational. There are religious nuts and bigots elsewhere, of course–heck, we’ve got a peck of them here in supposed “uberliberal” California, but the only other state where I’ve ever seen such attitudes as part of the overall culture is Utah, which I am dispriviliged to have to visit on a regular basis. (Salt Lake City isn’t too bad, but if I have to spend another three consecutive days in Brigham City I’m going to quit my job and become a wandering madman.)
Just my NSHO. YMMV and all those other acronyms.
Stranger
At this point, it’s only speculation. Four possibilities.
- He died of a disease - typhus, malaria, or any number of other things
- He self medicated himself to death
- His physician over medicated him or prescribed the wrong thing
- He was deliberately poisoned
Nobody can prove or disprove any of these, so all we have is educated guesses.
True, but we were taught he DISCOVERED America. As in found it. I know better now, but that’s what we were taught. “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue…”
Maybe that was the logic, but I have “problems” with its usefulness. In the event of a blast, unless you are far enough away, at some minimum distance, it makes no difference. There is the heat of the fireball, as hot as the sun (they say). Then there is the initial shock wave followed by the return wave as air rushes back in. Then there is the radiation.
So you can be incinerated. Or you can become shattered debris, just like the desk you’re under and the building you’re in. Or, you slowly die of radiation sickness. Better to just stand at the window, watch the show, and get it over with.
Stranger on a Train, perhaps I misread and you were referring only to the US, in which case, I’m sorry. If you were saying that the South is more different from the US than any other region is from any other in another country, I’d disagree (Quebec and the rest of Canada, for example).
SteveG1, don’t forget the possibility that he was abducted by aliens. We can never KNOW, right? All I’m trying to say is that we, in general, need to work with what sources we have, and I don’t really see the point in speculating far beyond what they tell us.
Well, that may be the case in the United States, but in other places it is given that America can mean both a generic name for the country, or the name for the huge area that is not Europe, Asia, Africa, or Antartica. America= “New World”
So he did set foot in America, since the Caribbean islands are considered part of the “big” America, and South America is also part of it.
You’re right, though, that he didn’t have much to do specifically with the European exploration of North America (wait, did he go to Mexico?). Another Spanish conquistador, Ponce de León, did go to Florida (and got an arrow shot that killed him).
Guin, I think it is Casas, or some other missionary who helped the natives, who said African slaves should be used. Anyways, I think there was more than one missionary, but again, not the majority.
Also, don’t forget the Jesuit missions in South America. Those were a different system of encomienda that treated the natives better than usual.
I looked it up and it was Las Casas. Damn. To be fair, it did note that he later regretted it, but it still sucks.
Here’s an analogy that might help:
“If my ancestors came from Ireland, why do we still have people in Ireland?”
Also, just because your ancestors were Irish does not mean you directly descend from people currently living in Ireland.
Similarly, stating that humans evolved from apes does not mean that humans evolved from any species of ape around today.