people who are embarassingly bad at geography...

[XOMichelle]

Originally posted by Dionysus
Ok, maybe it is time to whip out my dusty atlas. Where's the 51st state? I know in the Ms. America pagents there are 51 contestants. The fifty states plus DC. Are people including DC as an official state now?

it's not a state... but it wouldn't be fair to exclude those girls from the miss america pagent would it?

The 51 delegate thing confused me as a youngster as well.

[Tom Earp]

HM, how many States are there? Isnt Alaska and Hawaii off Baja?

When does Washington DC become one even though it is like a half bath to most States. Where did the land come from for The District? How about Peaurto Rico?

What is really strange looking at a 1940s Websters and looking at Africa and Middle East.

Hell, there are more unintellengt kids come from Mid and Senior Schools inspite of No Child Left Behind!

[AGDee]

Originally posted by Dionysus
Ok, maybe it is time to whip out my dusty atlas. Where's the 51st state? I know in the Ms. America pagents there are 51 contestants. The fifty states plus DC. Are people including DC as an official state now?

Pssst... the point was, he was just as geographically illiterate as the people he was arguing with!

[Tom Earp]

BAD GIRL, BAD GIRL, what will We Do With You!

Originally posted by Glitter650
What can I say I've never had to take a geometry class and I'm a college grad.

Ok, that's just wrong. Please tell me you meant "Geography" and not "Geometry".

I always wondered about what purpose Geometry would have in life after my formal education was done, and to be honest I'm still wondering...but I thought EVERYONE had to take Geometry in order to get a HS diploma?

Shit, it was off to summer school for me because Geometry kicked my ass in 10th grade.

[queequek]

Originally posted by Dionysus
Ok, maybe it is time to whip out my dusty atlas. Where's the 51st state? I know in the Ms. America pagents there are 51 contestants. The fifty states plus DC. Are people including DC as an official state now?

Sometimes they have Miss Puerto Rico? My only hope is that they won't join the union, otherwise, we would have a super weird flag with 51 stars.

I've met someone who thought Alaska was an island. She had no idea that you could drive through Canada without riding any water ferry. You know, Hawaii and Alaska always float around the contiguous 48 states in the map.

And don't get me started about Iowa. Half of the people I've met down here thought that we produced potatoes, and the other half thought that I was talking about Ohio, but I just happened to be the dumba$$ who mispronounced my own state. ARGH.

[AlphaSigOU]

Remind me not to offer a geographically-illiterate person a job in the Joint Stategic Target Planning Staff at Strategic Command HQ. (They're the ones who pick out the targets for US nuclear weapons.)

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by Tom Earp
HM, how many States are there? Isnt Alaska and Hawaii off Baja?

When does Washington DC become one even though it is like a half bath to most States. Where did the land come from for The District? How about Peaurto Rico?

The land for the District of Columbia was formed from portions of Maryland and Virginia. Virginia reclaimed its half in the 1840s, it's now Arlington County and part of the City of Alexandria.

DC residents can vote, and have one electoral vote, but do not have any Congressional representation except for a non-voting delegate.

Puerto Rico was taken from Spain at the end of the Spanish American War, along with Cuba and the Philippines. Cuba became an independent country, though the Platt Amendment guaranteed the right for the US to intervene in its affairs.

[queequek]

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU

Puerto Rico was taken from Spain at the end of the Spanish American War, along with Cuba and the Philippines. Cuba became an independent country, though the Platt Amendment guaranteed the right for the US to intervene in its affairs.

So did the Philippines, it is an independent country.

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by queequek
So did the Philippines, it is an independent country.

The Philippines was a commonwealth of the USA and was largely independent until the Japanese invaded it in 1941. It became an independent country in 1946.

[Optimist Prime]

Originally posted by Dionysus
That is really sad.

I'm a geography snob like many people are spelling/grammar snobs. I don't understand how people can live in a country where they don't know where all of the 50 states are.

Well its hard alright. Most of the States I can find but some of the western ones that all look the same get confusing.

[queequek]

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU
The Philippines was a commonwealth of the USA and was largely independent until the Japanese invaded it in 1941. It became an independent country in 1946.

LOL I know I can learn a lot of world history from you.

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU
Remind me not to offer a geographically-illiterate person a job in the Joint Stategic Target Planning Staff at Strategic Command HQ. (They're the ones who pick out the targets for US nuclear weapons.)

Or the people who plan non-millitary targets.

Remember the deal when NATO was bombing the hell outta Croatia or wherever and the US accidently hit the Chinese Embassy? Turns out the Chinese Embassy had bought the building from whomever the intended target was. A couple people were killed and the Chinese were pissed. The US had to pay them off and write a big ass check. Had the intel people bought a $.05 map from any downtown street vendor, it would have told them the Chinese had moved in years earlier.

[ZTAngel]

Although this isn't geography, it's pronunciation of a city. At my internship a few years ago, I was in a meeting with a bunch of company executives. Another intern in my department was presenting some information to the executives. She was trying to tell them she spoke with someone in the Des Moines, IA office. I almost started cracking up when she said, "I then spoke with the communications director at our office in Dess Monez." The execs were looking at her weird until the realized that she had completely pronounced it wrong and then started smirking. She didn't realize her mistake until after the meeting when another intern mentioned something to her about it in a not-so-nice kind of way.

[Private I]

Also Guam was I believe taken during that Spanish American War 1898-1900.

The Chinese Embassy that was hit was in Yugoslavia (now called Serbia & Montenegro although probably not for long). It was in Belgrade, and the map was 8 years old!

I think was really disturbs me is that most Americans don't learn the geography of a country until the government invades it. And even then...well, read on.

Some of the interesting comments I get are:

-apparently I am from Czechoslovakia (which, by the way, hasn't existed since 1993!)-I guess Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia sound the same?
-Yugoslavia borders Russia
-I am from Belgium (sometimes I say I'm from Belgrade, which is the capitol of Serbia & Montenegro)

Seriously though...back in elementary school (this was in Belgrade, not Belgium we had a subject specifically called geography twice a week from grades 5-8...I think this class would be much more useful to American schools rather than, say for instance, life management skills where we learned that 'drugs are bad, mmkay' (hopefully your guidance counselor and mother went through all of those basics when you were a kid).

Happy Turkey Day, y'all...