BS: Modern technology moves countries

Subject: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jul 10 - 08:25 PM

Well... what would YOU title this?

I was browsing at refdesk.com, which update various news events. They had a link to this story, about possibly the worlds oldest person.

"Georgia claims it has world's oldest person, 130

By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI (AP) – 2 days ago

SACHIRE, Georgia — Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia claim a woman from a remote mountain village turned 130 on Thursday, making her the oldest person on Earth."

click the link, then look at the lower right hand corner.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jul 10 - 08:28 PM

Georgia on My Mind.....

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Jul 10 - 09:59 PM

I knew a man who spoke Georgian. Couldn't understand a word he said. But my wife, who speaks Mississippian, could.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jul 10 - 10:12 PM

..but could either of them understand Senator Howell Heflin's dialect of Alabaman? THAT was the thickest accent I ever heard.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Tangledwood
Date: 11 Jul 10 - 03:42 AM

Did US buy Georgia from Russia before they bought Alaska or was it a package deal?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Leadfingers
Date: 11 Jul 10 - 07:59 AM

When you consider the number of American Citizens who actually have a passport , is any one really surprised ?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Jul 10 - 11:03 PM

Oh, pooey. Literal minded as I am, I'll have to say it: What is a map of the US doing in that story?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Jul 10 - 11:34 PM

Good grief.. this could create an international incident!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 12:47 AM

I think that is Bill's point, Ebbie....

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 02:25 AM

That's what I thought, FS. But sometimes I need it spelled out. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Modern technology moves countries
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 03:04 AM

From my varied travels around the US, it has been my impression that certain "wingers" in Michigan and Wisconsin considered much of the "South," and particularly Georgia, a hotbed of "pinko" sympathizers, so it's reasonable that the might refer to the State of Georgia as the "Soviet Republic of Georgia." For a few, it might be "sarcasm?" but at least some apparently think that is the name of the state.

Quite likely, the majority people in the US don't know there is "another Georgia," much less that it's a nation "over on the other side of one or the other of the oceans." Quite a few can name "both oceans" that border the US, but about half of those - more than 50 miles from either coast - can't tell you which is the one on the east and which on the west. The "highly literate" ones can tell you that the Panama Canal runs from the Atlantic west to the Pacific, which of course is wrong; but can't tell you whether it's in North, Central, or South America.

People in the State of Georgia, especially in Atlanta, do often refer to it as the "Sovereign State of Georgia," believe that it is a nation in its own right, and that it won "the WAR" and that the rest of the US just "doesn't understand that they lost."

A confusion similar to that between the country, Georgia, and the state pops up frequently with "Washington" as a by-line, apparently without the reporter knowing whether the event reported was in the state or in the district (DC). I've seen inset maps in articles that disagreed with the text on this one as well.

Just once, quite a few years back, a map of Russia was printed in a local (Kansas) newsrag for an article about Moscow, Kansas.

A classic "boner" appeared a couple of decades ago when "Wichita State University" in Wichita Kansas announced the creation of the "first school of entrepreneurship in the US." I notice the glitch the first time I saw it, but they ran the TV ad for more than three years before anyone at the U noticed that they misspelled the key word as "enterperneurship." Then they tried to lie and convince people "we did it on purpose." (The average kitty cat can fake that one better than they did.)

John