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Jay Matthews
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2468
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | 1
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It is one of history's little oddities that Columbus is so renowned. At the time, Columbus didn't think he had discovered the new world, so no one lese did either.
Amerigo was haled -- and that's why the continents are named after him.
Then, as years went by, people began to think more about the fact that Columbus had technically been, well, something (hard to say what -- try to accurately describe what he did and you can't)
It was during the eighteenth century that there was a strong movement to remember the man. This is one reason the U.S. capitol was named District of Columbia, there was a mini-spate of cities named for him here, and of course we have the holiday.
It was from a late, after the fact surge, like a movement.
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Jay Matthews
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2468
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | 2
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Following up something from my previous post, I challenge someone to accurately describe Columbus' feat, as an achievement, in the most laudable terms possible.
In other words, what's the best thing you can say he should be famous for, while still being 100% accurate?
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John Mietus
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9697
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | 3
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He was the first person ballsy enough to sail the open Atlantic in order to
find a shorter route to China. That's about it.
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Brian O'Neill
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 741
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | 4
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Steve Horton:
Plus, there's the whole rape and murder thing. The fewer of those we glorify in our history, the better.
Columbus was the original 'Wrong Way Corrigan'(or 'Wrong Way Feldman', for you Gilligan's Island fans).
I just don't 'get' glorifying the guy for, in effect, 'falling in the dark, and finding coal.'
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Caleb M. Edmond
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 762
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 5
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And I WON'T even pose the question:
How do you "discover" something that's already inhabitted?
It's an age old question but...
If I walk into YOUR house and claim it as mine (even if I have superior
forces), does the fact that I make that claim and plant a flag there in ANY
way make that home mine?
(Oh yea, I forgot about IMMINENT DOMAIN!)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134178
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | 6
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If I walk into YOUR house and claim it as mine (even if I have superior forces), does the fact that I make that claim and plant a flag there in ANY way make that home mine? *** What if I claim that I belong to the house, the house does not belong to me? What if my whole life I have practised possesion by right of conquest? What if that house simply happens to be where I am living right now, and when I have completely exhausted all its resources, I will move into another house?
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Mike Purdy
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1448
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | 7
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I have dibs on JB's house when he moves on!
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Joe Mayer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 January 2005
Posts: 1397
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| Posted: 02 September 2006 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | 8
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What if I claim that I belong to the house, the house does not belong to me? What if my whole life I have practised possesion by right of conquest? What if that house simply happens to be where I am living right now, and when I have completely exhausted all its resources, I will move into another house?
*****
That may be all good for you, but it is up to the public conscience to decide if that is ethical and worth celebrating. While it may be deemed socially acceptable at one time, later generations may come out and decide you were horrible. Perception is its own reality, and public perception can far outshadow personal perception.
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Pedro Bouça
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 1465
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| Posted: 08 September 2006 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | 9
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John Mietus wrote:
| He was the first person ballsy enough to sail the open Atlantic in order to
find a shorter route to China. That's about it. |
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Hey, the portuguese had been sailing open Atlantic for a while then!
The Azores Islands (which are right in the middle of the ocean,
thousands of miles away from land!) were discovered in 1427. Columbus
wasn't even BORN yet!
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Pete York
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1198
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| Posted: 08 September 2006 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | 10
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Chris Hutton:
That is from a Yankee desktop calendar. The 'African-American' should read 'black' and is apparently the product of an overzealous or careless copy editor.
Yankee calendar
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134178
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| Posted: 08 September 2006 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | 11
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There is a probably apocryphal story about a company issuing a quarterly financial report in which every reference to said company being "in the red" became "in the Native American". The Yankee faux pas seems more likely, tho.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 08 September 2006 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | 12
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...is apparently the product of an overzealous or careless copy editor.*** Same way Sabretooth became a "kike". When that tempest in a teapot exploded Marvel all over the headlines, I did a quick test. Looking for a logical combination of letters on my keyboard -- I'm a touch typist ; it's been a long time since I could name the letter locations other than QWERTYUIOP! -- I noticed that the K and the L were right next to each other. So I typed KIKKER and asked my spell checker to make some guesses. The first to come up was KIKE. The second was KILLER, the word I actually wanted. Easy enough to imagine some half-asleep assistant editor or intern clicking thru the script and just automatically selecting the spell-checker's first choice without looking to see what it was. (I do aways check. Lucky, really, since Keith Williams inked a job of mine some years back, and when I typed the credits my computer didn't recognize KEITH. Its first guess was SHIT. That would not have won me any friends!)
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