M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Equator

[David Morris]

Question: When was the concept of the equator born?

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I have had these same questions about up and down but failed to look hard
> enough to have any definitive answer. The erotic aspect makes some kind of
> weird sense just because so much instinctively comes from our body. Body
> language.
>
> There is also that up (mountains)  equals colder. And for the major
> civilizations north is cold and south is warm.  This seems the most likely
> explanation to me of how this connection entered the language.
>
> In the iconography of medieval cathedrals, derived to a large degree from
> biblical passages  about direction, north is equated with judgement and the
> cross and south with resurrection and regeneration( Jesse tree geneology
> windows). South also has biblical association with gold, spices, and the
> erotic other. So south to a Biblical people should not  be inherently
> negative. But then there is also the whole question of Ham.  There is
> nothing in the bible indicating Ham's curse was black skin but the theory
> is widespread and may even be somewhere in the Talmudic texts. According to
> theTorah Moses second wife was Ethiopian, but Ethiopian jews have lower
> status in modern Israel.
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> On Jan 20, 2015, at 3:09 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> > A boundary ordained by the stars, by Mother Earth (slightly tubby in the
> waistline, despite - because of! - all that spinning). It's a border, but
> no war has ever been fought over it (though, certainly, many have been
> fought across it).
> >
> > But implicit in it are some of the things Joseph and others have been
> discussing: colonialism and slavery, in particular -- the general European
> colonialist attitude towards the darker people who lived "down" there as
> somewhat lesser, for living at the "bottom" rather than the "top." Is there
> a homoerotic metaphor here? The mapmakers make the decisions, but when did
> it become ingrained in the popular consciousness that South = Down? John
> Bailey, chime in, please: Isn't it specifically white Australians who
> decided to get defensively cute in bragging about living Down Under - to
> lure tourists across the equator?
> >
> > It's odd, in a way, that the European colonialists who imposed borders
> on the indigenous peoples of Africa and South America never thought to use
> the Equator as an official national border. A nice straight line, but no
> Masons or Dixons up to the task of hacking through such remote wilderness
> to draw it. Still, you'd think they could at least pick a spot and call it
> the Equator. Who was going to argue with them if it was a couple of
> kilometers off?
> >
> > By the way, here's a list of the countries the Equator passes through:
> Ecuador [Equator - someone at least took note!], Colombia, Brazil, Sao Tome
> & Principe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
> Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati. Note that
> Equatorial Guinea is not among them.
> >
> > Ecuador actually has a tourist spot with an official line drawn to show
> where the Equator is. Only problem is, it's off by a few hundred feet. No
> one cares, but M&D would be appalled.
> >
> >
> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/much-ado-about-nothing-at-the-equator-8514125/?no-ist
> >
> > Laura
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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