M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Equator

[Mark Kohut]

p. 32.Hey, I've been trying in the easy online way to learn
if---how---why Captains in the Royal Navy had to pay for their
own victualing. Anyone, Anyone, Blinky, Blinky?

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> NP just Misc.
>
> "and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not
> know"---Mrs. Dalloway, p.122
>
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 5:41 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Found this paper (no notes or bibliography attached, so take its claims with a grain of salt):
>>
>>  Medieval Western maps represented the east at
>> the top because it was seen as the allegorical direction in which Jerusalem lay (the rising
>> sun as locus of the "Son of God": pun intended). Ancient Chinese maps showed the south at the
>> top, ostensibly because the map represented the Empire as seen from the perspective
>> of the Emperor, who was seated in the north facing south. It is not clear just when
>> Chinese maps adopted the convention of north-at-the-top. The China-centered world
>> map Matteo Ricci introduced to the Chinese mandarins around 1600 depicted the north
>> at the top, but its influence is hard to assess.
>>
>> http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/ncta/pdfiles/MappingEthnocentrismexcerpt.pdf
>>
>> And, for the record, we NYC snobs wouldn't describe Ohio as "Out West." It's strictly in the "fly-by zone." Definitely, the excluded middle!
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>>>>On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>>>>> But not everyone has the same idioms we do.  Maine is known as Down East.   "Mix up" or "mix it up"  is a totally English idiom - try translating it into Spanish - lol - the "up" is not translatable.  WE use the word "up" for lots of things - "look it up," for instance "look it up in the dictionary."  Why "up."
>>>>>
>>>>> In California the rest of the US is all "Back East" - in New York I'd imagine Ohio to be "Out West."  It Texas it's all known as "Up North."  In Fargo it's all "Down South."
>>>>>
>>>>> Merriam Webster:  in or into a more northerly location; especially  :  in or into the part of the U.S. that lies north of the Mason-Dixon Line and the Ohio River <He was educated in the South, but trained .>
>>>>>
>>>>> Bek
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:14 PM, 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.
>>
>>>>>> On Jan 20, 2015, at 3:09 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> 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
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -
>> -
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-
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