M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Equator

[David Morris]

If you sink and drain were positioned exactly on the equator, would the
water spin in both directions as it went down the drain?

On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> in something else I've been reading, the Equator is referred to as
> 'that man-made line"....which it also is.......
> and I was reminded of Pynchon kinda rooting for--thematically--ye olde
> natural country boundaries in AtD.
> (by rooting for, I mean his vision seems to want to value the natural
> way,-- known geography, common language, more, etc. ---many countries
> came to be vs. the artificial Nations created by government powers
> which wrench and so often
>  lead to feuds (called wars)...
>
> it might be symbolically appropriate that in history,  with such an
> artificial boundary, humiliation of sailors might become a
> tradition...
>
>
> On Tue, 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
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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