james_davis_nicoll | Context is for the weak

Context is for the weak

Even I know the difference between Stephen Douglas and Frederick Douglass.

Somewhere a Fox news editor's history teacher is weeping.

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Well, there's a LOT of history out there.

Seriously, I had to explain to my wife a joke involving comparing the Stonewall Riots and Stonewall Jackson. She confused Stonewall Jackson with Andrew Jackson. And this is a woman who is highly intelligent, and knows her history fairly well (though she concentrates more on mythology and the culture of pre-industrial Europe)

What was that saying Gharlane of Eddore had? "It's not your fault you believe that, you're a victim of the American educational system"?

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Or some intern was asked to grab a picture off of google.

If it's Fox News, be happy that they didn't have a picture of Kirk Douglas.

Win.

Or Douglas Adams!

I will admit I've confused Lake Agassiz with Lake Missoula.

And it took me forever to understand that rivers can be long lived but lakes often are not.

I get the post-glaciation lakes mixed up. I consider this partly a failing of the people who named them and partly a failure of my own knowledge of geography. And since they don't exist any more, as such, contemporary knowledge doesn't help much, does it... Nonetheless, if they'd called Agassiz "Lake Manitoba" or similar, it would be a lot clearer.

Louis Agassiz was kind of a creep, anyway. A Cambridge, Mass., school that had been named after him was recently renamed, because of his (now Wrong-Wrong-Wrong, then acceptable) racist beliefs.