To show you how ignorant the general population of America is.

Doc, you'll have to show me where, I checked out the map but was unable to find it spelled like that.

CAC I was in Darwin just after Cyclone Tracy in 74 and did some work rebuilding the place before heading north, were you there for that?

KTK

 

Wow! F%ck man! That makes you an honorary Territorian!
I was born in Darwin, old Darwin Hospital (a park these days) and was 3 when the cyclone brewed up. My family went down to Alice Springs just before it hit...came back up and...i have a photograph of my father standing on a clean deck that was once the house floor...you could play shuffle board on it...Just stilts and a floor...oh and the dunny stayed put! (usually what you hang onto if the sh#t hits the fan).
For those that dont know, the bombing of Darwin WASNT the most devastating thing to happen to Darwin...Cyclone Tracey hit Christmas eve...Still the worst natural disaster to hit Australia...Totalled Darwin...people were talking moving the northern centre and just start again, somewhere else. You couldnt actually SEE the streets due to the shear amount of debri everywhere...not a leaf left on any trees (that were still standing). Looks not unlike Hiroshima...Google cyclone Tracey and prepare for the devastation!
You're a top bloke for helping us Kanuck, thanks mate.

 

My pleasure! Can't think of any local map that ever spelled it otherwise. I haven't been there in quite awhile, though don't remember any map or pamphlet there that used a different spelling.

 

You are absolutely correct, I had a brain fart and went looking for Darwin Harbour. Harbor is the correct way to spell Pearl Harbor. But I have to warn you that if you are planning on correcting my spelling prepare to be busy.

KTK

 

LOL! Fair enough, Ken. If you ever catch me spelling Coal Harbour, BC by some dread American bastardization, please feel free to fire away!

 

It was incredible to see, blocks of floors up on stilts. Not many walls or roofs left. Tough bunch you Territorians. I was looking at pictures of Darwin today, beauty mate. I have dual citizenship Oz and Canuck, struth.

KTK

 

So come on Down for OUR summer and head back for yours...you could skip the cold for the rest of your life!
You could sit in a pub anywhere here and say you helped re-build Darwin back in the day...your money would stay firmly in your pocket...and you'd be pissed as a newt!

 

Who said we were "1 people separated by a common language"?

 

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.
George Bernard Shaw

Though my favorite is:

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
George Bernard Shaw

​

 

I,personally, feel a little uncomfortable speaking about ignorance of the 'general' population of anywhere, on any subject. Quotes from Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates (sources and content debatable) show that poor choices do not belong to any nation or group exclusively since they,and many others since, all found fault with their youth. My history seems (to me) to be OK, but lets talk advanced math a while and I'm sure I can be a fool. Actually, some people may feel that way about my history.

No one can be expert in everything, and some 'kid' that doesn't know WW2 may be the person that designs our next computer chip. Looking for ignorance is too easy a task when made general. Yes, there are foolish teachers, as well as bad doctors. But to be accurate you must be specific..." The lost knight is ignorant because he said...".

BTW- My Kipling quote (yes, I know who he is, his fame, and can debate the quality of his work, phylo) was meant to show that at one time or another nations fail to appreciate their vets. I think the vets right now are respected in the US, largely because the aging vets of the "Nam" years weren't and it got a lot of press coverage. (From the press that caused it? Odd)

 

Eh?

 

How about this:
"Restaurant (and bar) bathroom doors should be identified with the words, ‘men’ and ‘women’. Silhouettes and cartoon drawings of sombreros (or cowboy hats), bowlers, puffy skirts and pretty mouths do not provide enough information for drunks." Pres. Theo. Roosevelt

Or this:

"I feel sorry for people who don’t drink, when they get up in the morning - that’s the best they’ll feel all day." Jack Lemon, in UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE.

 

As to the teaching of history in schools today - a great problem is there is just so damn much of it! How, in the limited time available, do we teach all of it? And who is to say what is important and what is not?

About the respect Vets are getting today, I’m one of those VN vets who is still bitter about how we were received at home and I can’t help but believe that the “public” (the vast majority who don’t and won’t serve and therefore are quilted whenever they are reminded of this) will soon tire of the ”wounded warriors” and will, as they have always done, forget them.

 

I spent years in education and the brillance of administrators was stunning. With general education degrees from local 'teacher colleges' they were experts on all subjects from American History to Zen. In one k-8 system they changed the books ever 5 years (always going with a different publisher) although the grade level content changed with each shift. Therefore, students never got 1 consistent coverage of all the topics (even mentioned). In addition, current events were stressed and that took time from the academic area. I could go on, but why? In my opinion, flawed as it is, teachers are seldom the real problem; but there are plenty of other less easy to fix issues than switch out this one for that one.

As far as the Vets go, I was a VN Era vet (AIT Infantry, then sent to Germany?) and appreciate how you feel since I'm still bitter also. When I got out I could deal with the rudeness OK, but the economy was awful and I couldn't find work. When I got a small job the manager told me he expected me to quit since I was qualified for much more. Then he told me as a tip: leave off the military service on applications, just make up something for the time. He was a good guy, but what he said was true and that hurt.

Vets today at least will get the respect they deserve because you and I will give it to them whenever we can. In airports I go over to servicemen and say something always. Oddly, I have a VN Era cap and if I wear it a suprising number of young people say "thank you", so I don't wear it much.

Greg

 

CAC, to the "I hate war" post #10 on this thread:
The holocaust wasn't war, but the murder of civillians that was stopped by war. The US Civil War (cause can be debated) did end slavery in the US.
Bad people do bad things and people die until good people die to stop them. The human condition?

 

Perhaps you were thinking of "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Henry David Thoreau

 

And as we all know...Mr.Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes....Now that will throw the yanks on here....

 

I have to agree. While we are all in agreement that WWII was the seminal turning point of human civilization in the past 100 years, look what has happened since then, and what do you think affects kids today more?

Korea
The Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis
Kennedy Assassination
Vietnam
Ghandi and the Independence of India and Pakistan
Civil Rights
The Space Race and Moon Landings
The Cultural Revolution
African Independence and map redrawing
The development of the personal computer (HUGE HUGE HUGE)
Collapse of the Soviet Union and map redrawing
Rise of China as an Economic Force
US Gang Wars
.... etc

History stops for no one, yet the school year is more or less, the same as it was when I was a kid (looooong ago). More to teach in the same amount of time. Some things will get compressed, and WWII (almost 70 years ago now) doesn't have the same attention getter as more recent history. When I was a kid, WWI was eons ago, and that's how kids feel about WWII now.

Good example, listen to Billy Joel's "We didn't light the fire," to see just how much history since WWII has come and gone.

 

Nothing to do with ww2...but this language thing...Jap chickens is a normal term in the UK. In the poultry world that is...Jap is a normal word in Britain. Its not an insult or anything racially insulting. If its an insult in America as a word then that pertains to the American side of the forum. I'm not being pedantic its just the way it is...I bid and purchased 6 Jap Bantams last week. If I'd bid for 6 Japanese bantams I'd have been ignored.