Geography students gasp with disbelief at "almanac alert"

[Lisa]

I teach at a mid-sized Canadian university. Today was the first day of classes -- time to distribute course outlines and assign reading lists. To liven things up a bit, I put this article up on the projector during the lecture ... warning people not to wander around with their geography texts (especially on a day trip to the States). And especially, not to annotate them suspiciously (which in any case would decrease their resale value).

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/12/29/fbi.almanacs.ap/

People didn't believe me. They thought it was all an elaborate hoax on my part! I told them to google "almanacs" and "FBI" themselves ....

[DBoon]

1. True, the US is now a bad joke

Our homeland security alerts belong in the "believe it or not" category of the absurd

[proud patriot]

2. It should be a bad joke , but alass

the joke seem to be on Each American

[interupt]

3. Your lucky your in Canada

If you had been in the US, you would have been arrested last night by the FBI for providing covert intelligence to would-be liberal pinko terrorists.

:)

I wonder what annotations would be classed as suspicious? In my uni days I either highlighted, underlined or put an asterisk around exam material.

Maybe "exam" now means 'huge US infrastructure asset'

[KamaAina]

4. I'm an almanac (and map) geek, and I don't care who knows it!

that's right, maps are on the Asscroft hitlist too... now you know why American men never ask directions :-)

That's right, Crisco, I've got an almanac, and I'm not afraid to use it! In 1850, the second largest city in the country was Baltimore! Shelley Winters' real name is Shirley Schrift! Singapore has the second-smallest per capita water reserves in the world! Take that!

[Cooley Hurd]

So am I...

I rarely go anywhere without SA2003 & GPS receiver. And I save my log files, and replay them, and make map notes containing the coordinates...

Please daddy... don't let 'em send me to Gitmo... :eyes:

[frylock]

6. maps?! holy krap..

they don't want to see my cache of Thomas Bros guides!!

[ktranz]

5. nucular

too much education can endanger your health

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. 5 words for THEM......

FROM
MY
COLD
DEAD
HANDS

will they get my almanacs!

[Fridays Child]

8. I swear, Your Honor, I don't know anything about the...

...best time for planting tomatoes.

[onebigbadwulf]

9. Hello Mr. Rabbit. Can I have a cup of tea?

Hello Mr. Hatter, would you like a biscuit?


Oh tweedle dee and tweedle dum what a nice suprise!



Sorry, this is too fucking stupid to be real.

(packs bags and flies out of America) See you guys in 12 years.

[liberalmuse]

10. I'm a geographer...

does that make me a terrorist? Also, just found out that NIMA, our national imagery and mapping agency has changed it's name to NGA--National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Perhaps I'm paranoid, but this kind of disturbed me when our boss let us know today.

On edit: got a word wrong.

[Lisa]

12. hmmm ...

Maybe they're trying to capitalize on the "geospatial" or "geomatics" name trend? They've "rebranded" all our cartography and remote sensing courses as "geomatics" over here. Something about the label having more cachet, I suppose. Or maybe I'm trying too hard to find an innocent explanation for this kind of thing!

Greetings to a fellow geographer!

Check out this blogger's take on the situation ...

http://blogs.salon.com/0002551/2003/12/30.html#a667

"Well, teachers beware! Sure hope none of you carries any geography books back and forth from
school... or drafting books, or medical books, or, God forbid, science books! They might actually have
useful information in them -- like, the major export of Brazil, or the capital of Paraguay, or what
happens when you put an eyedropper of iodine on a potato!"

I must say, a positive thing about the almanac alert is that more people seem to be interested in geography (the forbidden fruit effect?) We normally have fewer than 25 people signing up for the "philosophy of geography" course but I walked into the first session today and there were 37 students ... not counting the ones delayed by the snowstorm. Weird. Usually the hint that we'll be looking at Marxist geography is enough to clear the room, but they all stayed.

Either that, or they're security agents keeping an eye on me. Now I'm getting paranoid!

[gator_in_Ontario]

11. I am ashamed

of my country :cry:

[curse10]

13. the local news station here in Boston just did a promo for the almanac

saying it was over 80% accurate and that the secret formula they use to predict the weather is under lock and key.