0753: "Southern Half"

[LucasBrown]

Alt text: "Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars."

JFK could have just mis-spoken.

[What'sInAName]

Alt text:"Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars."

Oh, how colorful geopolitics can be...

[TheChewanater]

Alt-text is:

"Also, if you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars.

Which are all obviously good ideas.

[LucasBrown]

Thanks.

[Trooper5445]

Indeed. This one made me laugh. Although the map on XKCD is a little bit inaccurate. The Equator I believe runs a bit north.

[What'sInAName]

You got yours up first because I waited for the alt text to appear before posting...

[LucasBrown]

You snooze, you lose...

[eleniy86]

Maybe he had one of those globes that was tilted...or maybe extra tilted?

[TheChewanater]

You got yours up first because I waited for the alt text to appear before posting...

Me too. I thought it was a glitch on m.xkcd.com (which reloads faster )

[torontoraptor]

Personally, I think the mars penis obelisk would be much more impressive. What better way to 1-up those damn pinko liberal commies then giving the red planet a dick?

[LucasBrown]

Maybe he had one of those globes that was tilted...or maybe extra tilted?

And maybe that globe couldn't be rotated, either?

[eleniy86]

Maybe he had one of those globes that was tilted...or maybe extra tilted?

And maybe that globe couldn't be rotated, either?

maybe he looked at it quick and didnt rotate it...idk :-\

[What'sInAName]

Well, I'd cry foul because posting it without alt text is like posting a placeholder thread ahead of time in my mind, but oh well, too late.

Anyway, that *is* a pretty big blooper for him to make. Someone must have noticed at the time, though, right? I can't imagine that Randall is the first to have discovered that "Kennedy Geography" bears little resemblance to that of everyone else.

[Alsadius]

If you ignore the Soviet Union and China as well as their satellites when you talk about "Asia"(obviously, they weren't really battlefields in 1961), and then define "Globe" to exclude oceans(again, not exactly a hotbed of Cold War combat), it's not wholly wrong. The southern half of the world's landmasses is roughly what he described - Africa, Latin America, and the southern bits of Asia. Australia and Antarctica are holes, of course, but it's at least approximately right.

Still, it was funny.

[PeteSchult]

Tangentially, I'm reminded of the Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" when Kirk says of the planet Cheron,

That's in the southern half of the galaxy, isn't it?

(since, obviously, racial prejudice only occurs in the South).

[quietus]

Australia and Antarctica are holes, of course, but it's at least approximately right.

them be fighting words.

[Apoca-lips]

RM: "...or constructing a towering penis-shaped obelisk on Mars."

JFK: "...we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

I LOLed at the instantaneous mental juxtaposition.

[Tikimoof]

The real reason for JFK's assassination appears - some high school geography teacher couldn't take another public display of stupidity.

Although I knew JFK gave a speech at Rice, and that he mentioned Rice in one of his speeches, I had always assumed that they had happened in different places (particularly shameful as a student there), so I guess I've done my learning for the day. I should not be so excited to see Rice's name mentioned.

[Retsam]

Pff, like any Americans knew where any parts of the world other than Europe, America, and Russia were 50 years ago. How are you supposed to find a country on the map if you haven't invaded it yet? (Only reason the British are better at geography is that they had hundreds of years of head-start)

[philosofinch]

I'm guessing Kennedy used "the Southern half" to mean the developing countries, not those south of the equator. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-south_divide

[chiddy]

im with quietus on this one

Australia and Antarctica are holes, of course,

ok admittedly we are mostly desert but when did the only "western" economy to survive the current economic down turn with barely a dent become a hole?
as for JFK even in the 60's australia was a major "western" country so what we just get ignored cos we're in the ass end of the world?

[sje46]

I think he meant "Brown Half".

[BenOfTomorrow]

Awww, looks like philosofinch beat me to it. Another perspective is to consider splitting the globe to evenly divide the population, rather than physical area.

[Glass Fractal]

I'm guessing Kennedy used "the Southern half" to mean the developing countries, not those south of the equator. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-south_divide

Almost certainly. Still, someone should have noticed that they put in the words "southern half of the globe".

[michaelsaunders77]

Link to Kennedy's moon speech: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03SpaceEffort09121962.htm

[CorruptUser]

Also been bugging me; Latin America means the countries in the Americas with a Latin-based language, so doesn't that include French? So isn't Quebec and Lousianna also part of Latin America?

[Fixblor]

I think there's supposed to be a comma between globe and Asia ... indicating the Southern hemisphere in addition to Asia, Latin America (ie Central), Africa (ie Northern Africa, not just southern), and the Middle East. Emphasizing that most of the non third world countries were in the northern hemisphere and placing Russia in the wrong hemisphere.

Think people. Even some Bushisms have at least a SHRED of political merit. woka woka woka ... cause he shreds bushes.

[Lazar]

I think JFK's remark made a certain kind of sense though. Two points:

1. In the context of the quote, he was certainly not including the great mass of the Asiatic USSR in his definition of Asia (as this was a core part of the communist realm and not a battleground), and it's maybe even questionable whether he was including China (as Taiwan's claim over the mainland was merely notional by this point). A lot of maps of the world's regions will attach Siberia to Europe because of its political affiliation.

2. He was obviously incorrect in calling it the "southern half of the globe", but I think what he meant to say was something like "the southern half of the Earth's land", as there's much more land in the northern hemisphere than in the southern. He was clearly referring to the Third World, which is often referred to as "the South" in leftist discourse today.

[weex]

For Kennedy it was probably between making broad and partially inconsistent statements like this or being forced to name each and every battleground state. The latter of course would have caused quite a bit more political scrambling.

[CorruptUser]

Pff, like any Americans knew where any parts of the world other than Europe, America, and Russia were 50 years ago. How are you supposed to find a country on the map if you haven't invaded it yet? (Only reason the British are better at geography is that they had hundreds of years of head-start)

We invaded Libya, three times. And West Africa. And Korea. And Japan. And the Phillipines. And every single country in South America. And Guam, I guess. And southeast Asia. And the Middle-East.

So by your logic the only places we couldn't find are India, South Africa and Australia.

[Werewolf]

The cheese is burning me.

[CorruptUser]

Also been bugging me; exactly WHERE does Europe end and Asia begin? Yeah yeah, that vague region of the Urals. As far as I'm concerned, Europe isn't a continent.

Hey, if Pluto isn't a planet...

[HighSpeedFallingObjects]

You got yours up first because I waited for the alt text to appear before posting...

Me too. I thought it was a glitch on m.xkcd.com (which reloads faster )

Wow, really? There's a MOBILE site? Geez. I went through all the trouble of evaluating different xkcd apps for nothing.

EDIT: Why doesn't it just default to the mobile site when visited on a mobile device? Lol.

[GetOutOfMyHeadRandall]

Oh my god! I'm in the Southern half of the globe!

[Felona]

"The great battlefield for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East."

Problem solved. The only thing that makes this statement nonsensical is punctuation, which isn't spoken.

[Lazar]

"The great battlefield for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East."

Problem solved. The only thing that makes this statement nonsensical is punctuation, which isn't spoken.

That doesn't work either, because "the whole southern half of the globe" includes a large part of the other named regions.

[a.sub]

wait ... i dont get the joke?

[Azkyroth]

"Penis-shaped obelisk" is redundant.

[pippinbarr]

Kind of random, but I made a little one panel about statements made by JFK just a week ago, so it's funny to see something so similarly JFK-related and so close in time (especially since both comics reference a not-particularly-recent event!):

http://www.pippinbarr.com/stimulusresponse/2010/06/06/skeptical-fridge-versus-jfk/

[Felona]

"The great battlefield for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East."

Problem solved. The only thing that makes this statement nonsensical is punctuation, which isn't spoken.

That doesn't work either, because "the whole southern half of the globe" includes a large part of the other named regions.

And Asia includes the Middle East. So? He was trying to make the problem seem bigger than it was to justify whatever actions he took/planned on taking.