a Geographer's Place

One of my longer blogs, but intriguing nonetheless… A marvelous person sent me this article from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=2c9bff2541865fdc&ex=1203570000 It got me thinking…One of my eccentricities is people-watching. For example, I can spend hours sitting at the food court in a mall—or any other place—just watching people. In all my time people-watching and observing, and spurred on by this article, it occurred to me that for years I have been classifying people based on what I call “brain power”. Hey, it’s what scientists love to do: classify things! I categorize brain power into six types: Intelligent, Smart, Clever, Ingenious, Unaware, and Naïve. Now, by “brain power”, I mean the way people attain and use knowledge. In a thesaurus, intelligent & smart are synonyms; so are clever & ingenious and unaware & naïve, respectively. But when I say someone is “smart”, I mean something differ...

After returning to the States after more than two months in the Middle East, I remember going through US Customs at JFK (New York) airport. Here’s how it went:   “Where have you been?” the Customs Officer asked me. “Umm, let’s see…Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey—I loved Turkey,” I gushed. “How long have you been out of the country?” he said in a stern tone. “Oh, a few months,” I responded. “Where’s your luggage?” “Right here on my back, sir,” I replied. “Bringing back any trinkets? Any souvenirs?” he said, eyeing me. “Just pictures, memories, and my travel journal,” I said. He waved me through, but I had a sneaking suspicion he thought I was trying to sneak something illicit into the country. How could someone spend two months traveling without buying a single souvenir? Easy: travel light and make memories your souvenirs rather than material possessions. Now, I’ll admit every once in while I purchase something overseas (usually for someone else). But there...

Today I successfully defended my dissertation. That means I now have the “privilege” of a title and a moniker. Sexy. The question looming in front of me now is, “Which do I use”? Titles precede a name and monikers go after it. So, do I use “Dr. Allen” or “Dr. Case” or “Dr. A” (that sort of sounds kewl), or should it be “Casey Allen, PhD” or “C.D. Allen, PhD”? Or should I even exercise the privilege? For me, it means little either way…Titles often seem arrogant to me, even if they can denote valuable accomplishments. But just because someone has a title, does that make them “special” or better than people without one? Does it endow them with privilege? Well, perhaps in a way it does, since society tends to place value on such things. Most diplomas from the Powers That Be (PTB) have a little phrase like, “…with all rights, powers, and privilege as set forth by those in authority…” But what does that actually mean? Just because I’ve achieved a certain level of education—jumped through a ...