August 01, 2003
Juat a mistake, I'm sure.
Somebody should write to North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and maybe provide them with a better map of Iran. The mustard one below is from their website. Notice what is missing compared to a more realistic one beside it in blue? Wait a minute...now that I look at it more closely, the "ears" part omitted from their image is almost all of Iranian provinces of Azarbaijan. First these guys create a new "opposition figure" in the name of Chehregani who is obsessed with the idea of separation of Azarbaijan from Iran, then you start feeding the world images of Iran that is already missing that big chunk of land. Hmmmm. All this time we were looking at Texas as the source of stench that has taken over Washington DC, while the answer was in North Carolina. Sneaky guys!
There can be three (or may be more) possibilities for this:
1: US education system sucks,
2: It is deliberate (as you have mentioned, two Provinces of East and West Azarbaijan are taken out of the map),
3: Or just an error; a huge error.
It looks like a body without limbs, reminding me of the 13 year old Ali Ismaeel Abbas who lost his two limbs along with many members of his family during a US bombing raid in Iraq.
Mr. Chehregani might like it though.
Posted by: Faramin at August 2, 2003 11:47 AMIf my geography is correct, I think Kurdestan is also missing from their map. As Pedram said: Hmmmm.
Wonder if there's an employee or designer or even administrator that has some sinister motives by so drastically changing a map like that. It is like a map of Canada that "accidentally" has Quebec excluded. Or Chiapas missing from Mexico or Hawaii excluded from US, deliberately (Okay, that last one wasn't a good example, as Islands are often excluded from certain types of maps, but you get the idea).
Whatever it is, it sure stinks.
Posted by: visitor at August 2, 2003 12:03 PMDeliberate or not they need a new graphics department... even if the shape was accurate the quality of the graphic is appauling... I am inclined to believe that they just tried to cobble something together in Paint and failed miserably to come close to anything that looks like Iran.
Posted by: emma at August 2, 2003 02:19 PMAnd what exactly is "Persain and Persain dialects" ? I mean... this site is plain pathetic in its concoction of the info presented. Even with correct spelling the info would be wrong...
Nima
Posted by: Nima at August 2, 2003 02:32 PMHmmm.. has anyone actually seen a version of the Map of Iran that looks anything like this? They can't be that stupid, but N.C. doesn't make foreign policy, thank god!
Posted by: Kombiz at August 2, 2003 05:25 PMOk, Everyone relax... the map was done by 7th graders as part of a class project.
http://tps.dpi.state.nc.us/connectasia/Pictures/default.html
I think Chehreganli will be successful.
Posted by: Eldar at August 2, 2003 08:01 PMThank God,
I was going to take my complaint against N. Carolina (US) to the UN ;-). And I'm sure UN would severly penalize US for hurting my feeling :~).
But seriously, There has been many occasions when Persian Gulf was called Arabian Gulf in western media's reference to that region, that nothing like this is surprizing.
Hey, May be we just gave them an idea!
Either I have no sense of humor or you guys are just a bit too uptight. Read my post again and keep a smile on your face this time. Conspiracy theory? Relax! It was meant to be a fun post about a web site in North Carolina for god sake! Now I read about this "conspiracy" on other blogs! Gawd!!!
A friend once semi-jokingly told me we should put a big smiley face on top of azadi square for all Iranians to remember to take things a bit more lightly at times. Maybe he was right!
Keep well friends!
Posted by: Peter M. at August 3, 2003 12:17 AMAfter thinking a bit about this, I concluded that my initial comment was unwaranted and instead of being sarcastic, I (and I only speak for me) should have appologized for my rush in speculating about this. So, here it is:
"I am sorry."
I second that! And my post I think shows how stupid I was, but it was fun playing in photo-shop; even if it was just a simple little task!
Posted by: Kombiz at August 3, 2003 06:43 PMA wise man once said: It takes a big man to admit he's sorry. And an even bigger man to laugh at the man who says he's sorry. :-)
I'm not big enough to laugh!
Posted by: Milwauken at August 4, 2003 08:11 AMPerhaps what the wise man meant is the first big man is big at heart and the second biger man is big at size ;-)
Posted by: Faramin at August 4, 2003 09:49 AMThe original quote was from Jack Handy, and it went: "It takes a big man to cry, and an even bigger man to laugh at that man." Handy has written hundreds of quips, which he calls "Deep Thoughts. They are funny as hell. You can read more if you Google Jack Handy + Deep Thoughts.
Posted by: Milwauken at August 4, 2003 11:58 AMHow many mistakes are there in this text??? Look at this for god's sake:
"The independance was declared on April 1 1979. The national holiday is Republic Day"
And this one is the coolest one:
"They also have televisions in Iran"
Poor high-school students, I guess this pupil has copied most of his information from CIA fact-book, which is again full of not-so-precise data (especially about the so-called independance thing).
Posted by: Havij at August 4, 2003 06:06 PM"Independence" is a standard part of the World Factbook template. They haven't really grasped that not every nation has actually declared independence from another sovereign power. There used to be a very silly answer for the United Kingdom's "independence" (IIRC it was the year of the Act of Union but without any explanation attached). Now they have a long paragraph that demonstrates why "independence" is a completely inappropriate heading.
Posted by: David Frazer at August 5, 2003 04:32 PM