"now find... turkmenistan"

for fatihful readers of second impression, i report with glee and gratitude that i finally own my very own leapfrog explorer talking globe. eventually one must accept that simply wishing for something and hoping it magically arrives at one's doorstep (or door, in my case, there is no step) is an ineffective way of acquiring one's wants. so i ordered the damn thing from target.

i feel quite sure that some of my real life friends have snickered at the thought and ridiculed my deep longing for this "child's toy" but they are all singing a different tune since the little bugger arrived. three of my dearest friends, emphatically engaged in conversation have stopped dead upon glancing at the lovely learning tool. "never mind, let's play with that!" they say. ding-ding, click-click, 'now find, grenada'. i can keep friends at my house for hours these days. it's a race against time. it's a race against the self. mostly it is a race against dreadfully deficient education in global social sciences.

some of my friends are afraid to touch the thing. afraid to reveal their limitations. they delight in watching the "eureka" game but want nothing to do with participation. rest-assured, dear friends, the fact that you don't know that Georgia can be found on two very different parts of the globe is only your fault if you continue to refuse to learn. until this point, i think we can safely blame our social studies teachers (i.e. football coaches?) for not valuing the location of afghanistan enough to ensure that the general public would know where to find it on a map in order to better understand where the US bombs are falling. by the way.... it's in asia. as is most of what we refer to as the middle east. it's incredibly disturbing how many people don't know that. there's a pretty good chance your president still doesn't know that.

get the globe, folks. it's about self-respect.