Evening Social Studies

Ian was a bit indisposed yesterday evening, but he had something important to discuss with me. He called me, and when I arrived, he directed me to close the door...

It turned out that the topic of our exchange really was very important: Egypt. Ian has reflected on recent events around the Egyptian uprising, and he wanted to share them with me.

I didn't get his commentary verbatim, but the gist of it was that the army did something good for the people in Egypt by getting rid of that guy, and then the people did something good for the army, by making the army president. He seemed to feel there was an elegant symmetry to the whole thing.

I told him that the army isn't actually president (I hope I'm proved correct on this optimistic assumption). And in fact, they're planning elections to choose a president. Then I mentioned that the same thing that happened in Egypt has been happening in many different "countries": Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, and even little Djibouti, and island off the coast of Africa.

As soon as I explicitly mentioned Africa, we were back on solid ground again. Africa is where the African Penguin comes from, and, in their recent module on penguins at school, Ian had specifically studied the African penguin. Ian was very pleased to make this solid connection, and link a known sub-topic back into our larger dialog. He smiled, verging on laughter, and practically bounced up and down with enthusiasm.

He also mentioned that we have penguins as well, right here in South America. I don't think that Ian believes we live in South America, but I think by virtue of the fact that South America is an America, like our own, that continent is more-or-less "here." President Monroe thought much the same thing, but he was far more self-serving in his application of the principle.

(March 3, 2011)