[conspire] Happy Lupercalia

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:03:34 -0800, Daniel Gimpelevich wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 20:43:26 -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> 
>> Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):
>> 
>>> One can argue that, since this was after the Suez Canal was built, you
>>> traveled within Asia during that week, and weren't in Africa then at all.
>> 
>> You have a point, but even those erstwhile colonisers the Brits, as
>> indicated by my 1952 _Britannica_, seem schizophrenic on the subject: 
>> The article on Africa says its northeastern corner is the "Suez isthmus"
>> -- which I'll point out in passing exists irrespective of the Canal -- 
>> while the Asia article says the boundary passes "through the eastern
>> Mediterranean and down the Red Sea to the southern point of Arabia".
>> (The entry on Sinai itself ducks the question, further suggesting the
>> encyclopaedists were not very mindful of this bit of trivia.)
>> 
>> Anyway, I _believe_ I was always taught, in both British and American
>> schools, that Africa included all of Egypt.  Yes, I know Wikipedia
>> claims otherwise, but I trust even leaky memories and my encyclopaedia
>> more than I do Wikipedia -- for whatever that matters, which ain't much.
> 
> I was not aware of anything Wikipedia claimed or didn't claim relating to
> the matter. I was trusting my own leaky memories of all the charts showing
> Sinai squarely in Asia. I guess consensus on the matter must tend to
> fluctuate. Then again, those same leaky memories suggest to me that Sinai
> lies not on the tectonic plate of Asia nor of Africa, but on its own, and
> that the year 1952 passed in its entirety before the canal was even there.

It's late; I forgot to mention the slight irony of the non-eating of pork
in the region when considering that a single binary decrement on "Suez"
would yield a pig call.