After saying that he has no problems keeping U.S. troops in Iraq a hundred years, a reporter for Mother Jones magazine asked if he really meant it. He doubled down, affirming that, as far as he's concerned, the U.S. can remain in Iraq a thousand or even a million years. This got me thinking about how Americans have no concept of the grand sweep of history. Consider the proposed nuclear waste disposal site in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The facility is supposed to remain secure 10,000 years, and signs explaining the hazards would be posted outside. But 10,000 years ago was the stone age! It was prehistory! Only Americans could assume English will still be readable in 2,000, much less 10,000 years or, for that matter, that we'll still be around at all.
Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.
To anticipate one possible comment, the date in the third panel is incorrect. It should be 1,002,008 A.D. It has been corrected for the syndicated version.
ReplyDeleteI guess now that McCain is the GOP frontrunner - time to knock him around. Well, you are definitely crazy but not stupid - I know you know McCain is not talking about 100 years of combat - he was making a point about commitment to a region, just like we've been in Europe for over 60 years and Korea for 50 years.
ReplyDeleteJohn McCain, who consequently I plan to vote for in the Meeeeshigan primary tomorrow because he's a far better choice than Mitt Romney, has pandered himself to the Christian conservatives.
ReplyDeleteThat being the case, McCain would be forced to confess that we've existed as a species less than 5,000 years.
You say in your last frame that McCain aware of the time scale; I don't think he is.
Very insightful observation though, Americans have no concept of time because we have a very short history. This can be both good and bad. The Chinese, for example, have an extreme sense of the eternal nature of the middle kingdom. It can be somewhat healthy to have some sense of ones' own mortality, if it's channeled correctly. American nationalism (which is what we're really talking about here) has a little too much German in it, don't you think?
I love this cartoon. I am a huge science nerd (currently reading Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale" and Tyson's "Death by Black Hole"), so combining politics, science and humor is a winning trifecta.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, Ruben Bolling did a great one using Australopithecus and anthropology to critique behavior in Congress.
I think they usually also make universal warning signs in these cases. But if these are the best they could come up with, then english might be their best option. Seriously, I could make a better warning sign than those.
ReplyDeleteActually, one point in yur comments above the cartoon does need correction. The Yucca Mountain warnings will be written in at least 5 languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese- possibly Native American languages as well.) and have various ominous symbols/shapes on them. Of course, there's no idea that people still won't dig it up- look at all the Egyptian curses on the tombs there...
ReplyDeleteAbout the nuclear waste site signage - I believe that it is not meant to be written only in English. From what I remember, the govt has sought ways to describe the dangers in other universal ways that would endure longer than the English language.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually pretty awesome:
ReplyDeleteA series of tall enduring monuments about 25 feet high would be placed along the site’s perimeter as well as on and near the mountain’s crest. They would be designed to be noticed and to endure natural events, even water from future floods or the build-up of sand dunes deposited by wind. The warning messages on the monuments would be inscribed in several languages as well as pictures and symbols. The languages that would be used are the six official languages of the United Nations: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. The messages may also be displayed in some simplified form of the sign language used by the hearing impaired. Linguists have recommended that a variety of picture symbols be used, including perhaps a unique international symbol for “nuclear waste repository.”
Check out: www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0115.shtml
January 14, 2008
ReplyDeleteAre we being jerked around, or are we being jerked around? The so-called "Filipino Monkey" has previously broken in on military frequencies with foul and threatening language, but our military, the greatest military in the world, is not able to pinpoint the source of these transmissions. Now, if a private citizen in the USA were to utter a vague, alleged hope that one of our government's leaders were to come to harm, several branches of the USA government would be on him like stink on shit. Or so they say. After the Cole incident, how does our military explain doing nothing about the recent, alleged threats to our ships by high speed boats? Whose video tells the truth? We're being jerked around. That's the answer. If Bush and his war-criminal buddies thought they could get away with another Gulf of Tonkin Incident, they would have attacked Iran by yesterday. So, what's the in-between they're getting when they can't get away with making another illegal war? The Bush administration has our citizenry scared shitless (thank you, Ari Fleisher) that we had better be careful what we say (and think and whisper), but the alleged Filipino Monkey gets to harrass our Navy ships all he wants, and our military and all the hi-priced spooks in the world, and all our allies, can't find the Filipino Monkey! Don't we know George W. Bush will never have to look back when he steals away with his retirement and benefits, because our military intelligence can't even find the Filipino Monkey, who keeps transmitting and asking to be found. Can I get a WITness?
Okay, those signs are pretty cute. Still, if I were an uneducated prospector or grave robber of the future, they would make me want to dig there. This possibility is even more plausible if the nation state fails to persist. They need a thousand wordless comic strips etched in every brick.
ReplyDeletepanel 1:
some guy finds the site
panel 2:
he digs a hole
panel 3:
a bunch of dots come out of the hole and spread our over the guy, turning him into a skeleton.
panel 4:
dots spread over surrounding mountains
panel 5:
a pile of bodies
you get the picture.