Comments | madman101: Island-hopping

madman101

Island-hopping - Kuribati !!!

Aug 11, 2013 12:40

When the Gilbert Islands of the South Pacific were establishing independence, they wanted to include some other nearby islands as members in their new country. So, they decided not to call the whole group of islands the "Gilberts," just to be fair to those other islands. So, they chose the name, "Kiribati." What does this name mean? Nothing. ( Read more... )

adams - scott, island-hopping, religion - gone wild, islands - christmas island, environ - climate change/warming -island, crazy people - in general, all * climate change, history - south pacific, weird news / strange news, countries - kiribati, privatisation - damaging consequences of

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eviltracey August 11 2013, 20:35:28 UTC

If Scott Adams hadn't turned wingnut, I'd send him this story as an example of "True Tales of Induhviduals."

The scary thing about this story is that the family wants to try again.

Induh.... madman101 August 11 2013, 21:40:42 UTC

I'm glad you followed the link and read the story - it is weirdly interesting, coming out of nowhere... (and into the wild...)

The main thing is that they were so full of religion that they didn't bother learning about navigation, ha ha.

I really love stories about being adrift at sea but this one is so quirky funny... I don't wanna say "tragic", but something..

I never got into Scott Adams but it seems he had a subtle satire style which I could appreciate... "Confusopoly", "The Religion Wars..."

Re: Induh.... eviltracey August 12 2013, 03:56:21 UTC

The story made me think of this Harrison Ford movie where the father goes batshit crazy and moves his family to the jungle so as to get them away from the corrupting influence of Western culture. Things kind of went pear-shaped from there.

There was another story that I heard about which concerned a family that wanted to have an "authentic" seagoing experience and hopped into a sailboat (off Africa, I think). Unfortunately, they ran into pirates.

Re: Induh.... madman101 August 12 2013, 21:02:47 UTC

You know, both of these seem familiar to me - but I'm not sure. If you ever have the titles of these, I would like to look them up and find out more.

Re: Induh.... eviltracey August 13 2013, 03:16:49 UTC

The Harrison Ford movie was The Mosquito Coast, adapted from a book by Paul Theroux.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091557/

(I don't think his character was a religious wingnut, but people can be wingnutty over things other than religion.)

The story about the family whose sailing trip was cut short by pirates was mentioned in Andrew Potter's book The Authenticity Hoax (here's a review mentioning said story: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/04/14/how-did-authenticity-become-the-hot-new-status-symbol/).

Andrew Potter's web site:

http://authenticityhoax.squarespace.com/about-the-book/

Re: Induh.... madman101 August 13 2013, 03:50:07 UTC

Oh - of course - the Mosquito Coast! I never saw that but it was also a very popular book, as you know. Of maybe I did see it - my mind is a mess.

Thank you! I will check these out later, as I really need to drop like a stone now, Geronimo.

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