I laughed out loud when I saw it, the floor of shiny Baker 2.0 ' Lake Iraq' the Persian Gulf extending from the Indian Ocean to Jordanian and Syrian borders. In 2007, this geographic misidentification of Iraq could not be more significant.
An institution of higher education in the most developed, economically booming country in the history of humankind cannot properly identify a country where its country has sent 140,000 soldiers (not troops, which is a group of soldiers), invested 3,000 American lives and is forever stained with the deaths of unknown hundreds of thousands of Iraqi sons and daughters.
I don't hate you, architect. I don't blame you, mason who is not proficient in geography. I blame the educational system overly focused on math and science needed to develop trinkets to keep American economy booming. The system glossing over civics, clarity, logic, reason, debate, civility and decency. And geography too, obviously.
Preserve this blunder! Architect, this was the flare needed at Baker 2.0! The Athens magic, only found at 39 N, 82 W, Athens, U.S.A.; a tiny microcosm of our great nation.
This magnificent oops will wow my grandchild on his campus visit fifty years from now. My grandchild who paid attention to his history lessons.
For once, I find pride in a botched job of my alma mater. However, if you decide to fix Lake Iraq, make sure your Sharpie marker is red.Roger Anderson is a graduate student in the Department of Modern Languages.
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Letter to the Editor
