Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Josquius]

I have a 1901 school geography textbook with a lot of stuff like that in it. Here's what it has to say on the Danes :

"The Danes, like the Norwegians and Swedes, belong to the Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic race. They are yellow-haired, blue-eyed, and of middling stature. They are very independent in feeling and manners; well educated, and of a "surprising gaiety." They are also, with the Swiss, the most thrifty people in Europe."

The book is nearly 600 pages long and is full of similar gems 

"Thrifty" is just about the highest compliment in the book. The only thing better is to be considered on a par with the English/British.

I need this book. It sounds wonderful.

Midling stature? Were early 1900s English people taller then now, or were Nordic people shorter? Because they be giants now.

They are?
In my experience Scandinavians are pretty similar in stature to Brits.
For giants go to holland.

[The Larch]

I also have some old textbooks, mostly from the early XXth century, and perusing them is certainly a blast, particulary the ones about geography and history. Also, seeing the Ottoman Empire being refered to in the present will never cease to puzzle me. 

[DGuller]

Back in Ukraine, I was taking a geography class in school, but we had to find our own maps, and back then and in Ukraine that was not so simple.  My grandmother offered me her maps from her school days.  I remember liking those maps a lot more than the others, because Ukraine had a much more simple geometric shape to it.  Those maps were from 1930ies.

[HVC]

Midling stature? Were early 1900s English people taller then now, or were Nordic people shorter? Because they be giants now.

They are?
In my experience Scandinavians are pretty similar in stature to Brits.
For giants go to holland.

Only scandies I've met have been tall. Not as tall as the Dutch freaks I've met, but still . Although my sample size isn't that large.

[The Larch]

The scandies I've met haven't been of the huge variety. Now, the Balkans, that is a land of giants.

[HVC]

I've worked with 20 or so Albanians. Either over 6' or under 5'5, skewing about 60 % to the tall side. People of extremes lol.

[grumbler]

I also have some old textbooks, mostly from the early XXth century, and perusing them is certainly a blast, particulary the ones about geography and history. Also, seeing the Ottoman Empire being refered to in the present will never cease to puzzle me. 

I had an even more amusing time when, ion the late 1990s, I had a middle school (12-year-olds) class prepare an imaginary court case to try Lee Harvey Oswald.  We assumed that he had not been killed by Jack Ruby.  The whole idea was to teach them how to do research, how to prepare arguments, etc.

So, this being pre-Wikipedia, we went to the library to start out with the encyclopedia to give us a sense of where to research.  Alas, this merely confused my students, since, in the encyclopedia the library had, JFK was still the president!

[Syt]

Sorry for bringing this thread briefly back on topic.

[HVC]

Nice that the included Jews as white people. Very progressive of them.

[grumbler]

The problem with lists like the "White Supremacy" one is that nearly every person in the world has at least one warning sign of "white supremacy."  If you don't have "no criminal record" then you surely have "distrusts the government."

[viper37]

We definitely don't have the same food, either in supermarkets or in restaurants.

Taste is relative, and one is always going to prefer the food they grew up with, but to say NA = EU when it comes to food access, quality or variety is simply wrong.

How do you rate Quebec vs France vs BC on this?

[viper37]

The problem with lists like the "White Supremacy" one is that nearly every person in the world has at least one warning sign of "white supremacy."  If you don't have "no criminal record" then you surely have "distrusts the government."

1,2,5,6,7,8.  I fit the bill!

[Eddie Teach]

Nice that the included Jews as white people. Very progressive of them.

And Buddhists, Hindus, Satanists... pretty much all non-Muslim religions. 

[Razgovory]

Sorry for bringing this thread briefly back on topic.

Why show Jerry?  He doesn't have a job, and likes the government.

[Admiral Yi]

Nice that the included Jews as white people. Very progressive of them.

I noticed that too.