Drawing your own maps
by digby
Wait what???
A group of local politicians in New Jersey would like to rewrite maps of Asia.
On Monday, five New Jersey Democrats introduced a bill that would rename the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula.
Currently, the sea is known as the Sea of Japan. But, according to the Star-Ledger newspaper, the bill would require "the state and all its political subdivisions, 'to the extent practicable'" to refer to the body of water as both the "East Sea" and the "Sea of Japan." Textbooks in New Jersey schools would have to adopt the new names starting in 2016.
Okaaay. Apparently, this does have a political rationale. These politicians represent a large Korean constituency and there is a beef between Koreans and Japanese people over this body of water.But come on. Simply changing the name in New Jersey textbooks won't actually resolve the dispute, now will it?
Our culture is devolving in ways that are really, really dumb. And while the wingnuts are leading the way with their antediluvian attitudes, I don't think we can let our brethren on the left off the hook either. We're placing an awful lot of faith in the fluidity of various forms of identity to solve deeper problems it just can't solve. Not that people shouldn't be allowed to identify however they choose --- I'm a big believer in letting people decide all that for themselves. But it's a first step, at best.
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