History of the Middle East in 90 seconds

[Joeaksa]

Well worth the watch. Shows the various countries who have been involved in the Middle East in the last 2000 years.

http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/EMPIRE17.swf

[Hugh R]

Interesting, its probably impossible to name a "country" where the original residents still possess it, anywhere.

[MRM]

Oops. Double post.

[MRM]

Originally posted by MRM
This is very true and lead to a hillarious exchange at one of the last family holiday gatherings I ever went to (or will ever go to).

One branch of my family is fairly fascist-oriented and grasps at conspiracy theories to explain their lack of financial success, despite incredible hard work as farmers. They are otherwise wonderful people and will give you the shirt off their back, but they just have never figured out that they are poor because they are farmers with too small of a farm with too high of a debt load and their product that is a comodity that will always be purchased from the lowest priced seller, not because there is an international conspiracy of dark skinned people aimed at them personally.

Anyway, my wife is from China, has an MBA. She is in all honesty brilliant and has been fairly successful. We have two wonderful children who are recognized by the fascists as being practically as good as white kids. In my will I actually have a provision saying that if my wife and I die before the kids are adults, that their guardian is supposed to keep them away from that branch of the family. I simply don't trust them around my kids if I'm not there to look out for them, but I digress.

So one Thanksgiving, Uncle 1 was talking to Uncle 2 about the sad state of the country and how new immigrants were sucking up all the resources when my wife walked by. Now understand, she doesn't make so much, but between the two uncles, she paid more in taxes last year than the two of them showed as income in many years. One of them eventually lost what was my father's family farm because he was so far in debt, so it's not a matter of my wife making tons of money, they just don't make enough to pay taxes.

Uncle 1 sees my wife walk by as he is expounding and glances and then passes his gaze over to me. Both recognize the incongruity of the situation and Uncle 1 tried to clarify his previous statement by saying that he doesn't have anything against new immigrants per se, it's just that the people who came later are ruining it for the people who were here first and built the country. He looked directly at me for approval.

I looked at him as blankly as I could and said "You mean the Indians?"

The looks on his face as he processed that question was priceless. Eventually the only thing he could come up with was "You know what I mean."

Yes I did.