I’ve had a pretty productive day on a number of levels. That number is three and the levels are job searching, application writing, and perfect sentence drafting. But something has been bothering me like a wet ear I can’t itch because I’m carrying a laundry basket downstairs.

Let’s look at this map, which you may recognize as the world. Now let’s take a minute. How many major land masses would you say there are? For your convenience, I have labeled them. Six. There are six continents. And there is one culprit, five and a half Alaska’s large, hogging an entire continental status: Europe. And it’s not just a continent, it’s widely known as The Continent. Friend and I have worked out some theories that may explain how an Asian peninsula claimed a spot on this usually exclusive list.

First, there is a geographic boundary, the Ural mountain range. It is a relatively puny chain, barely breaking into the Big 10.

Second, it could be considered separate from Asia by population number. In that case, India should certainly be raised from the teasing, patronizing even, position of “sub-continent”, being as it boasts the worlds 2^nd largest population at 1.1 billion souls, and is separated from the rest of Asia by the Himalaya’s, earth’s 3^rd largest range.

Lastly we have distinction based on cultural factors, which Friend and I both agree is the most likely case.

Yes, what we have here is a case of pure Eurocentrism. I see it now: Amerigo Vespucci perched haughtily over a cartographer's easel in 15^th century Florence; baker's hat firmly on head, head firmly in butt. “Well,” he’s saying to himself, “though there does seem to be a modicum of geographic connection between ourselves and the Orientals, I really don’t think that Europe, as the world’s shining light of Christianity and civilization, can really consider itself to be a part of Asia. Hmmmm, let’s see. Ah Ha! A mountain range! That will serve nicely”. Here he hastily sketches a dotted line, flourishes his child-labor-made robes, and calls it a day. Very shrewd, Amerigo, very shrewd indeed.

You may be used to this blog posting whimsical, perhaps even, dare I say?, yea!, spurious!, accounts of the author’s personal life. Well, my faithful reader, your host is no longer taking the easy way out; the new subject of this blog is going to be the hard-hitting world of commonly held geographic delineations, and the insults to common sense found therein!