Those who read my posts know I sometimes drift a bit and write on ‘random’ topics, and today is one of them.
~ Highways and Byways ~
When I was in high school a math teacher told the class that the Interstate numbering system was geographically organized, i.e., Interstate 90 for example meant that approximately 90% of the geographic land mass of the continental United States was south of the highway and 10% was north of it. The same held true of the north-south interstates, e.g., that I-25 divided the country with 25% of the country being east of the interstate and 75% of the country being to the west.
In retrospect, my guess is my math teacher wanted to appear more knowledgeable or worldly in the eyes of his students because he was dead wrong. While the geographic argument made some sense, whenever I traveled on an Interstate for the first time my mind’s eye always saw a map of the U.S.
Meanwhile, I was disabused of that notion when I researched the matter myself and realized my teacher had pass along an arbitrary construct invented to make the numbering feel more intuitive than it actually is.
When the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, passed engineers created a directional grid: even numbers for east–west routes (increasing northward) and odd numbers for north–south routes (increasing eastward). The goal was clarity and scalability—not mathematical precision tied to land area.
The “90% of the land is south of Interstate 90” notion likely emerged as a kind of pattern-seeking shorthand with higher numbers farther north or east and then mis-interpreted into a percentage-based system. It’s similar to other highway myths—like assuming route numbers encode mileage or exact spacing—I guess the human brain prefers tidy, quantitative explanations.
The reality is that the system was intentionally ordinal, not proportional and the “geographic mass” idea was simply artificial interpretation meant to impose a level of precision the system was never meant to have.
~ Soda, Pop, or Coke ~
A hurricane. a cyclone and a typhoon are the same type of storm; the difference is simply the name used in different parts of the world. Both are tropical cyclones—large, rotating storm systems that form over warm ocean waters and are characterized by a low-pressure center, powerful winds, heavy rain, and thunderstorms.
When these storms develop in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, or the northeastern Pacific Ocean east of the International Date Line, they are called hurricanes. When they form in the Indian Ocean or the South Pacific Ocean, including areas near India, Bangladesh, Madagascar, and Australia, they are called cyclones.
The same type of storm that develops in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, affecting countries such as Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, China, and Vietnam, is known as a typhoon.
The different names are the result of historical and regional weather conventions rather than any difference in the storms themselves. Regardless of whether a storm is called a hurricane, cyclone, or typhoon, it develops in the same way, drawing its energy from warm ocean water and producing powerful winds, torrential rain, storm surges, and flooding.
In short, a hurricane, cyclone, and typhoon are all the same meteorological phenomenon—the name simply depends on the region of the world in which the storm occurs. The only notable physical difference is that storms rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere because of the Coriolis effect. Otherwise, they form, strengthen, and behave in essentially the same way—rather like the regional differences between calling a soft drink “soda,” “pop,” or “coke.
~ Rearranging the Furniture ~
Ever since our travels to Africa my wife Bobbi has objected to the term African American because this politically correct term was confusing, and who can disagree? And in one of his routines, Carlin parodied that notion explaining that Africa is a continent, not a country, and it contains dozens of nations, cultures, and ethnicities. An immigrant from Egypt, Morocco, or South Africa is technically African. So, if an Egyptian becomes an American citizen, is he an African American?
At the same time, my cardiologist is Caucasian, Jewish and was born in Zambia, so, is he African American? What about a black person born in South Africa who becomes an American citizen, is he an African American or is he a South African American or is he simply a South African American, African American? Labels begin to wobble when not applied consistently.
Carlin once said he prefers the term black people over people of color. His reasoning? If you’re unwilling to call white people “people of no color,” then perhaps the phrase isn’t as logical as it first appears. After all, who among us is actually white? Most white people are varying shades of beige, pink, tan, and olive. And black people? They come in a wide range of browns, from very light to very dark. In fact, some light-skinned black people are lighter than some dark-skinned white people. So, if we’re being literal, we’re all people of color. Some of us simply have different crayons in the box.
The larger point here is whenever we invent new terms, we should do so to make things clearer, not to make them politically correct and more confusing. Sometimes the simplest description is the most accurate. Sometimes it isn’t. But it’s worth asking whether labels illuminate reality or merely rearrange the furniture.
Quote of the day: “The word ‘racism’ is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything – and demanding evidence makes you a ‘racist.’” – Thomas Sowell