Turkmenistan, home to one of the worlds' craziest leaders (who tried to rename the months of the year, has eliminated hospitals and libraries outside of the capital, who spends a lot on gold statues of himself, and who got rid of national parks) wants a piece of the tourist pie. The country is planning on building a tourist resort in Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea. All this comes under the country's new slogan, "A new era, a new Turkmenistan."
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As is usually the case with Matt Rosenberg, he got it wrong about Turkmenistan’s ruler. True, the country was ruled by one of the weirdest and most megamaniacal dictators of all time, but he died last December. Since then, the country has been ruled by a much more modest dictator named Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow.
Don’t trust anything you read by Matt Rosenberg — he’s not a real geographer (he only has a Master’s in Geography, which my mother could do) and he has a pretty obvious agenda.
yeah, I’m getting tired of this mail I get weekly. It’s very dull. And impossible to give suggestions, for example, last month a huge lake disappeared in southern chile, and the page said nothing about it… sucks.
Whatever. But what would Mr. Rosenberg’s agenda be?
Bring the communists back. The women had a great life, everybody was happy, no fanatic muslims allowed, wonderful. The USA has got it all wrong
I like the column, every week I learn something and find something to research.
If we’re researching geographical information to prove Mr. Rosenberg wrong (or right), the site has served its function. I wouldn’t expect to agree with everything I find on any site I read.
To echo Amanda’s question: Jay, what do you think Matt’s agenda is? I’m not being confrontational, I’m being curious.
Diego could just unsubscribe.
Jay, you said that even your mother could do a Masters in geography. Are you saying that because she is a woman, and older, her intellectual capability is more limited than yours? That was either ill-thought-out or deliberately insulting, and neither is acceptable.
And yes, do tell us what Matt Rosenberg’s obvious agenda is.
please dont divert the purpose of this column, if youre not interested, then leave this one for us who always read his column.and as what the old saying goes” you cant put a good man down”.keep it up matt!
as fro my comment on the topic, i think its great thing to know the govt of Turmenistan has made plans of boosting their tourist sector, eventhough majority of the country is desert, i believe Turmenistan has the potential.Looking forward for teh developments!=)
Above all I think Matt is a well intentioned Geographer.Of course,not everyone has to agree with him en every subject or comment he writes about.
what do you suggest his agenda is?
I would like pictures.
I’m happy about the info.. and then really happy about the update.. in the comment
Jay- What’s a “real” geographer? I’m so sorry that I don’t meet your qualifications.
Diego- My email address is all over the place; just click my photo or even hit reply to the newsletter you find so very boring each week. I would love your suggestions as I can not possibly keep up with every piece of geographic news on the planet.
I always enjoy receiving this column each week. I always learn something new. I especially like the quizzes. Too bad more Americans don’t have the interest in this. After travelling across the country and abroad, I am always dumbfounded by our fellow citizens’ collective ignorance of the rest of the world and even of our own fifty states and a few possessions.
I enjoy receiving this column, it updates me on what is happening to the world whether you’ll believe it or not.
When you discuss the science of geography, you can be either completely clear (but leave out some details, some exceptions, and thus sacrifice some truth), or you can be completely truthful (and lose some of audience in the details).
Complete truth in the science of geography requires one to communicate in academic language and to assume levels of knowledge of the audience that it would have taken years to acquire.
Complete clarity in geographic communications to the public requires one leave some things out that would cause an academic audience to cringe.
Complete truth or complete clarity. Pick one. You can’t pick both. As geographers, we are trained to pick truth. This loses our public geography audience. It also scares the public audience.
Matt, keep up the good work of writing a column for the public audience and leave the hard-core science to sites dedicated to the needs of professional geographers, like Jay Grill.
Matt, I look forward to your newsletter every week. Geography is an interest of mine, and your columns help fulfill it. Keep up the good work!