IELTS, ESP, EAP and CALL

This sounds really intruging to me; I have heard of astroarchiology before in the aplication of finding undiscovered large objects (cities, towns sttlements) by using satellites to map deviations in teh earths surface accurately enough to distingush structures like a building foundation. I just find this sort of thing fascinating. I am still in awe that this dort of thing is possible.

Neil MacGregor, the Director of the British Museum, explains Middle Eastern history using the Cyrus Cylinder.  His first point in this TED talk is especially interesting because he explains that people age and perish and objects do the same, but objects such as this cylinder survive and are able to tell important stories of history for a much longer time than people normally can.

A meeting of different worlds at a border. I can't imagine the things one would see or hear living or growing up on a border of conflict such as this. Refugees are a common site, and no authority can dominate the others, making the area effectively lawless.

This note talk about the place in the desert where three hostile countries confront each other on the infinite war.

(Africa topic 2)

Asking what lies within a name is more of a subjective question than it is objective. Yes, all names have some sort of meaning or origin behind them, but it isn't always relevant. I doubt that my friends really ever wonder why my last name is Hobson; they just use it to refer to and identify me. On the other hand, a genealogist might take great interest. Similarly, it seems as if the dispute of regional names, such as Israel and Palestine, has a similar contradiction: some just want to refer to the region in the easiest, most familiar way possible, while others take it directly to heart. Perhaps more of a distinction should be made between physical and political naming conventions. An example would be classifying Israel and Palestine to both be in the physical region of Palestine, whereas certain areas (which are still being debated) should be referred to as Israel when speaking politically.

While this comic is clearly done in jest it really highlights the importance a name holds to people. Their are some issues which heavily divide people, in this case the tensions between Israel and Palestine and lead to the formation of very strong opinions. With these opinions come the aspect of properly assigning a title to them. In some cases the same thing is known by many names and is highly contested.