My last post was about internet censorship. Of the different flavors the most annoying in my opinion is the lack of pictures on wikipedia (it's also the most telling in terms of gauging government paranoia). Facebook you can get used to not having, youtube as well but wikipedia without the pictures is sort of a tease. There are certain articles I've read time and again for the feelings they evoke beyond the basic knowledge they provide. For instance, the “blue riband” was award given to the fastest Atlantic crossing from the beginning of the steamship era up until the early 1960s. Traveling through time perusing the histories of the Mauretania, the Rex and the SS France isn't possible when you can't see their grand staircases, giant boilers or stately silhouettes. When I was still doing the teaching one subject I hit upon was the British Empire (which seemed appropriate given that it's the reason they're learning English). Wikipedia has a great graphic which shows the growth and decline of the British Empire. You can't see that here so they'll never know. And then the infamous picture of “Harvard University” they have on the third floor. Really it's a picture of the White House. Something tells me that if Google images wasn't difficult to access and Wikipedia had pictures SOMEWHERE along the line somebody would have figured out that what they have there isn't a picture of Harvard University.  

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