The Explorers Club
No. LXXI - The Great Rift Valley.








And as long as we're taking a closer look at Africa...

Who Used To Own It? - Round Five
Round Four Answers
1) Zimbabwe - Great Britain
2) Morocco - France
3) Togo - Germany
4) Rwanda - Germany
5) Ghana - Great Britain
6) The Congo - France
7) Benin - France

Round Four Scoring
Dr. Hee Haw 4/7 = 57%
Skeeter 3/7 = 43%
K. Steeze 1/7 = 14%

Round Four saw the first drop in the popularity of Who Used To Own It?, but I would be remiss if I did not welcome our newest player, and the first from the medical community, the prestigious Dr. Hee Haw. Welcome aboard, Doc! And I am all the more grateful to our returning contestants for their dogged loyalty. Skeeter has now tied The Guy as Who Used To Own It?'s most frequent participant. Woot!

And speaking of Skeeter, she remarked that Round Four was particularly difficult. One reason for this is almost certainly that I am quickly running the gamut of the African continent, and as I am subject to all the follies and foibles of any man those countries with which we are all most familiar were spotlighted first: Egypt, Algeria, and the D.R. Congo (formerly Zaire, formerly the Belgian Congo) were all queries way back in Round One. But at least from where I sit the difficulty of Who Used To Own It? is at least three-fifths of the fun. What most Americans know about European colonization of Africa in the decades before the unspeakable horror of the Great War wouldn't fill a complete sentence, much less five rounds of Who Used To Own It? You are among the elite, of that have no doubt.

Round Five
And with that, best of luck to you all in Round Five!

1) Western Sahara

2) Lesotho

3) Eritrea

4) Burundi

5) Djibouti

6) Central African Republic*

Tricky
7) Liberia

*This has naught to do with Who Used To Own It?, but in the wacky 1970s the C.A.R. briefly was known as the Central African Empire. Jumpin' Jack Pratt, history is more fun than a barrel of monkeys!

The Wild Sea
The Arctic Ocean and the southern seas of the Antarctic should not be traveled lightly; so, though I generally favor freedom of navigation, I think some measure of regulation and/or restriction by the appropriate maritime authorities would be a capital idea: sealink. The waters at the top and bottom of the world pose challenges and dangers distinct from the usual rigors of the sea. It's common sense, people.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Hackensack" from Welcome Interstate Managers (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Saturday night, out of the clear blue sky, I saw a whole slew of Grand Blanc people, at least one of whom I had not seen in, literally, a decade. I had a grand time, but am now understandably pensive, dwelling wistfully upon those halcyon days of yesteryear. And what better song for such a humor than "Hackensack," I ask you.

"But I will wait for you,
As long as I need to.
And if you ever get back to Hackensack,
I'll be here for you."