While trying to figure out why our troops are in Saudi Arabia recently, I looked up the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia-Iraq area in my 1966 atlas. I found two large areas along the border called “neutral zones.” What does this term mean? Do Romulans live there? Do the zones have any relevance to the current conflict? –D. Davis, Chicago
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Time to get a new atlas, sport. One of the neutral zones was divvied up in 1969 between the countries adjoining it, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But the other one, between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, is still there. I notice the CNN weather-droids mention it with the same matter-of-fact tone they use to refer to Cleveland, as though you actually have some clue what they’re talking about. Unless you’re the kind of person who knows that before 1932 Saudi Arabia was called “the Kingdom of the Hijaz and of the Nejd and its Dependencies” (I knew, of course), ’tain’t likely.
The British weren’t about to put up with that kind of bush-league attitude and insisted on fixed boundaries or else, their main concern being simplicity of administration. This led to considerable wrangling with the Arab leaders, since almost any boundary was likely to cut some tribe off from its traditional grazing lands or water sources. Another problem was that some of the nomads were fickle and quarrelsome. Once the borders were firmed up, any vengeful excursion across national frontiers might well be regarded as an act of war.
This is how we sixth-grade wisenheimers in Dallas public school got around the “antisquirt groove” in Halsey Taylor water fountains [December 21]. We just stretched the skin between thumb and forefinger flat and slipped it in the groove. Squirt-a-rama! –Jim Thompson, Dallas
