Welcome to Turabia

Posted by admin on Nov 24, 2005 in Academy | 0 comments

Since the advent of the “Turabian” style of document formatting in 1969, there have been myriad questions as to the origin of its style, which is very similar to the Chicago documentation style. In fact, some books and peer-reviewed web pages refer to them as the same. However, there has not been a definitive answer until recently. With the declassification of documents released under the freedom of information clause in the Constitution of the United States, new information has become available.

It has long been known that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), created by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 with the signing of the National Security Act, has had classified overseas involvement with the liberation and protection of small countries since the Cold War and beyond. Recently, case ANSI Z39.48-1992 has become a landmark in the case secrecy. This case, from here on referred to as Turabia, is fraught with discrepancy and suspicion resulting in the release of information that in fact the CIA has been in control and covering up the existence of a small country between Saudi Arabia and known terrorist haven Yemen, named Turabia.

As already mentioned, the name “Turabia” is the name of the documentation style used at many undergraduate and graduate level education institutions. A possible explanation for the name comes from the author of the Turabian style, Kate L. Turabian. This is a direct parallel to Katherine Lynch, who was the first CIA agent to venture into the country Turabia. Experts, speaking on condition of anonymity, have confessed that the most likely reason for the introduction of the name “Turabian” into scholarly circles through a documentation style is a CIA tactic. This tactic allows any careless mention of “Turabia” (the country) to be interpreted as a “mis-speak” of the speaker and leads to the assumption that the speaker was simply referring to the documentation style “Turabia.”

The existence of this country, although implied in document ANSI Z39.48-1992, is still doubted by many, since the Director of the CIA Porter J. Goss denied any and all knowledge, although notably not the existence, of the nation-state. He asserted that it was a misunderstanding of some sort; however, Director Goss is no longer the Director of the CIA and has not made further comments. Attempts to contact the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vice Admiral Albert M. Calland III, USN, have been unsuccessful.

The Director and Deputy Director’s failure to explain the absence of any trace of Turabia on world maps is notable. Additionally, many pundits have wondered why, if Turabia is real, have officials failed to open Turabia’s borders to the international community, although many acknowledge danger from the unstable government of neighboring Yemen is doubtlessly a contributing factor.