Worth the read: Upside-down maps; Russian spy stories; Presidential election thoughts; and Canadian ghoulies & ghosties

Just a short post tonight, to highlight some remarkable articles published recently. 

First up, look at this "corrective map" of the world: 

It is one of the fascinating maps from this great article at Everything is Amazing by Mike Snowden Why All Our Maps Are The Wrong Way Round Head-spinning lessons from rebellious cartography. 

Snowden concludes:

....Is it fair for any country to be geographically regarded as “the lowest of the low,” as Chile, Argentina and Australia are? How would a south-upwards map of the “bottom half” of the world change the way we treat each other and see ourselves?

Or we could just throw all caution to the wind, as Melbourne University student Stuart McArthur did, and turn the whole damn thing upside-down for good:

(This map [shown above] launched on Australia Day in 1979, has now sold over 350,000 copies.)

However you choose to see the world, never forget that it’s a choice. Maybe not exactly yours, for practical reasons, but certainly someone’s, at some point in time.

And if that’s true, what other elements of our “basic common sense” views of the world are up for grabs, if we choose to look at them a bit differently? It might be fun to find out.

At Bug Eyed and Shameless, Justin Ling writes So You've Become a Russian Asset I testify on the nature of Kremlin info-ops. Things get weird. He talks about some of the great gossipy history and recent revelations of Russian influence in media reporting, and concludes:

...In the same way that we ought to proactively disclose evidence of foreign influence operations here, we need to be careful not to make hasty and rash allegations based on insufficient evidence. In all cases, we should let the evidence to do the talking, or else we’ll wind up shadowboxing, growing more distrustful and paranoid. Then, we’ll be doing our adversaries’ work for them.

Yes, some instances of foreign meddling involve million-dollar payments and a clear paper trail. But lots of clandestine work falls into a gray zone.

At Scrimshaw Unscripted, Evan Scrimshaw writes US #ScrimshawSix, One Week Out On The Presidential Election And Other Races  He concludes:

...it is absolutely the case that Trump is a threat to democracy and is an absolute lunatic. We can’t become complacent or start failing to understand just how terrible he is. He is not just a run of the mill far right politician. He is a genuine threat to the Republic and lord knows he must not win. Please don’t fuck this up.

Finally, at Canadian History Ehx, in tribute to Halloween, historian Craig Baird is publishing articles about Canadian ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. Check out all his pieces including The Haunted Galt Museum, The Screaming Tunnel, The Coffin Surfing Ghost, and The Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes.