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I love maps, which is why the September 4 UN resolution recommending (not mandating) use of the Equal Earth projection fascinates me.
Excuse me while I quote from The Well-Trained Mind:
"History and geography fall naturally together; every time you study an event or person, you'll want to look up the location on the globe, the wall map, and in the atlas (which will give you not only political borders but also a brief history of the region). NOTE: Don't neglect the use of a globe--all wall maps and atlases distort land masses by laying them out flat."
The Mercator projection that we all grew up with (and which was originally meant for seafaring navigators) does indeed distort northern land masses ENORMOUSLY. The attached graphic shows the difference between the Equal Earth projection (red, much closer to a global representation) and the traditional Mercator projection, which makes Greenland, Alaska, Canada, and Russia in particular seem much larger than they actually are.
We should all try to have an accurate understanding of the world, which is why I find it so mind-boggling that the United States was the single "nay" vote at the UN (there were 164 "ayes") endorsing the resolution. Apparently, as a country, we believe that a more realistic map is a "radical ideological project."
Well, some of us would just like a more realistic map.
Have a look at the United Nations report, and also at this excellent take on maps other than Equal Earth that try to correct the Mercator distortions.
futuremaps.com/blogs/news/top-10-world-map-projections
news.un.org/en/story/2026/09/1168284
10 hours ago
This one has been my personal favorite for many years. No flat map of the earth will ever be completely accurate, but it works pretty well for what I want out of it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_eumorphic_projection
Whoever was responsible for dictating how the US voted did NOT take Mrs. Smithfield's Earth science class wherein we discussed at great length how one can never accurately render a 3D object onto a 2D surface. <ahem> LOL (That said, there is a very sophisticated 2D projection that comes really close to getting the landmass sizes correct, but it's also all "chopped" to bits and could never really be used for things like navigation.)
When I was kid my mom had a map with the orange peel cutouts at the top and bottom. This made for a lovely discussion about trying put something round on a flat surface.
Ukraine voted no because UN decided to separate Crimea from Ukraine on the map, even though other countries occupied by russia like Moldova and Georgia are shown as whole. This is what you get when you have terrorist regimes with voting power in UN.
Wait….wutt???? Are you saying the light red representations are the accurate sizes?
I first learned about this from a West Wing episode, but what surprises me now is how long more accurate (or at least equally valid alternatives) have been around without making much of a dent. Many of the ones listed in the first link have origins in the 1800s.
Fascinating. I'd rather see true representations.
I would support this. It should be clearly taught when used as a tool that equal earth maps would be better for depiction of land mass, population, epidemiology etc. Once the discussion is about navigation though, we'll br back to Mercator.
This kerfuffle is weird to me because I've not ever seen Mercator as standard. Lots of books and wall posters have different projections. Whatever is on my wall is neither of these.
This is super cool. My one observation? When driving north to Alaska, Canada does feel as big as the old maps showed... :). More to explore!!
Brilliant graphic - thank you. Tried looking at images side by side but this is so directly illuminating. And showing so clearly the comparative sizes of Britain and India - which you know from history and literature but not from the underlying memory of the Mercator maps you grow up with.
The UN resolution described correcting map distortions as an issue of “cognitive justice and memorial reparation.” Their words. I thought the US representative was pretty clear that the US didn’t object to the map itself. The objection was to the ideological baggage attached to it. Why can’t the UN just say, “This map represents land area more accurately. Let’s use it”? Mercator had a purpose, and it has flaws. New maps have different strengths. Fine. But apparently we have to turn a mathematical limitation into a historical grievance and attach “reparation” language to it. Who comes up with this stuff? It seems so unnecessarily childish. Anyway, we can use the better maps without the UN telling us to. 🙂 i do love the map you posted!
Wow, crazy difference. Buy a globe!
Good call about the use of a globe. All flat maps of the Earth's surface are lies; either the shape of the continent is distorted, or the size of the continent. You kind of have to pick your poison, and a competent geography teacher will point this out—perhaps while mentioning that some are concerned about "cognitive justice and memorial reparation," sure, but Mercator was just interested in parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude crossing as perpendiculars—just as they do on the surface of the globe!
Thank you for this. I love maps too, and the way they inform our story of how all the people of Earth live together. Here are some that I've been creating to help with that, to see beyond just the simplistic story of nation states and so forth. BioregionalMaps.com
Please note that Russia and Canada are still the 2 biggest countries by land mass. The projections don't change that. 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
West Wing for liiiiife! But also, now maybe the Orange Man won’t get all grabby about Greenland anymore 😂🫣🙄
How interesting!
I love this visual! When I taught geography, I had an inflatable globe that was cut into pieces so the kids could see that it's impossible to create a flat map from a round thing without making some serious compromises in accuracy. I showed them several different projections and compared them to the globe so they would at least be aware of the distortions when consulting various maps. Long live education. 😂
Just buy a globe
This is a great map. Flat maps are always distorted no matter how hard we try. 😊
That’s crazy and really messes with my head. Alaska and Russia HAVE to be massive 😅
Oh my goodness!!!! I had NO IDEA!
Lots of commentary on this is getting a number of things wrong. stories.mappage.net.au/index.php/2026/09/09/mercator-a-bad-world-map-a-good-atlas/
Well, it's not in the interest of the MAGA Reality Distortion Field (TM) to portray Earth accurately in any capacity.
This happened right down the road from me. I know this gated community well.
I'm curious how other parents feel about this situation. Would love to hear your thoughts.
And not to sound too much like a GenX crank (although I guess I am), but when we were kids, we galloped our little feral ponies through miles and miles of countryside without any adult supervision at all. I would guess that the chances of encountering a pervert (either a stranger or a neighbor!) were about the same as young Sam's chances in his gated community.
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[Karyann Parkinson] was weeks away from giving birth to her fifth child when she took a walk with her son Sam through their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia....Sam, 5, zoomed ahead of her and back on his bike, with the goose feathers he likes to collect from the ponds’ edges sticking out of his backpack.
When they returned home that day on June 5, Sam wanted to go back out to look for more feathers...Parkinson, who has a bachelor’s degree in family science and graduated from William & Mary Law School in May, said she allowed her son to do the roughly half-mile walk by himself because she and her husband, Dallin, believe it’s important for children to “encounter reasonable risks, to do anything that they feel confident doing within safe parameters.” And Sam knows how to safely cross the street, get back home or ask a neighbor for help because she taught him, Parkinson said.
“I know what he’s capable of,” Parkinson said.
She said she started making lunch, and, after 20 to 30 minutes, there was a knock at the door. On the other side was Sam, visibly shaken, with a handful of feathers, she said. Behind him stood a security guard, who told her a neighbor saw her son outside alone and was so concerned they called security, she said.
Parkinson said she insisted her son was safe and had the right to walk through his neighborhood by himself. But the guard said she had broken the law and called the police, she said.
When asked for comment, the neighborhood security office referred The Post to the HOA, which could not be reached.
On June 18, about two weeks after police first arrived at Parkinson’s doorstep, they returned with a warrant for her arrest, she said. Parkinson was charged and convicted last month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to online court records...
Parkinson is appealing her conviction along with a substantiated finding against her by the James City County Department of Social Services, which has added her and Sam’s names to the Virginia Abuse and Neglect Registry, where they’ll remain for seven years, she said.
A representative of Child Protective Services in James City County, when reached by phone, declined to comment...
The family has visited the pond Sam walked to hundreds of times, Dallin Parkinson said, adding that he had no concerns with letting his son go to the body of water alone. He said his son, a competitive swimmer, was only allowed to visit the pond’s shallowest parts, so he was not worried about him drowning. In the unfortunate case that Sam fell in, it could be a learning opportunity for him, Dallin said.
“Sometimes life has hard things, and it’s okay for him to go through that,” Dallin said.
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Mother charged after 5-year-old walks to pond alone, stirring parenting debate
wapo.st
Her conviction in Virginia, for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, has sparked disagreement over how young is too young for children to walk alone.3 days ago
This is such over reach. I’m another grumpy genX who thrived on roaming freely. As a parent, I would not permit my 5YO to go to a pond alone— 5YOs don’t have a lot of executive function yet— but this isn’t a police matter. Mom knew about where the kid was, it wasn’t very far away, and I’m sure he’d have been checked on— this was not neglect. Even in the 70‘s we were told not to go to the pond to go fishing without an adult until we were at least 7-9 years old. However, no matter how innocent it sounds, collecting those feathers is actually a violation of federal law (Canada geese are covered by the MBTA, or migratory bird treaty act). It’s worth teaching your kid to leave them in place. I wouldn’t arrest a kid or parent over that either, but they should be taught about the mbta.
The ONLY risk I see was the possibility of drowning in the pond. Goodness, I wandered the block and around the corner in New Orleans as a preschooler, and my children wandered the neighborhood as preschoolers going back and forth to friends’ homes. That’s the kind of neighborhood every parent wants—where it’s safe for them to be unsupervised outdoors.
This is why some states have free-range laws. A big part of why kids are struggling in school and in general, is because they have to spend their childhood under planned activities with adult supervision. Free play is so important to capability.
I grew up living on a lake. There was really no way for me to be constantly supervised. I received swimming lessons young and my mom checked on me frequently, but an *accident* could have happened. It's crazy to think my parents could have been criminally charged.
I condone the concerned neighbor calling security, security bringing the child home and checking with the parents, perhaps even CPS or the police called for further investigation. I do not condone charging the mother with abuse and arresting her. In my mind it should have been enough for the security officer to determine that the child was safe and parented well.
In the book Anxious Generation, the author commonly refers to our time as the phone based childhood instead of the play based childhood.. And that we are over protecting in the real world, and severely under protecting in the digital world. Much more can be said....
This isn't a decision I would make as a parent. My kids are fairly feral, but they didn't go to the creek until they are both older and with a second person. However, I don't think it's a criminal decision.
My parents had no idea where we were during the day. We rode our bikes everywhere. Knew to come home for supper
I can only replay in my head from Sesame Street- a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. This is crazy.
This is one of my biggest fears with letting my kids do things independently... I worry less about their safety than I do about the judgment and potential confrontation of strangers, who don't know my children or their capabilities.
My kids were pretty feral but I would not let them walk to a pond alone, or around our neighbor even, at age 5. A little older, like 8 sure but not 5.
I'm with the parents up to the point where water is present, regardless of the child's competence and behavior. Kids make mistakes and bad choices. When I was five, I was asked to and from kindergarten by myself and roamed up and down our little stretch myself. But that was 65 years ago.
While this is not a safety risk I would personally be interested in taking, I do think this generally falls within the spectrum of parental judgement. Also, reading the headline alone, I thought this story was going to be much more tragic, on multiple levels. I hope this family can get some peace and healing as this seems like it must be causing totally unnecessary trauma to all involved.
I need to find what that law says! I was not aware Virginia has a law about how old a child has to be to be outside on their own.
I walked 1/4 mile in the neighbor’s yards to go to my friends house. I was 7 or younger. That’s when we moved. I think it’s a slippery slope telling people what their own children are capable of. My MIL lived 4 houses down and across the street. My daughter walked there by herself more often than not.
We are missing key details. What are the rules of the HOA they are referring to? Here our kids walk to school alone beginning in kindergarten.
Only a parent can know whether a 5 year old is mature enough to handle this. Some would be and some wouldn’t be. I can see people asking questions and even calling the police given the pond, but actually charging the mother?? Clearly a massive overstep
When I turned 6, I walked to and from school with a friend (and sometimes alone). It was around 2 1/2 miles one way in a mostly undeveloped (still farmland) part of our suburban neighborhood in Omaha. I understood that I was not to go anywhere near the creek, and I didn't. I couldn't swim! That was in 1968. Kids ran feral in those days.
When I was 5, my dad was in the navy stationed in Italy. A few of the kids in my building, not on base, roamed pretty freely. I can still remember the smell of the vineyards and green pea fields!
On Netflix you can watch the series old Enough! where Japanese children who are 4 and 5 run errands in busy towns. Charging her for neglect and having that on her record and as a risk to her other children is a waste of overtaxed social services
I'm not a parent, so I can't really say much, although 5 strikes me as a little young to be allowing a child to go to a pond alone. However, I'm wondering WHAT law was allegedly broken, and how realistic it was for the mother to be expected to know about it.
1. I think people should know the law. 2. I believe they know their child would be safe but this is the world we live in-it’s not Little House on the Prairie 3. safety in numbers is a smart rule to live by
I walked to my Virginia primary school by myself from age 6, including crossing Main Street, and no one thought a thing about it. Decades ago, of course. My homeschooled sons were stopped by police in a Mississippi Pizza Hut. They were young teens. They had their backpacks full of library books and they were reading while munching on the buffet. They were a safe bike ride from home, and I thought it was an important part of their independence. The police thought they had ditched school. Sigh.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would walk all over the neighborhood without any supervision. Heck, we walked to school by ourselves. We rode bikes everywhere. We walked down to the corner store or the schoolyard by ourselves.
When my husband visited Japan a couple of years ago he was amazed to see unaccompanied children that age walking the streets, visiting stores, and utilizing public transit. Our culture is so hyper anxious about these things. As others have said, I’m way more worried about having someone report me than about my children going down to road alone. Being a mom is made so much harder these days because we are expected to never let our children do things alone.
Fellow authors, are you seeing any movement on this front? I haven't gotten any notification about the FOURTEEN plus titles that Anthropic ripped off, so I'm also checking with my publishers.
From today's Publishers Marketplace newsletter
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Authors and publishers who filed claims in the Anthropic lawsuit should receive a first payment between November 1 and November 15, according to a status report filed with the court by class counsel. That schedule applies only to "works where all rightsholders are in agreement and where all necessary payment information is provided."
The first payment should be approximately $2,203.56 per title in gross proceeds, "after deduction of fees, services awards, and expenses." Anthropic has deposited $1.05 billion so far into an escrow account, which has earned nearly $25 million in interest. The company will deposit another $450 million plus interest on or before September 27, 2027, after which point rights holders will get paid again. That payment is likely to come much sooner. If Anthropic successfully launches their IPO, which constitutes a "qualified financing," that will trigger the final payment. The parties have agreed that the two appeals by law firms over the awarding of legal fees will not hold up payments to rightsholders.
By today [September 4], all claimants should receive an email "listing their percentage share of any settlement award(s), by work." If everything is accurate, claimants will get their first payment by November 15.
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Widespread Problems as Authors Receive Anthropic Settlement Notices - Publishers Lunch
lunch.publishersmarketplace.com
Authors and publishers who filed claims in the Anthropic lawsuit should receive a first payment between November 1 and November 15, according to a status report filed with the court by class counsel. That schedule applies only to “works where all rightsholders are in agreement and where all necess...5 days ago
According to some author groups I’m in, the e-mails are going out in batches. Some recipients were surprised they were being asked for a SSN/TIN, but I guess it makes sense if they are going to pay you money. I hope you get yours soon! My two historical mysteries were also scraped. I didn’t join the suit but now wish I had.
Just this week I got an email regarding how my claim was supposed to be divvied up between my publishers and me. I had to confirm a couple of things and then fix a couple things. If you haven't gotten an email yet, you might check your spam and try going to their website to see if there's a customer service type link where you can follow up. 
It seemed like people with possible disputes over percentages were getting emails. I got the email and have to submit some info.
Be careful. I think the notice asking for your social security number is a scam.
I have 3 uncontested books that I need to enter my EIN to claim the money and 3 books Harper Collins is apparently contesting because they seem to NOT remember they reverted rights to all 3 novels back in 2020. Sigh. I’ll probably wait until NINC and get direction there on how to fill it out and what exactly to upload.
