Tag: posters

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Those who know me know one of my pet peeves are when maps of the United States do not display Alaska and Hawaii. I even noted yesterday that those two states were so late of additions to the United States and it made sense as to why they were not included.

So when I was going through some old photos yesterday, I stumbled across this of a poster on the Philadelphia subway system. I had flagged it for posting, but I guess I never did.

Where are my 49th and 50th states at?

I understand this is an advert and so for creative purposes, creative liberty. And it could be that this service does not exist in either Alaska or Hawaii.

But, the statement here is that Metro covers 99% of the United States. Geographically, to do so Metro must cover Alaska because in terms of land area, Alaska comprises nearly 18% of the entire United States. Yeah, Alaska is big. Now, if you’re talking covering 99% of the people of the United States, Metro has some wiggle room. Combined, both Alaska and Hawaii comprise 0.6% of the United States population. That would still leave 0.4% of the American population not covered, and by definition that must be some part of the contiguous lower 48. But above we can see the whole map is purple.

In other words, this is not an accurate map. They should have found some way of incorporating Alaska and Hawaii.

Credit for the piece goes to Metro’s designer or design agency.

Damn the Torpedoes…We’ll Just Use Our Fists

A brief bit of background before I begin, a few months ago, a South Korean warship, a corvette, was sunk in waters claimed by both South Korea and North Korea. And technically speaking, the Korean War has never ended and the two countries remain at war. An independent commission studied the situation and determined that a North Korean submarine sank the ship with a torpedo. It did not help North Korea that North Korean markings were found on the remnants of a torpedo not far from the submerged wreckage.

Regardless, North Korea claimed innocence and the case went before the United Nations. The UN expressed, per usual, its toothless displeasure at the entire affair and everything has since sort of faded away—at least here in the United States it has. However, apparently somebody has smuggled a poster out of North Korea that hints at responsibility. According to the article, the text in the poster reads “If they attack, we will smash them in a single blow”.

North Korean Propaganda Poster
North Korean Propaganda Poster

photo uncredited, via the New York Times

I just found it fascinating that in 2010 we can still see good, old-fashioned propaganda posters. Even if we can only get them smuggled out of North Korea.