What Happened While I Was Gone?

Mrs. Cartophiliac and I are back from our trip to Mexico. We visited Mexico City and several nearby sites, Including Teotihuacan:



I found a handful of map postcards, but not much else in the way of map memorabilia. I'll post a few things in the next few days.

Normally, I like to keep tabs on the news, and of course most of the news I saw was in Spanish, so I wasn't always sure what was going on... however, clearly the two biggest news stories of the last two weeks have been the Olympics and the fighting in the former soviet republic of Georgia. Since returning home I have been doing some catching up... so some of these images may be old news for you...

The New York Times has this terrific Olympic cartogram, that compares the number of medals won per country, at every Olympic Games from 1896 to the present:



Via The Map Room

Also via The Map Room is this embarassing Google News map goof:



Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show makes light the average American's ignorance about World Geography:



"War. God's way of teaching Americans geography."



The Princess Sparkle Pony Blog was more than a little tired of the media's repeated allusion to the Ray Charles song, Georgia on My Mind.



FWIW

I do not find humor in the loss of life in this conflict between Georgia and Russia, but I cannot help but find ironic humor in the silly and ignorant responses to the tragedy.


#238

Saint Lenin

My friend Victoria recently returned from a holiday in Prague. While she was there she visited the Museum of Communism:

The museum focuses on the totalitarian regime from the February coup in 1948 to its rapid collapse in November 1989. The theme of the Museum is "Communism- the Dream, the Reality, and the Nightmare" and visitors will be treated to a fully immersive experience.

I wish I could see this museum for myself. However, she brought back this ironic postcard:



Actually, the ironic part is the notation on the back of the card, giving the address of the museum:

"Na Prikope 10, 110 00 Praha 1... Above McDonald's, next to Casino"

Tuck's Russo-Japanese War Map

One of my favorite map related blogs, Strange Maps, posted today about three postcards related to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. It inspired me to find the vintage Russo-Japanese War postcard from my own collection:



I recall picking this up at a paper collector's show in Columbus. On the back:

Raphael Tuck & Sons' Post Card Series No. 1355 "Russo-Japanese War"
ART PUBLISHERS TO THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING & QUEEN

No date on the card, but it appears to have been published during or soon after the war...