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HarperCollins omits Israel from maps for Mideast schools, citing ‘local preferences’

“For months, publishing giant HarperCollins has been selling an atlas it says was developed specifically for schools in the Middle East. It trumpets the work as providing students an ‘in-depth coverage of the region and its issues. Its stated goals include helping kids understand the ‘relationship between the social and physical environment, the region’s challenges [and] its socio-economic development.’ Nice goals. But there’s one problem: Israel is missing.”

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

In other words, Israel got eliminated from this atlas that was designed to cater to Middle Eastern countries that take umbrage with the fact that Israel…exists. Making maps always has political overtones and the company is now realizing that you can’t please everyone with different versions for distinct audiences. Now, HarperCollins has pulled the book and will pulp all remaining versions of the atlas.

Tags: Israel, social media, political, mapping, cartography.

January 6, 2015 0

Dramatic Confluences

“Confluences occur wherever two streams come together. If the gradient is low (i.e., nearly level) and the properties of the two streams are very different, the confluences may be characterized by a dramatic visible distinction as the mixing occurs only slowly.”

Tags: physical, fluvial, geomorphology, erosion, landscape.

Source: bsu-earthview.blogspot.com

January 6, 2015 0

Have Humans Really Created a New Geologic Age?

We are living in the Anthropocene. But no one can agree when it started or how human activity will be preserved

Tags: ESRI, anthropocene, environment depend, sustainability.

Source: www.smithsonianmag.com

January 5, 2015 0

Would You Guess There Are Fewer Amish Today? You’d Be So Wrong

“There’s no denying that the Amish are fascinating to the rest of us (“the English,” in Amish terms). We buy their furniture and jam, and may occasionally spot their buggies when driving on country roads through America’s heartland. Many may not realize, however, that though the Amish make up only a tiny percentage of Americans (less than 0.1 percent), the Amish population has grown enormously since the early 1960s, with much of the increase occurring in the last two decades.”

Tags: population, USA, folk cultures, culture, religion.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

January 4, 2015 0

11 Signs Your Hood Is Being Gentrified

A Washington, D.C., resident describes the changes and privilege that have moved into her longtime neighborhood.

Tags: neighborhood, gentrification, urban, place, culture, economic, Washington DC.

Source: www.theroot.com

January 3, 2015 0

Brazil and Europe

Source: www.e-dublin.com.br

Brazil…because it’s bigger than you might think.

Tags: Brazil, South America, map, images, perspective.

January 2, 2015 0

Without mental maps, we’re lost

Elwood was a senior geographer working on the ground-floor of the very global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS) he will throw up for discussion in his TEDx talk.

His question: Are we surrendering our innate mental map making abilities to technology and relying on and trusting it too much? And for TEDx audiences only, he’ll toss out ideas on ways to prevent that from happening.

Tags: mapping, GPS, cartography, TED, 201 .

Source: www.timescolonist.com

January 1, 2015 0