Has Anyone Told Him?

Has Anyone Told Him?

Projection (noun)
– a mental image viewed as reality
– the unconscious transfer of one’s own desires or emotions to another person.

The Mercator projection,
the most frequently used 2D map of the world, 
has a slight imperfection 
when the globe is unfurled.

Land masses near the poles of our sphere
are not as large as they appear.
Thus, Europe, Russia and North America,
being at northern latitudes, in the Mercator,
seem to be larger than the continent Africa, 
which straddles the Equator. 
(Which is why the Mercator projection 
is criticized as being a Euro-centric convention.)

Antarctica and Greenland,
being even closer to earth’s ends
are the planet’s most area-distorted masses of land,
which can be hard to comprehend. 

When you Google “Greenland” on your laptop or phone, 
Greenland is as “massive” as it can be
larger than the United States 
and about the same size 
as the entire continent of Africa.
But would you be surprised,
or did you already know 
that on a globe (the truest view)
its area matches that of Congo, 
and Greenland can fit into America over four times (amazing but true).

There is no globe in the Oval Office
and no maps hang upon its walls,
and the White House Map room 
is now used as a reception hall. 
So a reasonable assumption might be had  
that the President who won our recent election
just might use Google maps on his phone or Ipad
to view the world in the Mercator Projection.

Which begs the question – 
Has anyone told him?