453 - A Map of the World Anti-Spanking League
- On the American continent, only Costa Rica, Venezuela, Chile and Uruguay are visible.
- The entire continents of Africa and Asia have disappeared beneath the waves – the latter with the notable exception of Israel.
- Europe is the main no-spanking continent, with the practice outlawed both in schools and by parents in Spain and Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, the Nordic (4) quintet (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland), Latvia, Ukraine, and a remarkably large Balkan delegation: Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Bonus: Cyprus (it’s unclear whether this is only the internationally recognised Greek half of the island, or includes the Turkish north).
- Adrift in the South Pacific, beyond a sunken Australia, New Zealand looks even more forlorn than usual.
(1) among adults; children are almost universally against. Two presidential opinions weighing in on the matter: “Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!” (Theodore Roosevelt); “You do not lead by hitting people over the head-that’s assault, not leadership.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
(2) corporal punishment in schools is illegal in almost all European countries (and almost never practised in the few remaining others). In the US and Australia, it is illegal in some states, but remains legal (if generally rather rare) in others. It is also illegal in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, but also in less ‘liberal’ regimes such as North Korea and China. It remains legal in large parts of Africa and Asia.
(3) submersion as a method of dramatising cartographic information is a popular, if controversial method. Previous examples posted in this blog include Wallonie-sur-Mer (#176) and Palestine’s Island Paradise (#270).
(4) ‘Nordic’ or ‘Scandinavian’? See comments #4, 7 and 9.
