How Atlantic City inspired the Monopoly board
The popular game has a backstory rife with segregation, inequality, intellectual theft, and outlandish political theories.
08 April, 2021
Credit: Davis DeBard, with kind permission.
- The streets on a classic Monopoly board were lifted from Atlantic City.
- Here's what it looks like if we transport those places back onto a map.
- Monopoly started out as its opposite: a game explaining the evil of monopolies.
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<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNjAyOTA3Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzA1Mjk0NH0.OUhuxT8IF-YHqZ7M7z4Z1OEZBDEck8U6SdvXsTn3Zag/img.png?width=980" id="9b7e2" width="1611" height="1008" data-rm-shortcode-id="720f276323a52b8bbb3252fdf21124c4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..." spellcheck="false">Atlantic City's crowded Boardwalk, in front of hotels Schlitz and Dunlop, ca. 1913.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit..." spellcheck="false">Credit: Geo. A. McKeague Co., Atlantic City, New Jersey – <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crowds_and_Hotels_Schlitz_and_Dunlop,_Atlantic_City,_New_Jersey.png" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">public domain</a>.</small></p><p><span></span>There have been several attempts to turn <em>Monopoly</em> the game into a Hollywood movie, one with Ridley Scott directing, another starring Kevin Hart. If none have succeeded so far, it's not for lack of an exciting backstory.</p><p><span></span>Dig deep, and you'll find racial segregation, economic inequality, intellectual property theft, and outlandish political theories. But let's start with the board—a map of sorts and a story in itself.</p><p><span></span>There's a customized Monopoly board not just for virtually any country in the world but also for movie and TV franchises (Avengers, Game of Thrones), brand experiences (Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson) and just about anything else (bass fishing, chocolate, the Grateful Dead).</p><p><span></span>To aficionados of the game, however, the names of the streets on the "classic" board have that special quality of authenticity, from lowly Baltic Avenue to fancy Park Place. Those places sound familiar not just if you like Monopoly, but also if you drive around Atlantic City, New Jersey's slightly run-down seaside casino town.</p><p><span></span>In fact, all the street names were taken from (or near) the city once nicknamed "America's Playground." Going about town, it's almost like you're traveling on the board itself. No wonder its other nickname is "Monopoly City."</p><p>This map transposes the streets on the board back onto the map, maintaining the color scheme that groups them from cheap (dark purple) to expensive (dark blue). Here's how they run. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNjAyOTA3Ny9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0Nzg1MDYyNH0.xQwY7X3QxtEVUBLjpd3uToqUs1_UZ7N1XqG1hDpcnkQ/img.png?width=980" id="dbac5" width="1538" height="728" data-rm-shortcode-id="49088b55dcb1495957fd5f754d111495" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..." spellcheck="false">The Monopoly board takes its street names from Atlantic City and a few neighboring places.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Credit: Courtesy of <a href="https://twitter.com/imaginedavis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Davis DeBard</a>.</small></p><p><strong>Dark purple</strong></p><p>Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue are parallel streets in the middle of town, running southwest to northeast. They are perpendicular to most other streets on the board, and as such, cross or touch five other colors.<br></p><p><strong>Light blue</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Three avenues in the east of town. Oriental runs southwest to northeast and crosses Vermont and Connecticut, which run parallel to each other.</p><p><strong>Light purple</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Three streets branching off Pacific Avenue: Virginia Avenue, a long street towards the northwest; and St. Charles Place and States Avenue, two short spurs towards the southeast. St. Charles Place is no more; it made way for a hotel-casino called the Showboat Atlantic City.</p><p><strong>Orange</strong></p><p><strong></strong>New York and Tennessee Avenues run parallel and next to each other, northwest to southeast, the former all the way to the Boardwalk. St. James Place is in between both, south of Pacific Avenue.</p><p><strong>Red</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois Avenues are the furthest west of the five street groups running northwest to southeast. In the 1980s, Illinois Avenue was renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.</p><p><strong>Yellow</strong></p><p><strong></strong>Past O'Donnell Memorial Park—featuring a rotunda dedicated to Atlantic City's World War I soldiers—Atlantic Avenue continues west to Ventnor City as Ventnor Avenue. It is pictured as an inset (<em>left</em>) on this map, which also features Marvin Gardens. That place, in Margate City, is actually spelled <em>Marven</em> Gardens—an error for which Parker Brothers apologized to the local residents only in 1995.</p><p><strong>Green</strong></p><p>These opulent streets are well-connected in more than one sense. Green is the only color to touch every other color.</p><p><strong>Dark blue</strong></p><p><strong></strong>The Boardwalk is as huge as Park Place is diminutive. Both are close to the beachfront, the most desirable location in any seaside resort.</p><h2>The darker history of Monopoly</h2><p>These names weren't picked at random. In the early 1930s, various informal versions of Monopoly were played throughout the northeastern United States, with local street names inserted for each city. The game's appearance and rules were perfected as it was being played. Around that time, an Atlantic City realtor named Jesse Railford hit upon an innovation: to put not just names but also prices on the properties on the board. Since he knew the lay of the land in his home city, those prices reflected the hierarchy of real estate values at that time.</p><p>That hierarchy and those prices were informed by the segregation that was rife in 1930s America. As one of the gateways of the Great Migration in the early 20th century, Atlantic City was a waystation for countless African-Americans leaving behind the stifling oppression of the South for better economic opportunities in the North. However, what they encountered on the way and upon arrival was the same racism, in slightly different form.</p><p>Railford played the game with the Harveys, who lived on Pennsylvania Avenue. They had previously lived on Ventnor Avenue and had friends on Park Place—all of which fall into the pricier color categories on the board.</p><p>In 1930s Atlantic City, these were wealthy and exclusive areas, and "exclusive" also meant no Black residents. They lived in low-cost areas like Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues; the latter street is actually where the Harveys' maid called home. In many local hotels at the time, African-Americans were only welcome as workers, not as guests. Atlantic City schools and beaches were segregated.</p><p>Belying both the binary prejudices of the time and the sliding price scale of the Monopoly board, Atlantic City back then was in fact a place of opportunity where a diverse range of communities flourished. Black businesses thrived on Kentucky Avenue. Count Basie played the Paradise Club on Illinois Avenue. There was a Black beach at the end of Indiana Avenue. For Chinese restaurants and Jewish delis, people headed to Oriental Avenue. New York Avenue had some of the first gay bars in the U.S.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNjAyOTA5MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMDI2NDc3NH0.UiDX62DC9l0q13YizbQpK6baWswSJ_Ro9LAAlX-mgWk/img.jpg?width=980" id="f0208" width="1500" height="1500" data-rm-shortcode-id="a00f35e0a63ab5bbc68a5372286f8a9d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..." spellcheck="false">Lizzie Magie (née Phillips), the anti-monopolist who invented… Monopoly.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lizzie_Magie_-_My_Betrothed,_and_Other_Poems.jpg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">public domain</a></small></p><h2>It should have been called "Anti-Monopoly"<br></h2><p><strong></strong>An Atlantic City-based board was sold to Parker Brothers by Charles Darrow, who claimed to have invented the game in his basement. Parker Brothers marketed the game as <em>Monopoly</em> from 1935. The rights to the game transferred to Hasbro when it acquired Parker Brothers in 1991.</p><p>But Darrow didn't invent Monopoly. The original idea, as became widely known only decades after its "official" launch, came from Lizzie Magie (1866-1948), née Elizabeth J. Phillips.</p><p>Magie was a woman of many talents and trades. She worked as a stenographer, a typist, and a news reporter; she wrote poems and short stories; she was a comedian, an actress, and a feminist (she once published an ad to auction herself off as a "young woman American slave," to make the point that only white men were truly free); and she patented an invention that made typewriting easier.</p><p>Despite that impressive resume, she is now remembered mainly—and barely so—as the inventor of <em>Monopoly</em>. Except that the board game she developed was called <em>The Landlord's Game</em>. She patented it in 1904 and re-patented a revised version in 1924. The game was innovative because of its circular pattern—most board games at the time were linear. But its real point was economic, political, and ultimately, fiscal. <em>The Landlord's Game</em> illustrated Magie's belief in what was later called Georgism.</p><p>Known as the "single tax movement" and popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its concepts were formulated by the economist Henry George. He suggested that rather than taxing labor, trade, or sales, governments should derive their funding only from taxing land and the natural resources that derive from it.</p><p>As already observed by earlier thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, a land tax is economically more efficient than other taxes, since it places no burden on economic activity. It would also reduce property speculation, eliminate boom and bust cycles, and even out economic inequality.</p><p>Although Georgist ideas were influential for a while and continue to be discussed—among others by Ralph Nader during his 2004 presidential candidacy—they are no longer a vital political force, except in the related field of emissions trading. One popular counterargument to modern Georgism, now also (but not entirely interchangeably) known as "geoism," "geolibertarianism," and "earth-sharing," is that government expenditure has increased by so much since George's day that it can no longer be covered by a land tax alone.</p><p>Back around the turn of the 20th century, Magie devised The Landlord's Game to educate its players about the evils of real estate monopolies and, implicitly, about the benefits of a single tax on land.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNjAyOTEwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDAyNzgzMX0.2jm0KH2R_qG34gP544jcynK3IH0gFvkj41PJY09Hah0/img.jpg?width=980" id="4331b" width="1800" height="1800" data-rm-shortcode-id="d89edec668e4c6c9499417802a697724" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..." spellcheck="false">The Landlord's Game, Lizzie Magie's forgotten precursor to Monopoly.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit..." spellcheck="false">Credit: Thomas Forsyth, owner of <a href="http://landlordsgame.info/games/lg-1906/lg-1906.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Landord's Game</a>® / public domain</small></p><p>She created two sets of rules: an anti-monopolist one, called <em>Prosperity</em>, in which all were rewarded for any wealth created; and a monopolist one, called <em>Monopoly</em>, in which the aim was to crush one's opponents by creating monopolies. In the latter version, when a player owns all the streets of one color, they can charge double rent and erect houses and hotels on the properties.<br></p><p>Taken together, these two versions were meant to illustrate the evil of monopolies and the benefit of a more cooperative approach to wealth creation. It's very telling of human nature that it's the opponent-crushing version that came out the winner. But, in the light of what happened to Magie, perhaps not entirely surprising.</p><p>When Darrow claimed Monopoly as his own, Magie protested. In the end, her patent was bought out by Parker Brothers for a mere $500, without any residual earnings. Parker Brothers continued to acknowledge Darrow as the inventor of the game. Magie's role was not recognised until decades later. </p><p><br><em>For more on the intersection of Monopoly, Atlantic City geography and 1930s segregation, read <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/racism-your-monopoly-board/618098/" target="_blank">this article</a> in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a> by Mary Pilon. She is also the author of a book on the subject, called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Monopolists-Obsession-Scandal-Behind-Favorite-ebook/dp/B00GN7FDQ0" target="_blank">The Monopolists</a>.</em><br></p><p><em>Many thanks to Robert Capiot for alerting me to the article. And many thanks to mapmaker Davis DeBard for permitting the use of his work. Follow him <a href="https://twitter.com/imaginedavis" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></p><p><em></em><strong>Strange Maps #1078</strong></p><p><em><strong></strong>Got a strange map? Let me know at <a href="mailto:strangemaps@gmail.com">strangemaps@gmail.com</a>.<br></em></p><p><em>Follow Strange Maps on <a href="https://twitter.com/FrankJacobs" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/VeryStrangeMaps" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.</em></p>
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Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine authorized: Here's what makes it unique
Millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine could be distributed as early as this week.
26 February, 2021
Credit: Rafael Henrique via Adobe Stock
- The FDA and CDC recently authorized the distribution of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine.
- It will soon be the third vaccine available in the U.S., the other two being vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
- The new vaccine has a lower efficacy rate, but clinical data suggest its highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death.
<p>A Food and Drug Administration committee is set to vote Friday (February 26) on recommending the approval of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. If the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee recommends approval, the next step would be getting a green light from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which could authorize the distribution of up to 4 million doses of the vaccine as early as next week.</p><p>Approval from the CDC would make Johnson & Johnson's vaccine the third available vaccine in the U.S., joining those currently being distributed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The U.S. government has already purchased 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.</p><p>On Wednesday, the FDA released an <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/146217/download" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">analysis</a> of clinical trial data on Johnson & Johnson's vaccine saying "there were no specific safety concerns identified in subgroup analyses by age, race, ethnicity, medical comorbidities, or prior SARS-CoV-2 infection," and that the vaccine was "consistent with the recommendations set forth in FDA's guidance Emergency Use Authorization for Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19."</p><p>So, what are the key differences between the three vaccines?</p>
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<p>What makes Johnson & Johnson's vaccine unique is that it's effective after just one dose, while the vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna require two doses administered over several weeks.</p><p>And unlike the other two vaccines, Johnson & Johnson's vaccine doesn't need to be frozen during shipping and storage, it just needs to be refrigerated. That's because the vaccine protects against COVID-19 by delivering coronavirus proteins to the body through a common cold virus known as adenovirus type 26. In contrast, the other two vaccines perform a similar function, but they do it through mRNA, which is more delicate and requires freezing.</p><p>Not having to freeze the single-shot vaccine will make it cheaper and easier to distribute across the country, and it could result in many more people getting vaccinated.</p><p>But it's worth noting that Johnson & Johnson's vaccine doesn't seem to be as effective as the other two vaccines. According to the FDA analysis, the vaccine is about 66 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, "when considering cases occurring at least 28 days after vaccination." Meanwhile, clinical data show that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are about 95 percent effective at preventing severe cases of the disease.</p><img
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<p>Still, that doesn't necessarily mean Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is inferior. The FDA analysis found that nobody who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was hospitalized or died due to COVID-19 (at least among cases that occurred 28 days after getting the shot).</p><p>So, while some people who receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may still contract coronavirus, the vaccine does seem to significantly reduce the severity of COVID-19. The same holds true for the other two vaccines: Getting the shot (or shots) won't completely protect you from the virus, but it does protect you from the disease, reducing the chances of becoming hospitalized or dying to almost zero.</p>COVID-19 vaccines and transmission
<p>But what's less clear is the extent to which the vaccines prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Because the vaccines don't completely protect against infection, it might be possible for a vaccinated person to spread the virus. But COVID-19 vaccines might make transmission less likely.</p><p>After all, even if a person who gets vaccinated contracts the coronavirus, the virus would have a harder time replicating in their body, because the vaccine bolsters the immune response. So, one would expect that person to "shed" less of the virus out of their mouth and nose. In short: fewer infections means less replication, less shedding, and less transmission. </p><p>That's the theory, anyway.</p><p><span></span>Scientists are still working to understand how exactly these vaccines affect transmission. But early data is promising. In a <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.06.21251283v1.full-text" target="_blank">preprint paper published on medRxiv</a>, Israeli researchers measured the amount of coronavirus within about 2,900 people who had received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Analyzing positive SARS-CoV-2 test results following inoculation with the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine [the Pfizer vaccine], we find that the viral load is reduced four-fold for infections occurring 12-28 days after the first dose of vaccine," the paper said. "These reduced viral loads hint to lower infectiousness, further contributing to vaccine impact on virus spread."</p><p>But until the data on vaccines and transmission become clear, the CDC recommends that vaccinated people still wear masks and practice social distancing.<br><br><strong>UPDATE:</strong> The CDC voted on Sunday to recommend the vaccine for the United States. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on the recommendation.</p>
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Why science denial and science negation are different
Surprising as it may seem, we are all very good at denial. Negation, however, is a different phenomena.
24 February, 2021
Credit: mvdiduk, Rob Atkins via Adobe Stock / Big Think
- What makes a person espouse an ideology so intensely as to negate the reality of well-established facts? Perhaps the differences between negation and denial can help us understand.
- Negation looks to the past, while denial looks to the present and future. We negate a historical fact and we deny the reality in front of us. Negation involves a conscious choice to lie, even if it involves the suffering of millions. Denial is subtler and, surprisingly, we all do it.
- Climate change conflates both negation and denial. Hopefully, understanding why will spur more into action, as we choose to become heroes of a new anti-denialist narrative.
<div><br></div>
<p>As members of society and as consumers of information we have been discussing quite extensively in social and commercial media the puzzling reasons as to why so many people with different levels of education and financial means would blindly negate facts that are self-evident and well-known in order to defend a position which is, more than anything else, ideologically based. In other words, what makes a person espouse an ideology so intensely as to negate the reality of well-established facts? Examples are easy to come by: Earth is flat; vaccines are bad for you; there is a deep state conspiracy bent on changing the world order; global warming is a hoax; there was no holocaust; there were no dinosaurs; we never landed on the Moon. You can add your own [here].</p>
<p>This list intentionally mixes two very different attitudes people have to certain facts: denial and negation. There is an essential distinction between the two which is often overlooked: negation looks to the past, while denial looks to the present and the future. In English, this distinction is not as clear as in Romance languages: people tend to use denial, as in holocaust denier, and to "be in denial." But it may be time to sharpen this distinction, to make it more effective and, hopefully, to have more clarity. </p>
<blockquote>A negationist is a conscious liar. It is someone who'd rather live in a fabricated reality based on a fabricated past, even if this may mean negating the suffering of millions.</blockquote>
<p>Negation requires a conscious choice to partake in a lie. Someone who negates the holocaust does so by asserting that it didn't take place, choosing to ignore historical facts, documents, and narratives that are well-established and beyond questioning. To negate the lunar landings, the sphericity of Earth, or that dinosaurs ever existed is a conscious choice to ignore scientific data that is accessible to everyone. A negationist is a conscious liar. It is someone who'd rather live in a fabricated reality based on a fabricated past, even if this may mean negating the suffering of millions. A negationist lives in a world that only exists in their mind, usually motivated by self-interest; power or money, mostly.</p>
<p>Denial is different. Surprising as it may seem, we are all very good at denial. We may deny that we are sick, or that the person we love doesn't love us back, or that we are not competent to do a job. Sports fans of losing teams deny the reality and go back to the stadium with hope refreshed. When we say, "John is in denial," we mean that John doesn't want to face reality as it is. This may explain why so many more succumb to denial than to negation. Reality is often hard. We may be broke; we may be lonely; we may be lost in life. In 1973, the American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker published the Pulitzer Prize-winning book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684832402?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>The Denial of Death</em></a>, where he argued that we create elaborate defense mechanisms to protect us from the certain knowledge of our mortality. How do we do it, day in, day out, knowing that the end is inevitable? Becker argued that we are able to do this due to our dual nature, at once physical and symbolic. As animals, we are aware of our physical needs and limitations. As symbolic creatures, we contemplate the infinite and the divine; we tell stories of heroic feats that defy the reality at bay.</p>
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Trump supporters lined the street on President's Day to show support for him after his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
<p>We can thus begin to see why so many people in the US have chosen to deny the reality of the Biden-Harris election, or that masks and social distancing are essential tools to beat the pandemic. When ex-president Trump claimed that there was a plot to steal the election from him, he positioned himself as the hero-martyr, the victim of a destructive plot that was after him and, by proxy, also after everyone who supported him. He used the old trick of galvanizing a visceral group response by creating a fake reality that bundles people together in a single cause: he made his followers into heroes fighting for freedom. The no-mask using is a clear illustration of how far this identification of "fighting for freedom" can go, even to the denial of the obvious danger of dying from COVID. This shows that our symbolic allegiance is more powerful than the physical. No wonder so many people are ready to "die for a cause," often with tragic consequences.</p><p>Deniers find force in their cohort, energizing each other and relying on group dynamics to find companionship and strength. Tragically, by forcing our physical separation in lockdowns, the pandemic worked as a catalyst to the deniers, their perceived "loss of freedom" bringing them closer together to the point of making them all believe in the heroic dream of a power takeover. The attack on the Capitol on January 6th is the epitome of denialism in modern America, from both sides of the aisle: the perpetrators who marched and pillaged and those who failed to read the obvious signs of mounting danger, denying the reality in front of them.</p><img
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Science denial — or is it science negation? A protest banner set up in front of the Republican National Convention Headquarters on August 24, 2020, in Washington, DC.
<p>Climate change conflates both negation and denial. There is conscious lying from various interest groups—mostly large corporations that greatly benefit from the fossil fuel industry, as flagged in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change" target="_blank">this article</a> from <em>T</em><em>he Guardian</em> exposing 100 companies as responsible for 71 percent of global carbon emissions—that aim to cloud and discredit past results from the scientific community (global warming is a "hoax"), and there is denial from many well-informed people, who simply choose not to believe that they actually can do something to change the situation.</p><p>"I'm just a person, what can I do to change this massive, worldwide problem?" Well you can do many things: As a consumer, you can boycott companies that don't align with your worldview or that ignore their impact on the world's climate; you can consume less fossil fuels, turn unneeded lights off, use less water, buy a hybrid or electric car, use more public transportation (once it's safe again), eat less meat (perhaps the most impactful individual choice one can make to fight global warming)…</p> <p>Although there are nuanced distinctions within negationism and denialism, by exposing their more obvious differences it may be easier to find constructive solutions that move us beyond the current climate stalemate. We need to turn climate change denial on its head, and make us all the new heroes of the "save the future" cause. Because the truth is, as climate change deteriorates our living conditions, we will all be the martyrs of our own failure to see what's in front of us.</p>
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‘Cockeyed’ map shows both glamour and margins of 1930s Hollywood
Legendary cartoonist John Groth's pictorial map captures LA's film factories in their Golden Age.
22 February, 2021
Credit: Public domain, via David Rumsey Map Collection.
- Maps are the safest way to travel during the pandemic - old maps even allow for time travel.
- This 1930s view of Hollywood captures the film factories of Los Angeles in their Golden Age.
- But it's not all glitz and glamour: look to the margins for the hard work done by immigrants.
<p><span></span></p>
Maps as time machines
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MzA4NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjgzNTAwMX0.et69OqWRgfcPBUgk89xFnCc6xqYaMZPU2em2PXqoK10/img.jpg?width=980" id="c2a50" width="441" height="594" data-rm-shortcode-id="da5a29d8901a8dc232efe9b4d5c1d609" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Portrait of dancer and actress Ginger Rogers on horseback, Hollywood, CA, December 20th 1937. (Photo by Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" />Dancer and actress Ginger Rogers on horseback in Hollywood, 1937. Perhaps her galloping around town is why there are so many horses on this map.
Credit: Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
<p>If maps allow our imagination to travel without care or trouble, then maps of the past do one better: they are time machines into a different era. And pictorial maps, which offer the perspective and subjective detail that mere road maps or city plans don't, add a bit of couleur locale as extra seasoning. Like this one, of Hollywood in its Golden Age.</p><p><span></span>The humming of 1930s Hollywood street life almost bursts off the page – this is the age of the talkies, after all.</p><p>A vignette straddling Beverly and Vine sets the scene: <em>A slightly cockeyed map of that slightly cockeyed community, Hollywood, executed by that slightly cockeyed topographer ... John Groth.</em><br></p>Brilliant career
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MzA5MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTQzNzg5MX0.Np7qZiUU32AnsFaXKzIUp6pO9OB5JzeBAH67t1bTFHg/img.jpg?width=980" id="8b41f" width="1600" height="1143" data-rm-shortcode-id="3bec885ad6e5717c394d2cb550370d16" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />A 'cockeyed' view of Golden-Age Hollywood.
Credit: Public domain, via David Rumsey Map Collection.
<p>Chicago native Groth (1908-1988) was a cartoonist who became art director of Esquire in his twenties. He would go on to have a brilliant career as a war artist for the Chicago Sun. In 1944, he rode the first Allied jeep into newly liberated Paris. If he'd be any closer to the front, "he would have had to have sat in the Kraut's lap," joked Ernest Hemingway.</p><p>After WWII, he reported from Korea, the Belgian Congo, and Vietnam, among other places. But back in 1937, when he produced this map of Hollywood for Stage magazine, that was all still in the future.<br></p>Familiar names
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MzEyMy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3Nzc5NTMxMn0.FuCZ5Njo7rg9_PjBhfexyvI1xaKq6_UtH4k95VdF4Xk/img.png?width=980" id="6ea31" width="1773" height="1222" data-rm-shortcode-id="df755d4442a95f350b0c49d84f9a103b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Century-appropriate Fox.
Credit: Public domain, via David Rumsey Map Collection.
<p>The 1930s was a time when Hollywood was dominated by the old studio system. Old? That's relative. To be fair, many of their names still sound familiar today. </p><ul><li>There's<strong> 20th Century Fox</strong>, on Pico Boulevard, right next to the West Side Tennis Club.</li><li>Just to the south is <strong>MGM</strong>, near Venice Boulevard. In between: a fair bit of golfing. And, inexplicably, a Bedouin leading a camel down the boulevard.</li><li><strong>Paramount</strong> can be found on the corner of Western Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. Right next door are <strong>RKO</strong> and <strong>NBC</strong>. And right across Santa Monica Boulevard is <strong>Columbia</strong>.</li><li>Further down Santa Monica, there's <strong>United Artists,</strong> a more elaborate operation than <strong>Chaplin Studio</strong>, right across the street.</li><li>To the north, on the other side of the Beverly Hills, there's the gigantic <strong>Universal Studios</strong> on Cahuenga Boulevard. It's big enough to contain an entire village – and attract a herd of elephants, coming down the Santa Monica Mountains.</li><li><strong>Warner Brothers</strong> is also on the other side of the mountains – Mount Hollywood, as it so happens; no mention of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign (the LAND was dropped in 1949). It's also gigantic: they're filming a sea battle in the back lot. Astride the roof is a Warner Brothers 'g-man': a reference to movie detectives, or to the studio's real-life enforcers?</li></ul>Fine dining
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MzEyOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MzUzNTg4OX0.RC4THQq5cwZ6x-qjseMulxyaYyI6SThSns94tVfFhu8/img.png?width=980" id="a6f95" width="1975" height="1225" data-rm-shortcode-id="d69cd8f95e64936c748a1fc2a3649897" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Fine dining options available, but perhaps not if you're a Mexican immigrant.
Credit: Public domain, via David Rumsey Map Collection.
<p>If you liked fine dining, there were worse places to be than Golden-Age Hollywood. </p><ul><li>Halfway between 20th Century Fox and United Artists, there's the chefs of the <strong>Victor Hugo</strong> and the <strong>Beverly Wilshire</strong>, competing for your attention.</li><li>In the 1930s, <strong>Lamaze</strong> was a fancy Hollywood restaurant, not a child-birthing technique; right next door were the Trocadero and the Clover Club – all pretty close to the Hollywood Bowl. By the look on his face, the chef at the Lamaze may be going over to the Clover when his shift is over.</li><li>Other restaurants of note: <strong>Perinos</strong>, at Wilshire and Western; <strong>Levy's</strong>, at Santa Monica and Vine; and <strong>Lucey's</strong>, on Melrose. </li><li>Sprinkled across town were <strong>Brown Derby</strong> restaurants. Named after the first of the chain, which opened on Wilshire Boulevard in 1926 and was shaped like a semicircular derby hat, the restaurants were a fixture of Golden-Age Hollywood.</li></ul>Leisure and entertainment
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MzEzNS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzYwNTY1M30.KH2RHgi6t0mt0htdruurQRo8K-vb3GW-MBs82dUIamI/img.png?width=980" id="02cda" width="1813" height="1258" data-rm-shortcode-id="db132d8d7feeedb19fba3c2efed84a39" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Warner Brothers is organising a sea battle in the back lot.
Credit: Public domain, via David Rumsey Map Collection.
<p>Even outside the glamour of the studios and the high life of fine dining, Hollywood is portrayed as a city of leisure and entertainment.</p><ul><li>People in bathing suits are diving into the Pacific along the coast-hugging Speedway, from <strong>Malibu</strong> via the <strong>Bel Air Beach Club</strong> and <strong>Santa Monica</strong> all the way down to <strong>Santa Catalina</strong> island. </li><li>Masses of <strong>cyclists</strong>–yes, cyclists–are cruising down the city's boulevards and avenues. Could Thirties LA have been a cycling paradise?</li><li>But then what's with all the <strong>horses</strong>, not just polo-playing outside of town, but also racing through the center – their riders showing off with their hats in one hand? Surely, this can't have been a common sight.</li><li><strong>Buses</strong> overflowing with tourists are driving around town, perhaps already then being shown the homes of the stars.</li><li>Perhaps a star has been spotted near the <strong>Carthay</strong>; that would explain the rush of onlookers.</li></ul>Marginal figures
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MzE0OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjM1MDI4NH0.vjnbRZmBt2Kw0Xecq_xsIhgWL9RGFjXm2YN1QW9Cvhs/img.png?width=980" id="99062" width="1851" height="1215" data-rm-shortcode-id="6d2736ca34c8aec7f0bbf04104087ae5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Chinese laborers digging away behind the back of a movie director.
Credit: Public domain, via David Rumsey Map Collection.
<p>In the northeast corner, the <strong>Santa Anita racetrack</strong> is giving punters a run for their money – literally. Closer by, <strong>Mickey Mouse </strong>waves to passers-by from his home on Riverside Drive, not far from a well spouting oil. Huge crowds gather at the <strong>American Legion stadium</strong> in the center. Elegant ladies and gentlemen striding around town complete the picture of a city as elegant and attractive as any in the world.</p><p>Yet Groth wouldn't be a perceptive–or 'cockeyed'–observer if he didn't also look beyond the glamour. Check the bottom right for a Native American couple and their child making their way into Hollywood, looking for opportunity. Two streets down, a Mexican immigrant is doing the same, his donkey laden with wares he will be hoping to sell. And on the corner of La Brea and Venice, Chinese laborers are moving earth right behind the back of a movie director, seated in the classic folding chair, loudspeaker in hand.</p><p>All these figures are placed near the edge of the map, a textbook demonstration of what it means to be 'marginal'. <br></p><p><em><br></em></p><p><em>Map in the public domain; found </em><a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/0tq57m" target="_blank">here</a><em> at the </em><a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com" target="_blank">David Rumsey Map Collection</a><em>.</em> </p><p><strong>Strange Maps #1070</strong></p><p><strong></strong><em>Got a strange map? Let me know at </em><a href="mailto:strangemaps@gmail.com">strangemaps@gmail.com</a>.<br></p>
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What democracy and science demand: The ‘Smartmatic vs Fox News’ case
The opening lines of Smartmatic's $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News lay bare the culture of denial in the US.
18 February, 2021
Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
- Smartmatic, an election technology company, has filed a $2.7-billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox News for making false claims about its voting machines during Fox's dishonest campaign against the 2020 US presidential election results.
- The lawsuit opens with three powerful statements of fact: A scientific truth, a mathematical proof, and an objective political fact: More people voted for Joe Biden than for Donald Trump.
- We owe the Smartmatic lawyers a debt of gratitude for so cleanly demonstrating what this ongoing election battle is all about. What is at stake is not a political ideology. It's a fight to acknowledge the shared reality we all live in.
<p><em>"</em><em>The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States."</em></p>
<p>So begins the 2.7-billion-dollar <a href="https://www.smartmatic.com/uploads/Smartmatic_Complaint_Against_Fox_Corporation.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">legal suit</a> filed by <a href="https://www.smartmatic.com/us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Smartmatic</a>, an election technology company, against <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/business/media/smartmatic-fox-news-lawsuit.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fox News</a>. The suit, filed two weeks ago, argues that Fox News, its hosts, and others defamed the company by making false claims about their voting machines to back up other false claims that the US election had been stolen. There is much about this suit which, like our times, is remarkable. For readers of 13.8, however, those three opening sentences are what matter. Linking those three <em>statements of fact</em> is more than just rhetorical flourish. Instead, they reveal a unity of ideals lying at the heart of modern scientific and democratic societies. They are the keys to living in a richly diverse and yet peacefully shared reality. Those ideals are now at risk.</p>
<p>So, to understand exactly what's at stake in these remarkable times, and what the suit proposes, let's unpack each of these statements and what they point to separately.</p>
<blockquote>The "Big Lie" about the 2020 elections was the most egregious attempt to deny that there are shared facts about a shared world.</blockquote>
<p>The first statement of fact the Smartmatic lawyers drawn upon is a scientific truth about the physical world. Specifically, it relates to geology and planetary science. Earth, a planet, takes a spherical configuration. The truth of that statement has been demonstrated by direct observation for many millennia. For example, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/60544-ways-to-prove-earth-is-round.html" target="_blank">when ships sail away from a harbor</a>, they not only appear to get smaller as they grow more distant, but their masts are also seen to sink <em>below</em> the horizon. The fact that there is a "below the horizon" means the planet is not flat. In the modern era we have sent cameras far enough from Earth to get <a href="https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/blog/60-years-ago-first-satellite-image-of-earth" target="_blank">direct</a> <a href="https://mashable.com/article/earth-first-images-space-history/" target="_blank">image</a>-<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-photos-earth-moon-from-deep-space-2017-3#a-few-rare-satellites-enjoy-a-full-view-of-earth-from-thousands-or-even-a-million-miles-away-1" target="_blank">based</a> evidence for the sphericity of our home world.</p>
<p>The second statement of fact relates to mathematics. There are rules for summing two integers. Those rules are known and can be applied such that everyone <a href="https://math.berkeley.edu/~hutching/teach/proofs.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">agreeing to those rules</a> can agree on the result of such a summation. Also, the rules are associated with basic statements of logic. These include holding that fact can't be both true and false at the same time. So, to deny the rules and results of math would mean to deny the possibility of reason.</p>
<p>The third statement of fact is where things get interesting. It concerns the outcome of counting votes. Like imaging Earth from space, or carrying out a mathematical proof, the outcome of counting votes will lead to an objective fact. Either Joe Biden got more votes than his opponent or he did not. </p>
<p>But the reality of votes is not the same as the reality of planets or math. That is why the construction of the Smartmatic suit is so revealing. Planets are just given to us by the universe. We find ourselves on one whether we like it or not. Likewise, mathematical proofs don't care how you are feeling about life that day. They always give the same result. But votes don't have to exist the way planets and math does. Votes emerge from an idea about self-governance. </p>
<p>Voting is a creation of the human mind to solve a very human problem: How do we all get along? How do different people with different concepts, ideas, and feelings all live together without resorting to beatings every time they disagree on something?</p>
<img
class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image"
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id="17038"
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data-rm-shortcode-id="e3b8ba953d16d4950c7e1e8e3ac18227" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Voting is a democratic mechanism that helps us "get along." Here, former vice president Mike Pence and house speaker Nancy Pelosi preside over a joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 electoral college results.
Credit: Erin Schaff / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
<p>This "how to get along" question is an old, old problem for humans, and we have tried many approaches including kings, dictators, and tyrants. Voting was a pretty radical idea when it was first tried out in ancient Greece. But by the time it was proposed in places like the nascent United States, it had taken on an entirely new character. Proposals for democracy in the 18th century emerged from the constellation of ideas we now call the Enlightenment. More than anything else, Enlightenment-era thinkers believed they had found a path toward a better world. It was a path laid down by reason and by science.</p> <p>For <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/11/reason-is-non-negotioable-steven-pinker-enlightenment-now-extract" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Enlightenment</a> thinkers, "knowledge, innovation, freedom, and social advancement go together," <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2010-03-01/science-liberty-democracy-reason-and-laws-nature" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">writes Timothy Ferris</a> Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin saw their new nation as an "experiment" in self-rule. John Adams thought that the data gained from the experiment could be combined with reason to produce a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/42294-the-science-of-government-it-is-my-duty-to-study" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"science of government."</a> Science as both metaphor and reality were so important to the framers of the US Constitution that they put the patent system into the document's very first <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intellectual_property_clause" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">article</a>. </p> <p>The framers of American democracy wanted a political system that would reflect the order and transparency they found in the natural world through science. And in science, such order and transparency occur because there are clear mechanisms for establishing facts. Even more important there are, indeed, facts to be found. There is a shared reality we all inhabit regardless of religion or disposition or party affiliation. In this way, the number of votes cast in an election is an objective fact. By establishing the system for self-governance and agreeing to its rules, a tally of votes cast for a candidate is a reality of our shared civic space. </p> <p>What denial, in all its modern forms, wants is to destroy that civic space. It hopes to break the agreement about shared reality. But, in doing so, it also destroys the capacity for science, our most powerful tool for understanding the world.</p><img
class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image"
data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY2MjA0NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTU5MzA0NH0.vlgsYzTzeqdGEmMKOb_AXQnfqQ27Nev4zF6tH1kkGAU/img.jpg?width=980"
id="b742c"
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data-rm-shortcode-id="c5eb05443cf8414b90217fd6fd529304" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="American teacher John Thomas Scopes (second from left) standing in the courtroom during his trial for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution in his high school science class. Dayton, Tennessee, 1925." />
American teacher John Thomas Scopes (second from left) standing in the courtroom during his trial for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution in his high school science class. Dayton, Tennessee, 1925.
Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
<p>I've been writing about science denial for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/opinion/welcome-to-the-age-of-denial.html" target="_blank">some time now</a>. It began a century ago in arguments over evolution. After <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/monkey-trial-begins" target="_blank">the famous</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2011/07/13/137792164/inheriting-the-wind-film-science-and-religion" target="_blank">Scopes Monkey trial</a>, it seemed that battle was over. It was climate change, however, that mainstreamed denial in the modern era. Through <a href="https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/" target="_blank">climate denial</a> we first began to see people in positions of power make blatantly false claims about the shared reality revealed by science. It was, more than anything, a rejection of the possibility of knowing anything, of having <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-19-046941-2" target="_blank">expertise</a>. Then, over the last five years, denial exploded beyond claims of science to touch all domains of public life including the most basic facts about the world (i.e., which inauguration was attended by more people). The "Big Lie" about the 2020 elections was the most egregious attempt to deny that there are shared facts about a shared world.</p> <p>By explicitly linking facts about the physical, mathematical, and civic worlds, the Smartmatic suit explicitly rejects that denial. While it's impossible to know what will happen to their legal case, we owe the Smartmatic lawyers a debt of gratitude for so cleanly demonstrating what this ongoing battle is all about. What is at stake is not a political ideology. It's not about Democrats or Republicans. Instead, what lies before us is an effort to reestablish the core beliefs that underpin the continuing global experiment in democracy and science.</p>There <em>is</em> a world we share, and we <em>can</em> know something about it. We can agree on what we know and, most importantly, we can use that knowledge to make things better for everyone.
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