Tuesday, November 08, 2005

WHAT "THEY" SHOULD DO
If you look at most maps of the United States (or really any country) you'll notice something that is a great tool, but a great deception. What I'm talking about is the lines drawn to distinguish one state from another, or, "state lines" if you will. These lines are important in geography. They help third graders know the difference between Illinois and Indiana when looking at a map. However, in the real world, there are no such distinctions. If you were to drive from Indiana to Illinois, how would you know when you went from one state to the other? Easy, there is a sign on the highway that says, "welcome to Illinois," or "Indiana welcomes you!" At 75 mph, it might be a bit confusing on when you actually cross the border. Also, not every road that connects Indiana and Illinois is going to have a giant welcome sign on it. And let's say for arguments sake you were crossing the border where there was no road, say, in field or treeline, or wooded area. How then would you know which state you were in? It isn't like the border is actually, fully marked all along this imaginary line. SO....

What "they" should do is make the imaginary line real. They should go along this supposed border and mark it. My suggestion would be to paint a line about 3-5 feet in width all along the border. They should mark our state lines with real lines so that it looks like our maps do. Maybe they could use glow in the dark paint so you could see it at night. Or maybe they could make the line thicker so that arial shots of the US would really show state lines. If it is a field and cannot be painted, they should burn the grass in that spot. I think this would be a great addition to our nation's geography. And (to my knowledge) other countries aren't do this (yet), so we should try to get ahead of the game and copywrite border painting. Then when other countries want to do it, they'll have to pay us.