The More You Know

The more likely it is that you are smarter than the editors of the Boston Globe. This has been bugging the crap out of me. It accompanied an anodyne story that I could have written about how Howard Dean's 50 state strategy won the election. It was the only graphic they offered. Of all the pictorial representations of this historic election this is the only one that actually blows out brain cells and leaves you significantly worse off than you were before. Its a fascinating and important map of the popular vote by county. In other words, a large county where the popular vote went McCain 10 people to eight was dyed bright red, and took up more visual space, than an urban area in a blue state whose color reflects a popular vote of millions of people. They could have used this or they could even have just given you the overall popular vote totals as a number. Instead they offered this overwhelmingly red map, in which Texas deserts seem more important than blue state cities. Anyone remember how they tried to obfuscate the fact that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000? That's when we heard a lot about the "number of counties" that supported him as though empty square miles vote.

aimai