Ready to Fight:

Taken in December 1989 in Bucharest, Romania, it gives me the idea that this is right before the execution of Nichlae and Elena. The soldiers seem to be regular soldiers, not members of the secret police; however, I could be wrong. Reaffirming my assumption is the fact that there are plain clothes civilians standing just behind them. If it is not the same day as the execution, I am sure that it is within the week leading up to it; however, the source provides no definitive date.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/576

Tessek Valasztani:

Fidesz, the Alliance of Young Democrats, created many posters in 1990 to show alternatives to the Communist Party in the elections. It is an image asking the reader (looker?) to choose between the kisses shown. One looks like it’s between two old dudes (probably communists) making out and the other looks like two young people just lovingly, innocently, kissing. It reminds me of the Anarchist Pamphlet (don’t have a link ready, sorry) section with the elephant (the old, heavy, wrinkled CP) blowing himself.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/552

Polish Voting Rights:

I like the interesting take on making the ‘if the Communists lose votes, it’ll potentially make the Polish flag!’ idea. I feel that this gave even more reasons (as if you really needed any more) for the Polish to get farther away from Communism and delve into a more free government.  It panders to the Polish nationalists which is important for those who potentially believe in communism but realized that it was tearing their country apart.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/93

The Butcher Shop, Warsaw:

This is a hella depressing picture. As someone who eats primarily meat (that’s what she said), like the Polish, it is pathetic to see that the Communist countries could hardly provide basic necessities (toilet paper, milk, bread, eggs), let alone what they deemed delicacies (meat, etc) which are actually pretty important to a healthy diet. It goes to show how miserable life was in the Soviet Union, regarding everyday mundane things, at least.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/23

Peters Map:  Regarding the Mercator projection: “Typically, the cropping technique results in a map showing the equator about 60% of the way down the map, diminishing the size and importance of the developing countries.” Um, yes, hello? We’re a pretty Eurocentric (white-centric?) world, at least here in the US, and we like to think that white people did everything so what else do you expect? Honestly.

“The Peters Map is the map for our day.” While I believe this, obviously because I had a mental breakdown in the third grade when my mom tried to explain to me that Greenland wasn’t the size of China (maps really messed me up as a kid…), why have I never encountered this before? It would seem like something that my high school geography teacher should have mentioned, but he had tenure and I’m pretty sure he toked up before class every day. What can you do?

http://www.petersmap.com/

Washington The Heart of the Nation: “It shows the city in perspective from a point of vantage east of the Congressional Library looking northwest thus including the most attractive suburbs with the Capitol in the foreground.” Refer back to my first blurb on the Peters map.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m aiming to look at, maybe if I had it in front of me and not on a screen, I could gauge a better reaction, but alas, I am a destitute undergrad and do not have $2.00 to spare to purchase it in print. It’s pretty, it’s nice, I can appreciate the effort of those two painstaking years to create such a functional work of art; however, it is of little interest to me other than that it looks nice. Also, I am curious about the Bureau of Fisheries (6-H) and may be making a trip there, at least to find out what it’s all about.

http://www.loc.gov/resource/g3851a.pm001113/

Bosnia and Herzegovina: First and foremost, “Muslim” is not a race. It is a religion, and while the people located in those areas may be Muslims and practice Islam, they belong to a specific race/ethnicity/what-have-you. The same goes for Jews. You can’t put “Jew” down on a map of ethnic demographics.

I can see a clear redistribution of population locations for “Muslims” (seriously, what are they? Serbian Muslims? Croatian Muslims? Turkish Muslims? I don’t know!) and Serbs from 1991 when the larger map is from and 1997 when the smaller one occurs.  In 1991 (large map), there were many more Muslim peoples than in 1997 and, I guess to accommodate the loss of Muslim landholdings, there was a significant rise in the Serbian population from 1991 to 1997.  There was not much of a difference in Croatian populations aside from a slight redistributing of land that is almost un-noteworthy, sorry guys.

http://www.loc.gov/resource/g6861e.ct003048/

Radiation Contamination: Sounds fantastic.  What is an “unnamed zone?” Aside from being unnamed… How did we get “confiscated zones” over 100 miles away from the site? Why is the unnamed zone so big and what exactly is making the difference in names? How accurate is this really? I heard that the place is still essentially a dead zone and there’s crazy mutant animals running around the remnants of that place….Could be exaggerating, but maybe not. Why are there so many outlying areas SO FAR AWAY? How did it reach that far with no means of water transport? There are isolated areas north of Minsk for god’s sake.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/173

45 Years is Enough!: Google translate told me that the title of the map is also “45 Years is Enough” but it thought it was Bosnian and then thought it was Croatian but it’s a map of Bulgaria. I could read it, I just didn’t know what it said because the only East European language I’m versed in is Russian but luckily most of the alphabets look pretty similar and I can just b/s my way through a pronunciation. Thoughts: Bulgaria was surprisingly overrun with gulags. Other thoughts: I like that they made the border of the country in barbed wire. More thoughts: I’ve got nothing, sorry.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/657

And that was all I’ve got today. My dog is trying to take shameless selfies with my webcam so it’s probably time to get going.