September 2003			Venti Vidi Vici Up From Ground Zero It Was a Hundred Years Ago Today	Letters Sports E Line Books Q&A Classes Alumni Passages First-Person Huskiana
		Hard to swallow Richard Daynard’s article “You Want Fries with That?” [From the Field, May] insults the very concept Northeastern was founded on, and the working people it was founded for. The entire article is a rehash of Victimology 101: No person is responsible for his or her actions. Everyone is too stupid to make a personal decision. Only the great American legal system, with its intellectual lawyers, can save us from our own stupidity (as they rape and bankrupt one industry after another). Shame on Northeastern for espousing such ideas. All people are responsible for their own decisions. David Berkland, E’74, ME’79 Sharon, Massachusetts No "one-size" cartography Though I enjoy reading every issue of the magazine, I found the feature “The World Turned Upside Down” [March] a bit unsettling. On one hand, it was gratifying to see an article on maps, but, on the other, must the Peters projection be featured? As a retired geographer, I’d thought this projection had lost its credibility among professionals many years ago. Promoting the Peters and Hobo-Dyer projections as the ultimate in world maps may be good for business, but it ignores decades of progress in cartography. Let’s hope the new world order is not determined by a century-old world map that resembles wet laundry hanging on the Arctic Circle. And though its inverted-orientation counterpart offers a novel perspective, it’s hardly more practical than left-hand thread on a medicine bottle. Keep in mind that the earth is a sphere. Map projections must make a curved surface flat, which requires stretching or tearing. Preserving certain properties, such as true shape or proportional area, becomes a selective process. The mapmaker must opt for preserving either shape or area, for the same map cannot show both. Thus, a large part of the art of mapmaking involves selecting the projection proper to the view you choose to present. The Peters and Hobo-Dyer projections both strive to achieve “fairness,” but fairness is in the application as much as the map. Though fairness may mean using a proportional-area map to show world hunger, the same map may not be suitable for illustrating strategic locations. No map projection is universally useful or fair. There is no “one size fits all” in cartography. Certainly, the upside-down version of the Hobo-Dyer gets the attention of many—and flatters the Australians. Unfamiliar perspective is an effective cartographic option when used to illustrate a point. Yet, since medieval times, the convention of orienting a map to the north is universally accepted. Any other orientation, without a specific reason, may serve to confuse the viewer. A map’s centering also affects the viewer’s perceptions. Distortion tends to be minimized near the center, and a center-stage position commands attention. But even the much-maligned Mercator could be centered on Iraq, Tasmania, or wherever the mapmaker chooses. It is commendable that fairness (along with business) is important to the promoters of the Peters and its kindred projections. Consider, however, the recent advances in the art and science of mapmaking. Remote-sensing data and airbrush art have helped modern cartography approach virtual reality. Anyway, if fairness is the goal, why use equal area to represent people? Maps can be powerful weapons and should be used with care. Robert J. French, MEd’67 Professor emeritus, University of Southern Maine Tenants Harbor, Maine Correction: The May issue story on Mark Trouville, CJ’79, special agent in charge of the DEA’s New England field division, incorrectly stated that most of the marijuana sold in the United States comes from hydroponic growers in Canada. According to a DEA spokesman, though the amount of marijuana coming in from Canada is increasing, most of the marijuana sold in the United States is imported from Mexico.