Strange maps

I like maps and strange things, so a blog devoted to strange maps is double treat. I first came across the site because of this nifty map matching all 50 American states with countries having commensurate GDPs. Thus California, the wealthiest state, is paired with France, and so on down to lowly Wyoming-Uzbekistan. There are some real surprises in there. Who would have guessed Tennessee is on par with Saudi Arabia? Can somebody please write a country song about that?

But the US map is downright pedestrian compared to the map about Poland’s Wry-Mouthed Duke. I’ve always liked nobility with descriptive nicknames like Ethelred the Unready and Pepin the Short, but I do wonder how the Duke came by his moniker. Maybe that can be a country song.

He was a wry-mouthed camel driver
on a hajj to Tennessee,
and he played that Dhahran dobro
like a Bedouin hillbilly…