Well, I did it again: led the Seven-Sentence Short Story workshop (created by science fiction and fantasy author James van Pelt) at a writing conference, this time, Wordbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta. Here’s the story I …
It’s time for this year’s Kickstarter to fund Shapers of Worlds Volume V, the fifth in the series of anthologies featuring science fiction and fantasy by authors who were guests on my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The …
It takes money to publish books, and most of that money flows out the door before the book is released and sales begin, so my publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, is turning to Crowdfundr to help …
Shapers of Worlds Volume IV, the fourth anthology featuring authors who were guests on my podcast, The Worldshapers, is now available everywhere, including directly from Shadowpaw Press. Here’s a handy universal URL with links to …
My publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, has three great titles coming out in the first two months of 2024, all of them science fiction or fantasy. The first two, The Good Soldier by Nir Yaniv and …
Here’s another seven-sentence short story! I ran the workshop again at Ganbatte, an anime convention in Saskatoon. It went well, and here’s the one I created, again with the instructions, created by noted SF short-story …
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Bad news for Saskatchewan?
States with squiggly borders are more stable than states with straight, man-drawn borders, according to a recent paper.
Key quote:
Less squiggly countries, the scholars found, generally have lower income, worse public services and higher infant mortality rates. They also found that social unrest, the sort that leads to wars, was also more frequent in unsquiggly places.
Drat. One more thing to worry about: the looming Saskatchewan Civil War. Probably between Saskatoon and Regina, but you never know…can we really trust the Moose Javians, Yorktonians, Swift Currentites or Lloydminsterians?
I think we should bring in a U.N. force now, before it’s too late!
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2006/08/bad-news-for-saskatchewan/
2 comments
Who on earth thought to ask the question???
Ed, keep in mind that there aren’t very many natural squiggles for a border in Saskatchewan to follow, so it probably won’t affect you guys.
Saskboy has a bit of a point. Arbitrary lines might tend to create a state without a sense of natural cohesion. Best guess I can come up with anyway.
Actually this make sense, and helps explain the Alberta/SK rivalry. Physical barriers are better political barriers than just a political line drawn on paper. There’s really no difference between a farmer’s job at 49.1 degrees latitude in SK, and a farmer at 48.9 degrees latitude in Montana, but an arbitrary political line can mean one has a great year moneywise while they other fails.