This is a must read. How do our neighbors to the north see us? Or, more precisely, how is it that Canadians and, by extension, other "aliens" see how the US sees them?

MEDITATION ON A LAKE VIEW

On April 27th 2003, in mid-afternoon, I stood on the stony northern shore of Lake Ontario: the most easterly of the Great Lakes in North America and framed this photograph.

In terms of the continent of North America, the map at right shows about where I stood.

Politically speaking-- although this map of the continent's landforms doesn't show the boundaries -- I was in the country of Canada, the province of Ontario, and the city of Toronto.

And I was looking south toward Upper New York State in the United States of America, whose shoreline was about forty miles, or sixty five kilometres away.

Then twenty two days later, on May 19th 2003, the so-called "Canadian Edition" of TIME Magazine hit the news stands with the cover at right.

(The date on the cover is May 26; I've never understood why TIME comes out a week in advance of the cover date.)

But I had to wonder as I looked at this cover, given the actual shape of North America:

Was this rearrangement of hemispheric geography some kind of wish fulfilment, for the editors and graphic designers of TIME Magazine?

Or some kind of warning?

Or what?
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  thanks to wood s lot