Seeking the Soul.

                                                                           

Above is a Dr. Suess drawing; Dr. Suess’s drawings are so cool because in their distortions they create fantastical places and things…Whoa, no it’s a map of the world by patents, a patent being a legal instrument for the protection of sufficiently distinct intellectual property.  So if you invent something you can get a patent which protects you against people stealing your invention. Swine thieves.  So a map of the world with the countries distorted according to their number of patents is one, one—cool—visual of the relative creativity of countries.

The purple, green-eyed, green-mouthed Blowfish…Blowfish? Hootie!  Reverential pause.

                                                    

“Hold my hand

Want you to hold my hand

Hold my hand

Maybe we can't change the world but

I wanna love you the best that I can.”

The purple Blowfish is Japan: lotta patents. The Blowfish’s big green eye is China. This map is from 2002 so the big green eye is bigger today. But China is WAYYY bigger than Japan geographically and in population and Japan still dwarfs China in patents. The mouth of the Blowfish is…India I think.

The purple and green Blowfish is poised to inhale a balloon (Europe) on a string (Africa). Africa, that’s just unacceptable: Your entire geographic expanse reduced to a thin string of creativity. C’mon, butch up, go make stuff.

We have a similar situation at top left. Big Blue Blob America (pop songs are intellectual property) on a string with an aneurysm (Brazil).

Why would the Southern Hemisphere be so lame in patents?  I don’t know.  It’s not freedom. The South American countries are (Partially? Mostly?) free, aren’t they?  It’s not geographic size: look at Canada. L-o-o-k at C-a-n-a-d-a.  Canada, that’s lame: see Africa. At least Africa isn’t one huge country; it’s a jigsaw puzzle of 53 countries. Canada refutes the whole Northern-Southern Hemisphere distinction. It’s not the English legal heritage: see Canada again, and Australia.  Australia, your big, robust country is a squiggly, yellow caterpillar in patents, what's up with that?  Population size? Ethiopia is the 14^th country in the world by population.  The last thing it invented was locusts. Natural resources? See Canada, South Africa. Religion?  Race? See Canada, Australia, South America. General “good government”--Canada makes the world according to patents unfathomable. O Canada. Dear, dear me.