Put a World Map on Your School’s Blacktop. We’ll Help.

Part of the reason we sell politically and socially progressive stuff is to fund ourselves, so we can spend less time working for someone else and more time writing for Irregular Times. The other reason is so that we can expend money every month in the pursuit of progressive political and social causes. We’ve dedicated 20% of our profits to that purpose.

This is the blacktop at my son’s elementary school, where I’ve been working on painting a world map. I’ve paid for it with my own cash, not with Irregular Times money, because it’s a bit too close to home and I don’t want to get too personal with my share of the 20%. But I consider it a progressive act nonetheless. Americans have a problem: for whatever reason, we tend to think too much of what’s going on inside the borders of the United States and too little of what’s going on in the rest of the world. It’s embarrassing when Americans talk about bombing France while pointing at Australia on a map. The beginning of the end of ignorance is for our kids to learn where the other nations of the world are and how they relate to each other physically — which makes the painting of a schoolyard world map a progressive act.

If you agree, I’d like to help you. So this week, I’ll send out two copies of paper stencils so you can accurately paint the borders of the world’s nations. Just ask by sending off an e-mail to submit AT irregulartimes.com with the name and address of the school (to which I’ll send the stencils directly). If there are more than two people making a request, I’ll make a decidedly non-random choice about who gets the stencils. Public schools get the nod over private schools, and resource-poor schools get the nod over resource-rich schools. You have to buy the paint and the brushes.

The painting takes time, but it’s fun, and it’s even more fun to anticipate the sneakily educational games (“OK, who can run to… Madagascar?”). Send in the requests by Friday, and I’ll get the stencils shipped on Saturday.