As the vast majority of the world undoubtedly heard far too much about, 2012 was a national election year in the United States.  The voting led to the reelection of the United States’s first African-American president, the defeat of “rape guys” Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, the election of the first open bisexual (who’s also non-religious!) to the House of Representatives, and a variety of other impressive firsts that give people like me hope that this political cycle will be at least a little less bad than the previous ones.  There’s one bit of news that’s worth examining in a bit more detail, though, and that’s the news out of Puerto Rico.

But what’s Puerto Rico?  And didn’t we hear something about some Pacific islands?  Let’s have a look at a map.