From the BBC, 19 December 2016: “Scientists have speculated we could be on the cusp of a polarity reversal, which would see North become South, and South become North.”

In preparation for this eventuality, Rand McNally has announced that world maps will be reprinted so that North America appears to hang upside down, putting Florida on top for a change. California will be on the East Coast and New York on the West Coast. Not that it matters much, since both are bastions of the Liberal Elite. Naturally, the Midwest will remain Mid. After years of debate, it will not be renamed the Mideast.

The Southwest will become the Northeast, and Northeast become Southwest. No one will know where to go for leaf gazing in the fall, causing hundreds of B&Bs and New England country inns to close. Likewise, Santa Fe’s shamanic energy vortex will be relocated from the spa lobby of the Rancho Encantado to the Caterpiller Visitor’s Center in Peoria, Illinois. The Visitor’s Center’s top recommendation on Trip Advisor will change from “Fun place to kill an afternoon!” to “I felt so good here; I don’t know why.”

Corporate boards will be replaced with women. Men will go into nursing, day care, and elementary education. Many men will open small businesses cleaning houses, while women go into the plumbing, electrical, and carpentry trades.

The reversal from domination to relationship will be swift and uneventful. Humans will relinquish their misguided sense of superiority and rediscover their kinship with their four-legged, winged, leafy, finned, and rocky cousins.

Congress will likewise reverse polarity, with men comprising 19.4% of members. Universal health care will pass by a record-breaking margin with bipartisan support. Fossil fuel subsidies will be rolled back, and national parks expanded along with Head Start programs. A ten-year plan to reduce military spending will be put in place.

Scientists further speculate that the rich will become poor, and the poor become rich. The mighty will become weak, and the weak become mighty. The federal budget will be balanced and national debt paid off. Unnecessary government programs and taxation will be phased out in favor of allowing local economies to flourish.

Factory farms will be closed and all animals pastured humanely. People in developed countries worldwide will elect to eat meat once or twice a week, sharing the surplus with their less fortunate neighbors. In fact, the polarity reversal will render the term, “undeveloped south,” irrelevant. Dirt-poor countries will find wealth in unexpected places, and warlords will lay down arms to help rebuild the villages and cities they have been ravaging.

Unfortunately, not all countries will benefit from the reversal of polarities. While Mexicans will enjoy excellent health care, spontaneous apologies, a robust film industry, the cleanest air on the planet, and clever wit, many Canadians will go broke replacing their wardrobes, stocking up on sunscreen, and refunding tourist packages for viewing the Northern Lights. On the plus side, they will retain their charm and make their trademark apologies to the First Nations people of the Zapotec, Tzotzil, Mazatec, and Mayo, among others, for past injustices wrought by imperialism.

For years, Alaska’s mail will be delivered to Australia, and Australia’s mail to Alaska. While that will eventually be sorted, the controversy over whether to refer to the rest of the United States as the “Upper Forty-eight” looks likely to rage until the next polarity rolls around. The Iditarod will be one unfortunate casualty of the polarity reversal. Experiments using kangaroos to pull sleds will not pan out as hoped.

Reversals of polarity being what they are, scientists expect that the cult of youth will give way to reverence and deep respect for elders. Hyper-individualism will yield to a communitarian spirit. The analysis is inconclusive as to whether print media will once again flourish, with publishing enjoying a renaissance and journalism being elevated to a high status profession. One expert termed this prediction the result of “junk science,” while another defended it as “completely aligned with predictive models used worldwide.” The forecast for classical music’s resurgence is likewise entangled in controversy. Muzak will, to everyone’s relief, become extinct.

The reversal of polarity is somehow related to the recently discovered jet stream of liquid iron flowing through Earth’s molten outer core far beneath Alaska and Siberia. We’d like to tell you exactly how, but the science is far too complicated to explain here.

Word is that ExxonMobil and Halliburton have their sights on tapping into this molten iron as a fantastic new energy source. The companies seem unconcerned that extraction of the hot metal could disrupt the planet’s magnetic field and possibly cause it to behave in unpredictable and erratic ways. A spokesman scoffed, “It would be the height of hubris to think that our modest activities could disrupt something as vast as the earth’s magnetism. Our scientists have confirmed that, no matter what we do, the polarity reversal will go on as expected.”

Start practicing your handstands now. Things are about to turn upside down.