Gillian Coldsnow's blog

Who Is A Sociopath?

2010-06-01T10:21:00.001-07:00

A comment made during an episode of my guilty pleasure, the "Real Housewives of New Jersey," prompted this post. Dina said Danielle is a sociopath.

It triggered distant memories, of one woman who used that term freely, labeling anyone she disliked as a "psychopath" or "sociopath." (According to http://www.youmeworks.com/index.html, "sociopaths and psychopaths are the same thing. The original name for this disorder was "psychopath" but the general public and media confused it with "psycho" and "psychotic" so in the 1930s the name was changed to sociopath. Recently the media again caused a misperception that sociopaths were always serial killers, so now many call the condition "antisocial personality disorder.")

Hearing the term again prompted me to find out: what exactly is a sociopath, and how can you tell who is a sociopath?

I found some very useful information at http://www.youmeworks.com/sociopaths.html

Here are some snippets:

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WHEN YOU SAY THE WORD "sociopath" most people think of serial killers. But although many serial killers are sociopaths, there are far more sociopaths leading ordinary lives. Chances are you know a sociopath. I say "ordinary lives," but what they do is far from ordinary. Sociopaths are people without a conscience. They don't have the normal empathy the rest of us take for granted. They don't feel affection. They don't care about others. But most of them are good observers, and they have learned how to mimic feelings of affection and empathy remarkably well.

Most people with a conscience find it very difficult to even imagine what it would be like to be without one. Combine this with a sociopath's efforts to blend in, and the result is that most sociopaths go undetected.

Because they go undetected, they wreak havoc on their family, on people they work with, and on anyone who tries to be their friend. A sociopath deceives, takes what he (or she) wants, and hurts people without any remorse. Sociopaths don't feel guilty. They don't feel sorry for what they've done. They go through life taking what they want and giving nothing back. They manipulate and deceive and convincingly lie without the slightest second thought. They leave a path of confusion and upset in their wake.

Who are these people? Why are they the way they are? Apparently it has little to do with upbringing. Many studies have been done trying to find out what kind of childhood leads to sociopathy. So far, nothing looks likely. They could be from any kind of family. It is partly genetic, and partly mystery.

But researchers have found that the brains of sociopaths function differently than normal people. And their brains function in a way that makes their emotional life unredeemably shallow. And yet they are capable of mimicking emotions like professional actors.

Sociopaths don't have normal affection with other people. They don't feel attached to others. They don't feel love. And that is why they don't have a conscience. If you harmed someone, even someone you didn't know, you would feel guilt and remorse. Why? Because you have a natural affinity for other human beings. You know how it feels to suffer, to fear, to feel anguish. You care about others.

If you hurt someone you love, the guilt and remorse would be very bad because of your affection for him or her. Take that attachment and affection away and you take away remorse, guilt, and any kind of normal feelings of fairness. That's a sociopath.

HOW TO KNOW

The big question is, of course, how can you know whether someone is a sociopath or not? It is a difficult question and even experts on the subject can be fooled. If you suspect that someone close to you is a sociopath, I suggest you read both of the books I mentioned and think hard about it. Compare that person to the other people in your life. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you often feel used by the person?

2. Have you often felt that he (or she) doesn't care about you?

3. Does he lie and deceive you?

4. Does he tend to make contradictory statements?

5. Does he tend to take from you and not give back much?

6. Does he often appeal to pity? Does he seem to try to make you feel sorry for him?

7. Does he try to make you feel guilty?

8. Do you sometimes feel he is taking advantage of your good nature?

9. Does he seem easily bored and need constant stimulation?

10. Does he use a lot of flattery? Does he interact with you in a way that makes you feel flattered even if he says nothing overtly complimentary?

11. Does he make you feel worried? Does he do it obviously or more cleverly and sneakily?

12. Does he give you the impression you owe him?

13. Does he chronically fail to take responsibility for harming others? Does he blame everyone and everything but himself?

And does he do these things far more than the other people in your life? If you answered "yes" to many of these, you may be dealing with a sociopath. For sure you're dealing with someone who isn't good for you, whatever you want to call him.

I like Martha Stout's way of detecting sociopaths: "If ... you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to one hundred percent that you are dealing with a sociopath."

WHAT DO THEY WANT?

This is an interesting question. Of course most of our purposes are strongly influenced by our connections and affections with others. Our relationships with others, and our love for them, give us most of the meaning in life. So if a sociopath doesn't have these things, what is left? What kind of purposes do they have?

The answer is chilling: They want to win. Take away love and relationships and all you have left is winning the game, whatever the game is. If they are in business, it is becoming rich and defeating competitors. If it is sibling rivalry, it is defeating the sibling. If it is a contest, the goal is to dominate. If a sociopath is the envious sort, winning would be making the other lose, or fail, or be frustrated or embarrassed.

A sociopath's goal is to win. And he is willing to do anything at all to win.

Sociopaths have nothing else to think about, so they can be very clever and conniving. Sociopaths are not busy being concerned with relationships or moral dilemmas or conflicting feelings, so they have much more time to think about clever ways to gain your trust and stab you in the back, and how do it without anyone knowing what's happening.

One of the questions in the list above was about boredom. This is a real problem for sociopaths and they seem fanatically driven to prevent boredom. The reason it looms so large for them (and seems so strange to us) is that our relationships with people occupy a good amount of our time and attention and interest us intensely. Take that away and all you have is "playing to win" which is rather shallow and empty in comparison. So boredom is a constant problem for sociopaths and they have an incessant urge to keep up a level of stimulation, even negative stimulation (drama, worry, upset, etc.).

And here I might mention that the research shows sociopaths don't feel emotions the same way normal people do. For example, they don't experience fear as unpleasant. This goes a long way to explaining the inexplicable behavior you'll see in sociopaths. Some feelings that you and I might find intolerable might not bother them at all.

HOW TO DEAL WITH A SOCIOPATH

There is no known cure or therapy for sociopathy. In fact, some evidence suggests that therapy makes them worse because they use it to learn more about human vulnerabilities they can then exploit. They learn how to manipulate better and they learn better excuses that others will believe.

Given all that, there is only one solution for dealing with a sociopath: Get him or her completely out of your life for good. This seems radical, and of course, you want to be fairly sure your diagnosis is correct, but you need to protect yourself from the drain on your time, attention, money, and good attitude. Healing or helping a sociopath is a pointless waste of your life. That is not your mission. It's not your responsibility. You have your own goals and your own life, and those are your responsibility.

In Hare's book, he says before you diagnose someone as a sociopath, he recommends you get a full clinical diagnostic, including an extensive interview with the sociopath by a qualified psychotherapist, plus interviews with the sociopath's bosses, co-workers, friends, and family. Yeah, right. Good luck on that one. I agree, that would be ideal, but if you can get a sociopath to submit to an interview, I would be astonished. So you'll have to do the best you can with the information you can get.

I don't recommend you tell anyone you have diagnosed him as a sociopath. In fact, I strongly urge you not to. I don't even know if it's a good idea to tell anyone about your conclusion. Just get the sociopath out of your life with as little fanfare as you can. The only exception I would make to this rule is if the sociopath is making someone else's life a living hell, it seems wrong to leave her to the wolves while you slink off. I don't recommend you try to convince your friend she is dealing with a sociopath. I recommend that you simply say you got a lot of insight from this or that book or whatever, and let your friend draw her own conclusions. It is not your mission to save your friend, either. Tell her what you know and if she ignores your warning, that's her problem, not yours. Because you said something, she may figure it out eventually.

If this all sounds cold or heartless, maybe you're not dealing with a sociopath, or maybe she or he hasn't driven you to the point of madness (yet). But remember what the solution is; you may someday need it.

And besides, the point of all this dismal information is so you no longer need to think about such negative things and so you can turn your attention to positive, life-affirming, uplifting goals of your own.

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What Bernanke and Paulson Can Learn From Sweden's Financial Crash

2008-09-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

"A banking system in crisis after the collapse of a housing bubble. An economy hemorrhaging jobs. A market-oriented government struggling to stem the panic. Sound familiar?

"It does to Sweden. The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent."

I came across this article by Carter Dougherty in the New York Times on Tuesday, and found it very interesting.

But before we go on to the rest of the article:

Last night, I attended an debate at Washington State University. One of the speakers in The Great Election Debate was writer and activist Cliff Kincaid, who said more than once that the 700 billion-dollar plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed Chairmen Ben Bernanke and the Bush White House is not a bailout , but socialism.

Socialism is widely understood to mean state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, including banks.

I grew up in a country that some have called labeled a socialist democracy. In Singapore, the government does own some banks and the like, including a very successful investment company, called Temasek Holdings. With a multinational staff of more than 300 people, it manages a portfolio of about S$185 billion, or more than US$127 billion, focused primarily in Asia. It is an active shareholder and investor in such sectors as banking & financial services, real estate, transportation & logistics, infrastructure, telecommunications & media, bioscience & healthcare, education, consumer & lifestyle, engineering & technology, as well as energy & resources. In 2008, The Economist reported that Morgan Stanley had estimated the fund's assets at US$159.2 billion. Late last year Temasek threw a 5 billion-dollar lifeline to Merrill Lynch.

All right - back to the NYT aritcle. Here's where the Swedish experience does include socialist principles.

Dougherty writes:

"Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.

"That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.

'“If I go into a bank,” said Bo Lundgren, who was Sweden’s finance minister at the time, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.”

"Sweden spent 4 percent of its gross domestic product, or 65 billion kronor, the equivalent of $11.7 billion at the time, or $18.3 billion in today’s dollars, to rescue ailing banks. That is slightly less, proportionate to the national economy, than the $700 billion, or roughly 5 percent of gross domestic product, that the Bush administration estimates its own move will cost in the United States.

"But the final cost to Sweden ended up being less than 2 percent of its G.D.P. Some officials say they believe it was closer to zero, depending on how certain rates of return are calculated.

"The tumultuous events of the last few weeks have produced a lot of tight-lipped nods in Stockholm. Mr. Lundgren even made the rounds in New York in early September, explaining what the country did in the early 1990s.

"A few American commentators have proposed that the United States government extract equity from banks as a price for their rescue. But it does not seem to be under serious consideration yet in the Bush administration or Congress.

"The reason is not quite clear. The government has already swapped its sovereign guarantee for equity in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance institutions, and the American International Group, the global insurance giant.

"Putting taxpayers on the hook without anything in return could be a mistake, said Urban Backstrom, a senior Swedish finance ministry official at the time. “The public will not support a plan if you leave the former shareholders with anything,” he said.

"The Swedish crisis had strikingly similar origins to the American one, and its neighbors, Norway and Finland, were hobbled to the point of needing a government bailout to escape the morass as well.

"Financial deregulation in the 1980s fed a frenzy of real estate lending by Sweden’s banks, which did not worry enough about whether the value of their collateral might evaporate in tougher times.

"Property prices imploded. The bubble deflated fast in 1991 and 1992. A vain effort to defend Sweden’s currency, the krona, caused overnight interest rates to spike at one point to 500 percent. The Swedish economy contracted for two consecutive years after a long expansion, and unemployment, at 3 percent in 1990, quadrupled in three years.

"After a series of bank failures and ad hoc solutions, the moment of truth arrived in September 1992, when the government of Prime Minister Carl Bildt decided it was time to clear the decks.

"Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the opposition center-left, Mr. Bildt’s conservative government announced that the Swedish state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks. Sweden formed a new agency to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization, and another that sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral.

"Sweden told its banks to write down their losses promptly before coming to the state for recapitalization. Facing its own problem later in the decade, Japan made the mistake of dragging this process out, delaying a solution for years.

"Then came the imperative to bleed shareholders first. Mr. Lundgren recalls a conversation with Peter Wallenberg, at the time chairman of SEB, Sweden’s largest bank. Mr. Wallenberg, the scion of the country’s most famous family and steward of large chunks of its economy, heard that there would be no sacred cows.

"The Wallenbergs turned around and arranged a recapitalization on their own, obviating the need for a bailout. SEB turned a profit the following year, 1993.

“For every krona we put into the bank, we wanted the same influence,” Mr. Lundgren said. “That ensured that we did not have to go into certain banks at all.”

"By the end of the crisis, the Swedish government had seized a vast portion of the banking sector, and the agency had mostly fulfilled its hard-nosed mandate to drain share capital before injecting cash. When markets stabilized, the Swedish state then reaped the benefits by taking the banks public again.

"More money may yet come into official coffers. The government still owns 19.9 percent of Nordea, a Stockholm bank that was fully nationalized and is now a highly regarded giant in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea region.

"The politics of Sweden’s crisis management were similarly tough-minded, though much quieter.

"Soon after the plan was announced, the Swedish government found that international confidence returned more quickly than expected, easing pressure on its currency and bringing money back into the country. The center-left opposition, while wary that the government might yet let the banks off the hook, made its points about penalizing shareholders privately.

'“The only thing that held back an avalanche was the hope that the system was holding,” said Leif Pagrotzky, a senior member of the opposition at the time. “In public we stuck together 100 percent, but we fought behind the scenes.”'

Here's a link to Dougherty's article in the New York Times.

Biden, McCain, Obama, Palin....What The Tickets Reveal

2008-09-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

No partisan red meat offered in this post....this is the vegetarian option. (Hence, the listing of names in alphabetical order.)

I really enjoyed two opinion pieces in the Washington Post this weekend. We all keep hearing how the tickets and candidates differ, but in these politically charged weeks, it's nice to take a step back and examine what the Democratic and Republican tickets have in common.

First, David Ignatius writes:

"There's something lovable about the way this year's never-ending political campaign has turned out.

"We now have two presidential tickets that display the American rainbow in all its eccentric colors. It's as raw and real, and as unlikely, as the nation itself: On one side a suave, aloof African American, twinned with a loquacious Catholic whose manner evokes his blue-collar roots; on the other, a certified war hero paired with a young woman from Alaska who looks like the heroine of a country music song and earns her reputation both as a beauty-contest charmer and a political "barracuda."

"Best of all, these four people are each, in different ways, American rebels. They have all made their way challenging conventional wisdom, telling off the know-it-alls, making a place for themselves and their ideas. They all retained their individuality in a political culture that tends to grind down candidates until they are palpable phonies. That didn't happen with these four -- whatever you think of them, they are who they claim to be.

"Stand back a minute and consider what this often shrill and partisan campaign process has produced: The two parties converged toward the center, selecting in Barack Obama and John McCain presidential candidates who promised they would work across party lines to break the gridlock in Washington. The dividers lost.

The victors were a change agent and a maverick. And each of them picked someone who shared his instinct to challenge the status quo.

"It's a refreshingly upside-down composite picture: The African American candidate is the most conventional of the lot, with his Columbia-Harvard pedigree and his elegant Princeton-Harvard wife and their picture-perfect children. It's the gal from Alaska, Sarah Palin, who reminds us of how messy the real world is, with her special-needs child passed from hand to hand, her pregnant teenage daughter and the hockey-star boyfriend/father who looks, weirdly, like he just won the lottery.

"And old John McCain, eyes flashing, tighter than a tick, just like old Gramps when he's about to take a verbal shot at someone he thinks is a jerk. And motor-mouth Joe Biden, who can't stop saying what he thinks, even if it's to applaud how well his rival, Palin, did in cutting up Obama during her acceptance speech.

"I'm sorry, but this is an American family portrait I like."

Here's the full piece, A Tapestry In Two Tickets.

Next, Andrew J. Cherlin makes the observation that despite the candidates' attempts to convince Americans that their families were just like ours, they were undone by a 21st-century reality: There is no typical family anymore.

"In fact, the diversity of American households was the unspoken lesson of both conventions, as four strikingly different kinds of families came into view. First, the Obamas. The Democratic nominee's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, spoke to the Denver crowd, highlighting his biracial family background, dominated by an often single mother and a largely absent father. Obama's wife Michelle also took a powerful turn at the podium, focusing on her husband's biography but also playing up her own high-powered career and modest roots. The Bidens were introduced to a national audience that week as well, a stepfamily formed after the tragic death of the senator's first wife. With the McCains, we see another stepfamily, formed this time after the senator's divorce. Their family also includes Bridget, a daughter adopted from Bangladesh. And the Palins bring to the stage two working parents with five children, including a pregnant teenager and an infant with Down syndrome."

"(N)ever has such an extraordinary range of family histories been center stage."

Here's the Washington Post article.

Really, What DOES a Vice President Do Anyway?

2008-09-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin in July:

From government classes in high school, most of us remember that the only responsibilities assigned to the Vice-President by the U.S. Constitution are:

a) To assume the "powers and duties" of the presidency, should the president die or become disabled while in office; and

b) To preside over the Senate, casting tie-breaker votes in the body when needed.

Regarding a): thirteen vice presidents have gone on to become president, eight because of the death of a president. (The rest were elected to the office.)

So what else does the No. 2 have to do?

Here's some wisdom from someone who ought to know.

Former senator, former vice president, and, of course, the first presidential candidate to select a woman as his running mate, Walter Mondale was quoted in the New York Times on Wednesday:

Whether Republicans or Democrats win in November, “there will be messes on the Hill. And that’s what I did a lot of as vice president,’’ he said. “I spent a lot of time cleaning up messes on the Hill.’’

The second is to act as an early-warning radar for brewing problems – which means having deep connections in the government, with people honest enough to say things they might not say to the president. Ms. Palin, he said, “seems like a lovely person’’ but is so detached from Washington that she is unlikely to serve in that role.

The third, he said, is to “extend the president’s power abroad.’’ When he was vice president to Jimmy Carter, he noted, he spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and dealing with the Chinese. (Under President Clinton, he came back to government to serve as ambassador to Japan, and he played a significant behind-the-scenes role managing the first nuclear crisis with North Korea, in 1994.)

Then there’s the unglamorous part of the job, he said. “Remember, the vice president is the only other officer of the government without a bureaucratic constituency. You have to be able to hear out all sides, and know how what you’re hearing is being affected’’ as members of the cabinet maneuver for more budget, or more authority. Full article.

Clearly, one role all modern vice-presidential candidates must play is in campaigning. In Governor Palin's case, she is helping to motivate the right wing of her party. The fervent applause given after her speech to the Republican National Convention shows that she is well primed for this particular task.

Here are some interesting bits about Vice-Presidents:

Nine succeeded to the Presidency:

John Tyler became President when William Harrison died. Chose not to seek full term.
Millard Fillmore became President when Zachary Taylor died. Sought the Whig nomination in 1852, but lost to Winfield Scott. Four years later, ran and lost as the candidate of the American and Whig Parties.
Andrew Johnson became President when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Sought the Democratic nomination in 1868, but was unsuccessful.
Chester A. Arthur became President when James Garfield was assassinated. Sought a full term, but was not re-nominated.
Theodore Roosevelt became President when William McKinley was assassinated; then was elected to full term. Did not seek re-election. Four years after leaving office, ran again and lost.
Calvin Coolidge became President when Warren Harding died; then was elected to full term. Did not seek re-election.
Harry S. Truman became President when Franklin D. Roosevelt died; then was elected to full term.
Lyndon B. Johnson became President when John F. Kennedy was assassinated; then was elected to full term. Did not seek re-election.
Gerald Ford became President when Richard Nixon resigned; then lost election to full term.

Four sitting Vice Presidents were elected President:

John Adams (1789–1797) was elected President in 1796.
Thomas Jefferson (1797–1801) was elected President in 1800.
Martin Van Buren (1833–1837) was elected President in 1836.
George H. W. Bush (1981–1989) was elected President in 1988.

Previous positions:
Every vice president as of 2008 except John Adams, Chester A. Arthur, Henry A. Wallace and Garret Hobart has served as a congressman, senator, or governor.

There's more Veep trivia in this article.

Remember Gorbachev? He Weighs in on Georgia

2008-08-20T04:26:00.000-07:00

Today the New York Times has an op-ed piece on the crisis in South Ossetia, from none other than Mikhail Gorbachev, last head of state of the USSR.

"Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction."

A controversial statement, to be sure, yet Gorbachev is still scheduled to receive the 2008 Liberty Medal next month. Said the president of the National Constitution Center: "Awarding the Liberty Medal should not be construed as an endorsement by the center of President Gorbachev's views on the Russia-Georgia conflict."

The former Soviet leader continues:

"It is still not quite clear whether the West was aware of Mr. Saakashvili’s plans to invade South Ossetia, and this is a serious matter. What is clear is that Western assistance in training Georgian troops and shipping large supplies of arms had been pushing the region toward war rather than peace.

"If this military misadventure was a surprise for the Georgian leader’s foreign patrons, so much the worse. It looks like a classic wag-the-dog story.

"Mr. Saakashvili had been lavished with praise for being a staunch American ally and a real democrat — and for helping out in Iraq. Now America’s friend has wrought disorder, and all of us — the Europeans and, most important, the region’s innocent civilians — must pick up the pieces.

"Those who rush to judgment on what’s happening in the Caucasus, or those who seek influence there, should first have at least some idea of this region’s complexities. The Ossetians live both in Georgia and in Russia. The region is a patchwork of ethnic groups living in close proximity. Therefore, all talk of “this is our land,” “we are liberating our land,” is meaningless. We must think about the people who live on the land.

"The problems of the Caucasus region cannot be solved by force. That has been tried more than once in the past two decades, and it has always boomeranged.

"What is needed is a legally binding agreement not to use force. Mr. Saakashvili has repeatedly refused to sign such an agreement, for reasons that have now become abundantly clear.

"The West would be wise to help achieve such an agreement now. If, instead, it chooses to blame Russia and re-arm Georgia, as American officials are suggesting, a new crisis will be inevitable. In that case, expect the worst."

Read Gorbachev's full essay here.

And this morning we have news of a deal to build a U-S missile defense base on Polish soil, which of course is angering Russia. It's hard to see the timing as anything other than deliberate.

Among the voices denouncing Moscow's occupation is a Georgian who once had a prominent seat in the Kremlin. In the 1980s, Eduard Shevardnadze served as the foreign minister for the Soviet Union. His comments aired on NPR's Morning Edition today.

"For 200 years, we were a Russian colony," he said. "When one gets accustomed to controlling another country, it can be difficult to see that country become independent. Eventually, some people reappear who want to re-create the old order."

Several years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Shevardnadze became president of an independent Georgia. But in 2003, he was overthrown by opposition protests led by Georgia's current president, Mikhail Saakashvili.

Shevardnadze said Saakashvili was unwise to try to reclaim the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia by force earlier this month.

But the 80-year-old former Soviet diplomat also had some advice for the current residents of the Kremlin, who have made no secret of their desire to see Saakashvili overthrown.

The more Russia squeezes Saakashvili, Shevardnadze said, the more his authority will grow. That, he added, is the nature of Georgians.

Here's the full story on NPR.)

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman points fingers all over the place:

"If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal for rank short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams."

Read the column here.

(The Other) Georgia on Our Minds

2008-08-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

Not knowing anyone from Georgia or of Georgian descent, I was surprised to learn that this country of 4.4 milliion in the Caucusus has a devout fan base in the US.

Ilan Greenberg: "(I)t is hard to overstate the level of passion felt by Americans in thrall with Georgia. Love for Georgia is uncompromising and consuming. To be American and reside in Georgia is to be locked in an endless meta-conversation about being American and residing in Georgia: how Georgian culture enriches, how Georgian politics fascinate, how Georgian cuisine nourishes."

I can only imagine what these Georgia boosters felt when they saw pictures like this.

In spite of the media-heavy Olympics, images of Russian tanks in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia have made big news since forces on both sides engaged on the 7th of August. There have also been clashes in another breakaway region, Abkhazia. Russia also launched attacks on other parts of Georgia. (Russia Invades Georgia While the West Watches. How Did It Come to This?)

Barely a day after the conflict began, President Bush sat a few seats away from Vladimir Putin at the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing. But there was no outward sign of tension between the two leaders. Leaning over, Bush and the Russian prime minister engaged in the sort of chummy socializing we've seen between them since their first meeting in the summer of 2001. Back then, Bush said he had looked Vladimir Putin in the eye, gotten ``a sense of his soul'' and found the Russian leader to be ``very straightforward and trustworthy.'' That fall, Putin headed to Crawford, Texas, where the two world leaders again gave all appearances of being the best of buddies.

"The more I get to know President Putin, the more I get to see his heart and soul ...the more I know we can work together in a positive way." - Bush, 2001

But how his expression changed after a few days of continued fighting in South Ossetia.

"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century." - Bush, 2008

Bush is well known for standing by his bosom buddies no matter what their transgressions (Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, for example.) Yet he was scolding his pal publicly. Is this another sign of America's abiding affection for the former Soviet republic that shares a name with the Peach State? (Why the same name?)

Here's more of Ilan Greenberg's piece in Slate.

"Georgia is something like the Italy of the former Soviet Union, where mothers are considered saints and histrionic displays of emotion are roundly approved, where traffic police refuse to write tickets to pregnant women and grown men worship fresh produce. Television viewers getting their first taste of Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili (Misha to everyone in Georgia), this week are not wrong to detect a surprising emotionalism, volatility, and American-style openness from a leader of a country sandwiched between Turkey and Russia. It is not a stretch to say [President Mikhail] Saakashvili's qualities are emblematic of the nation as a whole.

"I got to know Georgia—and Saakashvili—when I profiled him for the New York Times Magazine. For almost two months I shadowed Misha. In Slovakia for a regional summit, walking next to Saakashvili along Bratislava's cordoned streets, the Georgian head of state hooked his arm on my elbow and offered to trade gossip about his senior staff. In Tbilisi, Saakashvili gave me carte blanche access, not once ordering me out of his office. In a region where governments routinely conflate tribe with nation, Saakashvili pointedly switched languages to inclusively address ethnic minorities. One evening I answered my cell phone to hear the cackling voice of the then 37-year-old president, who called to tease that his evening was more interesting than mine. I had been crank-called by the president. Stockholm Syndrome was inevitable.

"Georgia's charm doesn't end with Saakashvili. Few sights are as beguiling as barrel-chested Georgian men greeting each other on the street with the traditional cheek kisses. Georgian toasting is a triumph of rhetorical theatrics. Then there is Georgian hospitality. The mother of a friend I had visited shined my shoes while nobody was looking. Before arriving in Tbilisi, I called a Georgian friend to ask if I could stay in her three-room apartment "for maybe 10 days." I stayed three months.

"My friend's boyfriend was an important presidential adviser with a late-night pizza addiction. Receiving delivery was an ordeal: The delivery man, schooled in the pre-Rose Revolution tradition of refusing payment from high government officials, would knock on the door, drop the pies, and try to make a run for it. The adviser, dedicated to ending a culture of corruption, usually was able to head him off, money clutched in his fist.

"So there are many reasons to like Georgia. But for the Americans trafficking in Georgia-thrall, enthusiasm for the country of 4.8 million can be extreme. In Tbilisi, the picturesque Georgian capital that is now a precarious 40 miles from the Russian occupation zone, I met American expats—veterans of any number of other-country postings—who quit their jobs rather than accept a new country. Of course, at the government level, assiduous courting of Americans is all part of the plan. Saakashvili has been reaching out to American politicians, especially Republican ones, since he took office. When I spent time with the president, he was obsessive about influencing American opinion-makers in the press, and his chief of staff complained to me he was spending more time dictating responses to articles in American newspapers than governing Georgia.

"For Westerners, Georgian cultural idiosyncrasies can be intoxicating. But for Russians, Georgia is also innerving. The two peoples are badly handcuffed. Russian women falling for Georgian men is a stereotype in both countries, and ethnic Georgians populate the upper reaches of Russian pop culture as celebrated singers and actors. Long before the Russian army rolled into Gori, Russian tourists streamed into the country to enjoy its warm Black Sea coast and to hike its soaring green mountains.

The signature traits of Georgian identity—a romantic, somewhat lugubrious sense of national fate; male machismo; the Orthodox Church; even good toast-making—are claimed by Russians. The two countries rarely resist tormenting each other, and if this week has underscored the lack of equality between the two in hard power, there is an equanimity in national psyche. Both peoples find the cultural aspirations of the other to be intolerable.

American fans of Georgia, a good number of them anyway, have located a far-away dreamscape, a colorful Caucasian people kissing each other on the cheeks and speaking a strange, unique language in a fairy-tale land, where poor men will sell the shirts off their backs to buy a woman dinner. Ironically, a lot of Russians look south and see something similar. Too much love is never a good thing."

Here are more articles analyzing the situation in Georgia:

New York Times: U.S. Watched as a Squabble Turned Into a Showdown

Slate: After The Counterrevolution: Georgia is yet another country where Washington declared "mission accomplished" too soon.

Stretch Your Gas Dollar with “Hypermiling”

2008-07-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

You know how those EPA fuel economy estimates usually oversell? Well, some people manage to exceed those values, just by modifying their driving habits.

The practice is called hypermiling.

“The terms "hypermiler" and "hypermiling" originated in the online communities of Clean MPG, which is devoted to raising fuel economy and lowering emissions,” writes Nate Chapnick in edmunds.com.

“The actual practice of hypermiling likely dates back to World War II gas rationing; in fact, during the fuel crisis of the 1970s, Reader's Digest published a guide for consumers that included many techniques now commonly used in hypermiling. Today, however, hypermilers are not only more serious about their craft; they also rely heavily on new technology to achieve such astounding fuel economy.”

How astounding?

Try 52 miles per gallon with a Toyota Corolla.

Try 75.6 miles per gallon with a 2001 Honda Insight. (Source)

Bear in mind the typical mileage you get from these cars: according to the US Department of Energy, the 2008 Corolla’s fuel economy is 29 mpg, city and highway combined, and the 2001 Insight is rated 48 mpg in the city, 60 on the highway. (Source: www.fueleconomy.gov).

So how do we squeeze that sort of mileage out of a gallon of gas?

Whether we choose to follow them or not, most of use know the basic hypermiling techniques.

DON’T SPEED.
Maintaining an efficient speed is an important factor in fuel efficiency. The optimum speed varies with the type of vehicle, although it is usually reported to be in the range of 35 to 55 mph. For instance a 2004 Chevrolet Impala had an optimum at 42 mph, and was within 15% of that from 29 to 57 mph. (Source)We know that the faster we drive, the lower the fuel efficiency – yet how often do you drive at the speed limit, only to be passed by vehicle after vehicle roaring by at 75 mph, drivers flashing you surly looks? (They ought to look surly – think about how much extra gas they’re burning!)

The national speed limit could drop back down to 55 mph, though. Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit. (more)

DON'T IDLE.
Here's a rule of thumb: If you're in a drive-through restaurant/business line or waiting for someone and you'll be parked and sitting for 10 seconds or longer... turn off your car's engine. Why?? For every two minutes a car is idling, it uses about the same amount of fuel it takes to go about one mile. Today's cars use electronic fuel injectors, which rigorously control the amount of gas delivered to the engine when you hit the ignition. As a result, virtually no fuel is wasted during startup, and only a thimbleful is burned as the car roars to life.

Research indicates that the average person idles their car five to 10 minutes a day. People usually idle their cars more in the winter than in the summer. But even in winter, you don't need to let your car sit and idle for five minutes to "warm it up" when 30 seconds will do just fine. (More)

OTHER TECHNIQUES

Accelerate slowly over the longest possible distance. The slower you accelerate, the more you extend it over time and the less gas you use.

Go easy on the brakes - you used gas to move, but when you brake you're turning that motion (and the money spent on the gas) - into heat. Therefore, the more you move without braking, the less energy wasted.

MORE TIPS from the edmunds.com article on hypermiling. Note that some of the techniques could compromise safety.

Overinflate tires
Larry Singleton, a systems analyst in Phoenix and the owner of a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid, overinflates his tires by about 15-20 pounds. "I consider it safe because most of my driving is around town and under 50 miles per hour," said Singleton. According to Singleton, putting less rubber on the road gives him an edge in beating the EPA's rating by decreasing rolling resistance. However, such a practice could lead to uneven tire wear or worse, a loss of vehicle control.

Watch the real-time mileage display
Some vehicles are equipped with readouts that compute your real-time fuel use on a miles-per-gallon basis. Singleton watches the onboard display and adjusts his throttle inputs based on the readout to maximize his fuel economy.

Pay attention to wind conditions
James Cullen, a retired locomotive engineer and Toyota Prius owner, has found that his fuel mileage is significantly impacted by favorable wind conditions. "On long highway rides, having a tailwind has made a big difference in my fuel economy." If you know it's a windy day and you don't have to take that trip, then don't," said Cullen.

Place cardboard over the radiator
Chuck Thomas said that a cold engine reduces fuel-efficiency. How can you warm up the engine faster? Office Depot's silver-colored cardboard. Yes, that's right, cardboard. Thomas covers his radiator with cardboard to block the wind, thus retaining heat and keeping the engine running at a warmer temperature. Cautioning about the risk of overheating, Thomas said, "I'll take off the piece of cardboard if I know that I'll be driving a long distance, say 100 miles, but it's fine for my daily commute."

Of course, a cold engine's thermostat already remains closed until the engine is warm, so the cardboard isn't necessarily really helping it warm up faster but it will make the car's engine run at a higher operating temperature. In cold climates this might promote better fuel economy.

Minimize stoplights and stop signs on your route
Before leaving for an unfamiliar location, James Cullen maps out his route to ensure that his pathway has the fewest stops. "Every time you stop and start, you waste fuel. So it's easy to go on the Internet and map out a route with fewer stoplights and stop signs," said Cullen. If you can't avoid the stoplights, determine the optimal speed for the timing of the stoplights. "Taking this small step has a marked effect on your fuel economy," said Thomas.

Ride the ridge
Riding along the painted white line used to be reserved for road bikers looking for a surface with less friction. Friction decreases your fuel economy by adding drag to the vehicle. However, hypermilers now use this white line to increase their fuel economy, a tactic that's especially useful in the rain when puddles form in the grooves of the road, which significantly increases rolling resistance.

Run without the A/C and keep windows closed
This tip could have you sweating bullets, but just think about all the water weight you'll lose. Alison McKellar of DeLand, Florida, recently purchased a new Prius. McKellar quickly became interested in conserving fuel and said she "found the strategy on a site for Prius owners. I realize substantial fuel economy gains by not running the A/C, so before I head out for a trip, I make sure to bring plenty of ice water to stay hydrated," said McKellar.

Baby the brakes while being "surroundings aware"
With this technique, hypermilers treat stop signs as though they are yield signs — and slowly glide through. Cullen, a Prius owner, said, "If I see no one is there [at the stop sign], then I just roll through it, which keeps the car in electric mode." This technique is especially important for non-hybrid hypermilers, whose vehicles do not feature regenerative braking, a technology that recharges the hybrid's battery, which runs the electric motor.

Driving as if you don't have brakes requires constant anticipation and planning, dubbed "surroundings aware," which hypermiler advocates say promotes defensive driving. But the technique may sometimes require hypermilers to tailgate or take corners at speeds that aren't truly safe, all in the hopes of never touching their brake pedals.

Keep up with maintenance
Even non-hypermilers will find this tactic easy to follow. Keeping your vehicle properly maintained by changing the air filter and oil according to the manufacturer's scheduled tune-ups will have a positive effect on your fuel economy. Hypermilers also recommend regular balancing and aligning of your tires.

Get rid of what you don't need
Hypermilers always travel with the bare essentials. Chuck Thomas said that he never "leaves junk that I don't need in the trunk." He also recommends removing the roof rack when not in use, as it creates unnecessary drag on your vehicle. "The more drag on your vehicle and the heavier it is, the worse mileage you'll get," according to Thomas.

"Potential parking" and "face-out"
According to Wayne Gerdes, winner of the 2006 Hybridfest MPG Challenge, "Park at the highest spot in the parking lot and face out." This technique allows you to exit by rolling forward in neutral without turning on the engine, thereby saving gas. The technique does away with the backing up and braking required by nose-in parking, while also reducing the time the engine runs. This strategy is easiest to use where there's at least one corner of the lot without other parked cars.

"Pulse and glide"
This is perhaps the most complicated technique employed by hypermilers. On a Prius, the optimal speed for this tactic is around 30-40 mph, said Prius owner Cullen. The first step in the pulse-and-glide technique is to pulse, which is to accelerate the vehicle to around 30 or 40 mph. In the Prius, once the speed has reached 40 mph, ease slightly back on the accelerator until no energy arrows appear on the energy monitor, indicating that the vehicle is neither relying on the engine nor recharging the battery. As a result, the car begins to glide. When the vehicle slows to about 30 mph, repeat the whole process again, pulsing and then gliding.

The pulse-and-glide technique improves fuel economy by minimizing use of the internal combustion engine. There is a version of this technique that can also be applied to non-hybrid vehicles, but be aware that it is outlawed in several states because it would require actually turning the engine off, which causes the power-assist for the brakes and steering to fail. If the key is in the off position, the steering will also lock.

Coaxing an "auto-stop"
Similar to the pulse and glide, auto-stop simply involves placing the vehicle's transmission into neutral, turning off the engine and coasting to a stop. This seems innocent enough, but any time a car is moving without the engine running, vehicle control is compromised. Some devoted — and dangerous — hypermilers do this while driving down a hill at rather high speeds, refusing to brake even around corners. Some people might even call this technique irresponsible.

Draft at your own risk
A "draft-assisted" auto-stop involves tailgating a semitruck. By taking advantage of the draft generated in the truck's wake, wind resistance is markedly reduced for the hypermiler's car. "This is particularly dangerous," said Thomas, "as you must travel dangerously close to the 18-wheelers for the technique's full effect."

Read the whole article at edmunds.com.

Regarding drafting: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters, in their June 6, 2007, episode, took a series of measurements where they drove a Dodge Magnum Station Wagon at 55 mph right behind a Freightliner tractor trailer. As they got closer their results ranged from a baseline (no truck) figure of 32 mpg, to 35.5 mpg (11 percent improvement) at 100 feet, and then progressively up to 44.5 mpg (a 39 percent increase) at ten feet, as a result of decreased drag consequent of drafting. They strongly emphasized that drafting a big rig at such close distances is life-threatening and extremely dangerous. They recommended a minimum safe driving distance from a big rig is 150 ft. (source)

For hypermilers, the task of improving their fuel economy is an entertaining game, albeit a serious one. Every drive for this elite group of fuel-sippers is an opportunity to break their own mileage record. They may never stop — literally — in their quest for ultimate fuel-efficiency.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

More hypermiling and fuel-saving articles:

First, meet the Grandaddy of Hypermiling, Wayne Gerdes:
This Guy Can Get 59 MPG in a Plain Old Accord. Beat That, Punk. (Mother Jones) Here's another article on Gerdes from CNN.

How to Increase Your Gas Mileage (Washington Post)

Is an Idle Car the Devil's Workshop? (Slate)

Does it Really Save Gas to Roll Down Your Windows Instead of Flipping on the AC? (Slate)

Dallas hypermiler Chuck Thomas demonstrates his techniques (Video, Dallas Morning News)

Fuel economy-maximizing behaviors (Wikipedia)

Note that the Automobile Association of America says hypermiling is dangerous when taken to the extreme.(Article)

Read the rebuttal from hypermilers at Cleanmpg.com.

Guard that Grease! (And Bird Droppings!)

2008-05-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

Ever deep-fried a turkey, or had a tempura party?

Great fun, good food. But what to do with that rancid used oil? We're not supposed to pour it down the drain, and it would kill your compost pile.

Thanks to high fuel prices, you might just leave a container of it by the garbage and hope someone steals it.

The New York Times reports:

"Outside Seattle, cooking oil rustling has become such a problem that the owners of the Olympia Pizza and Pasta Restaurant in Arlington, Wash., are considering using a surveillance camera to keep watch on its 50-gallon grease barrel. Nick Damianidis, an owner (pictured above), said the barrel had been hit seven or eight times since last summer by siphoners who strike in the night.

“Fryer grease has become gold,” Mr. Damianidis said. “And just over a year ago, I had to pay someone to take it away.”

"Much to the surprise of Mr. Damianidis and many other people, processed fryer oil, which is called yellow grease, is actually not trash. The grease is traded on the booming commodities market. Its value has increased in recent months to historic highs, driven by the even higher prices of gas and ethanol, making it an ever more popular form of biodiesel to fuel cars and trucks.

"In 2000, yellow grease was trading for 7.6 cents per pound. On Thursday, its price was about 33 cents a pound, or almost $2.50 a gallon." "

Well, this is one aspect of the restaurant industry that doesn't get much attention! Grease thieves aside, though, there are several outfits that are well aware of this goldmine.

There are specially-outfitted grease collection trucks available for the purpose.

(Cartoon from Mumblings from a Padded Room)

NWPR's Traffic Manager Laura Hartner was once a grease collector. With dreams of making her own biodiesel, she went from fryer to fryer, asking for their used grease, which they were only too happy to give to her. After all, it meant they did not have to pay for the oily (and sometimes stinky) stuff to be removed from their premises! Unfortunately, Laura wasn't able to realize her wishes, so I put her in touch with a friend of mine, who converts the grease into biodiesel in his backyard. He runs a couple of very nice European diesel cars on the stuff!

I wonder if the price of commercial diesel is going to put a crimp in the fuel line of home biodiesel manufacturers.

The price of oil is also affecting the price of fertilizers made from the black stuff. And that's reviving an industry in Peru, for guano. Bird (or bat) droppings.

Also in the New York Times:

"Guano in Peru sells for about $250 a ton while fetching $500 a ton when exported to France, Israel and the United States. While guano is less efficient than urea at releasing nitrates into the soil, its status as an organic fertilizer has increased demand, transforming it into a niche fertilizer sought around the world."

The guano comes from birds such as these guanay cormorants, found on Isla Asia, one of Peru's guano islands (picture from Bill of the Birds)

According to one guano collector:

"There might be 10 years of supplies left, or perhaps 20, and then it will be completely exhausted,” he said, referring to fears that the seabird population could be poised to fall sharply in the years ahead. It is a minor miracle that any guano at all is available here today, reflecting a century-old effort hailed by biologists as a rare example of sustainable exploitation of a resource once so coveted that the United States authorized its citizens to take possession of islands or keys where guano was found.

As a debate rages over whether global oil output has peaked, a parable may exist in the story of guano, with its seafaring treachery, the development of synthetic alternatives in Europe and a desperate effort here to prevent the deposits from being depleted.

“Before there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it,” said Pablo Arriola, director of Proabonos, the state company that controls guano production, referring to conflicts like the Chincha Islands War, in which Peru prevented Spain from reasserting control over the guano islands. “Guano is a highly desirous enterprise.”

Little wonder then, that the Peruvian government restricts guano collection, and station armed guards at each of the islands to ward off threats to birds, which produce 12,000 to 15,000 tons of guano a year.

Read the whole article: Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again. You can get a close-up look at Peru's guano islands at this blog entry on Bill of the Birds.

And here's the grease story: As Oil Prices Soar, Restaurant Grease Thefts Rise.

Preventing food waste at all-you-can-eat buffets

2008-05-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here's what many restaurants in Singapore do at their smorgasbords: diners are charged one flat price to indulge as much as they wish, but at the end of the meal, any uneaten food is weighed, and the diners charged accordingly.

From what I hear, one pays a few dollars for every 100 grams (about a quarter pound) of food left uneaten on their plate.

Could that strategy work in the United States?

The Environmental Impact of Food Waste

2008-05-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

A lot of attention's been given to world food shortages and their soaring prices, but what about the question of food waste?

First, how much food do Americans throw out? Bear in mind, much of this is perfectly edible food.

From the New York Times:

"In 1997, in one of the few studies of food waste, the Department of Agriculture estimated that two years before, 96.4 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. (That's 27 percent! - GC) Fresh produce, milk, grain products and sweeteners made up two-thirds of the waste. An update is under way.

"The study didn’t account for the explosion of ready-to-eat foods now available at supermarkets, from rotisserie chickens to sandwiches and soups. What do you think happens to that potato salad and meatloaf at the end of the day?

(For cafeterias, restaurants and supermarkets, it [is] just as easy to toss food that wasn’t sold into trash bins than to worry about somebody getting sick from it. And then filing a lawsuit.)

"A more recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans generate roughly 30 million tons of food waste each year, which is about 12 percent of the total waste stream. All but about 2 percent of that food waste ends up in landfills; by comparison, 62 percent of yard waste is composted.

"The numbers seem all the more staggering now, given the cost of groceries and the emerging food crisis abroad." (Full article: One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal.)

And that's just the United States. Together with the food wasted in other developed countries, it's mind-boggling.

In the UK, the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that a third of all the apples sold there were tossed. "Besides apples, households are also dumping 5.1 million potatoes a day, 2.8 million tomatoes, 1.6 million bananas, and 1.2 million oranges. These were not scraps or peelings but whole items in good condition.

WRAP revealed before Christmas that about 6.7 million tonnes of food a year is dumped in bins. This represents a third of all food bought for consumption at home and is worth a total of £8 billion, or an average £400 (USD 780)for every household. (Source)

Back to the NY Times article:

And consider this: the rotting food that ends up in landfills produces methane, a major source of greenhouse gases.

"The federal government tried once before, during the Clinton administration, to get the nation fired up about food waste, but the effort was discontinued by the Bush administration. The secretary of agriculture at the time, Dan Glickman, created a program to encourage food recovery and gleaning, which means collecting leftover crops from farm fields.

"He assigned a member of his staff, Mr. Berg, to oversee the program, and Mr. Berg spent the next several years encouraging farmers, schools, hospitals and companies to donate extra crops and food to feeding charities. A Good Samaritan law was passed by Congress that protected food donors from liability for donating food and groceries, spurring more donations.

“We made a dent,” said Mr. Berg, now at the New York City hunger group. “We reduced waste and increased the amount of people being fed. It wasn’t a panacea, but it helped.”

With the current food crisis, it seems possible that the issue of food waste might have more traction this time around."

Jonathan Bloom, who writes the blog Wasted Food, said he was encouraged by the increasing Web chatter about saving money on food, something that used to be confined to the “frugal mommy blogs.”

“The fundamental thing that I’m fighting against is, ‘why should I care? I paid for it,’ ” Mr. Bloom said. “The rising prices are really an answer to that.”

Sounds like a very good time to resuscitate that food recovery program, doesn't it?

"Of course, eliminating food waste won’t solve the problems of world hunger and greenhouse-gas pollution. But it could make a dent in this country and wouldn’t require a huge amount of effort or money. The Department of Agriculture estimated that recovering just 5 percent of the food that is wasted could feed four million people a day; recovering 25 percent would feed 20 million people."

Here again is that report, One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal.

The Blame Game of Rising Food Prices

2008-05-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

“When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.” – George W. Bush, on India’s burgeoning middle class (May 2, 2008)

If Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.” - Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary general of the center for international trade, economics and the environment of CUTS International.

Mr. Mehta also said, tongue firmly in cheek, the money spent in the United States on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funneled to feed famine victims.

Indians from the prime minister’s office on down frequently point out that per capita, India uses far lower quantities of commodities and pollutes far less than nations in the West, particularly the United States.

There may be some foundation to Indians’ accusations of hypocrisy by the West. The United States uses — or throws away — 3,770 calories a person each day, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization collected in 2001-3, compared with 2,440 calories per person in India. Americans are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of the most energy-intensive common food source, beef, the Agriculture Department says.

So who’s more to blame for rising prices, the US or India? The argument is in today’s New York Times: Indians Find U.S. at Fault in Food Cost.

Earthquakes, Cyclones, Superstition….and Political Change

2008-05-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today, NPR’s Morning Edition had a very interesting conversation with reporter Frank Langfitt, who spent more than five years in China as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun.

The subject: the politics of natural disaster in China.

Besides discussing how politics are influencing the response scene, about three and a half minutes into the conversation, Langfitt talked about natural disasters in Chinese political culture.

He explained that in this view, major natural disasters such as floods, famines and earthquakes can signal the end of what’s known as the Mandate of Heaven.

Similar to the Divine Right of Kings, under this concept, the heavens bestow powers to earthly leaders. Should the celestial forces be displeased with the way those leaders are wielding power, they will take those powers away – and can signal this change with a great natural disaster.

Journalist John Pomfret of the Washington Post takes this further in his blog, Pomfret’s China:

“On July 28, 1976 at 3:42 A.M., an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale shook Tangshan, a coal mining town to the east of Beijing. Sixteen hours later another 7.8 trembler rocked Tangshan again. Chinese official sources say 242,000 died, making the Great Tangshan Quake the deadliest earthquake of the 20th century and the third deadliest of all time.

“To the Chinese, however, the Tangshan Quake didn't just spell disaster, it augured change. Six weeks later (on Sept. 2), Chairman Mao died, ending the Cultural Revolution and sparking a battle to change China won ultimately by Deng Xiaoping. Two other major Communist figures had already "gone to meet Marx" that year.

“Natural disasters in China mean more than they do in the West. Many Chinese hold a view that the government is responsible for maintaining the harmony under heaven. If the earth buckles and shakes, it's a harbinger of political or social upheaval.

“China's Communist government spent decades trying to stamp out superstitions and feudal beliefs such as these, but it has failed. The last two decades of economic reform have sparked an explosion of traditional beliefs and a renewed interest in Chinese Buddhist-like sects.”

Today’s Chinese leaders may publicly eschew superstition, but I suspect that Frank Langfitt was rught when he said they this quake has probably rattled them internally, making them ask what it all means under the Mandate of Heaven. (How does I Ching, the Book of Changes, relate to the Mandate of Heaven? Read about it here)

Whether by Mandate of Heaven, Divine Right of Kings or common sense,here’s one florid example of not using power responsibly: we turn our attention to the military government of Myanmar, formerly (and preferably, to many) known as Burma.

Reports from that secretive military state in the wake of Cyclone Nargis have been alternately chilling, repulsive and infuriating. The international community continues to plead with the ruling junta for access to deliver aid to the hundreds of thousands of survivors in dire straits, but are met with one ridiculous rule after another: visas denied to aid workers, demands that all relief supplies be distributed only by the government. Many say that the government is hoarding these relief supplies for itself, while it distributes rotten food to the cyclone survivors. (More from the BBC, World wrestles with Burma aid issue.)

Newsweek’s Melinda Liu notes the Myanmar government is missing in action.

“The 400,000-strong military kept an unusually low profile last week, suggesting serious dysfunction at the top. Sr. Gen. Tan Shwe, the nation's leader, was nowhere to be seen. Buddhist monks and nuns appeared to be spearheading community clean-up campaigns—although state censors instructed the media to report only on military relief efforts. But some troops seemed more concerned with social control than social welfare. Instead of helping emergency services, for example, some soldiers conducted surveillance of local NGO staffers who were offering free funeral services to the bereaved families, according to Aung Zaw, a Burmese exile and editor of The Irrawaddy, a Thai-based magazine about Burma.

"Burmese dissidents who planned to sabotage the [constitutional] election (scheduled for May 10th)," he says,"feel the cyclone has done their work for them" by driving ordinary Burmese into the arms of the opposition. Many citizens in this superstitious country seem to believe that the storm represented nothing less than divine retribution—cosmic payback for the violent sacrilege committed by the junta last September, when the military put a bloody end to the "Saffron Revolution." Crowds of monks had taken to the streets with an estimated 100,000 civilians to protest the country's deepening economic hardships, including an abrupt fuel-price hike. The regime responded with fury, beating and imprisoning clerics and laypeople alike and killing as many as 138. Now many Burmese see the monster cyclone as proof that Than Shwe and his junta have lost the "mandate of heaven"—the supernatural right to govern.”

Liu looks to other countries to see what natural disasters can do to regimes.

Mexico City, 1985: “After a massive earthquake hit, the authorities and the country's aloof president, Miguel de la Madrid, went AWOL for days, leaving citizens to organize rescue efforts themselves. When the president finally did appear, he initially announced that Mexico "didn't need outside help." With more than 10,000 estimated dead, survivors had quickly taken to the streets to denounce the government's weak response. These protests energized a new crop of community activists and opposition leaders, lighting a spark that eventually brought down Mexico's long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) years later.

Tangshan, China, 1976: “By the time that quake hit, killing up to 600,000, the Cultural Revolution was nearing its end, Mao was ailing and moderate leaders were already plotting to oust his most zealous accomplices. When the government then proceeded to badly fumble relief efforts— refusing international aid, among other things—it strengthened the hand of reformers who wanted to end China's isolation. Three months later, Mao was dead, the extremist "Gang of Four" was behind bars and the reins of power were passing to Deng Xiaoping—now famous for his unabashed embrace of capitalism.”

“In each of these cases, the chain of events leading to political change was long and complicated, but the governments' incompetence in the face of great tragedy helped tip the scales.”

"One shouldn't count out Burma's leaders yet. The military has managed to cling to power for 46 years now, despite losing an election in 1990 to the party of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi who's been under house arrest nearly ever since.

And the regime has a ready reply to deny it has now lost its heavenly mandate. In 2005, heeding astrologers' advice, the officers moved the country's capital from Rangoon to Naypyidaw, a hardscrabble town some 250 miles north. This location helped the new capital escape the worst of Nargis's wrath—though of course it's unclear whether this was a sign of blessing or just dumb luck. Still, the generals must know that surviving a cyclone is one thing. Avoiding the human earthquake it provokes is a whole other matter.

Read Melinda Liu’s article Winds of Change

Does Mom REALLY want a card and roses?

2008-05-06T20:50:00.001-07:00

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ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 19, 2007

And reposted ahead of Mother's Day 2008 in the U.S.
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Sunday, March 18th was Mothering Sunday in the UK, roughly two months before its equivalent in the US: Mother's Day, where it falls on the second Sunday in May. On this occasion, the BBC reports that the woman who invented the celebration spent 40 years of her life fighting the commercialism that sprang up around the day.

Anna Jarvis campaigned for over a decade before President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, dedicated a day to mothers.

Within a few years, the occasion became commercialized, to Anna's horror.

"Along with her sister Ellsinore, Anna spent the entire family inheritance on trying to undo the damage done to Mother's Day. One of her protests even got her arrested for disturbing the peace. She died in 1948, in poverty and without success.

"In one respect what Ms Jarvis wanted from the day lives on - it has taken on huge significance and is a celebration of motherhood. However, how most people chose to celebrate it would make her turn in her grave."

"Consumers are pressured by advertising and businesses to measure goodwill in terms of presents, says branding expert Jonathan Gabay.

"Mother's Day has become a yearly windfall to business. It's an opportunity to market everything from cut flowers and greetings cards to nostalgic CDs, perfume and beauty products."

The commercialism that accompanies so many holidays in the U.S. truly sickens me. Christmas as it is celebrated today was created by Coca-Cola, Montgomery Ward, Hallmark and other corporations, who saw immense opportunities which I'm sure have far exceeded their early expectations. People have completely caved to advertising and corporate propaganda. How many times have you heard of people going into serious credit card debt over Christmas presents? Did Jesus ever say "be sure to go into debt in My Name"? And yet, here we are. Valentine's and Halloween? Wouldn't be surprised at all to hear Hershey's and other candy companies had a big hand in turning these days into what are now the two biggest sugar high days of the year.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving seems to have escaped most of that commercial frenzy. It's one thing for which I DO give thanks every November.

But back to Mother's Day. I hardly claim to speak for all mothers, but for me a Hallmark card and a dozen roses don't do a thing. Going out to brunch on usually involves a crowded restaurant and waiting, which isn't my cup of tea. As much as chocolate is a lovely gift, it gives me nowhere the pleasure of my children's handmade cards and notes, awkward as they may be. THAT'S a present! I had told the kids to stop buying me stuff, so the handmade cards started coming, along with "Mom's Day Off," and the occasional surprise. One year, my son handed me a little basket of morel mushrooms he'd picked in the woods. He'd heard me say I missed the taste of morels. Three years ago, my daughter gave me a jar with little strips of paper in it, on which she wrote things that she loved about me. She told me to remember to open the jar and read the strips whenever I had a bad day. Really made me tear up.

Hallmark and FTD can't top these.

What do I really want for Mother's Day?

Pretty much what I have with my children every day. Good conversation, honesty, humor and respect. I want what any Mom wants: happy, fulfilled children. I want to look at them and see gentle souls, loving hearts, humor, generosity and good judgement; to know they've been equipped properly to be independent and responsible adults. The best thing my kids could give to me on Mother's Day is to let me know how I'm doing in my efforts to bring them up to be all these things.

Anna Jarvis was right to be horrified at the commercialization of the holiday she championed. Showering Mom with gifts and some pampering one day a year is no compensation for taking her for granted the rest of the year.

More mothers are taking up Anna Jarvis' fight against the commercialization of Mother's Day. The BBC piece quotes Carrie Longton, a founder of Mumsnet (in the UK):

"There is a real movement among mothers at the moment to think about mothers who are less fortunate. We are encouraging people to make a donation to charities that help mothers worldwide rather than buy flowers.

"I will be working on a cake stall on Mother's Day to raise money for HIV mothers in Africa. It costs just £7 to buy the medicine to make sure they don't pass HIV onto their children."

It's this type of action that Ms Jarvis would approve of. Especially as she hated Mother's Day cards, calling them "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write".

Hear, hear!!

Read the whole BBC article here.

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UPDATE 2: NPR had a piece on the marketing of Mother's Day, then and now. It aired on Friday, May 11. Listen to the Morning Edition piece here.

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Juan Diego Florez Breaks Met's Ban on Encores

2008-04-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

JDF DID IT AGAIN!!

Donizetti's opera La fille du regiment (Daughter of the Regiment) may be best known for the aria Ah mes amis, notorious for bearing all of NINE high Cs. For that reason it's called the Mount Everest for tenors. And Monday night, Juan Diego Florez not only hit those difficult notes, he did an instant encore.

What's the big deal? Encores are banned at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

That's not all: last year, JDF did a encore (or, its Italian equivalent, bis) of that same aria in Milan, where the practice of bis was banned by Toscanini.

First, here's the deal with that aria. From Wikipedia: "(The) 9 high Cs....come comparatively early in the opera, giving the singer less time to warm up his voice. Many lesser tenors do not quite hit the notes (hitting B natural instead), especially as they come in rapid-fire succession and require considerable vocal dexterity."

Now here's the deal with the ban on encores.

"Bear in mind, an encore in an Italian opera house is not the same as an encore in most places – that is, at the very end of the concert. Rather, their version of an encore (a French word) is called bis (the Italian word for again, as in biscotti, the twice-baked cookie.) The bis is done in the manner of an instant replay. The audience doesn’t want to wait for the very end of the opera (or even an act of the opera). So with prolonged applause, cheering and calls of “bis! bis!” the conductor picks up the aria again, and the singer pipes up - this time usually out of character. I’ve read that the bis has been requested at the end of a death scene, which entails the now-dead character resurrecting temporarily to appease audience demand, then reassuming the death pose when the opera action resumes. As I’ve noted in previous posts, ludicrousness is just one of the things that make me love opera so! But Toscanini hated the way these encores broke the flow of an opera and put a ban on the practice." (From my blog entry last year.)

Watch the video of Florez singing Ah, mes amis.

Here's the New York Times' account of the encore: Ban on Solo Encores at the Met? Ban, What Ban?

Before JDF, it was Luciano Pavarotti who thrilled audiences with his high Cs. You can read more about the allure of that note, and why Pavarotti's execution of it took the opera world by storm, in this blog entry.

A Northwesterner's View of Obama's "Bitter" Remark

2008-04-17T03:23:00.000-07:00

Last week Barack Obama said Pennsylvania's small town voters are bitter about losing jobs and to explain their frustrations, they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Of course, those comments were abundant grist for the mills of the other presidential hopefuls, and pundits. But it's been nearly a week since his comments, and STILL it's a hot topic of discussion in the media. Is it the case outside newsrooms? Maybe - but none of my friends and acquaintances - usually not at all shy about voicing their views - have uttered a word about it to me. They had a much stronger response after Obama delivered his speech on race.

Among those offended by Obama was New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. She's generally had positive things to say about the Illinois Senator, in contrast to Hillary Clinton. But his "bitter" remarks turned her off.

"What turns off voters," she wrote, "is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action — the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.) Obama did not grow up in cosseted circumstances. [But] his exclusive Hawaiian prep school and years in the Ivy League made him a charter member of the elite, along with the academic experts he loves to have in the room."

(Dowd's piece is titled Eggheads and Cheeseballs.)

Commentators say Obama's comments were elitist, insulting, and out of touch....yet that has not translated into a significant drop in his poll numbers. Why the discrepancy in response?

Another Times writer tackles that issue.

Timothy Egan is originally from Spokane, and shares his view in his blog post, Lost Town Blues. Many of the readers' comments come from Washington State and northern Idaho.

Here's the blog entry, plus excerpts from some comments.

Lost Town Blues

In the town where I grew up, men had new trucks in their driveways, and three weeks of vacation for chasing deer in the fall and fish in the summer. They drank beer at a morning happy-hour after the graveyard shift ended, and voted for Democrats because they cared about the little guy, or so it was said.

In less than a generation’s time, the life jobs at the aluminum factory disappeared and the men lost their health benefits, their pensions, their self-confidence. You could say, without starting a fight, that some of them turned to God or guns for comfort — or at least for diversion. And then there were those who turned to alcohol.
It’s an old story, the grinding of winners into losers, a sort of geographic lottery. My town was Spokane, Wash., which has rebounded somewhat from the collapse of Kaiser Aluminum. But it could be McKeesport, Pa., or Utica, N.Y., or any of the 900 counties across the country that have lost jobs or population for decades.

People who live in small towns that have been passed over don’t need to be told that they’re bitter, or heroic. They’re stuck, is what they are. The honest ones say they would follow their kids out of town, if only they had the means. A few years ago, a University of Nebraska survey of 3,087 people in rural counties asked people how they felt about their lives. Only 11 percent of them said they were satisfied with where they lived. Optimism, as much a part of the landscape as winter wheat, was disappearing.

This sentiment, real but wrapped up in pride over place, may be in part why the polls show little change in Barack Obama’s standing since his comments about the bitterness of small towns and the working class. The pundits and voters are having two different conversations, not for the first time.

In that sense, the arc of this controversy is typical of how these things go: struggling towns are props, not issues.

One side rushes to drape themselves in flags, guns and the kind of Norman Rockwell hagiography that is far removed from the 2008 reality of meth labs and foreclosure frontiers. The other side says religion is for fools, and if only they had a new Starbucks in town, some of those Bible-banging gun nuts could learn to love Sundays with Norah Jones and a Scrabble game.

The low point in this discussion was Hillary Clinton talking about how she learned to shoot — “behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton.” Yes, and after that it was Wellesley, Yale, the White House and the $109 million fortune she made with her husband trading in their name and influence. She’s got elite cred with the best of them.

Obama can counter with the endorsement this week from Bruce Springsteen. Nobody in American literature or politics has done a better job than the Boss of describing (as in “My Hometown”) the heartbreak of a foreman who says, “these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back.”

But for a presidential campaign, we should forget rock lyrics, guns and God, and who can throw back a boiler-maker like a real man. The only question should be how — or whether — rust belt and rural towns can join the tomorrow economies.

For that matter, we should retire the test over which presidential candidate voters would most like to have a beer with. [YES, PLEASE!!!!! - Gillian] George W. Bush, when he was drinking, was probably a fun guy in a bar — all those frat boy tricks, flatulence jokes and arcane stats on long-retired major leaguers.

But he’s run the country into the ground, even if the only measurement is how blue collar workers fared under his watch. And he is the only leader who has actually embraced the elite label. At a fundraising dinner during his first term with the “haves and the have-mores,” as he referred to them, Bush said: “Some people call you the elite — I call you my base.” Now, he was joking, but there’s an element of truth there. And for the record, median hourly wages in Pennsylvania are down 16 cents from five years ago, adjusting for inflation.

So, solutions? On John McCain’s Web site, he talks as much about reviving small town America as he does about Lindsay Lohan’s love life — zilch. Clinton and Obama each have detailed, multi-point proposals. They’re heavy on new energy solutions — solar, wind, converting crops to fuel, with faded factory towns doing the work. The problem, as we’ve seen with the huge rise in commodity crop prices, is that when food and fuel compete for the same source, family budgets strain. Hillary is out with a new ad in Indiana, promising to keep defense jobs in the state — pork as public policy, another sleight-of-hand trick for small town America.

Is it too much to ask one of these candidates for an honest but painful statement suggesting that perhaps a lot of these towns may never come back? Or that the way to economic revival is to lose the pipe dream that Google is going to relocate to an old steel town because they have a tax-free enterprise zone and some cool mountain-bike trails?

“By the time November rolls around,” said Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, Hillary’s top surrogate in the state, Obama’s comment “will be long forgotten.”

So will small town America. Again.

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From the readers' comments:

"People tend to focus on Barack’s comment about people clinging to guns and religion but ignore the preceding statement about decades of unfulfilled promises from politicians from both parties. When taken out of context, his statement sounds petty and mean. The complete statement hints at an “inconvenient truth” of another kind, that none of the political elite wish to acknowledge."

"I largely agree with Mr. Egan’s and Mr. Obama’s sentiments on small-town America. Although there is plenty of pride in cities and towns alike, it’s hard to miss the lack of interesting opportunities in small towns. For my fellow Washingtonians just consider the struggles people have had to endure in Forks, where significantly reduced logging has dramatically cut incomes. Or, Omak or Wilson Creek or Soap Lake, a place that’s [sic] best bet is tourism and the world’s largest lava lamp. All these towns have their charm but in global economy everyone’s best bet are the large metro areas, like Seattle."

"I worked for Kaiser in Spokane and also the steel industry in the 60’s to 80’s. I share your feelings about the “Lost Town Blues”. It’s painful to see all of the people hurt by the greed and shortsightedness of those like George W Bush that have run this country into the ground. My family rebounded from our difficulties and because of this I still have optimism that we - this country - can dig ourselves out of this big hole that we are in. What we need is an uplift by new leaders such as Barack Obama to get people working again in areas that will address our infrastructure needs, global warming, energy independence and others."

"I too was flummoxed by the reaction to Obama’s statement of the obvious. Why the bruhaha? I lived in a small town (Port Angeles) where the jobs in timber and fishing were gone and never coming back. I worked in legal aid and saw the ravaged lives of former loggers from Forks. (Hopefully the vampire industry generated by the Eclipse series will bring some tourism dollars to this suffering town…) Unfettered gun rights, anti-gay sentiment and seething hatred of environmentalists ran rampant. On a more positive note, religious communities took the place of the union hall and we took care of each other. We knew who the people in need were among us and we looked after them. It’s a different world."

"Some portray his words as being worse than the loss of the jobs — or that they need Hillary to come protect them from elitist comments. Please. What are yoins thinkin’? But our otherwise eloquent wordsmith Senator Obama needs a better word choice describing people’s religion, to be sure."

Here's a link to Timothy's Egan's blog entry, where you can also read all the comments.

Meantime, here's just one of many analyses of Obama's comment.

A Very Punny Wine.

2008-04-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy lately that this blog's been relegated to the legendary back burner. So while I try to get caught up, enjoy this recycled post - and if you have tasted any of these wines, please do share your impressions! This was originally posted in February 2007.

The Rhône River Valley produces good and reasonable red wines made from grapes such as Syrah and Grenache. These are the popular Côtes du Rhône wines.

And for the last few years, they've had to tolerate a cheeky nudge from South Africa.

Vintner Charles Back created this “Rhône-style blend but with a Cape flavour” in 1999, using a blend using of Rhône varieties such as shiraz, cinsaut, carignan and mourvèdre with a dash of South African pinotage.

Back says he wasn’t trying to take a dig at the French. Fairview Winery’s “legend” recounts how some of its goats (which provide milk for Fairview’s internationally acclaimed cheeses) took advantage of an open gate and headed for the winery’s famous goat tower.

The little group happily roamed among the vineyards, and supposedly nibbled on different grape varieties that made up the blend that birthed this cheeky little wine.

Likely story!

Nonetheless, it has its fans, one who describes it thus:

“Dark ruby in color with reddish glints, it shows spicy black-plum aromas with just a hint of earthiness. Its ripe, peppery and plummy flavor is shaped by tangy, lemon-squirt acidity.”

The success led Charles Back to have a little more pun with his next wines.

France may have Côtes du Rhone Villages, but South Africa's Goats do Roam in Villages, in spite of objections.

More South African humor here, riffing on Bordeaux and Cotes d'Or:

Bored Doe and Goat Door Chardonnay.

And did these playful labels upset the French?

"You bet," writes Sandra Silfven in the Detroit News, "but not until Fairview tried to register the Goats do Roam in Villages name in the U.S. The French INAO (Institut National des Appellations d'Origine), which polices France's appellations, took legal action to block Fairview's trademark registrations and stop them from using the Goats Do Roam and Goat-Roti names. Apparently, they thought Americans were too dumb to know the wines weren't French. The tiff attracted so many yuks and headlines that the French quietly dropped the matter."

That's PUNishment, indeed.

And how about The Goatfather.

"With the rise to prominence of the Goats do Roam Family, challengers to their position have emerged on many fronts. Don Goatti, in true Sicilian tradition, fiercely protects the herd, their loyal customers and the winemaking secrets of the family. While few in the family know the final blend, The Goatfather always includes a selection of Italian varietals, maintaining their omertá over quality and consistency through the family of wines. The Goats will roam…Capisce?!"

(From the Goats do Roam website)

I raised some sheep when I lived in Oregon; they are close relatives of goats. From firsthand experience I can tell you, leave an opening, and sheep as well as goats DO roam far and wide and damn, they run FAST! You'd best not have been at the bottle if you have to chase down your goats or sheep.

Here's a link to Goats do Roam and Fairview.

Seven (Updated) Deadly Sins

2008-03-13T17:19:00.000-07:00

Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth.

SO 1500 years ago!

So on Sunday the Vatican issued a new list of seven deadlies, also dubbed the "social sins":

``Bioethical' violations such as birth control

``Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research

Drug abuse

Polluting the environment

Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

Excessive wealth

Creating poverty
If you are unfamiliar with the Catholic philosophy of sin, here's a good primer from Slate.

So, why the updated list now?

The Rev. John Wauck from Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross: "In different times, in moments of history, cultural moments, technological moments, sins dress themselves up, so to speak, in a different way," speaking to CNN.

"The underlying sin tends to be the same -- a variation of a theme of selfishness, a lack of respect for others, of lying, cheating , stealing or killing," Wauck said.

In the modern age, people find new ways to commit the seven deadly sins.

"Our wrath has new outlets and we have new technology with which to deceive people or even kill people," Wauck said.

Technology is a blessing, he said, but it can also be a danger. Take pollution, for example. Wauck said it's a variation of the original mortal sin of gluttony or selfishness.

Protecting the environment comes from the Bible's book of Genesis, he said: God created the world and placed man in it to thrive and not destroy. But the population explosion and the production of extremely toxic materials make the stakes much higher.

"We're seeing now that the kinds of sin that have an impact not on particular individuals -- I stole my neighbor's property or I damaged his property -- but [rather] I polluted in a way that damaged the entire environment, which doesn't belong to me and doesn't belong to my neighbor either. It belongs to mankind and so it's a sin in a certain sense against all of us," Wauck said.

Pope Benedict XVI "wants every person to stop and think about their actions and how it affects not only their own soul but the community and the world at large," said CNN's Vatican correspondent, Delia Gallagher.

"I think he thinks that by doing so this, by making people reflect on what they are doing, in the long term that is what is going to create a better world."

Discuss amongst yourselves!

New York Gets Its First Black Governor

2008-03-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Taking the office after the spectacular fall of Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson becomes only the third black governor of any state since Reconstruction.

The 53-year old Paterson is widely reported to be liked by pretty much everyone - in contrast to his disgraced predecessor. The New York Times describes the Brooklyn-born and Harlem-bred Paterson thus: "Widely considered smart, amiable and disarmingly candid."

He's also legally blind.

"Former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo recalled playing basketball against him in a charity game a decade ago.

“David was on the other side,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I said: ‘What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be blind.’ He said, ‘I’m guarding you.’ Just what I wanted: a blind guy to guard me. The second time down the court, he stole the ball.”

He’s got a wonderful sense of humor, a very gentle man,” said Betsy Gotbaum, the New York City public advocate. “In that sense, he’s the opposite of Eliot.”

And yes, what about Eliot?

Spitzer seems to have had a knack of insulting and antagonizing, usually unnecessarily. The New York Times recalls Spitzer's inaugural address: "delivered in his usual from-the-mount cadences, stood out for a singular lapse into gracelessness.

"With his predecessor of the previous 12 years, George E. Pataki, sitting in front of him, the new governor likened New York to Rip Van Winkle, a state that “has slept through much of the past decade while the rest of the world has passed us by.” Even if one accepted that assessment, having it delivered with Mr. Pataki sitting right there reflected both self-righteousness and exceptionally poor manners." On another occasion, Spitzer referred to the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno as “old” and “senile” in startlingly vulgar language.

(Read the rest of the article, Long a Public Scold, Now Facing Life as a Punch Line)

As Margot Adler said on NPR today, it seemed like Spitzer had no friends. Republicans and Wall Street clearly hated him, but even Democrats didn't show much love lost. His downfall began when banks, acting on rules Spitzer himself instituted as New York Attorney General, uncovered questionable money transfers. The irony approaches the proportions of Greek tragedy. (NPR's Adam Davidson did a fascinating piece on how and why banks were looking into Spitzer's financial transactions in the first place - listen to it here.)

Still, is David Paterson be too nice to be a governor?

Former Governor Cuomo thinks Mr. Paterson “will make a more than good governor.” But, he added: “I think in his heart of hearts he’d rather be a legislator. It’s easier to intellectualize, to deal with problems as a senator, because you don’t have to solve them.”

Here's what we know about the David Alexander Paterson.

He was born into a powerful Harlem political family. Father Basil was former state senator, who in 1970 became the first black nominee for lieutenant governor and later served as deputy mayor to Mayor Edward I. Koch and secretary of state to Gov. Hugh L. Carey.

"As an infant, Mr. Paterson developed an infection that left him blind in his left eye and with severally limited sight in the other," reports the New York Times.

"Because the public schools in New York City could not guarantee him an education without placing him in special education classes, his parents bought a house in Hempstead, on Long Island, where he became the first legally disabled person to attend the district’s public schools. He did well enough to be admitted to Columbia University — he graduated in 1977 with a degree in history — and Hofstra Law School.

"His impaired vision has helped make him a good listener. Aides brief him by leaving lengthy voice mail messages. He memorizes his speeches.

“When I say I saw something, it’s more like I sensed it,” he said in a recent interview. “I think people’s perception of me sometimes is that I see more than I actually do.”

"Mr. Paterson, who has completed the New York City Marathon, has said that his “truest disability has been my ability to overcome my physical disability.”

“As soon as people see that I can be independent, then they hold me to the standard that everyone else is,” he said. As a result, “I don’t act the way I did when I was 17, like I can do everything myself, because I realized the minute I do that, no one helps me. So I learned to be a little more pragmatic about life.”

"He remembers becoming furious when Shirley Chisholm, the former congresswoman from Brooklyn, said she had encountered more bias because she was a woman than because she was black.

“Internally, I probably felt myself more discriminated against as a disabled person,” Mr. Paterson said in 2006. “And when I would experience discrimination from another African-American I would go ballistic. I thought black people were supposed to understand.”

In the state senate, Paterson became minority leader, where he borrowed a page from Mario Puzo in dealing with the Republican majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.

“When I came to the Senate minority, I thought that we were very bellicose and very antagonistic at times out of frustration of failure,” Mr. Paterson said. “So what I followed with Senator Bruno was something I read in ‘The Godfather,’ in the actual book, that you should have your friends underestimating your strengths and have your adversaries overestimating your weaknesses. So I always acted as if I was trying to — and I sincerely was trying — to have a more collegial atmosphere in the institution.”

"In the Senate, Mr. Paterson offered small gestures to Mr. Bruno that helped smooth their ideological differences, agreeing to adjourn early on days when Republicans were holding fund-raisers and to shorten debates. But he also helped orchestrate campaigns in 2004 that cost the Republicans three seats."

So a politician CAN be civil and cooperative, and still be effective!

"As lieutenant governor, Mr. Paterson has advanced his own agenda, focusing on stem-cell research, domestic violence and improving opportunities for women and minorities in business.

Asked what kind of governor Mr. Paterson would be, Mr. Green, who befriended him during the 1993 campaign, replied: “One word: different. Obviously, Eliot Spitzer got where he is by being pugnacious. David has gotten where he is by being accommodating.”

Where Spitzer once proudly called himself a *&^%$@!* steamroller, the consensus is, Paterson is no steamroller. In fact, Shift in Tone Likely With New Governor (New York Times.)

Paterson becomes governor when Spitzer's resignation takes effect on March 17.

Full Hips? Do the Bobaraba!

2008-02-18T10:02:00.000-08:00

A skinny behind is no asset.

Seattle-born rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot won a Grammy for his hit that celebrated rotund bottoms, "Baby Got Back."

Jennifer Lopez made that feature of the female anatomy so enticing, that women began asking for, er, cheek implants.

And in Ivory Coast, a dance craze is responsible for a black market in substances touted as enhancements to that part of the female anatomy.

The dance is the boboraba, which in the local Djoula language means big behinds.

It sounds like a national dance craze, along the lines of the Twist, Hustle, and Macarena.

According to the BBC, when Ivorian DJs play the boboraba, people swarm on to the dance floor and start shaking their groove things.

The report goes on to say:

While the dance has been embraced by both sexes, DJ Mix says it was inspired by women.

"We made it as a tribute to women, because African women are defined by the shape of their bottoms," he says. "Move your bottom, jump, you see, it's alive."

Kady Meite, one of his dancers, says the song is a message for women.

"There are women today with large bottoms who are embarrassed, so it's to say don't be ashamed - be comfortable," she says.

The message seems to have been taken on board - so much so that some women are now going in search of a "bobaraba".

In the sprawling Adjame market just north of the city centre in Abidjan, women sell "bottom enhancers".

"You need to inject this liquid into your bottom once a day," says a market trader, showing a vial of coloured liquid labelled "Vitamin B12".

Each vial costs $2. The label claims it is made in China.

No ingredients list, no prescriptions. Doctors are justifiably concerned! Even if the stuff is Vitamin B12, there is no scientific evidence that vitamin B12 can be used to treat anything except vitamin B12 deficiency, says Dr Victoria Drake of Oregon State University's Micronutrient Information Center.

From Ivory Coast we have another dance story, this one going back to May 2006. (I missed this one!)

In a nightclub in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, DJ Lewis stretches his arms out either side of his body, bends his arms at the wrists, and begins trembling like a man possessed.

A man possessed? Three seconds later, the DJ and musician sets that impression straight, by clucking loudly in his best imitation of a dying chicken.

"It's like a chicken with Parkinson's disease trying to dance to hip-hop," said one onlooker.

Welcome to the latest craze in Ivory Coast's ever-inventive night life: the bird flu dance.

The deadly avian disease was discovered in Ivory Coast last week, and within days DJ Lewis had come up with the bird flu dance.

"I created the dance to bring happiness to the hearts of Africans, and to chase away fear, the fear of eating chicken" he told the BBC.

"If we kill all our chickens and poultry, our cousins in the village will become poor.

"So I created the bird flu dance to put joy back into our hearts."

The story on the bird flu dance is also from the BBC, and you can read it here.

As for dance crazes in the Western world, they go back a very long way. Long before Chubby Checker and others his ilk, the minuet, the allemande, the schottische, the mazurka and the waltz were the fads of their day. Check out this Wikipedia article, Novelty and fad dances.

Tango, anyone?

Idaho and Obama

2008-02-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since my last post - chalk it up to a super-hectic schedule and long hours spent on snow removal. What a winter.

Other events besides our epic amounts of snow have caught my attention in recent days. Surely I'm not the only one who was surprised by the Super Tuesday's results from Idaho, the reddest of the red states. More than four times as many voters showed up to caucus as did in 2004 -- nearly 30,000, according to the Idaho Statesman.

Obama captured 80 percent of Idaho and easily won all of the state's 23 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. It was one of Obama's most decisive Super Tuesday victories.

Here's the view from the New York Times' Timothy Egan:

Take a look at what happened on Tuesday in the nearly all-white counties of Idaho, a place where the Aryan Nations once placed a boot print of hate — “the international headquarters of the white race,” as they called it.

The neo-Nazis are long gone. But in Kootenai County, where the extremists were holed up for several decades, a record number of Democrats trudged through heavy snow on Super Duper Tuesday to help pick the next president. Guess what: Senator Barack Obama took 81 percent of Kootenai County caucus voters, matching his landslide across the state. He won all but a single county.

The runaway victory came after a visit by Obama last Saturday, when 14,169 people filled the Taco Bell Arena in Boise to hear him speak – the largest crowd ever to fill the space, for any event. It was the biggest political rally the state has seen in more than 50 years.

“And they told me there were no Democrats in Idaho,” Obama said.

Egan says those numbers "make a case for Obama’s electability and the inroads he has made into places where Democrats are harder to find than a decent bagel."

Read Egan's whole piece here.

What Bush Could (and Should) Have Done

2008-01-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

This week, George W. Bush made his first visit as US President to the West Bank.

I'm not sure why he waited till his final year in office to do it, but it got me thinking about what else he could - and should - do in his final year.

He said "I'm a uniter, not a divider." Yet his policies often seem to do anything but unite. Loved by some, they are loathed and derided by others.

But here's something that would most likely be accepted widely, is unlikely to offend, is something of national importance, and seriously, GWB is the most appropriate president to do this. Which is why I can't figure out why he and his advisers have not done it sooner:

A national fitness campaign.

While every administration proudly distributes pictures of the Commander in Chief involved in one sporting activity or other, Bush really is the ultimate fitness fanatic. He once said: "Even when I travel, there's always a treadmill in my room. I have a treadmill on Air Force One. On long trips -- for example, when I went to Europe recently -- I ran for 90 minutes on the flight over there. When I came back from China, I ran on the flight."

Exercise-reports.com, in an article entitled George Bush - The Fittest President, reports:

"In January, 1993, he finished the Houston Marathon in 3:44:52 (that's about an 8:30 pace); he's the only president ever to complete that distance.

"...Runner's World...reported his normal routine is to run five or six times a week. "When I run," he said, "I run hard. On Sundays if I'm at Camp David, I'll go for a hard, morning run -- these days about 20:30 to 20:45 for three miles on a tough course." In June, 2002, he ran a three-mile road race in an official time of 20:29 at age 55-years-old.

Good heavenly days.

"Bush also mountain bikes at the Crawford, Texas, ranch, pushing hard for four-hour rides. According to AP reporter Scott Lindlaw, who rode with Bush on a mountain bike, "He (Bush) watches his heart rate very, very closely. He was reporting to me regularly what his heart rate was. ... He likes to exercise in the zone."

Wouldn't a fitness campaign be one thing Bush could do - easily - with loads of credibility?

True, there was his Healthier US Initiative of 2003, "designed to help Americans, especially children, live longer, better, and healthier lives" and encourages taking "steps to improve personal health and fitness." It even inspired a book.

Do you remember it?

I don't, and there's a good chance you don't either.

It's possible the media gave the initiative short shrift because it's not an exciting story, involving guns, oil or money....or one that people would probably ignore. But doesn't the White House have the power to say, look, this is a really important thing - everybody should sit up, pay attention and get moving - Americans just need to be healthier, and we are going to do whatever it takes to help them get there?

Given that we've been told for years now that that Americans don't exercise enough; given that health professionals say this inactivity is the source of many medical conditions, which in turn are straining the country's health care resources - I really wonder why the President didn't seize the opportunity to make this a national priority and, quite possibly, improve his dismal approval ratings.

The case could be made that the healthier we are, the better our economic shape... or that a fit nation is in the interests of national security.

With the analysis of the recent caucus and primary results indicating an exhaustion with partisan politics, fitness is an issue that has the potential to unite people of vastly differing political stripes.

It's not too late for the administration to step on it.

Australia Needed Rain, Not Floods

2008-01-08T09:41:00.001-08:00

Australian farmers have been suffering through years of the worst drought on record. Called "Big Dry," the drought was so severe that in April 2007, then-prime minister John Howard warned about turning off all but drinking water to the continent's food bowl, the Murray-Darling basin in the southeastern part of the country...unless heavy rains broke the epic drought.

And the torrential downpours came this week.

Parts of New South Wales north of Sydney have been cut off by heavy rain and declared natural disaster zones. Queensland has also been hit hard. Hundreds of people remained trapped by floods today even though waters had begun to recede. The damages could could run to tens of millions of dollars.

Obviously, the rain is a mixed blessing for the parched country. Some irrigators who had been facing zero water supplies have seen their water rations restored to 100 percent. But others are still staring at bone dry paddocks, while some farmers already on government drought assistance are now applying for flood aid after rivers burst banks.

Al Gore talked about increased drought and flood in An Inconvenient Truth. And for his warnings on global warming, he was mocked by many, including John Howard.

The conservative former Australian prime minister's skepticism on climate change cost him his job.

The conservative Howard was decisively beaten at the polls by Kevin Rudd, in an race with heavy emphasis on climate matters. One of Rudd's first actions after the election?

Rudd signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The action reversed a decade of Australian environmental policy, left the United States standing alone among industrialized nations in its refusal to ratify the treaty, and brought prolonged applause at a United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia. (New York Times.)

Read about recent floods around the globe (scroll past the videos at the top of the page). These include Mozambique, threatened with what could be its worst flood ever; and reports from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Great Britain - just in the last 30 days.

(From The Great Red Comet - Earth Science Chronicles).

The truth behind $100-a-barrel oil

2008-01-03T07:47:00.000-08:00

Vanity.

That's the reason the price of oil broke the $100 mark yesterday, January 2nd.

At first sign of the news, many reports attributed the record price to "violence in Nigeria, Algeria and Pakistan, the weak US dollar and the threat of cold weather." (BBC)

But now it turns out the century mark was broken by a single trader, who bought a thousand barrels, the smallest amount permitted. He sold it immediately for $99.40, at a $600 loss.

Said Stephen Schork, a former floor trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange and the editor of an oil market newsletter: "He paid $600 for the right to tell his grandchildren that he was the first in the world to buy $100 oil."

What happens, though, is that when psychological price barriers are broken, some start panicking, filling their fuel tanks and what not....and of course, some traders will be willing to pay higher prices on the market. All adding price pressure.

Right on cue, Bloomberg reports today that crude oil is trading near that record mark.

And OPEC says it's unable to counter the rally, Libyan and Qatari officials said today. Further, the U.S. doesn't plan to tap strategic reserves, a spokeswoman for President Bush said yesterday.

Though I have no doubt that record would have been broken sooner or later, it's still interesting to note that this particular price jump stemmed from one man's vanity. His identity is not known at this time.

Here's the BBC's full report. And here's an opinion piece in today's Washington Post, by David Fleischaker: In Praise of $100 Oil.

Let's Hear it for the Granny Underwear!

2008-01-02T04:23:00.000-08:00

The What Not To Wear crowd sneers at oversized panties, but they have their utility.

From the BBC comes today this little nugget from the UK:

Giant knickers put out house fire

Jenny Marsey's size 18-20 cotton pants were a lifesaver when they were grabbed to cover a frying pan fire at her home in Meryl Gardens, Hartlepool, Teesside.

Her son and nephew were trying to fry some bread when the blaze broke out.

But the quick-thinking pair used the Marks & Spencer underwear from a pile of washing, doused them in water, and threw them over the fire.

Mrs Marsey, 53, said: "My £4.99 parachute knickers have come in handy for something. We've had a good laugh that they were a bit like a fire blanket."

The incident happened on Sunday, while Mrs Marsey was out for the day.

Her son John and his cousin Darren, 23, were cooking, when they went to answer a knock at the door, only to return to a blazing kitchen.

Mrs Marsey said: "When they found the pan on fire they did what most people do and panicked.

"But they found a pair of my knickers in a washing basket and basically used them as a fire blanket to put out the fire."

Mrs Marsey, who is also mother to Sarah, 23, Joanne, 24, and Donna, 27, added: "I think if they had been my daughter Sarah's skimpy knickers they wouldn't have done any good.

"I'm taking it all in my stride and it's quite a funny start to the New Year."

The BBC article also contains a video! See it here.

Jonathan Safran Foer Riffs on Hanukkah and Christmas (and Kwanzaa)

2007-12-25T06:23:00.000-08:00

The author of the highly-acclaimed novel Everything is Illuminated, and most recently, of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is known for his tongue-in-cheek humor. Here's Jonathan Safran Foer's op-ed in the New York Times.

A Beginner's Guide to Hanukkah:

CHRISTMAS -- Christmas is a holiday that Christian children have been given to celebrate because they aren't Jewish. Instead of eight nights of presents, there is only one. And instead of getting to eat delicious and nutritious latkes, they are forced to drink something called nog, which isn't even a real word. They touch each other's sweaters while they sing together around pianos, they get into ''the spirit,'' and here's another bad thing about Christmas that should make Jewish children excited about celebrating Hanukkah: Christmas trees are terrible fire hazards.

SANTA CLAUS -- Santa Claus is an obese fictional being who supposedly ''visits'' Christan homes the night before Christmas for the alleged purpose of delivering ''presents'' to ''children'' who have been ''good'' the previous year. It's a bit pathetic that Christian chilldren are fed this lame make-believe, instead of having a really interesting true hero like Hanukkah Harry.

HANUKKAH HARRY -- Hanukkah Harry is a real person who drops in on Jewish homes each of the eights nights of Hanukkah to deliver gifts that are in no way dependent on children's good behavior. Harry spends the off-season in Florida, Keeping out of the sun and faxing missives to Jewish craftsmen in Vietnam to make more dreidels. On Hanukkah nights, Harry flies through the sky in a 1991 Volvo 240 wagon (Champagne exterior, mocha interior), pulled by his legal team of Schlepper, Pischer & Blintzes.

MISTLETOE -- It's hard for anyone, especially those of us who wore aviator glasses in high school, to find a problem with mistletoe. (Allergies aside.) Which is why Hanukkah Harry invented it in the first place.

LATKES -- Latkes are a kind of oil, into which small quantities of shredded potato have been infused.

HANUKKIAH -- A hanukkiah is like a menorah, but with room for eight candles. Or is it nine? An object of supreme importance, the hanukkiah is passed down from generation to generation and is sometimes the only item in a Jew's suitcase. If you don't have the firmest of grasps on the supreme importance of the hanukkiah, you should buy your children very expensive gifts this year. And if you don't have children, would it kill you to have some?Someone needs to inherit the hanukkiah.

TWICE-A-YEAR JEWS WHO ARE ONCE-A-YEAR CHRISTIANS -- There is a certain kind of Jew who, despite knowing that Christmas is simply isn't his holiday, and that it would severely distress his relatives (particularly the dead ones) if he acknowledged feelings of Christmas Envy, much less acted on them, get a Christmas tree anyway. And does the leaving-a-cookie-out-for-Santa thing. And the sweaters and nog. But of course he never lets any of it interfere with the Hanukkah celebrations, whatever they are. And you have to admit, ''Silent Night'' is a seriously beautiful song.

Then one day this twice-a year Jew who is a once-a-year Christian walks in on his children talking about Baby Jesus. So he sends them to Hebrew school, where over time, they learn Christmas Envy. And the cycle repeats itself.

CHRISTMAS TREE -- Christians chop down trees to make houses to put trees in. The absurdity of this need not be elaborated on. Which is not even to mention that they hang perfectly dry socks over the fireplace, and rack up enormous electricity bills with the lights they put outside their houses. That's right, outside their houses.

KWANZAA -- No one is quite sure just what Kwanzaa is.

DECORATING THE HOUSE -- While Christmas decorations are recognizable and straightforward -- mistletoe, a tree, red-and-green knee socks above the fireplace -- no one has figured out how to decorate a Jewish home on Hanukkah. Some might say that the hanukkiah is decorations, but it isn't; the hanukkiah is a ceremonial object, with specific, non-decorative purposes. Perhaps the Stars of David that many string about are appropriate Jewish decoration? They are blatant imitations of Christmas decorating. Dreidels? They're toys. Latkes? They're food. What does it look like to celebrate Hanukkah?

This poses the larger problem of Jewish decorating: What does a Jewish home look like? How can a Jew identify without resorting to imitation, kitsch or the display of ceremonial objects? With Chagall prints on the walls? With trinkets bought in Israel when it was hard to go to Israel? With the Philip Roth backlist on the shelf? This paper on the stoop every morning?

Is it necessary to decorate at all?

And if not, what do we do with that feeling of necessity?

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT -- The following Christmas carols were written by Jews: ''O Holy Night'' (Adolphe Adam), ''Christmas Song'' (Mel Torme), ''White Christmas'' (Irving Berlin), ''Let It Snow, Let It Snow'' (Sammy Cahn and Jules Styne), ''Silver Bells'' (Jay Livingston and Ray Evans), and ''Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'' (Johnny Marks). The Grinch in ''The Grinch That Stole Christmas'' WASN'T Jewish, but the composer, Albert Hague, was. No one has contributed more to Christmas spirit than the Jews. We contributed the birthday boy himself, for God's sake.

Window displays are always more attractive than the gifts you receive -- even if you receive what was in the window. Jews engage Christmas in its ideal form: for the outside. Unspoiled by family friction, or commerce, or anxiety about the wrong gift, we can experience the purest spirit. Someone else's spirit that we compose music for. And look at from the other side of the window. Christians should envy us envying them.

HANUKKAH SPIRIT -- Hanukkah spirit is the Christmas spirit as experienced by Jews.

HANUKKAH GUILT -- You don't pay enough attention to your grandparents, or your parents, or spouse, or siblings, or children or dog. Or yourself, for that matter. Your life has no meaning. You can't even remember just what, exactly, a hanukkiah is, even though one was schlepped acre=oss an ocean for you.

HANUKKAH GELT -- The only known antidote to Hanukkah guilt.

THE GREAT MIRACLE THAT HAPPENED THERE -- In the second century before the Common Era, the Maccabees led a rebellion against the Greek occupiers. Against all odds, and outnumbered 20 to 1, the scrappy band of Jews was victorious. The temple in Jerusalen was reclaimed, and the hanukkiah (then known as a simple menorah) was lighted in celebration, using the scant oil that was found lying around. It shouldn't have been enough to burn through the night, but when the sun rose the next morning, the flame was still going strong. It burned through the third night, and the fourth and the fifth. The oil lasted eight nights. A great miracle happened there.

THE GREAT MIRACLE, CONTINUED -- It lasted a ninth night, and a 10th and a 20th. After a month, the hanukkian began to melt under the heat of the miracle it proclaimed. It spilled over the bimah and onto the floor. The fire spread, Hallelujah! The stained-glass windows were illuminated to those standing outside, watching the miracle engulf and swallow the building, and those trapped within it. The fore spread -- the chosen people, we are a light unto the nations! -- and has yet to be stamped out in many places. It is unknown just when we can be expected to get back to normal, non-miraculous living.

DREIDEL -- The dreidel is a spinning toy, painstakingly fashioned out of plastic polymer by Jewish craftsmen in Vietnam. Used for tabletop gambling games during Hanukkah, the dreidel often ends up on the floor and sometimes in the dog's small intestine. There is a Hebrew letter on each of the dreidel's four sides. These letters abbreviate the statement: Spin it again. You have no idea what is means. You spin it again. You try to make sense of it. Spin it again? You spin it again.

THE MYSTERIES OF HANUKKAH -- What, exactly, does the dreidel have to do with Hanukkah? Why is Hanukkah celebrated like this only in the United States? Why is Hanukkah a minor holiday and not a High Holy Day, and why are we proud of that, and why don't act we act as though it's minor, and why are we worried about decorating our homes? Is it possible to celebrate Hanukkah without succumbing to imitation, kitsch or commerce? Is there anything morally inconsistent, as Jews and as American, in celebrating a holiday that is ostensibly about the removal of occupiers? Could Hanukkah exist without Christmas?

Like all Jewish Mysteries, the mysteries of Hanukkah can be taken in one of two ways: they can serve either to undermine or sustain. The questions frustrate some to the point of walking away. Some find resolution in the questions themselves.

Is there any good reason to continue to celebrate Hanukkah?

If you have to ask, then no.

Is there any good reason to continue to celebrate Hanukkah?

If you have to ask, then yes.

Jonathan Safran Foer is the author, most recently, of ''Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.''

Here's the link to the December 23rd op-ed.

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life.....

2007-12-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

Ooooh see that girl, watch that scene....

Can you sing the next few lyrics?

If you can - and there's a strong chance of it - then you know the song that's been playing in my head for the last couple of days.

Okay, some history.

My childhood and teenage years revolved around a small Catholic girls' school in Singapore, graduating about 80 or so girls each year. Many of us in were in the very same class from ages 4 to 16. As Plato noted, "you can learn more about a [person] in an hour of play, than in a year of conversation." And so it was with us - besides classroom learning, we played sports, embroidered, sang in choirs, said rosaries, played pranks, and experienced our first kitchen disasters together. (Oh, all right - the kitchen disasters were MINE.) Together we went to camp, to woodwork and metalwork, acted in plays, debated, told jokes and conspired on April Fool's practical jokes. Yes, we got to know another very well indeed.

During my last couple of years there at Marymount, we all loved the songs of ABBA. At any opportunity you'd hear someone breaking out in one of those catchy tunes, only to be joined in a moment by a spontaneous a capella backup group. We all loved those songs! I remember one teacher, otherwise immune to the charms of the Swedish sensation, saying dryly: "Well, at least they know how to enunciate PROPERLY." There you go - ABBA had something for everyone! (Though I'm fairly certain this teacher's halting approval came before ABBA released Gimme Gimme Gimme!)

On field trips we'd entertain ourselves merrily singing these hits. It seemed we never tired of songs such as these:

Take a Chance on Me

Money Money Money

The Name of the Game

Waterloo

I'd say the girl who knew the songs best was Christina, she with the encyclopedic knowledge of music in general, and an astounding memory for melodies and lyrics.

On Monday I flew to Las Vegas to meet up with her for the first time in over fourteen years.

Delays kept me from arriving until 6 that evening. When I got to the hotel, there was a message for me: "Be at the Mandalay by 7 - I have tickets to Mamma Mia!!!"

So I turned on my heels, marched out of the hotel and down the Strip, up one escalator and down another, weaving my way on foot and by city bus till I got to the Mandalay. More walking within that enormous complex before I found the theater. Searching the crowd, I spotted Christina and called out to her - and we ran to each other, squealing in the delighted way that two old friends would after a long time apart. (Okay, women friends - I doubt men would squeal!)

We know each other so well that right away we were chatting and laughing as if no time at all had passed.

In a moment we were in the theater.

As you probably know, Mamma Mia is the hit musical based on ABBA's hit songs. So here we were, us old friends, listening to the very songs that were the soundtrack of our teenage years. Not only that - one of the early scenes features old friends reuniting after a long absence.

We couldn't have choreographed a better setting for our reunion!!

Clearly, we were not the only people in that huge theater to lift our voices. Christina's formidable mental database of ABBA lyrics has not diminished in the least. It was the ultimate sing-a-long event.

The plot: On the eve of her wedding, a daughter tries to discover the identity of her father by inviting her mother's three old flames to the Greek island where they shared friendships - and obviously, somewhat more - some 20 years earlier.

It was nice to hear those songs again with fresh ears, and in some cases, different contexts and interpretations. Also nice to hear the lyrics now as as a fortysomething: The Winner Takes it All was surprisingly affecting. Lyrics of "Does Your Mother Know" were revised to give the song a totally new, post-Demi-Moore-Ashton-Kutcher face.

"Mamma Mia" was much like ABBA's music - by turns lively, sentimental, driving, introspective, corny, wistful - but always tuneful and FUN. Oh yes, it was wonderfully bawdy at times. And who doesn't love a musical that ends in a wedding?

I'm going to get myself some ABBA CDs. Good to remember the days of being a "dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen" - even if that particular ship of mine has longggggg sailed - and the port decommissioned, I might add.

Thank goodness one's friends and memories keep us young at heart.

Oh, by the way - the film version of Mamma Mia is due out in summer 2008, starring Meryl Streep. As we know from the film version of A Prairie Home Companion, she has considerable singing talent.

Meantime, to help you dance and jive and feel the beat of the tambourine, are two videos. The first is the original ABBA, the second features the cast of Mamma Mia on Good Morning America. enjoy!

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How to Clean Up After a Flood

2007-12-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

I was out of town when the devastating storms hit Western Washington last week and submerged parts of Lewis County. Walking through the Seattle airport, I stopped dead in my tracks in front of the newspaper vending machines, with front page pictures of I-5 under 10 feet of water.

Why did the national media give so little attention to such devastation? The main artery between Portland and Seattle was closed for days. Hundreds of homes were seriously damaged. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports in King County ALONE:

"...as of Friday afternoon, the county has received 192 reports from residents, totaling $4.25 million in uninsured damage or loss to primary residences. The county has also received 16 reports of damaged businesses for a total of $524,000." (More)

Some homeowners will find that their insurance does not cover flood damage; they have to hope for federal aid, and charity. Others could find themselves mired in battles with their insurance companies for weeks, maybe months, before they see any cash. And what will they do in the meantime?

Speaking from experience, they will be doing a lot of hard physical work.

From the pictures, it looks like many homes were filled mainly with water. Others were filled with mud, or even worse, raw sewage.

All will have to get rid of the water, mud or sewage, then haul their belongings out of the homes and try to salvage whatever they can. Face masks should be worn to prevent possible respiratory problems. They will have to get discard all carpets and padding, mattresses, and drywall, as well as upholstered furniture, cosmetics, stuffed animals, baby toys, pillows, foam-rubber items, books, wall coverings and most paper products. If their fridges and freezers were out of power for days, they'll have to get rid of all the contents. Some will find that even five washings will not get the mud out of their laundry. Then, time to wash things clean.

A pressure washer is so helpful at this point.

Once they have a bare, stripped-down space, they can commence with disinfecting, most likely with bleach or other antimicrobial products. Then comes the drying out and mold prevention.

It will takes gallons and gallons of bleach to wash down every surface and every washable item in the house. Now comes the drying-out phase.

Humidity is very low here on the Palouse, yet drying took a couple of weeks. Once I got clearance to switch on the power, I left fans running continuously for at least two weeks (I learned that dehumidifiers have limited efficacy in such situations.) This was not just in the basement: areas upstairs also needed serious ventilation, for even though they escaped flooding, the moisture percolated upwards, creating a cold damp that seeped into everything, smelling damp and dank.

I wonder, in the wet and humid west side, how much longer it will take to get completely dry?

After numerous trips to the dumpster or transfer station, it will be time to rebuild. New drywall, insulation, carpet, possibly wiring and plumbing, paint, maybe doors, appliances, bedding, food, clothing.

How can you help?

From Northwest Cable News:

The American Red Cross says financial donations are the most efficient way to assist families. The Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund allows the agency to provide relief to victims of disaster each year by providing water, food, shelter and mental health counseling. To designate your donation to a specific disaster, do so at the time of your donation. Call 1-800-REDCROSS.

You can make a donation at any US Bank branch in Washington. Be sure to tell the bank your donation is for Northwest Response.

In Lewis County, the United Way is the key contact point for donations of supplies, financial aid and volunteer time. Call (360) 748-8100 to help.

Items that are needed include:

Flat or snow shovels

Floor squeegees

Tarps

Cleaning supplies

Clothing

Food

Financial assistance

Face masks (cloth dust masks)

And what about the livestock in the affected areas?

Pasado's Safe Haven is responding to animals in need in Lewis and Mason counties. The public can help by calling in a donation to Monroe Farm & Feed (360-794-4663), donating a Costco or PetSmart gift card or making an online donation. Donations will support animal rescuers, who need to pay for hotel stays, gas and food. In addition, you can drop off dog and cat food and supplies at Barrier Motors, 1533 120th Avenue N.E., Bellevue, WA, 98005.

The Towns-End Cattle Co. is accepting donations to support flood victims. The business is delivering hay to Lewis County livestock.

The Washington Farm Bureau has created a Flood Relief Fund to meet the needs of farmers and ranchers impacted by flooding. To make a donation, call 1-800-331-3276.

In any event, flood victims should try not feel bad about accepting the help of others. It is much harder to receive than it is to give, but a lesson well worth learning.

Food-based Voting?

2007-11-27T11:18:00.001-08:00

Ice cream and a corn dog in Des Moines, and pizza in Manchester, N.H. (Photo: New York Times)

Would you vote for somebody who turns up his or her nose at the food you love?

That's one of the points made in the New York Times article Where the Votes Are, So Are All Those Calories.

John Kerry learned that the hard way in Philadelphia in 2004. Dana Milbank captured the essence of the problem in the Washington Post:

"...the Massachusetts Democrat went to Pat's Steaks and ordered a cheesesteak -- with Swiss cheese. If that weren't bad enough, the candidate asked photographers not to take his picture while he ate the sandwich; shutters clicked anyway, and Kerry was caught nibbling daintily at his sandwich -- another serious faux pas.

"It will doom his candidacy in Philadelphia," predicted Craig LaBan, food critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which broke the Sandwich Scandal. After all, Philly cheesesteaks come with Cheez Whiz, or occasionally American or provolone. But Swiss cheese? "In Philadelphia, that's an alternative lifestyle," LaBan explained.

And don't even mention Kerry's dainty bites. "Obviously, Kerry's a high-class candidate, and he misread the etiquette," LaBan said. "Throwing fistfuls of steak into the gaping maw, fingers dripping -- that's the proper way." (Here's the whole article)

It got me thinking about the conclusions we draw about people based on what they eat, and how they eat it.

Many made fun of Bill Clinton when he would go for a run, Secret Service agents in tow, as he made detours to McDonald's to...er..refuel, before embarking on the return leg to the White House. But under the chuckles many saw a man whose weakness for junk food gave him the down-to-earth, regular-guy (albeit with poor appetite control) air that candidates work strenuously to achieve. When he left Pennsylvania Avenue and set up his office in Harlem, its proximity to excellent soul food restaurants was not lost upon journalists and Clinton-watchers. Oh, yes...then came the heart attack and his embrace of the South Beach Diet. Yet another way the regular guy saw himself reflected in Bill Clinton.

From the NYTimes article: "Those wanting to be president must never, ever refuse or fumble the local specialties, lest they repeat the sins of John Kerry (dismissed as effete when he ordered a Philly cheese steak with Swiss in 2004) or Gerald R. Ford (on a 1976 swing through Texas, he bit into a tamale with the corn husk still on)."

Not every candidate should be expected to know how to tackle an uncommon food - but what I would watch for is their willingness to sample the unknown, to take on something less than straightforward, and be willing to get their hands dirty.

So where is the candidate who will dine off the beaten campaign food track? Let him or her head to a dim sum restaurant in any of America's Chinatowns, and peek into the big rolling steam carts as they trundle by the tables. I'm sure many would order potstickers, har gow (crystal shrimp dumplings), char siew bao (barbequed pork buns) and maybe even sesame balls for dessert. Once exotic, these treats have now entered mainstream America. But how comfortable would a potential governor or president be tucking into nor mai gai - a ball of glutinous (sticky) rice with meats and shitake mushrooms, wrapped in a big lotus leaf? And would they dare to order - and eat - fong sao?

Literally, fong sao means the claw of the phoenix. A euphemism for chicken feet, stir-fried or deep-fried, then marinated and finally steamed. One has to pop the foot into the mouth, bones and all, and do lots of deft manifpulation with teeth, lips and tongue before politely depositing a pile of minuscule bones into a napkin or plate. If a candidate tackled that, it would tell me that he or she is:

Unafraid

Curious

Open to new ideas and experiences

Not superficial

Willing to deal with problems

Really into diversity

I want to see candidates fearlessly eating oysters on the half shell in Seattle, lentil ice cream in Pullman, rocky mountain oysters in Montana, the hottest red and green chile in New Mexico, and garlic cheesecake in Gilroy, California.

What puts me off?

Prissy eaters who literally wrinkle their noses and pucker their visages when presented with unfamiliar foods. I'm not talking about little children, either! We've all encountered adults like this, haven't we? If only they knew that expression makes any face highly unattractive, and is simply rude.

How much ruder if that expression was seen on the face of a senatorial, gubernatorial or presidential hopeful.

This is a wonderfully diverse land - that complexity reflected in food as well as people. A candidate would do well to show his or her comfort with that diversity at the gut level.

True Tale of a Wild Cranberry Harvest

2007-11-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This is the tale of a wild harvest. No location will be divulged, out of respect for Matt, my Cranberry Foraging Guru. The secrecy also serves to preserve my safety.

(I was warned not to talk too much.)

It was a few years ago that some friends told me about their annual trip to gather cranberries in a bog, here in the Northwest. Intrigued, I asked lots of questions - and a couple of years later was actually INVITED to go along.

The equipment: rubber boots, extra clothing, a bucket, and empty mesh bag - the kind in which you buy fifty pounds of onions. A sack lunch, and a thermos of hot coffee. And most important: a canoe. (Really.)

The four of us gathered well before sunrise at Matt's house on a cold November morning. We hoisted the two canoes onto his van, then hit the road for a very long drive to a remote lake.

It just so happened that I had shaved my head completely just the day before, in support of a friend with cancer. Aware that we lose most of the heat through our head, I was still not prepared for the way that cold dawn fog insinuated itself into my very pores. A wool cap was far from sufficient: I still felt somehow naked. I verged on a headache.

In the half-light, we carried our canoes down an icy wooden ramp, clambered in and began paddling. The sun was just starting to come up, and birds were piping up all around.

After about 20 minutes at a good pace, we moved toward a narrow channel. The water was shallow, and our paddles kept getting tangled in weeds. Eventually, it was clear we would have to get up and carry the canoes across at least part of the channel.

(Why, in all those excited conversations about the romance of cranberry picking, was portaging in cold muddy water never mentioned, HMMMMMM????)

I stepped out of the boat and promptly sank knee deep in the mud, my rubber boots filling with icy water. A loud yelp from another member of the party let me know she was, if you'll pardon the expression, in the same boat.

Somehow, the other two were able to stay above the mud and pulled us out. The mud smelled awful, and the water in my boots was so cold it hurt; what was worse, though, was I just couldn't get enough traction to lift the canoe. My partner Brian made me sit in the craft, and to my amazement LIFTED the front of the canoe and slid it across the mud till we reached enough water to start paddling again!

After a while, the bog came into view. This was when I learned a bog is actually a floating island of peat and moss, and in this particular case, supports a huge mass of cranberry bushes. As we hopped on to the bog and started walking across it, the whole island shook.

Matt knelt down and started chipping at the thin ice with his fingers. There, nestling in the moss, were scads and scads of gorgeous, plump cranberries, ranging from white to salmon to a deep crimson. Some were very hard, some were a little mushy, and all were ours to gather to our hearts' content!

Unlike picking strawberries or huckleberries, though, one is not tempted to sample raw cranberries. They are bitter and tart, and make one's face pucker up with an expression as acrid as their taste.

We put the berries into buckets, which we then emptied into our mesh bags. Martina and I noticed that Matt's and Brian's bags were filling considerably faster than ours, and did our best to coax our frozen fingers to speed up. It wasn't till we got back home that we realized the two men were scooping up handfuls of berries along with leaves, twigs and bits of moss while we were fastidiously picking the fruit berry by berry.

We got to know the perils of the bog as Matt walked to a fresh patch, stepped into a weak spot on the bog hole and sank to his chest. After the rescue, the conversation turned to the subject of bog people.

From Wikipedia: "...bog people are preserved human bodies found in sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe, Great Britain and Ireland. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of preservation. Under certain conditions, the acidity of the water, the cold temperature and the lack of oxygen combine to tan the body's skin: skeletal preservation is very rare in these bodies, as the acid in the peat dissolves the calcium carbonate of bone. The bodies provide very useful research material for archaeologists. Some of the bodies retain intricate details like tattoos and fingerprints."

Idly, I wondered what scientists of the future would make if they found the body of a bald Asian woman in a peat bog in North America.

My bag was about two-thirds full when I felt my back and knees would not hold out any longer. The rest of the party was ready to quit at the same time, so it was time for a meal and some warmth. Our wet clothes were steaming in the sun. Matt gathered some driftwood and quickly made a small fire. That, the food and thermoses of hot coffee, were as welcome as cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving.

The paddle back to the van went much more easily, with no muddy misadventures.

At home, I emptied my berries into big tubs of water to clean them, and marveled at the sight of all the shiny fruit - must have been at least twenty pounds of it.

It took a few days before the aches and pains of the trip subsided, after which I busied myself making batches of cranberry sauce, juice, and more.

Here's my recipe for my favorite sauce, which involves oranges and star anise. If you like the taste of licorice, this will floor you.

Juice and zest (I like to leave it in strips) of two large oranges
2 star anise
2 cups sugar (white or brown, or a mix)
1 pound of cranberries
Pinch of salt

Put the whole lot in a saucepan on medium heat. Cook till the berries pop, then stir and continue cooking till it looks jammy, about 15 minutes. Add more sugar to taste, if desired. Put into sterilized jars and refrigerate. It keeps for months!

Besides pairing with turkey, this sauce is great on a piece of bread with cream cheese.

Cranberries are incredibly versatile. I've used my wild harvest in a chocolate cranberry torte (recipe), the accompanying deep red sauce flavored with Chambord. They make beautiful salad dressings, and the shockingly pink cranberry relish from Mama Stamberg. Last year, I was delighted with my first batch of cranberry vodka. With tonic, it's DIVINE.

I made the canoe trip to the bog twice more after that, but with my knees getting a little stiffer, last year passed the torch on to my teenage son. Sadly, this year neither of us went, and I understand pickings were slim. So it's store-bought stuff for me this year, which will suffice, but will most definitely be short on the thrill and pleasure of canoeing to the cranberry bog.

No Sex Please, We're Singapore Airlines.

2007-11-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

Exactly the sort of picture that Singapore Airlines would rather you not see.

Australians Tony and Julie Elwood share a romantic moment on their double bed in the exclusive suite aboard the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007.

Picture from KOMO TV

Highly-acclaimed Singapore Airlines is the first to use the massive Airbus A380. The first class area of its giant superjumbo contains 12 private suites complete with double beds.

Singapore Airlines has taken the unusual step of publicly asking passengers on its new Airbus A380 plane not to engage in any sexual activities.

Officials say the suites were not sound-proofed.

It said it did not want anyone to offend other travellers or crew.

Singapore added that while the suites were private, they were also not completely sealed.

"All we ask of customers, wherever they are on our aircraft, is to observe standards that don't cause offence to other customers and crew," the airline said in a statement.

Singapore Airlines recently took delivery of its first A380, with the first services between Singapore and Sydney starting on 25 October.

It is now set to take delivery of a further five A380s in 2008, out of its order of 19.

Read the full story from BBC NEWS

A Sedaris Encore.

2007-10-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

Photo from www.photophonic.com

I and about 1300 other David Sedaris fans received an excess of oxygen Saturday night at the Capitol Theater in Yakima. David had us laughing upraoriously as he read some essays and poems and from his diary. He also took questions from the audience. While I'd heard some of the pieces previously on This American Life, David's material is always fresh to me. Every year I listen to Santaland Diaries and never, ever get tired of it. Watching David reading to a live audience makes the stories even funnier.

Among his readings at the Capitol: 6 to 8 Black Men from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, the fable of the cat and her baboon masseuse, and a visit to a pot dealer's home. He also described what happened that afternoon as he swam at the Yakima YMCA, where a 9-year old challenged him to a race. No point recounting the tales - YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

David is a generous man. As people stood in line to get their books signed, he didn't merely ask a name and scrawl his signature, as most authors do. No - he talked to everyone, either asking what they did for a living, or a disarming question - and of course, was terribly funny and kept people laughing long after they left the line. He stayed at least two hours until the last book was signed. We're still chuckling at the Abe Lincoln pic he drew with the words: "I like jam." On our copy of "Holidays on Ice," he drew a face which he said to my son: "That's your Mom vomiting fish tacos." Oy!!!

Another way he is generous: he gave Northwest Public Radio a contribution of five hundred dollars minutes after arriving at his hotel. He heard about our fundraising shortfall and said that on his ride from Olympia, he listened to our station for ten minutes and decided he would make that gift. And he told us to talk about it in our introduction, if it would encourage the audience to be generous as well.

They were generous, and we raised about three thousand dollars at the theater that night. Mwah! Thank you!!! Thank you SO much!

(If you'd like to help us further reduce that shortfall, pledge here. As of today, we still need to raise at least $40,000 more. We really need every dollar we can raise - even five or ten dollars will help us a lot. Thanks!)

David was quite taken with my last name and mentioned that a number of times, to me, and also to my children. To my daughter: "I'm so sorry you can never get married." Her: "WHY????" David: "You must never lose that last name! It's the greatest name ever!"

If you were there, thank you for being there and making it possible for us to bring David to Yakima. If you weren't, here's a little something for you, from Letterman:

Seeding the Stratosphere: Is it Cool?

2007-10-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

After a long blogging hiatus for fundraising, here's one prevailing view on on how to combat global warming:

Block some of the sun's rays from reaching earth.

That's what happens after major volcanic events, such as the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

Fine ash and gases blasted high into the stratosphere, and the large volcanic cloud drifted around the world. It bore 22 million tons of sulfur dioxide, which combined with water to form droplets of sulfuric acid - and that blocked some sunlight from reaching the Earth. The result? A cooler world, with temperatures in some regions dropping by as much as 0.5 degrees C. (Source: USGS)

That was mild compared to the climate change effected by the biggest volcanic eruption ever recorded in human history. Nearly 200 years ago, in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago, Mount Tambora blew - the explosion was 10 times bigger than Krakatoa and more than 100 times bigger than Vesuvius or Mount St. Helens. Approximately 100,000 died in its shadow.

Tambora appears serene in these images from an airplane (top left) and from the space shuttle (top right).
Top left image courtesy of Rizal Dasoeki,Volcanological Survey of Indonesia. Top right image courtesy of NASA. Map courtesy of Tom Ford.
(Source: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Calen/Year1816.html)

This week NPR's Michael Sullivan investigated Tambora's impact on global climate.

The gas cloud from the 1815 eruption was about 20 times larger than that of Pinatubo, and produced the "year without summer." Average global temperatures decreased about 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1.3 °F). On 6 June 1816, snow fell in Albany, New York, and Dennysville, Maine. Such conditions occurred for at least three months and ruined most agricultural crops in North America. Canada experienced extreme cold during that summer. One foot of snow accumulated near Quebec City from 6 to 10 June 1816. (source)

Crops failed and people starved. Hundreds of thousands of people died. People were reduced to eating rats and fighting over roots. Most of these people were killed by epidemic diseases and other things related to starvation. They simply couldn't find enough food.

Yet some scientists believe that artificially creating these post-eruption stratospheric conditions is desirable: they see it as the answer to the global warming situation.

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s department of global ecology advocates this in a New York Times opinion piece today.

In How to Cool the Globe, he writes:

"If we could pour a five-gallon bucket’s worth of sulfate particles per second into the stratosphere, it might be enough to keep the earth from warming for 50 years. Tossing twice as much up there could protect us into the next century.

"A 1992 report from the National Academy of Sciences suggests that naval artillery, rockets and aircraft exhaust could all be used to send the particles up. The least expensive option might be to use a fire hose suspended from a series of balloons. Scientists have yet to analyze the engineering involved, but the hurdles appear surmountable.

"Seeding the stratosphere might not work perfectly. But it would be cheap and easy enough and is worth investigating."

Another proponent of this action is Dutch Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego. His thought-provoking paper is published in the August issue of the Springer journal Climatic Change, devoted this month to the controversial field of geoengineering.

Why should we consider Crutzen's plan?

"Given the grossly disappointing international political response to the required greenhouse gas emissions,…research on the feasibility and environmental consequences of climate engineering of the kind presented in this paper, which might need to be deployed in future, should not be tabooed,” he says. (More at Science Daily and on the BBC News article, Creating a Sulphur 'Screen'.)

Not everyone is on board. In the NPR piece, University of Rhode Island volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson said, "Do you want to counter one pollutant with another one? I don't think so."

These concerns are not new. A decade and a half ago, Tulane University mechanical engineer Robert Watts worried about the unknown potential side effects of geoengineering. "All of these things might have unintended consequences." Watts said: "We really don't understand the climate well enough, so we don't want to start something where the cure might be worse than the disease."

(Watts edited the proceedings of a 1992 conference on the subject called The Engineering Response to Global Climate Change - here's more on his book.)

Caldeira's view: "Which is the more environmentally sensitive thing to do: let the Greenland ice sheet collapse and polar bears become extinct, or throw a little sulfate in the stratosphere? The second option is at least worth looking into."

Caldeira does note that stratospheric seeding should only be viewed as "an insurance policy, a backup plan for climate change." He says having this option is not permission to give up trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise, Crutzen says his experiment should only be used as an emergency measure: it “should not be used to justify inadequate climate policies but merely to create a possibility to combat potentially drastic climate heating.”

Caldeira: "Ninety-nine percent of the $3 billion federal Climate Change Technology Program should still go toward developing climate-friendly energy systems. But 1 percent of that money could be put toward working out geoengineered climate fixes like sulfate particles in the atmosphere, and developing the understanding we need to ensure that they wouldn’t just make matters worse."

Wait - putting sulfur into the atmosphere - isn't that what we've been telling power plants to stop doing? Haven't we heard for years that sulfur dioxide is "a deadly gas...toxic to communities near power plants? Have we not been told that sulfate particulate is unhealthy - fine particles that pollute our communities and places hundreds of miles away, and sulfuric acid that damages our environment? (Clean Air Task Force) Hmm...I'll have to think a bit more about this.

Whatever scientists and politicians choose to do, they'd better do it quick.

Note: stratosphere seeding is only one geoengineering scheme. Read about other proposals here.

So THAT'S Why Their Pants Are Falling Down!

2007-10-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

On Morning Edition today, Wade Goodwyn reports that in Dallas, an interesting mix of politicians, hip-hop artists and white businessmen are announcing a citywide campaign with a simple message: Pull Your Pants Up.

How did sagging pants become a fashion statement in the first place?

Here, I'm reposting an entry from 8/30/07 for some answers.

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I know this is fashionable to some, but I never understood how or why such a dishevelled look could become a statement. Here's the answer:

Sagging began in prison, where oversized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and their use as weapons. The style spread through rappers and music videos, from the ghetto to the suburbs and around the world.

The story of the boxer rebellion is in today's New York Times. Niko Koppel writes about a growing number of cities - and states, in some cases - pushing to make this sartorial statement punishable by law. Read it here.

Pondering Giving, Receiving, and the Burmese Way.

2007-09-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

As summer turns into fall, I often sink into introspection, and over the last couple of weeks my mind has been contemplating giving and receiving.

Among the events that kept propelling me to this subject, was a conversation I had with Robin Rilette, when I visited her at home a week ago while she was nursing a painful broken foot. We got around to talking about how events in our lives sometimes force us to receive, for a change. Robin wrote on her blog:

"I'm learning that while it is "more blessed to give than to receive" it can sometimes be more challenging to receive than to give. It's necessary, however, to learn to receive gracefully, gratefully and without guilt. This honors and respects the giver."

In our visit, I had recounted to Robin the tale of my difficult lesson on receiving, following a devastating flood at my home in 2005. The entire basement of my home was wiped out along with many possessions. Having no flood insurance, I was on my own with this major loss.

Or so I thought.

In a matter of days, volunteers showed up at my house in rubber boots, shovels and buckets in hand, and toiled in awful conditions, nearly waist deep in mud and debris, clearing it out. About 70 people shoveled and hauled for four days, with tremendous esprit de corps. Donations of food, bedding, furniture and cash flowed in. People housed and fed us while the home was uninhabitable, and many gave me the gifts of their organizing skills and technical expertise.

Somehow I managed to stay cheerful through the clean-up phase of the flood, and held on to a good sense of humor. But when all the mud was gone, I paid a visit to my beloved parish priest, and wept my own personal flood of tears. It was not the loss that troubled me in the least, I told him - it was the outpouring of love and support from friends, strangers and my warm and loving community that humbled me....and was so hard to accept. I felt undeserving.

And Father Joe told me something which I will always consider a major milepost in my understanding. It is much harder to receive than it is to give, he said, but it was a lesson I had to learn: that overwhelmed as I was by care of the good people, it was a mere taste of the love God has for us all.

So powerful was that message, I had a physical reaction - a jolt in my chest.

The subject of giving and receiving continues to assert itself in my life. Today, it came in a BBC article on the Burmese monks at the center of the current crisis in Burma (I will use the old form of the name in this post - it is the name I grew up using, so will run with the familiar.)

In Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, parts of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Theravada Buddhism prevails. It is common for every male to be a monk at some point in his life. Even career men will take one week a year to live the ascetic life of mendicant, donning monk's robes and carrying a begging bowl - his only possessions. He will depend on the charity of civilians for his daily meals.

From the BBC article:

"They give religious guidance and perform important duties at weddings and funerals.

"In return for these duties, they are given donations by laymen. As they are forbidden from handling cash, they are completely reliant on these handouts. Each full moon day, they are also given donations such as robes.

"If they refuse these handouts, they are denying the donor the potential to earn spiritual "credit" - the strongest possible penalty that can be expected from a Buddhist."

What a beautiful thing it is, I thought, to have giving and receiving woven tightly into one's cultural consciousness, and then be aware, daily, of the spiritual need and reward of giving and receiving. Yet this creed is playing into the current situation:

Myint Swe of the BBC Burmese service said the announcement by the monks currently protesting in Burma that they would refuse all donations from the ruling military (most of whom would be Buddhist themselves) was so powerful, because "the government wants the image that they are pious and helping the monks."

(Matt Frei of the BBC wrote a great piece on the Burmese people's lot, and on the grace and courage of Aung San Suu Kyi - read it here.)

But here in the US of A, why is it so hard for many of us to receive?

Back in the day, people HAD to receive in order to survive. Think of the Amish coming together for barn raising. All sorts of agrarian societies in communal plowing, sowing and harvesting. Villages communally raising children.

Has life in modern Western societies removed us so far from this, that many think of receiving as a sort of weakness, a loss of independence - or an obligation to reciprocate? Is this the result of some religious teachings, which stress the virtue of giving - but less conspicuously, on the virtue of receiving? Or could this be tied to self-esteem?

Whatever the reason, I say, from personal experience: give - a smile, a greeting, a helping hand, or something material. But also open up and receive - a compliment, a greeting, a gift, a friendship. Then give in turn once more.

It's a deeply gratifying cycle.

Don't Mess With Public Radio Hosts - You'll Be Sorry

2007-09-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

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UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Jodie Foster talked about playing Erica Bane on NPR's All Things Considered on Wednesday - read and listen here

She's definitely one of the most intelligent actors today! What a pleasure to hear her expounding the intricacies of fear and darkness in the soul.

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FINALLY! The public radio host becomes Hollywood action hero!!

The Brave One, directed by Neil Jordan, opens this Friday, and stars Jodie Foster as public radio host Erica Bane.

According to the New York Times, the choice of Erica's profession was Ms. Foster's idea.

"In the original script Erica Bain was supposed to be, of all things, a reporter for The New York Times, and Ms. Foster, who confessed to being a “serious N.P.R.-head” — the sort of person who will sit in her garage listening to the car radio until a show is over — changed her to the host of a public radio show." (New York Times review)

Ah! so Jodie Foster's prone to NPR driveway moments!

As she listens to these mellow public radio announcers, does she wonder what lurks in their souls once they switch off the microphone? (Well, don't you?)

"With her caressing alto, Erica guides listeners around New York with the suggestively titled program “Street Walk,” mapping the city like a cross between the radio performer Joe Frank and Walt Whitman. She sounds like a woman in love, and she is — with the city, with her fiancé (Naveen Andrews). But she loses all this love before we can watch her fully experience it."

I know little more than this, but plan to watch the movie. After all, how many plots involve a public radio host? The last time a movie featured a public-radio type announcer, that I know of, was the dreadful Requiem for Murder (1999).

Okay, she wasn't exactly in public radio, but Molly Ringwald's character Anne Winslow is a classical music announcer - close enough, right? She works at "one of the top five classical stations in the metro area." That line made me laugh so hard I had to stop the tape. Did the writers even bother to do their research on classical music stations? TOP FIVE? Out of how many? In one metro area? Oh come on!

Anyway, some of Anne Winslow's listeners die as they're tuned in to her program.

Think about it.

THEY DIE LISTENING TO HER.

Did I mention Requiem for Murder wasn't supposed to be a comedy?

(If you simply must know more about the movie, check out this review of sorts. Skip past the first five paragraphs to get to the synopsis.)

NOTE: SCROLL TO THE END OF THIS POST TO VIEW A TRAILER OF THIS STINKER.

I'm fairly sure that Jodie Foster's character will be stronger and more interesting than Anne Winslow. She's certainly not passive and whiny.

This is Erica's story:

“One evening, while (Erica and fiancé are) walking their dog in Central Park, the lovers are savagely attacked. He dies; she lives. She buys a gun. She points. She shoots. Again and again and again."

I'm not sure if the movie deals with her station's first pledge drive following her killing spree, along with new numbers for Average Quarter Hour and Time Spent Listening (numbers by which many a station lives or dies!) Maybe in the sequel. Who did Foster have in mind when she created Erica Bane? Nina Gun-Totin' Berg? Ann "So-What-If-You're-An-Insurgent-I'll-Kick-Your-Derriere" Garrels? (Any ideas?)

And here you thought public radio announcers were a mild bunch.

We're not all Margaret Jo McCullen or Lynn Vershad or Teri Rialto (aka Ana Gasteyer, Rachel Dratch and Molly Shannon) from The Delicious Dish on Saturday Night Live. (Watch the skits in which they interview Alec Baldwin aka Pete Schwedy here and here. WARNING: strong innuendo - follow the links at your discretion!)

Let's see what "The Brave One" does for our image!

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Here's the trailer for Requiem for Murder:

Addio, Maestro.

2007-09-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

On Thursday morning, I received e-mail from several friends whose tastes don't usually run to opera - and all expressed sadness at the passing of Luciano Pavarotti. Such was his universal appeal, and universal was the appreciation of that singular voice.

The voice was one of the most thrilling sounds of our time. Yes, much has been made of the high C's he hit again and again - but it was also the sheer brilliance and clarion exuberance it conveyed. A wonder.

Some critics felt a last need to assert their superiority on the announcement of Pavarotti's death by reiterating their tired claims that he sold out by performing with the likes of Sting, the Spice Girls and what not. They went on and on about how he wasn't the most intelligent interpreter of operatic roles. Blah blah blah. One of my friends said, "bastards! let them try to sing Nessun Dorma!" (Watch him sing it) Another said, "those who can, do; those who can't, become critics."

How quickly can you sing "sour grapes" in a falsetto?

Here's where my long-time favorite, Placido Domingo, shone. Set up to be Pavarotti's rival decades ago, the tenors instead reached across those petty expectations and became close friends. Together they teamed up to celebrate the victory over leukemia of their fellow tenor Jose Carreras. For that, all three tenors were harshly judged by those same critics, and adored by audiences across the world.

Said Don Placido: "I think the career of Luciano was bigger because I was there as his friendly rival, and I think my career is bigger because he was there also as a friendly rival," a somber Domingo told a news conference Thursday.

Of the three tenors, it was Luciano Pavarotti whose sunny, beaming visage became best known to the non-opera audience. The worldwide expression of sorrow at his passing is testament to the way that voice climbed seemingly unscalable heights and into people's hearts.

But there was so much more to like and love than that gift: there was an air of generosity about him, the way he gave his all in performances (yes, yes, I've heard about the declining quality of his singing later in his career - this is not about his fading years). Pavarotti oozed charm, playfulness and flirtatiousness.

Here's a side to the man not usually seen on stage, as related by British soprano Jane Eaglen, writing in Slate:

"My family has come to opera through my involvement, and so, when they heard I was going to be singing with Pavarotti, they decided to come to New York to see a performance. My brother asked me to tell the story of Turandot, so they would be prepared. I briefly told them about the princess who asks possible suitors three riddles, which they must answer correctly or die.

"My brother, keen on games, wanted to see if they could get the riddles, so roughly translating from the Italian, I came to the second: What is hot but also cold, can give you a fever but also a chill? Is it love? No. Is it passion? No. Then my mother, thinking carefully, said, "Is it mustard?" It took several minutes for us to stop falling around laughing, and in many ways it's almost a better answer than the real one: blood.

"This story became a bit of a legend in the family and beyond, as I told various conductors and singers about it when I sang the role. James Levine loved it so much he insisted that I tell Luciano in a music rehearsal. We had only been working together a couple of days, and I was a little unsure if he would find it funny, but I told the story, and he did indeed laugh heartily for a long time.

"On opening night, some three weeks later, I was in my dressing room having my makeup done, when he came in with a huge wicker basket, filled with 12 beautifully wrapped little parcels, which he placed on my dressing table. I was amazed and thanked him profusely, saying it was far too lovely to unwrap there and then. He told me to wait until I got home, but said, "I wanted you to have this—it's 12 different kinds of mustard!""

But that was not all, says Eaglen.

"I never expected him to have such a sense of humor, nor to take the time to make this gesture, and I was really touched. He followed it up when, unbeknown to me, he was in the same restaurant where I was dining with my family. We had just been seated when the maitre d' brought over a dish of mustard and put in front of me. Upon seeing my confusion, he couldn't wait to tell me, "Maestro Pavarotti sent it.""

I think we could always see humor twinkling in his eyes.

But what about the very thing that first shot Pavarotti to stardom, the high C? What's the big deal?

“It’s the absolute summit of technique,” said Craig Rutenberg, the Metropolitan Opera’s director of musical administration — in effect, its chief vocal coach. “More than anywhere else in your voice, you have to know what you’re doing. To me it signals a self-confidence in the singer that lets him communicate to us that he knows what he’s doing and he has something very important to express with that note.”

Daniel J. Wakin, writing in the New York Times, continues:

"The high C has a...visceral, spine-tingling lure.

“The reason it’s so exciting to people is, it’s based on the human cry,” said Maitland Peters, chairman of the voice department at the Manhattan School of Music. “It’s instinctual. It’s like a baby. You’re pulled into it.” When a tenor sings a ringing high C, it seems, “there’s nothing in his way,” Mr. Peters said.

"The pitch, in itself, has a satisfying quality. The key of C major, after all, is a stable, cheerful, happy key, the one with no sharps or flats.

"Fascination may also derive from the fact that high tenor notes are somewhat freakish. Women have high voices, and men have low voices. For a male to sing that high with such power somehow seems unnatural."

"In the mid-20th century, Alfredo Kraus, Franco Corelli and Jussi Bjoerling had great high C’s. Curiously, Enrico Caruso, arguably the greatest opera celebrity, had a weak one and had to work hard to develop his top. Plácido Domingo, who extended his voice up from the baritone range and who is widely admired for his musicianship and artistry, is also not known for pinging high C’s."

"Mr. Pavarotti won his place in the pantheon of high C’s with a run of Donizetti’s “Fille du Régiment” in the 1972-1973 season at the Met. The aria “Pour mon âme” calls for nine of them in a row, and Mr. Pavarotti tossed them off brilliantly."

"Mr. Pavarotti once described the feeling this way: “Excited and happy, but with a strong undercurrent of fear. The moment I actually hit the note, I almost lose consciousness. A physical, animal sensation seizes me. Then I regain control.”"

Listen to him hit all 9 high Cs in that famed aria from Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment":

This was the scene at the funeral in the Duomo (cathedral) in Pavarotti's hometown of Modena this morning, as reported by Opera Chic:

"...a recording of Pavarotti and his dad rings in Church now, Panis Angelicus.

"Hearing that unique, unmistakable voice, that wondrous sound, while the TV carries the image of Pavarotti's maple wood coffin.

"In a spontaneous breach of etiquette, a standing ovation, and long applause echoes through the Duomo. It just never ends.

"A brief, quite eloquent -- for his standards -- speech by the Italian PM: "Sometimes we don't need words because sorrow speaks for us; and everything today demonstrates how deeply Pavarotti became part of our lives".

"It's over now -- Luciano Pavarotti will shortly be buried, in the Montale Rangone cemetery next to his beloved parents and his only son, Riccardo, stillborn in 2003."

Here's the young Pavarotti, in the days before the trademark look:

And finally, I want to share this song with you. It's not opera - rather, the Italian folk song "Mamma," and one of the things I most love hearing Pavarotti sing. It never fails to cheer me up:

Addio, Maestro. You will be sorely missed by many.

So that's where the missing syllables went!

2007-09-05T11:48:00.001-07:00

Follow up to the missing syllables in Oregon and caramel:

I think that shwa has been dropped off, like unwanted goods tossed at a Goodwill donation center, on to realtor.

That is a two-syllable word, or should be, anyway. But so often, it's stretched tight in its lycra leisure suit to ree-luh-tor.

The poor word even been stretched on the rack by people in that very profession! Shouldn't that be part of basic training for them?

I suppose it makes up for the animal doctors whose titles are often shortened to vet-tree-nare-ree-uhn. (Oh, all right - I suppose if you have that many syllables, you can afford to lose one!)

So - can you think of any other words that are commonly pronounced with added or subtracted shwas/syllables? Please share!

I must say I enjoy hearing small children being liberal with syllables. Examples from my children in their pre-school days include:

straw-buh-rary (strawberry)
wool-fuhs (wolves)
lye-berry (library)
feb-yoo-ary (February).

Incidentally, there are terms for these practices. When you drop a syllable from the middle of a word, and turn Oregon into Organ, it's called syncope.

When you add a syllable to the middle of a word like realtor and turn it into ree-luh-tor, you are practicing epenthesis.

Oregon has three syllables, people.

2007-09-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed more and more people dropping the middle syllable in Oregon?

I hear it everywhere, even in news stories from journalists based in that wonderful state.

Oregon has a beautiful lilt to it. Organ is somewhat less mellifluous.

This pronunciation, in my observation, is fairly recent. Oregonians used to correct another mangling of their state's beautiful name: ory-gone. From a2zgorge.info:

"I remember (long ago) watching the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. (Yes, there was a time when Dan Rather was just an upstart kid!). The previous evening Walter had done a news story on Oregon, and as most easterners are wont to do, pronounced it Ory-GONE. Well, he must have gotten a snootful of complaints from Oregon residents, because the next night he apologized for his transgression on air, and clarified the pronunciation is ORYgun." (Correct pronunciation: OR-ih-guhn)

My guess is that somewhere along the way, the middle ih became a shwa (the neutral vowel that occurs in unstressed syllables - as in the, and the third sound in banana)

It's so easy to drop a shwa.

Just ask caramel.

According to Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary, the word is pronounced kare-ruh-mel (sorry, I don't know how to get IPA symbols on the keyboard.) Americans, more often than not, say kar-muhl.

From Common Errors in English:

Take Highway 1 south from Monterey to reach the charming seaside town of Carmel, of which Clint Eastwood was formerly mayor. Dissolve sugar in a little water and cook it down until the sugar turns brown to create caramel. A nationwide chain uses the illiterate spelling Karmelkorn (TM), which helps to perpetuate the confusion between these two words. (Link)

What happened? I think somewhere along the way, kare first turned into kar (Merriam Webster does it that way). When the first vowel is long, it then becomes quite easy to drop the shwa, doesn't it?

Hardly anybody in the US pays any attention at all to that caramel's middle syllable (a practice which is called syncope).

That common pronunciation has now infiltrated the written form: it's not unusual at fairs to see signs advertising carmel apples or (as noted in Common Errors) karmel korn. It used to drive me absolutely crazy, but after years of inundation in floods of carmel, not only have I caved...but even find myself uttering the two-syllable version of the word.

Bobby Flay is practically alone on the Food Network in correctly enunciating all three syllables in caramel.

But in a recently aired episode of "Boy Meets Grill," he said something which is another of my pet peeves: to melt the brown sugar in the rum. Virtually all the Food Network chefs say this in one variation or another. But one doesn't melt sugar in rum or water - you dissolve it. If one were to melt sugar, and keep it on heat, it would eventually turn to - caramel.

OK, rant over. Now off to create a recipe of Organ Karmel.

We're A Long Way from the River Jordan.

2007-08-27T04:16:00.000-07:00

Baptism...by fire hose?

Accompanied by brass bands and thundering preachers, several hundred people squeezed onto a narrow street in Washington, D.C. yesterday to be baptized in the drenching shower of a fire hose.

The tradition of the baptism by fire hose started in the late 1920s at the United House of Prayer for All People, which is headquartered in DC.

"We used to use the Potomac River," said pastor Apostle H. Whitner, but the church's founder, Charles "Sweet Daddy" Grace, decided to use a fire hose instead, "because a baptism involves sprinkling."

Although many Christian denominations view baptism as a one-time ritual for entry into the faith, the House of Prayer permits multiple baptisms as a way for members to periodically wash away their sins and heal physical ailments. For many in the church, yesterday's baptism is an annual practice.

The full story of drenching in water and emotion is at the Washington Post.

In Case You Missed the "Quagmire" Quote

2007-08-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

This is a transcript of a old C-SPAN video that's been watched a LOT in the last week.

"...if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

"Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place?

"That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it - eastern Iraq - the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years.

"In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

"It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

"The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families - it wasn't a cheap war.

"And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

"Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.”

The speaker:

DICK CHENEY.

Find it hard to believe? Watch the C-SPAN interview, taped on April 15, 1994 with the American Enterprise Institute:

Washington Post blogger Mary Ann Akers gives the background:

The Untold Story of the Cheney 'Quagmire' Video

When the C-SPAN producer toiling in obscurity last month reached for the tape, he had no clue how juicy a nugget he had unearthed. The tape was labeled simply, "Life and Career of Dick Cheney"; dated April 15, 1994.

When he found it in the archives, the producer was just looking for something mildly interesting to help fill the 12-hour Cheney marathon planned by C-SPAN 3. The "Life and Career of Dick Cheney," produced for C-SPAN's "American Profile" series, seemed like a good bet for the marathon; after all, those interviews were personality-based and less wonky, letting viewers get a real feel for Dick and his wife/political partner, Lynne.

But instead of love and marriage, the "Life and Career" tape offered up a much younger looking Cheney saying that a U.S. invasion to capture Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein would be, well, a quagmire.

At the time of the interview 13 years ago, Cheney was the ex-defense secretary, camped out at the American Enterprise Institute and contemplating a run for president. Asked why he didn't think U.S. forces should have gone on to Baghdad during the first Persian Gulf War, he asked rhetorically, "How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?" He added, "It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq."

The now famous "quagmire" tape, which has gotten over half a million views on YouTube, may well have remained buried in the archives for another decade (and doesn't Cheney wish it had!) if it hadn't been for that one C-SPAN producer, an affable young Irishman named Emmanuel Touhey.

Touhey didn't have time to review the entire hour-long tape before airing it, so he had no idea he was about to spark a firestorm on the Internet. And, at first, no one seemed to notice.

The Cheney tape re-aired for the first time since 1994 on July 11, 2007. But it wasn't until C-SPAN aired the interview again on August 9 (on the same channel, at the same time) that the blogosphere noticed.
As far as we know, the Cheney remarks on Iraq were first noticed by the site Grand Theft Country. When it quickly became an Internet phenomenon, Touhey was surprised. He said people have been calling C-SPAN over the past week asking when the network plans to air the Cheney segment again. (It doesn't, for the record.)

"I was quietly pleased with myself that I'd found a gem, however by accident," said Touhey, who, after nine years with C-SPAN is leaving next week to become a producer for The Diane Rehm Show. "I'm gleeful just from the perspective that it's getting a lot of attention. Any time C-SPAN 3 gets a lot of attention, I'm happy."

Asked what changed the vice president's mind about invading Iraq between 1994 and 2003, Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said she was not authorized to comment.

She did, however, direct us to an interview that ABC News conducted with Cheney in February of this year in which Cheney was asked how his views had changed from 1991, when he also spoke of military action in Iraq as a "quagmire."

"Well, I stand by what I said in '91," Cheney told ABC. "But look what's happened since then -- we had 9/11."
Now, about that faceless voice in the Cheney "quagmire" video -- it belongs to Bruce Collins, the corporate vice president and general counsel of C-SPAN who held the same title when he interviewed the former defense secretary and future vice president way back in 1994.

Collins shared with us a funny anecdote about that interview.

When he showed up at Cheney's office, he said the future Veep asked, "How much time do you need -- one, two minutes?" Collins explained it was an hour-long interview.

Cheney grumbled that he hadn't planned on that much time. Collins said the interview was for C-SPAN's "American Profile" series, which would give the audience a chance to learn more about Dick Cheney the man, where he comes from, how he thinks, how he lives.

"You mean, touchy feely?" Cheney replied, according to Collins.

"This is an opportunity to go beyond policy," Collins recalled saying.

To which Cheney growled, "Well, you know I'm a policy kinda guy."

And there you have it: Dick Cheney is not a touchy-feely kinda guy.

Here's a link to Akers' blog post.

Another Venice Visit.

2007-08-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

On NPR's Morning Edition today Sylvia Poggioli explored a fabled city.

"Venice is a seductive city that has bewitched artists from all over the world. One writer who has settled in "the city on stilts" is the American author Donna Leon. The sinking Renaissance jewel is the backdrop of her "Commissario Brunetti" detective stories. Leon recently gave a visiting reporter a tour of her Venice. The story is part of a series, Crime in the City, about crime novelists and the places they and their characters inhabit."

"Leon stresses there are two separate Venices.

"One has quiet campielli (squares) and barges that deliver fruits and vegetables; that Venice belongs to Brunetti and its 60,000 other residents.

"The other Venice is filled with the booming voices of tour guides with microphones and attracts up to 20 million tourists a year."

"Leon describes a "Bermuda Triangle" of San Marco-Accademia-Rialto.

"'Most tourists spend the major part of their time in that triangle,' she says. 'That's where it's very, very unpleasant to be at almost any daylight hour, at almost any time of the year,' she says."

I agree whole-heartedly. During my visit last year, I found the most highly-anticipated part of the Venice itinerary, San Marco, deeply disappointing. Huge crowds, disrespectful behavior in the chapels, and merchants jaded from catering to daily throngs of tourists. I found the quiet side of Venice, far from the Bermuda Triangle Leon describes, walking around Cannaregio at dusk. [Read it here: Finding the REAL Venice. (You have to look for it!!)]

This was the real Venice I enjoyed, the place where real people hang their laundry out on a line over the canal.

One can also glimpse real city by watching Venetian dogs and their owners.

Read my posts on Venice here, and listen to my impressions on my first evening in the city.

Martin Luther King...Made in China?

2007-08-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Martin Luther King National Memorial will be unveiled on the Mall in Washington D.C. in 2009.

Covering four acres near the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, visitors to the King memorial will first walk through a grove of spruce and magnolia trees by a waterfall and read a selection of the civil rights leader's famous words carved on walls. At the end of their walk, they will see King's likeness emerging from a chunk of granite, standing 28 feet tall - 9 feet taller than Jefferson's likeness nearby.

This statue will be sculpted by a Chinese artist.

And critics say that's outsourcing gone too far.

"Atlanta resident Lea Winfrey Young says the "outsourcing" by U.S. companies and organizations to China has gone too far this time," writes Arianna Eunjung Cha in the Washington Post. "She and her husband, Gilbert Young, a painter, are leading a group of critics who argue that an African American -- or any American -- should have been picked for such an important project.

"'Dr. King's statue is to be shipped here in a crate that supposedly says 'Made in China.' That's just obscene," Winfrey Young says.

Why a Chinese artist? A former adviser for the memorial says the King Memorial Project Foundation did it "in the hopes of getting a $25 million donation from the Chinese government to make up for a shortfall in funding."

The accuser, Ed Dwight, was originally selected to design the memorial, but was removed over creative differences.

The foundation is rejecting the accusation. The president, Harry E. Johnson Sr., said yesterday that the foundation had raised $82 million of the $100 million needed to complete and maintain the project.

Another leading opponent of the Chinese project is painter Gilbert Young. He told Atlanta weekly Creative Loafing:

"The most grievous sin is these black men could have gotten together and said, ‘We could not find any blacks qualified to do the memorial.’ That’s insane.”

"Also insane, according to Young, is the foundation’s decision to use granite from China for the memorial. “We have beautiful stone right here in Georgia, and I know that some of the quarries offered granite at cost just so they could be involved,” he says.

“The worst thing as an artist and a black person is they took away my birthright to be first in line,” says Young. “Dr. King fought for the rights of black people in this country to have the fair opportunity to be equal. They selected an Asian from China, a country that has killed millions of their own people. They don’t believe in Christianity and they don’t believe in freedom. Giving my history away to someone from another country to interpret, I have a problem with that.”

This is sculptor Lei Yixin with his clay model of the statue in question. The citizens of his hometown, Changsha in Hunan, are "bewildered" by the controversy.

"Wasn't it King's dream to end all racism? Lei asked.

"He has always dreamed that people from all over the world will not be judged by the color of their skin -- that we would all be brothers and sisters and enjoy equal opportunity. Now I have the luck to get this opportunity," he said.

In that vein, King Memorial Foundation President Johnson says, "We don't want to take the stand to say African Americans can only work on this project. We appreciate the diversity we have. The sole criterion for choosing Lei Yixin was artistic ability, he says, citing Lei's skill at capturing personalities in sculptures, his expertise in hewing granite and his extensive experience with large public monuments.

NPR commentator and blogger John Ridley, who's African-American, sees both sides of the argument.

"When I heard it, my gut reaction was: no. No way should somebody who's not a black American do up the national memorial likeness of one of the most prominent of us.

"I wasn't the only one with the feeling in my gut. There's an entire Web site dedicated to keeping Dr. King "ours."

"But you give it a second, you put your initial passions aside, and it is possible to see things in a different way.”No" softens into "why not?" Why not let Dr. King go global? Weren't he and his message phenomena beyond the Lower 48? What King borrowed from Ghandi, he lent to the likes of Ivan Cooper, the Northern Ireland civil rights activist. And perhaps a Chinese person getting the job is not outsourcing work, but exporting the ideals of freedom. We've seen how well that plays when distributed by the muzzle of an army gun. Better we should try to inspire. Better we should try by sharing "our" man of compassion with the world.

"Being able to see Lei Yixin not as "the Chinese guy," but as one of Dr. King's "children" is what Dr. King preached: judging people by their content, not their pigment. I think you can extend that to a person's place of origin. Certainly it can be extended to the political system under which they live. And how wonderful would it be for an oppressed people to be able to sculpt an image of the personification of freedom? Not to mention the high irony as J. Edgar Hoover, among King detractors, accused the doctor of being a commie or a commie tool."

Read the whole post on his NPR blog, John Ridley's Visible Man.

Related:

Make a donation to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial.

Here's the Gilbert Young website, King is Ours, which also requests support.

More on the controversy, on the Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, in this Washington Post article.

Buh-bye, Karl Rove.

2007-08-14T04:53:00.000-07:00

"On your way out of the White House, don't let the screen door hit you where the dog should have bit you."

- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post Op-ed columnist (full article coming up in a moment.)

From the moment I woke up Monday morning through this morning, it's the most talked-about story - in Washington, around the country, and even around the world. People seem unable to be neutral about Rove. They either adore him or loathe him.

I can only recall one anecdote about Karl Rove that showed a softer side to the man - and even then, his motive could be questioned.

Al Gore's campaign manager Donna Brazile was on an NPR program (Fresh Air, I think) some time after the 2000 election, and talked about how hard it was after the Supreme Court handed down the decision giving the presidency to Bush. But she got a call from Karl Rove - and he asked, "how are you doing?" I can't remember her exact words, but Brazile said something to the effect that she was touched by that personal tone....it sounded as if almost nobody else had thought to ask her that.

If you have no love for Karl Rove, you can easily question whether that call came with sincerity, or with gloating....or maybe with an eye on the future? Thomas Edsall and Dana Milbank write in the Washington Post:

"Few would suspect that Rove regularly trades tips with Donna Brazile, Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager; she tells Rove how Bush's proposals are faring among Democrats, while Rove makes sure her clients are included in White House events."

The article examines Rove's wide web of connections; you can read it here.

The Washington Times reports that Rove called Brazile Monday afternoon, the day his resignation was announced.

"Democratic strategist Donna Brazile wanted it to be known that presidential adviser Karl Rove called her from Air Force One this afternoon.

"He said he was looking forward to hunting and fishing," she said.

It was important for people to know she and Mr. Rove talked, Ms. Brazile said, because "you can disagree with people, but you have to respect them."

Ah, Donna. You still show "grudging respect" for Karl, and that galls some in your own party - they want you to have nothing to do with him at all. As I said, it's hard to be neutral about him.

Brazile think Rove haters should not rejoice at his departure. "Karl outside the White House is more dangerous to Democrats than Karl inside the White House," said Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore's campaign manager. Her view: He'll have lots more free time now to dream up ways to boost President Bush's standing, "rebrand" the GOP and conquer the 2008 electoral map. (USA Today)

Eugene Robinson certainly isn't holding back. He lets loose in today's Washington Post op-ed, Good Bye, Boy Genius:

"Buh-bye, Karl Rove. On your way out of the White House, don't let the screen door hit you where the dog should have bit you.
"I can't say that I'll miss George W. Bush's longtime political strategist -- the man Bush used to call "Boy Genius" -- because, well, that would be such a lie. And anyway, to quote one of the great country song titles -- "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" -- I don't believe for a minute that Rove really intends to withdraw from public life. I predict he'll be writing op-eds, giving interviews to friendly news outlets and calling Republican presidential candidates to warn them not to abandon Bush, no matter how low his approval ratings slide. Rove's new job will be to put lipstick on Bush's hideous legacy -- and, in the process, freshen up his own.

"Rove's reputation as the great political thinker of his era took a severe beating in November, when, despite his confident predictions of a Republican victory, Democrats took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"But let's give the man his due. Karl Rove managed to get George Walker Bush elected president of the United States, not once but twice. Okay, you're right, the first time he needed big assists from Katherine Harris (speaking of lipstick) and the U.S. Supreme Court, but still. Honesty requires the acknowledgment that Rove was very good at what he did.

"The problem, of course, is that what Rove did and how he did it were awful for the nation.

"Rove announced he was quitting as White House deputy chief of staff in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying that while he knew some people would claim he was just trying to elude congressional investigators, "I'm not going to stay or leave based on whether it pleases the mob." That's the man, right there in that quote: Benighted fools who don't blindly trust his honesty or fully appreciate his genius are nothing more than "the mob."

"Rove didn't invent "wedge" politics, but he was an adept practitioner of that sordid art. When Bush was campaigning in 2000, he proclaimed himself "a uniter, not a divider." But the Bush-Rove theory of politics and governance has been divide, divide, divide -- either you're "with us" or "against us," either you're right or you're wrong, either you should be embraced or attacked without quarter.

"Yes, politics is about winning -- they don't give style points for graceful failure. But the us-or-them brand of politics that Rove mastered and that Bush practiced has been a disaster for the nation and its standing in the world.

"Yesterday, in remarks on the White House lawn, Rove praised Bush for putting the nation "on a war footing" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But that's precisely what Bush failed to do. Rather than try to foster a spirit of national solidarity and shared sacrifice, he persisted with tax cuts designed to please his wealthiest supporters. Rather than engage critics of the war in any meaningful dialogue, Bush accused them of wanting to "cut and run." Rather than actually practicing the bipartisanship he disingenuously preached, Bush governed with a hyperpartisan political agenda.

"It's no wonder that Democrats on Capitol Hill, after six years of essentially being told to stuff it, are issuing subpoenas left and right -- and also no wonder that the White House is so strenuously resisting them.

"One of the things Congress would like to ask Rove is whether the administration's extreme partisanship extended even to the Justice Department -- whether U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons and whether Rove was involved in those decisions. Congress would also like to know why Rove and others in the White House political office conducted their business not through the White House e-mail system -- which would have opened their communications to scrutiny -- but through e-mail accounts at the Republican National Committee, which seems to have misplaced the messages in question.

"Rove said he was leaving so he could spend more time with his family -- the standard reason in Washington for leaving any job. Bush said Rove will continue to be "a dear friend," and I don't doubt for a minute that Rove will continue to be one of the president's closest and most trusted advisers. I don't think the Bush administration is going to change course at this late date.

"I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit," Bush said to Rove as the two men faced reporters yesterday.

"Not soon enough."

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

More Rove-ing opinions appeared in the Washington Post today; here are links:

Karl Rove's Legacy (Robert Novak)

The Architect's Great Project (Grover Norquist)

Editorial: What Karl Rove Didn't Build

Oh, BTW, Rove says he's leaving to "spend more time with his family." Great time to do it, now that his only child has left home for college.

Harry Potter Titles to Surprise JK Rowling

2007-08-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about Chinese counterfeiters having a field day with Harry Potter, not just pirating copies of JK Rowling's books, but even writing their own stories of the boy wizard's adventures.

ADDITIONAL HP titles in China, include these:

Harry Potter and the Leopard-Walk- Up-to-Dragon

Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll

Harry Potter and the Waterproof Pearl

Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince

Harry Potter and the Big Funnel

Harry Potter and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters

Harry Potter and the Chinese Overseas Students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The plots are hilarious. This is the gist of Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll:

Harry Potter learns that Mysterious Man (Voldemort) is going to China to persuade his rival Yandomort to attack Harry as well as the Western magic world. Harry decides to find Chinese Porcelain Doll, who could beat Yandomort in China. On a passenger steamer, Harry makes friends with Long Long and Xing Xing, who are part of a Chinese circus. It turns out that Naughty Bubble, the boy who usually bullied Xing Xing at the circus, was Yandomort. After Voldemort killed Naughty Bubble’s mother, Big Spinach, he took Naughty Bubble as his disciple, and taught him black magic to make him become Yandomort.

in Harry Potter and the Leopard-Walk- Up-to-Dragon, Harry becomes a fat, hairy dwarf after being caught in a “sour and sweet rain”; he loses all his magic and can get it back only by obtaining the magic ring. After he does, Harry becomes a dragon that fights evil. Voldemort has an even more powerful brother who makes trouble for Harry.

Excerpt:

"Harry doesn’t know how long it will take to wash the sticky cake off his face. For a civilized young man, it is disgusting to have dirt on any part of his body. He lies in the elegant bathtub, keeps wiping his face, and thinks about Dudley’s face, which is as fat as Aunt Petunia’s bottom."

Any ideas for more Harry Potter stories? Submit a title and synopsis in the comments!

This could be a lot of fun.

As for the titles above, read all the plot summaries and some excerpts in this New York Times op-ed article, Memo to the Dept. of Magical Copyright Enforcement.

[Disclosure: I'm not a HP fan, not in the least. Tried my best to read the books but failed, and slept through the movies (had to take the kids!). Many have told me I'm missing out on a great story. For now, I'll just have to suffer this terrible, self-inflicted deprivation.]

A Dark, Brooding Dream of Windy Moors.

2007-08-06T10:57:00.001-07:00

I spent the better part of my two-week vacation resting and reading.

And reading.

What a luxury! To sit in the shade of the big rowan tree and read half a book, take a break for lunch or tea or dinner, then read for a few more hours, only to move indoors and continue reading in bed until my lids were too heavy.

No wonder my blood pressure is looking so much better!

I caught up with Precious Ramotswe's latest adventures in the last two books in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, thrilled to the Life of Pi, and laughed out loud at David Sedaris' essays in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. (Full reading list is in the sidebar.)

Then I picked up my tattered old copy of Wuthering Heights, which I have not read in 25 years.

It wasn't a completely random choice. My current favorite CD is "Betcha Bottom Dollar" by the Puppini Sisters (read my previous blog entry about them) and enjoyed the track "Wuthering Heights." The Sisters put a lot of energy and spirit into the song – it's really a lot of fun to sway along with it.

So it wasn't until several listens that a faint memory suddenly asserted itself: this was the same haunting song I listened to as a teenager, strangely drawn to the voice of British pop diva Kate Bush. I'd never heard the likes of that voice: a highly unconventional style, worked over four octaves.

So I paid more attention to the lyrics. (Let me just say now, if you know nothing about Wuthering Heights and plan to read it some day, or watch one of the many versions on film, consider the rest of this blog entry a spoiler. STOP RIGHT HERE!)

"WUTHERING HEIGHTS"

Out on the wiley, windy moors

We'd roll and fall in green.

You had a temper like my jealousy:

Too hot, too greedy.

How could you leave me,

When I needed to possess you?

I hated you. I loved you, too.

Bad dreams in the night

You told me I was going to lose the fight,

Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering

Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff, it's me, your Cathy, I've come home. I´m so cold,

let me in-a-your window

Heathcliff, it's me, your Cathy, I've come home. I´m so cold,

let me in-a-your window.

Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely,

On the other side from you.

I pine a lot. I find the lot

Falls through without you.

I'm coming back, love,

Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream,

My only master.

Too long I roamed in the night.

I'm coming back to his side, to put it right.

I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering,

Wuthering Heights,

Heathcliff, it's me, your Cathy, I've come home. I'm so cold,

let me in-a-your window.

Heathcliff, it's me, your Cathy, I've come home. I'm so cold,

let me in-a-your window.

Ooh! Let me have it.

Let me grab your soul away.

Ooh! Let me have it.

Let me grab your soul away.

You know it's me--Cathy!

Heathcliff, it's me, your Cathy, I've come home. I´m so cold,

let me in-a-your window.

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And just to let you know why I found this song creepy and haunting and so Yorkshire Moors, watch Kate Bush singing it:

I could just see Catherine Earnshaw wheedling at her demonic and cruel lover from beyond the grave. Kate Bush certainly caught the spirit - so to speak - of that dreadful, painful story!

As I said earlier, it's been a quarter century since I last read Emily Bronte's one and only novel. Even though it's impossible to forget the story, the details had become fuzzy and I decided grab my cloak and wander across the moors, as it were, with Lockwood's curiosity.

My reaction was considerably different on this reading! How on earth did I not remember Heathcliff as one of the vilest domestic abusers ever! How did I not see that he and Catherine were completely sick! How did I not find young Linton Heathcliff one of the most annoying figures in literature? And on and on and on....

Over the weekend I bumped into several people and mentioned that I'd just re-read WH, and almost all who told me they had re-visited the novel as mature adults were less enthralled on second read.

Evil and awful as these chracters may be, dark and chilling as the tale may be, Wuthering Heights is still riveting. Thus I ran out to the video shop and rented the 1992 movie, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. (The clerk told me there was also an MTV version of WH that came out a few years ago, but I decided to pass up. Maybe if I'm completley bored some day...)

And I watched it. Unfortunately, on a sunny summer afternoon. Given some similarities between the Yorkshire Moor and the Palouse, it might have been a thrill to watch it late at night, in a winter windstorm! Mybe I'll rent it again in December.

THIS was the role Fiennes played the year before portraying Amon Goeth in Schindler's List! Heathcliff was good prep for the Nazi SS butcher.

So - what are your thoughts on Wuthering Heights - novel, movie versions, songs, ripoffs? Please share!

Let's now have a palate cleanser to close this post, shall we? Here are the Puppini Sisters with their much sunnier version of Kate Bush's song.

Harry Potter and the Brokeback Goblet

2007-07-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

I heard Linda Wertheimer mentioning on NPR's Morning Edition today that Harry Potter has inspired some fans to create mash-up video parodies such as this one (listen to it here), and decided to take a look.

Some News Just Bears Repeating.

2007-07-18T18:42:00.001-07:00

We just don't get enough thrilling news these days - the sort that makes your heart leap and fill with hope. So even though I wrote about this item in the blog sidebar this morning, have now decided to give this an entry of its own.

Huge Underground Lake Discovered in Sudan, Could Bring War to an End

A team from Boston University discovered a huge underground lake under the arid, violence-ridden region of Darfur.

Some believe the roots of the conflict lie in competition for resources between Darfur's Arab nomads and black African farmers - thus this discovery brings hope of an end to the bitter fighting.

This underground lake still needs to be confirmed by drilling some wells, but if borne out, is a simply staggering discovery.

The five-thousand year old lake is the size Massachusetts.

It's as big as Lake Erie, the tenth largest lake in the world.

This, in a land where starving, suffering people must trudge water jugs daily - sometimes for miles - and risk rape, torture or death every time they venture out on this mission. Access to water is one of the primary problems for the refugees of Darfur.

The population is crying out for help. According to UNICEF, more than 2.3 million people, or 70 per cent of the conflict-affected population, has helped them in projects to gain access to safe water.

How their lives would change with abundant, clean water.

Geologist Farouk El-Baz and his team of 20 other researchers from Boston University used radar data to find the body of water. They identified possible streams running from the ancient lake, which was once replenished by rain and is now obscured by the arid sands of northern Darfur.

Baz says under hundreds of feet of sandstone there could be enough water to replenish the region for a century.

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UPDATE: NPR's Noah Adams spoke to Farouk el-Baz Thursday morning on NPR's Day to Day. Listen to the interview here.
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The timing of this find couldn't have been choreographed better.

Just last month, on June 16th, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a Washington Post editorial that climate change was partly to blame for the conflict in Darfur.

"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban wrote. "Until then, Arab nomadic herders had lived amicably with settled farmers. A recent Atlantic Monthly article by Stephan Faris describes how black farmers would welcome herders as they crisscrossed the land, grazing their camels and sharing wells. But once the rains stopped, farmers fenced their land for fear it would be ruined by the passing herds. For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out. By 2003, it evolved into the full-fledged tragedy we witness today." (Read his full editorial here: A Climate Culprit in Darfur)

In that same month, geologist Farouk El-Baz showed Sudanese officials images of what appears to be an underground lake. It wasn't entirely new to him. Two decades ago made a similar discovery in his home country, Egypt. That led to the drilling of 500 wells, which now irrigate 150,000 acres of farmland. And upon this news from Sudan, Egypt has pledged to donate workers and equipment to drill 20 wells in Sudan.

That would be a tiny start, because the Boston team's discovery could lead to a thousand wells.

We won't know until November, when Baz plans to return to Sudan to scout sites by helicopter.

I, for one, will be watching, waiting....and hoping. And hoping that this resource doesn't become to source of yet another conflict.

More on how this lake was discovered, and its implications, in this BBC article, and in the Boston Globe.

Rethinking Sushi.

2007-07-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

"I think it's fascinating that we assume sushi's all about the fresh, raw fish, but there are die-hard sushi aficionados in Japan who don't consider it sushi unless the chef has done something to his seafood ingredients, whether it's a slight parboil or pickling."

- Trevor Corson, author of The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket.

I found the above quote on Slate.com. Always glad to learn something new. Sara Dickerman's article notes sushi's shizophrenic character in this country: as one on the most expensive meals around (as found at Manhattan's Masa), and one as a workaday meal found in corporate cafeterias and delis.

"Sushi has saturated nearly every level of our food economy: How did this ostensibly Japanese food come to be so dominant? This season, two serious-minded books examine how sushi got to be one of our reflexive dining options, and how our taste for rice and fish affects our oceans."

The piece takes as its starting point Corson's book, and another delving into the same subject - The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, by Sasha Issenberg. (Incidentally, both books rated highly on Amazon: 5 stars for Corson, and 4-1/2 for Issenberg.)

Slate says "the books are complementary rather than redundant, although both circle back to themes of sushi as a multicultural phenomenon, rather than a pure Japanese tradition. We gathered them together for an interview on sushi: its history, its cultural status, its environmental impact, and its future."

Dickerman poses several questions to the authors, including the role of refrigeration in the popularization of sushi outside Japan, and how outside influences have always left their mark on the tradition. She also asks if there is any monitoring for mercury in the fish bought for use in sushi.

Read both authors' comments at Slate.

Trevor Corson wrote an op-ed in Sunday's New York Times, which I quite coincidentally saw today. He writes: "With the depletion of bluefin tuna in our oceans now front-page news, people around the country have been sharing with me their confusions and fears about eating sushi. I think that we — and our fish — would benefit from a new deal for American sushi: a grand pact between chefs and customers to change the way we eat."

He says sushi in Japan encompasses a wide variety of lesser-known fish, but in AMerica sushi chefs just present customers with a small range of familiar fish. Whether in upscale joints or in neighborhood eateries, the American way of eating sushi has "deepened our dependence on tuna."

Corson's answer? "What we need isn’t more tuna, but a renaissance in American sushi; to discover for ourselves — and perhaps to remind the Japanese — what sushi is all about."

Read the whole op-ed, Sushi for Two.

As for Corson's claim that "die-hard sushi aficionados in Japan...don't consider it sushi unless the chef has done something to his seafood ingredients, whether it's a slight parboil or pickling," I found this on Wikipedia's article on sushi:

Narezushi (old style fermented sushi)

Narezushi (熟れ寿司, lit. matured sushi) is an older form of sushi. Skinned and gutted fish are stuffed with salt, placed in a wooden barrel, doused with salt again, and then weighed down with a heavy tsukemonoishi (pickling stone). They are supposedly salted for ten days to a month, then placed in water for 15 minutes to an hour. They are then placed in another barrel, sandwiched, and layered with cooled steamed rice and fish. Then the mixture is again partially sealed with otoshibuta and a pickling stone. As days pass, water seeps out, which must be removed. Six months later, this funazushi can be eaten, and remains edible for another six months or more.

Funazushi (鮒寿司) is a dish in Japanese cooking, which involves with anaerobic lacto-fermentation of fresh water fish, funa (鮒, crucian carp). The dish is famous as a regional dish from the "Shiga Prefecture", It is considered to be a chinmi, a delicacy in Japanese cooking.

China's Counterfeiters Take on Harry Potter

2007-07-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

In China, copyright pirates are racing to get out their version of the latest Harry Potter film before the real one makes it to theatres; and fake books are in the works too with no resemblance of the real thing.

NPR's Louisa Lim reports fake Harry Potter movies and books become a cottage industry in China, and sales of the knockoffs could be higher than the real thing! (Ouch. JK Rowling must be steamed.)

Here are links to my previous posts on counterfeiting in China:

More Counterfeiting Tales from China

Tip Your (Knockoff) Hat to Imitations and Counterfeits!

Counterfeit Blood Protein Revealed in China

And more!

Sorry, British Chocolate Really IS Better Than American

2007-07-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

People who grew up in the Commonwealth (as I did) or in Britain, know the taste of Cadbury's chocolate, Kit Kats and Mars Bars. So do many Americans, since the same candy bars are available here.

But to expats, the stateside candies just don't measure up to the familiar products at home. Some can still recount their reactions to the first taste.

Disappointment! Disenchantment!!

Before one screams "snob!" - let me add that there is material evidence of a different formulation in the products from the US, and those from the UK, Canada and Australia.

I was thrilled to read an article in the New York Times this week: The World’s Best Candy Bars? English, of Course.

Kim Severson writes:

"According to the label, a British Cadbury Dairy Milk bar contains milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat and emulsifiers. The version made by the Hershey Company, which holds the license from Cadbury-Schweppes to produce the candy in the United States under the British company’s direction, starts its ingredient list with sugar. It lists lactose and the emulsifier soy lecithin, which keeps the cocoa butter from separating from the cocoa.

"The American product also lists “natural and artificial flavorings.”

Every expat is screaming, "I told you so!!!"

People get passionate about this. A Bay Area man featured in the NYT article characterizes the discussions as “religious arguments.” “I haven’t met a Canadian who likes a Hershey bar, but Americans think you’re crazy when you say that, because they think everyone loves a Hershey bar.”

As my parents live in Australia, I receive packages annually with these precious treats. Cadbury bars (in many more varieties than available here), my personal favorite - Cadbury's Flake, a stick of crumbly chocolate best stuck into a scoop of ice cream on a cone. Violet Crumble ("it;s the way it shatters that matters"), Mint Aero, and fabulous Australian cookies by Arnott's. Tim Tams in particular.

And, by the way - Tim Tam fans - where are you? Let's form a club, and eat our Tim Tams the way I saw on So Graham Norton: nibble off the opposite corners of a cookie, then dunk one of those corners into a cup of hot tea while you suck up the tea from the other open corner!!

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ADDED: I just read on a Wikipedia article that this ritual goes by several names: "The Tim Tam Slam, also known as the Tim Tam Suck, Tim Tam Explosion, Tim Tam Orgasm, Tim Tam Straw, Shot-gunning a Tim Tam, Tim Tam Party, or just plain Tim Tamming is the main form of Tea Sucking and involves biting off opposing corners of the Tim Tam and then using it as a 'straw' to suck up a hot beverage (usually tea, coffee, hot chocolate, liqour such as Irish Cream, or Milo) and then, just before the biscuit falls apart, it is placed in the mouth."

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Where can you get Tim Tams and all these other candies, if you don't have family or friends to send them to you? Well, look online, or head to Leavenworth, WA. Whenever I go there I try to stop in at the Australian Store (on Front Street) to stock up on these products. Yes, an Australian store is an oddity in a Bavarian town, but thank goodness it's there, for lovers UK/Australian chocolate and candy!

To some, there's also a difference in the taste between Coca-Cola made here and in the Commonwealth. To the best of my knowledge, it's because the US product is sweetened with corn syrup rather than with cane or beet sugar, as in the UK, Canada (and even Mexico).

Is This Man the Inventor of Tiramisu?

2007-07-11T04:01:00.000-07:00

Tiramisu (stress on the last syllable please) means "pick-me-up." And who among us does not have lifted spirits after indulging in this dessert with so many notes - creamy, sweet, bitter and floral? It's not a dessert with a long history, believe it or not - and in fact, the man who first concocted it could possibly be this baker in Baltimore, Carminantonio Iannaccone.

The Washington Post's Jane Black
traces the origins of the dessert and upon meeting Iannaccone, says he could well be the Italian equivalent of the Earl of Sandwich!

"Iannaccone's story is simple. He trained as a pastry chef in the southern city of Avellino, then migrated to Milan to find work at the age of 12." (What? He trained as a chef before he hit puberty, then got a job at age twelve? Boy, times have changed!)

"In 1969 he married his wife, Bruna, and opened a restaurant also called Piedigrotta in Treviso, where he cooked up a dessert based on the "everyday flavors of the region": strong coffee, creamy mascarpone, eggs, Marsala and ladyfinger cookies. He says it took him two years to perfect the recipe, which was originally served as an elegant, freestanding cake."

Black writes that Iannacone's claim as creator of the dessert seems is unlikely.

"Why would the creator of tiramisu be operating a tiny bakery on the outskirts of Baltimore's Little Italy? And would the inventor even be alive? Italians pride themselves on their culinary traditions, not newfangled innovation (like those crazy Catalonians). Surely, a classic like tiramisu would date back to the Renaissance. Catherine de Medici gave us artichokes, truffles, gelato, even the fork. Surely, she would have had a hand in tiramisu, too."

So Black decides to examine the historical legends. "One says the dessert was invented in the 17th century in honor of the grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de Medici, but soon became the favorite of courtesans who used it for a little extra energy before performing their duties and gave it the nickname "pick me up." Another says it was invented in Turin in the mid-19th century at the request of Italy's first prime minister, Camillo Cavour, a renowned gourmand who needed a pick-me-up for the trying task of unifying the Italian peninsula.

"Good stories, both. But neither is true, Italian food experts agree. Mascarpone, one of tiramisu's key ingredients, is native to the northern Veneto region and wouldn't have been found in Tuscany hundreds of years ago. Even in the 19th century, without refrigeration, a dessert made with uncooked eggs would likely have sickened more people than it pleased."

(I just love culinary sleuthing!)

"Next, I scoured authoritative cookbooks for a recipe that would predate Iannaccone's claim. But, as he predicted, niente: British cookbook author Elizabeth David makes no mention of the dessert in her Italian Food (1954), nor does Marcella Hazan in The Classic Italian Cookbook (1973).

"Indeed, it wasn't until the 1980s that published references to tiramisu began to appear. Two Treviso restaurants get the credit: El Toula (from cookbook authors Claudia Roden and Anna del Conte and Saveur magazine) and Le Beccherie (from several Italian magazines and cookbooks)."

Le Becchierie ownder Carlo Campeol is adamant that the dessert is his restaurant's own creation; Iannaccone is just as adamant that it is not. So Black turns to Pietro Mascioni for help. She says he became "an amateur tiramisu-ologist after reading about Iannaccone's claim last year in foodie newsletter the Rosengarten Report."

Mascione finds the first printed recipe for tiramisu in a 1981 edition of "Vin Veneto," contributed by respected gourmet Giuseppe Maffioli.

"Born recently, less than two decades ago, in the city of Treviso is a dessert called Tiramesu which was made for the first time in a restaurant, Alle Beccherie, by a pastry chef called Loly Linguanotto."

Mascione traveled to northern Italy last fall to talk to the Campeol family, and concludes the story is credible. But he finds that tiramisu as made at Le Beccherie never contained Marsala.

The dessert that won fans around the globe, though, "has a hearty dose of the stuff," writes Jane Black. "It's the Marsala's depth that balances the strong coffee and the creamy zabaglione and gives the dessert sophistication, or as the gourmet Maffioli acknowledged, a certain "refinement."

"And that's the way Iannaccone says he's always made tiramisu. The ladyfingers are dipped quickly in coffee so they hold their shape. The zabaglione, a mix of egg yolks, sugar, Marsala, lemon zest and vanilla extract, and the pastry cream, made from milk, egg yolks, sugar and flour, are made separately, and allowed to chill overnight before being gently folded with mascarpone and whipped cream before assembly.

"That may seem complicated to Mascioni and others, but Iannaccone explains that's only because we're used to making tiramisu "the cheap and easy way."

A long and bitter feud over tiramisu brews along with the espresso.

Want to make it yourself? Here's Carminantonio Iannaccone's recipe.

Notes from my kitchen: I've not found a really good Marsala, but have successfully used grappa, Grand Marnier, coffee liqueur and cognac instead. The best chocolate for sprinkling (unless you grate it yourself) is Droste. Use the best, freshest eggs available - it really makes a difference. When I raised my own chickens I'd use freshly-laid eggs. They were best in early spring, when the birds would feast on fresh young grass, and the eggs would be a gloriously deep orange. (I haven't made tiramisu since I stopped raising chickens!)

Pakistan's Other Red Mosque (yes, there's more than one.)

2007-07-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

Islamabad's Red Mosque, Lal Masjid, sits in a residential part of Pakistan's capital. For the last week the quiet neighborhood has been shaken by a violent battle battle between government security forces and radical clerics and students. The siege began a week ago and ended today. You can get some background about the pro-Taliban mosque in this profile from the BBC

However, that standoff is not the subject of this post.

As I ran a search for "red mosque pakistan" looking for pictures of the building, I came across another mosque that is called by the same name in English. This one is in the country's cultural capital of Lahore, striking for its majestic architecture and its veneer of red sandstone.

(Picture by Ali Imran at answers.com)

Gorgeous. I simply had to find out more.

The Badshahi Mosque is a fine example of Mughal architecture - grand, awe-inspiring structures. The name means the King's Mosque, the king being the sixth Mughal Emperor, Shah Aurangzeb Alamgir. The Mughal empire covered much of the Indian subcontinent and portions of modern-day Afghanistan, where many examples of their architecture and influence remain to this day.

The Mughals loved to build - Aurangzeb's father Shan Jahan poured his sorrow and mourning for a dead wife into construction, thus giving the world the sublime Taj Mahal. (Incidentally, just days ago that structure was named one of the new seven wonders of the world.)

Badshahi Mosque was severely damaged in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the area was under Sikh Rule. The building was converted to military barracks and served as an arms dump. To add insult to injury, Muslims were not allowed to enter the mosque and instead had to worship outside.

(Picture at left of Badshahi minaret by Aqeel Ahmad at Wikimedia Commons)

When the British conquered Lahore they gave Badshahi back to the Muslims. Subsequently it was turned over to the Badshahi Mosque Authority for restoration to its original glory.

The interior has rich embellishment in stucco tracery (Manbatkari) and panelling with a fresco touch, all in bold relief, as well as marble inlay.

The exterior is decorated with stone carving as well as marble inlay on red sandstone, specially of loti form motifs in bold relief. The embellishment has Indo-Greek, Central Asian and Indian architectural influence both in technique and motifs.

Recently a small museum was added to the mosque complex. It contains relics of Muhammad, his cousin, and his daughter, Hazrat Fatima Zahra.

The vast Badshahi is the largest mosque in the Indian subcontinent, and can accomodate fifty-five thousand worshippers.

Below is a picture of Pakistan's other Red Mosque, Lal Masjid, in Islamabad. (It's the only picture I could find that didn't include siege images.) Lal Masjid is the pro-Taliban institution with affiliated madrassahs involved in this week's deadly siege.

Goodbye, Dear Beverly.

2007-07-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

One of America's greatest and dearest opera stars has died. Beverly Sills, a star from childhood, was 78. Her manager said she succumbed to an inoperable form of lung cancer.

I first heard of Beverly Sills when I was growing up in Singapore. That was in the 1970s, when I was a kid with no interest in opera, something I thought of as a very crazy European prima donna thing. Then one day, watching the Carol Burnett Show, here was this sunny, American soprano, hamming it up in a manner not consistent with the diva stereotype. She was singing something non-classical - a Broadway tune, I think, but in her trademark voice: rich, brilliant, thrilling...and she was funny. (Watch her Sills hamming it up with Danny Kaye here.) That caught my attention, and from then on I was more attentive to opera voices. That led to purchases of my first opera LPs, but sadly, I couldn't find any of Ms. Sills in the stores. It wasn't till I was a young adult working at Singapore's classical radio station that I heard her recordings. That made me a definite fan - maybe especially because of warm, real presence. In large part, I owe my current interest in opera to Ms. Sills.

The New York Times says "Ms. Sills was America’s idea of a prima donna. Her plain-spoken manner and telegenic vitality made her a genuine celebrity and an invaluable advocate for the fine arts. Her life embodied an archetypal American story of humble origins, years of struggle, family tragedy and artistic triumph."

Ms. Sills was born Belle Miriam Silverman in 1929. From Wikipedia:

"At the age of three, Sills won a "Miss Beautiful Baby" contest, in which she sang "The Wedding of Jack and Jill". Beginning at age four, she performed professionally on the Saturday morning radio program, "Rainbow House," as "Bubbles" Silverman. Sills began taking singing lessons...at the age of seven and a year later sang in the short film Uncle Sol Solves It (filmed August 1937, released June 1938 by Educational Pictures), by which time she had adopted her stage name, Beverly Sills."

WATCH the seven-year old Sills singing "Arditi: Il bacio" in "Uncle Sol Solves It".

At the age of 10, Sills, known affectionately as Bubbles Silverman (supposedly because she was born with a bubble in her mouth), won CBS Radio's Major Bowes' Amateur Hour for that week. The nickname persisted: her 1976 autobiography is titled "Bubbles: A Self-Portrait."

"At a time when American opera singers routinely went overseas for training and professional opportunities," reports the Times, "Ms. Sills was a product of her native country and did not even perform in Europe until she was 36. At a time when opera singers regularly appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” Ms. Sills was the only opera star who was invited to be guest host. She made frequent television appearances with Carol Burnett, Danny Kaye and even the Muppets."

Sills was a pioneer, establishing her career for the most part outside America's sacred temple of opera, the Met. That allowed many other singers to follow that path - wholly trained in America, yet succeeding without Met certification.

Her repertoire eventually encompassed more than 70 roles, and she recorded 18 full-length operas and several solo recital discs. Her "Manon" received the Edison Award for best operatic album of 1971, and her Victor Herbert album won a Grammy Award in 1978.

From the Los Angeles Times:

"She had a silvery, lyric soprano that she intelligently employed in creating a character, narrowing the sound to evoke a younger woman or widening and deepening it to reflect greater maturity. She sang more than the usual number of coloratura embellishments — including perfect trills — with ease, agility, accuracy and clarity, but always in the service of a role.

"Sills needed contact with an audience. She was far more comfortable onstage, where she could amplify her characterizations with subtle facial expressions and physical gestures, than she was making recordings."

She wasn't just a pretty voice either. As administrator of New York City Opera, Sills turned a desperate financial situation around. Fundraising was another of her talents, which she gave to Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera. As as a mother of a deaf daughter and a mentally disabled son, Sills also served for many years as chair of the board of the March of Dimes Foundation.

Rest in peace, Bubbles. You will be sorely missed.

More tributes:

NPR's Morning Edition remembered Beverly Sills Tuesday morning. You can listen here. That afternoon on All Things Considered, Carol Burnett talked about losing her friend.

The Washington Post's Tim Page describes Sills as a complicated person in his remembrance, A Voice That Carried Weight.

Below is video (grainy, but with good sound) of Ms. Sills as Cleopatra in the Handel opera Giulio Cesare, one of her defining roles.

An Appreciation of Idaho's Wild Gift

2007-07-02T10:51:00.001-07:00

This weekend, the New York Times' Timothy Egan wrote that the majestic swath of the country I call home "may be the most overlooked part of the West — the Big Empty of north-central Idaho." This is the area bounded roughly by the St. Joe to the north and the Middle Fork of the Salmon to the south.

In The Last Wilderness, Egan writes about a grove of ancient cedars, pools of gin-clear trout water, and: "natural showers, courtesy of hot-spring waterfalls along the way. Of course you can soak in deep-pocket boulders — nature’s hot tubs. But there is nothing like standing next to polished basalt under a cascade of 105-degree water at the end of a day."

Egan correctly describes the area, which in may places is "as wild today as it was 200 years ago, full of jumpy rivers kicking out of the Bitterroot Mountains...[but] it may be safe to say that the wilds of the Idaho Panhandle, like much of the West, are deep into a new chapter — the microbrews and mountain bike phase. It has its hook-and-bullet enthusiasts, yes, and count me among those who get more excited chasing cutthroat trout with a dry fly than listening to Broadway show tunes."

Egan suggests driving across the Panhandle on US 12, which I agree is one of the prettiest roads anywhere in the country. I especially enjoy it in late October, when the weak sunlight enhances fall colors along the Clearwater River.

South of Lewiston is the heart of Nez Perce country. "These natives impressed Lewis and Clark more than any other people they met along the way," writes Egan. "Not only did the Nez Perce basically save the Virginia Men, as they were sometimes called, from starving, but they impressed them with what may be the finest breed of horse in the West — the appaloosa."

Let me add: "appaloosa" literally means "a Palouse horse," the Palouse being the stunning plateau of rolling hills, at the heart of which are the college towns of Pullman, Washington, and Moscow, Idaho. In 1805, Meriwether Lewis wrote in his journal that the Appaloosa he saw on the Nez Perce range "appear to be of excellent race, lofty, elegantly formed, active and durable; many of them appear like fine English coursers, some of them are pied with large spots of white irregularly mixed with dark brown bay."

"Unlike some tribes left with only a casino or a small reservation, the Nez Perce are not a mere passive presence in this part of the West. Their imprint is big.

"There is the history, notably that surrounding
Chief Joseph and his epic 1877 running battle that is commemorated at sites along the Nez Perce National Historic Park. And then the culture, through powwows and numerous festivals open to the public in reservation towns like Kooskia, Kamiah and Lapwai throughout the summer months.

"For me, the most stirring of the Nez Perce sites is White Bird, along Route 95 south of the reservation. This is the Indian Gettysburg, where one of the few real pitched battles between natives and the American Army was fought. The army was routed at White Bird, while the Nez Perce did not lose a man. But it was bittersweet, as Chief Joseph’s people — about 750 men, women and children — were later chased more than 1,500 miles throughout the Rockies and finally gave up, hungry and cold, just short of the Canadian border.

"It does not take much to look down into the canyon from the roadside historic site and imagine the battle unfolding, or to stare into the wilds of the Salmon River country, the mountains snagging wayward clouds, the River of No Return at its center, and see why they fought so hard to hold on to this place."

You can read Egan's article here. You might also enjoy exploring this website on the region from the PBS series New Perspectives on The West.

Tom Shales's Latest, Plus a Look Back at His Greatest.

2007-06-28T07:44:00.001-07:00

I really don’t a rat’s nether anatomy to this subject, but based on Tom Shales' killer headline in the Washington Post today, simply HAD to read his review:

Paris Hilton, Free To Speak Her Mind (Such as It Is)
(Read the whole piece here.)

I really miss the days when Tom Shales did movie reviews for Morning Edition. Even when he completely trashed a flick - or maybe, especially when he trashed it - he was so funny. I'm sure people headed to the theaters just to see how bad those movies could be. In fact, I went to see "Species" after his Friday morning review had me laughing so hard I became lightheaded. (It was really THAT bad.)

This got me thinking about some of his writing that I've enjoyed very much.

Chief among them would HAVE to be his annual reviews of Kathie Lee Gifford's five Christmas specials.

Here, in its entirety, is the one from 1998.

Kathie Lee? Bah Humbug!

What's the difference between the 24-hour flu and a Kathie Lee Gifford Christmas special?

Twenty-three hours.

You wouldn't want to catch either one if you could help it. But when CBS refused to make this year's edition of the agonizing event available in advance to TV critics, one such critic, instead of being grateful for the unintentional kindness, was tempted to tune in anyway to see how, or if, things have improved.

He should have known better.

Big mistake.

The special had more aura de horror than holiday glow and proved punishingly similar to previous efforts. In other words, it might have been called "I Saw What You Did Last Christmas." And the one before that.

The actual title for this year's exercise in false piety, faked sentiment and aerobic grinning was "Kathie Lee Gifford: Christmas Every Day," an appalling prospect any way you look at it. This is the kind of television to be watched not from the couch, as it were, but while peering out from behind it and using it as a shield, as if perhaps an air raid or some other sort of massive bombing were in progress.

You try to give it your wholehearted attention, but that isn't easy with a halfhearted production.

Gifford does, of course, give the impression of throwing herself into the project. With a vengeance, some might say. And yet there's always the sense of the cut-rate about the show. This year's version, which aired at 10 p.m. Friday on CBS (an odd hour for a family-oriented show) and was taped in Beaver Creek, Colo., featured the U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Chorale and the Denver Young Artists Orchestra as Gifford's accompaniment.

What do these two groups have in common? They work cheap. They're composed of amateur or semipro musicians who probably do not have union cards.

The cast also included, naturally, Gifford's two children, the fidgety but cute little girl Cassidy, 5, who hardly got to say one word, and the brightly polished Cody, 8, who was reluctant to shut up during a session of questions from the Bible about, yes, the "real meaning" of Christmas.

There's nothing like being lectured about the real meaning of Christmas by a heavily coiffed Vegasy diva wearing a bare-shouldered black evening gown and braying into a hand-held microphone. Said guest Pam Tillis, accurately, to Gifford: "You are bad. Look at you."

Tillis's face bears at least a slight resemblance to Hillary Rodham Clinton's, an appropriate name to drop since both Gifford and Clinton have suffered the public embarrassment of hubbies who famously philandered. Gifford's husband, Frank -- rolled out onto the stage in his usual quasi-mummified state -- was videotaped in a hotel room with a 46-year-old former flight attendant in 1997. He's sported a sappy sheepishness ever since.

Now, we are to believe, Frank's been forgiven and the marriage is stronger than ever. Or at least Kathie Lee is stronger than ever. She looks like she could bench-press a horse. The woman is tough. The woman's got grit. When Kathie Lee attacks a song, she takes no prisoners, and the victim's always left lying lifeless on the stage.

You have to admire her tenacity. If not her audacity.

Hiring Tillis was a good idea, since her singing may actually be more irritating than Kathie Lee's. It's that there hawg-callin' kind. Tillis sang a medley of those sacred tunes "We Three Kings," "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and "My Favorite Things." Oops. How'd that last one get in there? With great difficulty. At one point Tillis actually sang, "We three kings of our favorite things . . . ."

The bill also included 'N Sync, one of those teenage boy groups that flit by every so often, except its members actually range in age from 17 to 27. Their clothes don't fit, and they don't project the sexual aggressiveness of Backstreet Boys or Boyz II Men or any of the more popular such aggregations, so they were apparently pure enough for Gifford's audience. One fellow had his hair flat-topped and braided in such a way as to make it look like one of Mamie Eisenhower's old hats.

Having shopped for Christmas cards at "our favorite stationers" and finding them not Christmasy enough, Gifford told the audience, she decided to write a song: "And so I sat down and the words came to me: May our heart become a manger for His love.' . . . And I went home and couldn't get those words out of my mind. And so, I wrote some more words." And the rest, thank Heaven, is history, because after Friday night's performance, no one else is likely ever to sing Kathie Lee's original song again. With the possible exception of Kathie Lee.

Gifford tenses all her muscles to sing, it seems, as if her whole body is grimacing. And so one wonders: If it hurts her so much, why does she do it? It's not as if we couldn't live without it. After she sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the same song popped up in a commercial for Glade air freshener -- except Glade's version was more emotionally affecting.

Tepid, torpid and tripy, the special trundled on, losing momentum rather than gaining it. Where oh where is a cable outage when you really need one? At least Gifford gave fair warning. She was out there singing from the very beginning, a medley of "Sleigh Ride" and "Let It Snow."

Please, one might have prayed, in the name of all that's holy: Let it stop, let it stop, let it stop.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Here's Shales' review for the 1996 special:

Ain't She Sweet: Kathie Lee Gifford's Christmas show comes but once a year. Thank God.

Oh, all right, since you begged so sweetly....here's a snippet:

"Gifford burst from the wings at the outset braying the opening notes of "The Christmas Waltz," and when she finished the song, the first shot of the audience was of her lumpy husband Frank sitting in an aisle seat and applauding. Like he had any choice.

In a brief monologue, Gifford said Christmas was, among other things, the one time of year when we think about "how much we have to be grateful for." What about Thanksgiving? Ah, of course: At Thanksgiving we get to be grateful that Kathie Lee doesn't do a Thanksgiving special."

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

If you'd like to read any of his other Kathie Lee reviews, you'll have to pay - but worth it, I think. Find them at theWashington Post.

If you can't get enough Tom Shales, read his blog for TV Week.

China insists its exports are safe

2007-06-28T04:56:00.000-07:00

Audra Ang of the Associated Press reports today:

BEIJING - China insisted Thursday that its exports are safe, issuing a rare direct commentary as international fears over Chinese products spread.

Wang Xinpei, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said China "has paid great attention" to the issue, especially food products because it concerns people's health.

"It can be said that the quality of China's exports all are guaranteed," Wang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing.

The statement was among Beijing's most public assertions of the safety of its exports since they came under scrutiny earlier this year with the deaths of dog and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.

The full article can be read at the Boston Globe.

Even As China Cracks Down on Food Safety, Recall is Issued for Chinese-Made Tires

2007-06-27T03:54:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times:

By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI, June 27 — After weeks of insisting that food here is largely safe, regulators in China said Tuesday that they had recently closed 180 food plants and that inspectors had uncovered more than 23,000 food safety violations.

The nationwide crackdown, which began in December, also found that many small food makers were using industrial chemicals, dyes and other illegal ingredients in making a range of food products, everything from candy to seafood.

(T)he government has moved aggressively in recent months to enforce the nation’s food safety regulations and to crack down on fake and counterfeit foods.

But Tuesday’s announcement, which appeared on the web site of the country’s top quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, has added fuel to concerns about rampant fraud in the food industry here.

Regulators said 33,000 law enforcement officials combed the nation and turned up illegal food making dens, counterfeit bottled water, fake soy sauce, banned food additives and illegal meat processing plants.

“These are not isolated cases,” Han Yi, director of the administration’s quality control and inspection department told the state-run media.

China Daily, the nation’s English language newspaper, said industrial chemicals, including dyes, mineral oils, paraffin wax, formaldehyde and malachite green, had been found in everything from candy, pickles and biscuits to seafood.

Regulators said they also learned that sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid were being used to process shark fin and ox tendon.

These industrial chemicals are often toxic or corrosive and can be used in everything from drain cleaners, detergent and fertilizer to surfboard wax.

These types of findings have become all too common in China. For instance, in 2005, officials in south China found a company repackaging food waste and shipping it to 10 other regions. And just last week, officials said a company in Anhui province, not far from Shanghai, was selling a two-year-old rice dumpling mix as fresh, according to the state-controlled media.

Experts here say the problem is that the country’s food regulations are not being enforced and small businessmen feel they need to go to extraordinary lengths to make a profit.

Read the entire article on the New York Times.

In other news of substandard products: a New Jersey company announced a recall of hearly half a million tires made in China. But Foreign Tire Sales says it can't afford to pay for the recall and tire replacements, so it's asking the federal government for help.

The defective tires, used on light trucks and SUV’s, have been sold under the names of Westlake, Telluride, Compass and YKS. The problem: tire separation.

Lawyers say these tires are responsible for at least one fatal accident last year .

(Listen to Adam Davison's report broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition today.)

This tire recall follows several other recalls of Chinese-made products recently, including toothpaste containing a poisonous chemical, contaminated pet food, and Thomas the Train Engine toys decorated with lead paint.

The New York Times's David Barboza also wrote about the defective tires, and reports:

"They were supposed to include a gum strip between the steel bands that prevented them from separating. Mr. Lavigne said the gum strip cost less than a dollar a tire to install.

"But in October 2005, officials at Foreign Tire Sales became suspicious that the tires were made without the strips.

"Nearly a year later, in September 2006, Hangzhou Zhongce [the Chinese manufacturer]officials acknowledged that they had “unilaterally” decided to omit the gum strip, according to a report by Foreign Tire Sales for federal regulators."

You can read the whole article here.

RELATED: John Frisbie, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, says Chinese companies are not adhering to international safety standards. Frisbie talked about whether recent bad news has changed American business interests in China on NPR's Morning Edition today.

Listen to the interview here .

Smarty-Pants Lawyer Loses His Suit (and Trousers)

2007-06-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Did you hear the one about the lawyer who claimed the drycleaner lost his trousers?

He sued HIS pants off the cleaners.

To the tune of 54 million dollars.

Thank goodness he's not going to get one penny of it.

Some pants.

Some lawyer.

Wait, wait….that was a cheap shot at lawyers. Let me correct myself.

Roy L. Pearson is a judge. Who should be upholding the law, not perverting it for personal gain.

Two years ago, Pearson took several suits to his drycleaner in Washington for alterations. When he came to pick them up a couple of days later, one pair of trousers was missing.

The drycleaners said they found the missing trousers a few days later and tried to return them, but Mr Pearson insisted they were not his. Pearson complained to the Chungs, the South Korean family that owns and operates Custom Cleaners in the District of Columbia.

In his first letter, Pearson sought $1,150 for a new suit. Two lawyers and many legal bills later, the Chungs offered Pearson $3,000, then $4,600 and, finally, $12,000 to settle the case.

But that didn’t satisfy Pearson. Peek into the hundreds of pages of legal wrangling and you will find the heart of his heart of his complaint. Custom Cleaners at that time had two big signs on its walls. One said "Satisfaction Guaranteed," and the other said, "Same Day Service."

He was not satisfied. And he did not get his pants back on the same day or, for that matter, on any day.

This, he says, amounts to fraud, negligence and a scam.

Being a lawyer/judge, Pearson sued.

The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher reports: “The District's consumer protection law provides for damages of $1,500 per violation per day. Pearson started multiplying: 12 violations over 1,200 days, times three defendants” (i.e. three members of the Chung family)

Pearson’s lawsuit also included a bill for 1400 hours he says he spent preparing the case. (What kind of an incompetent lawyer needs that much time to ask for a pair of stupid pants? That said so much more about Pearson than it did about the Chungs!)

Poor baby.

The judge says he deserves millions for the damages he suffered by not getting his pants back, for his litigation costs, for "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort," for the value of the time he has spent on the lawsuit.

But wait – there’s more! Pearson also added the cost of renting a car every weekend to enable him to drive to an alternative dry-cleaner's for the next 10 years. Why should the drycleaner pay Pearson $15,000 so he can rent a car every weekend for 10 years?

Pearson’s reason: as a result of poor service, he must find another cleaner. And because he doesn’t have a car, he says he will have to rent one to get his clothes taken care of.

Incidentally, the original alteration work on the pants cost $10.50.

This idiocy came to an end today.

DC Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled that Pearson is entitled to precisely: nothing. Why? He had one year to prove his claims of common law fraud with clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence. “He has not proven those claims by a preponderance of the evidence, let alone by that higher standard. Judgment therefore will be awarded to the defendants, as well as their costs." (Source: Emil Steiner of the Washington Post)

The Chungs’ lawyer, Chris Manning, said that the protracted case had transformed the family's American dream into "the American nightmare." It has cost them tens of thousands of dollars to defend this case.

In a closet of a lawyer's office in downtown Washington, there is a pair of gray wool pants, waiting to be picked up by Roy Pearson.

"We believe the pants are his," says Manning. "The tag matches his receipt."

Miscellaneous: Custom Cleaners has a legal defense fund.

A Google search shows many calls to disbar Pearson.

You can read some opinions on this case at Overlawyered. Read comments on Marc Fisher's article here.

I'll Give My Life To My Country, But Not To Protect Corporations.

2007-06-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

On June 19, 26 year old SPC Eli Israel put himself at great personal risk.

He decided to refuse further participation in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Eli told his commanding officer and sergeants that he will no longer be a combatant in what he calls an "illegal, unjustified war."

“I have told them that I will no longer play a ‘combat role’ in this conflict or ‘protect corporate representatives,’ and they have taken this as ‘violating a direct order.’

"Corporate representatives?" Who are these people?

Apparently, there are lots of them.

By one estimate, as many as half the Americans in Iraq are working for private contractors.

Investigative journalist Dina Rasor, co-author with Robert Bauman of "Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War" (Palgrave) was on The Diane Rehm Show on Monday, June 18th, explaining why she thinks privatization of the Iraq war undermines U-S troops and threatens national security. Eli Israel made his stand the next day.

Bauman and Rasor are sponsors of the Follow the Money Project. According to their website, the project investigates "where the money appropriated for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is going -- especially money that should be going to the Troops."

Bauman and Rasor are old hands at investigating government fraud. In their new book they claim private contractors have put the lives of countless American soldiers on the line while damaging our strategic interests and our image abroad. They "give the inside story on troops forced to subsist on little food and contaminated water, on officers afraid to lodge complaints because of Halliburton's political clout, on millions of dollars in contractors' bogus claims that are funded by American taxpayers. Drawing on exclusive sources within government and the military, the authors show how money and power have conspired to undermine our fighting forces and threaten the security of our country."

Eli Israel is stationed at Camp Victory in Baghdad with JVB Bravo Company, 1-149 Infantry of the Kentucky Army National Guard. You can read more on Eli at Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Awful, But still - It's Free Advertising

2007-06-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

We all know that fashion houses will push freebies on to most any celebrity, but especially the A-listers. One red carpet picture, and sales of a dress, a purse, shoes, earrings - will skyrocket.

But what about a dreadful picture such as this?

When Lindsay Lohan partied too hard over Memorial Day weekend, some lucky papparazzi got shots of her passed out in a car and obviously made LOTS of money. But so did American Apparel, maker of the gray hooded sweatshirt she was wearing. The New York Times reports the company posted the picture its blog, "at americanapparel.net, and at least one store in Manhattan pasted the Daily News front page near a display of the $40 “flex fleece” sweatshirts, causing a run."

Eric Wilson goes on to say:

So the national obsession with celebrity culture has come to this. Even at their worst, hot young actresses can move product, and fashion companies that in the past would have shied away from provocateurs are less reticent to embrace them. And last week came this media alert from a Los Angeles dress designer: “Nicky Hilton Wearing Kate & Kass to Visit Paris in Prison.

It's official, people. Herd mentality has overtaken America. Or, maybe, a lack of mentality of any sort.

What hot products will the next infamous pictures spawn?

Let's speculate, shall we? Let's see....

A picture of Nicole Richie barfing sends sales of designer wet wipes through the roof!

Secret shots of her ex-buddy Paris behind bars spurs Banana Republic to make fashionable orange jumpsuits, which even at $200 a pop, BR cannot keep in stock!

Any suggestions?

You can read the whole article detailing this sorry scene here.

Happy Solstice!

2007-06-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

Druids and others celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge this morning (photo: BBC)

In Wiltshire in southwestern England, about 24,000 people welcomed the sun today it rose above the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge on the longest day of the year. Dancers writhed to the sound of drums and whistles as floodlights colored the ancient pillars shades of pink and purple. Couples snuggled under plastic sheets.

Solstice celebrations were a highlight of the pre-Christian calendar. Bonfires, maypole dances, and courtship rituals linger on in many countries as holdovers from Europe's pagan past.

In more recent years, New Age groups and others have turned to Stonehenge to celebrate the solstice, and the World Heritage Site has become a magnet for men and women seeking a spiritual experience -- or just wanting to have a good time.

Stonehenge, on the Salisbury Plain 80 miles southwest of London, was built between 3,000 B.C. and 1,600 B.C., although its original purpose is a mystery. Some experts say the monument's builders aligned the stones as part of their sun-worshipping culture.

Read more in this article from the Associated Press in the New York Times.