Seeding the Stratosphere: Is it Cool?

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!

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.

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

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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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

"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."

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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

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.

I spent the better part of my two-week vacation resting and reading.

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

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.

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.

"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.