DC urban farm plan a bust

DC urban farm plan a bust
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/12/d-c-greenhouse-highly-touted-by-mayor-gray-may-not-happen-110083.html

Bright Farms, Inc. was set to break ground in December 2014 on what would have been DC's largest urban farm. However, the Anacostia location was recently found to be an unofficial landfill and dump and too toxic to build on. Bright Farms had invested $700,000.

Nordic model - would it work for America?

Two great pieces recently came out about the applicability of the Nordic model to the US.

American expat Ann Jones living in Oslo thinks the world of the Nordic model and finds it hard to explain what is wrong with America but is sure there is a lot wrong.

British author Michael Booth has a different view. He is married to a Danish woman and has lived in Denmark off and on for a decade. His recent book "The Almost Nearly Perfect People: the truth about the Nordic miracle" points out that while the Nordic countries have achieved high ranks on many international indicators of quality of life, they have their share of problems as well. His Washington Post article below mentions that Nordic countries are world leaders in coffee drinking, anti-depressant use, and violent crime.

Either way, reading both is a good primer on a region which often escapes the international eye.

The American way over the Nordic model: are we crazy?by Ann Jones
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0111-jones-ex-pat-american-20150111-story.html

Stop the Scandimania: Nordic nations aren't the utopias they're made out to be
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-the-scandimania-nordic-nations-arent-the-utopias-theyre-made-out-to-be/2015/01/16/8f818408-9aa0-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

Great video on German mittelstand companies

Great video on German mittelstand companies

Germany's Mittelstand Companies - CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/24/business/german-economy-mittelstand/

Incredible commentary by the exec on how public listing of companies takes away from long-term vision. Determination to pass the company on rather than sell it and buy a yacht.

Interesting comparison of French vs. German management styles

French and German management styles : practical case study

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhKMYwLFGM

Is it true across the board in each country? Even if not, interesting comparison.

Great sheet from a UK elementary school about site & situation and other urban topics

Great sheet from a UK elementary school about site & situation and other urban topics

http://geography.amesburyschool.co.uk/revision/ce4settlement.pdf

EEZs in the European Atlantic

EEZs in the European Atlantic
Notice on this map that Norway, which has chosen not to join the EU, has an Atlantic EEZ nearly as large as that of the EU, due to its long coast and remote islands. Iceland also has an EEZ that far outsizes the country and the population and also is not part of the EU. Greenland, with just a tiny population of 57,000, has an enormous EEZ. See the book Windfall: the booming business of global warming for a chapter on Greenland's move to independence driven by the promise of wealth from natural resource futures (oil, gas, fish, minerals) to be found in their EEZ and from new land exposed as its massive glaciers slowly melt.

Great blog entry on the history and geography of nightshades

Great blog entry on the history and geography of nightshades
https://botanistinthekitchen.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/making-ratatouille-like-a-botanist/#more-1154

Nightshades all come from the New World i.e. the Americas originally and include many common plants: potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, eggplant, tobacco, etc. Most nightshades made it to Europe only after the era of exploration and the Columbian Exchange began.

However, the article makes an interesting note about halfway down under "Old World nightshades" answering the question how did a few nightshades make it to the Old World (Europe/Asia/Africa) before the era of Transatlantic exploration? The article suggests that is was birds which carried them over oceans to new continents:

"Long before European ships began transporting charismatic Solanaceae [nightshade] species home from the Americas, a few American nightshades made the transoceanic voyage on their own, probably assisted by birds.  Something like 15 to 17 successful dispersal events are necessary to account for the present-day distribution of Solanaceae native to Pacific Islands, Africa, Australia, and Eurasia (Olmstead 2013).  Some modern descendants of three of these dispersal events are shown on the phylogeny in red: Chinese goji berries (Lycium barbarum and L. chinense); European deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna); and, of course, the eggplants."

Europe's Muslim populations

Europe's Muslim populations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/09/map-frances-growing-muslim-population

EU Common Fisheries, pretty amazing

Europe has always been closely tied to the sea. So it is pretty amazing to me that the EU has agreed to basically share common waters under the EU Common Fisheries Policy.

So the EU has one single EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) that any EU fisherman can fish in.

http://britishseafishing.co.uk/conservation/common-fisheries-policy-cfp/

"This meant that EU fishermen could effectively fish anywhere in the EU’s EEZ, and the same rules and regulations would apply to all. Fishermen from any EU nation can fish freely within any other EU countries waters (although licensing and quotas still apply)."

Fishing is one reason (not the only reason) why Iceland is not in the EU--they would have to give up whaling, which is not a huge industry but is a deep, ancient part of culture in Iceland.

Good agriculture videos

Duck rice farming in Japan – 10 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNR_3GeUoqI
1. What are some ways that the ducks help the rice grow in paddies?
2. What are some other species of plants or animals that also live in the paddies?
3. Towards the end, the scientists says that duck rice farming is very difficult, but the farmer himself says that it is not difficult as difficult as it seems. Why?

Up in Smoke – The Guardian - 7 minutes
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2012/nov/05/up-in-smoke-slash-burn-farming-video
1. What are some of the major problems with slash-and-burn agriculture that the video shows?
2. Why do people practice slash-and-burn agriculture if they know there are problems?
3. What is the solution shown in the video?

Grass is king on livestock farm - Polyface Farms, Virginia – Discovery news – 3 minutes
http://news.discovery.com/earth/videos/earth-grass-is-king-on-livestock-farm.htm
1. What are two practices that are different/unconventional about the way Joel Salatin farms?

Beijing's urban farmers - Reuters 2 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUbvI-EMYPI
1. Why are farmers in Beijing, China especially motivated to grow their own produce?

America revealed - urban farming in Detroit - PBS - 4 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEPs3Ta-6eg
1. Why is an urban area like Detroit becoming a home to many farmers?

Singapore vertical farms herald an agricultural revolution - Journeyman.tv - 7 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nFQOkzEjxQ
-Look on a map to see where Singapore is, a tiny island country with very high-income in SE Asia

Astana: the world's weirdest capital city

Astana: the world's weirdest capital city - CNNhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/07/13/world/asia/eye-on-kazakhstan-astana/

"There is something mirage-like about Kazakhstan's capital Astana. Little surrounds the city for 1,200 kilometers, save a handful of provincial towns dotted across the world's largest steppe, a flat, empty expanse of grassland."

Astana, Kazakhstan is a textbook example of a "forward capital" i.e. symbolically relocated for strategic reasons. Astana became the capital in 1997 in the years after Kazakhstan became independent from the USSR in 1991. The move was designed to put Kazakhstan's capital in a more central location than former capital Almaty, which is close to the borders with China and Kyrgyzstan. Officials said the move was designed to spread wealth more evenly throughout Kazakhstan, which now had control of its own immense farmland and fossil fuels since it was no longer under Soviet rule. They also said Almaty was earthquake-prone and they wanted to move the capital away from China. Clearly, it is also towards Russia.

Before the move, Astana "which was then an empty patch of land by the Ishim River best known as a former gulag prison camp for the wives of Soviet traitors..."

I have seen a number of job advertisements for teachers in Astana on teacher job boards, both K-12 and university. If you go to teachaway.com > job board > Kazakhstan you can see some of them. Kazakhstan is a country with strong ties to Russia, the Russians who were parachuted in to govern during the USSR still have a lot of wealth and power there.

Kazakhstan is a huge country of nomadic heritage, with lots of open spaces. It makes sense that wolves would abound around the capital.

"In the winter months temperatures can fall to minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit), making it the second coldest capital city in the world..."

"You need to understand the Kazakh background to get a better picture of our world view. We're a nomadic civilization that developed over thousands of years in the vast expanse of Eurasia. Free space is more impressive to the Kazakh mindset than the type of congestion found in many European centers..."

Guam longitude discussion question

Watch the video below and look on a map or Google maps and find Guam, which is an overseas territory of the United States. Guam was one of Spain's last colonies which the US took from Spain in the Spanish-American War in 1898 along with Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba. Today, Guam and Puerto Rico are still US territories but Cuba and the Philippines are now independent countries.

Look up Guam's longitude (on Wikipedia or just Google "Guam longitude) and relate its location to the time zones on slides 32-33. Why do you think this promotional video is called "Guam: Where America's day begins?"

We will discuss in class.

Guam: Where America's day begins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGUhQrulelw

Notes on Belarus

Notes on Belarus

At the AAG Conference 2014 Gregory Ioffe, who is from Russia and now teaches at Radford U in Virginia, gave a talk about modern Belarus. He both confirmed and challenged some of my impressions of Belarus. From my brief readings I had thought Belarus to be a country totally dependent on Russia, a backwater, full of corruption, and in some ways a lost cause.

But Ioffe said Belarus actually has better upkeep, grooming, governance, and roads that neighbor Ukraine and much less corruption. He said Belarus also gets a much higher number of Schengen Visas(1) than other post-Soviet countries.

He said Belarus' umbilical cord with Russia is not cut, and 70% of those polled would not mind joining Russia if it meant economic improvement. He said there are two major considerations, independence and economic improvement. Belarus has a long border with Russia and is crossed by many Russian oil and gas pipelines to Europe.

He said Belarus defied clichés: there is no anti-Russian sentiment and it is distinctly non-Russian, though without a strong identity.

In recent years Radford U has had several connections with Belarus:
-Just this month on 1/12/15 Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko visited Radford to talk with Ioffe
-6'11 basketball center Artsiom Parakhouski played at Radford and was named Big South Player of the Year in 2009 and 2010

Ioffe also mentioned that Belarus had for centuries been part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which looking at maps was quite large. He also noted that Belarus' Polish Catholic minority is found in large pockets on its Polish border in the west. This is part of a general E-W divide, he said, and there are fewer empty agricultural fields in the west.
(1) Schengen Visas allow access to Europe's open-border Schengen Zone countries

Good article on future of Belarus and other post-Soviet stateshttp://en.delfi.lt/central-eastern-europe/artemy-troitsky-belarus-will-be-a-normal-european-country-not-so-optimistic-about-russia.d?id=66924936


Understanding Belarus: Economy and Political Landscapeby Gregory Ioffe
http://gioffe.asp.radford.edu/images/pubpdfs/belarusecon.pdf

Notes on Latvia

Notes on Latvia
 

At the 2014 AAG conference a presenter gave a talk "Latvians - an endangered species?"

He noted that within Latvia's 2 million people are 1.3 Latvians with the rest being Jews and Russians. He said Latvia had been independent before the Russians took it over in 1920. As with Russia's other SSRs during the Soviet Union, Moscow installed ethnic Russians in leadership positions such that by 1945 Russians dominated all cities.

He noted that ironically, ethnic Latvians are a minority in Riga the capital despite the country being 77% Latvian, a leftover trend from the Soviet era. He said many Latvians now live in the UK, Ireland, and Germany which accept Latvians under the EU's policy of free movement and migration.

Interestingly, he also mentioned that since Latvia became part of the EU in 2004 its economy has improved which has in turn encouraged Russians to stay so that they can send remittance money back home to Russia where the ruble is on the skids.

During the talk the presenter mentioned how Latvia was occupied both by the Nazis in WW2 and then by the Russians during the Cold War, which really drove the point home that much of Eastern Europe has really had a hard time of it in the 20th century. How good they must feel to be out from under both of these despotic regimes. Overall I personally feel there is a very positive energy in Eastern Europe from the excitement about the post-Soviet, EU-connected era of democracy and economic improvement that is very different from the Western Europe.

Notes on Tatarstan

Notes on Tatarstan

Intro

Tatarstan (capital Kazan) is a prosperous Islamic region inside of Russia. It is one home of the Tatars, an ancient ethnic group which is also found in Crimea and other subregions of Russia. Tatarstan today is undergoing a conflict between an "official" Islam that is closely tied to Russia vs. radical Jihad and Wahaabist Islamic fundamentalism. In 2012 a pro-Russian Islamic leader was killed by fundamentalists and Tatarstan's Mufti or spiritual leader was seriously injured when his car was blown up. In the 19th century Tatarstan became a center of Jadidism, a movement that preached tolerance of other faiths and had good relations with the Russian Empire

Sort of like Russian dolls nested inside each other, Tatarstan is one of 14 federal subjects nested inside the Volga Federal District, which in turn is one of 9 Federal Districts in Russia.

So that's: Russia > 9 Federal Districts > Volga Federal District (14 federal subjects) > Tatarstan

Like Chechnya and other ethnic regions in Russia, Tatarstan tried to secede from Russia after the breakup of the USSR and achieved a semi-autonomous status with its own constitution for over a decade, establishing its own laws. However, Vladimir Putin cracked down and "recentralized" Tatarstan. Because it lies smack in the middle of Russia rather than on the outskirts like Chechnya, Tatarstan had much less hope of breaking away than did Chechnya.



Matthew Derrick gave a talk at the AAG conference in March 2014 about Islamic revivalism in Tatarstan.

He made a distinction between two strains of Islam:
-"Euro-Islam" which holds secular norms vs.
-fundamentalist threats of Wahaabism and Jihad which are viewed as imported from the outside, not part of Tatarstan's native culture.

He noted that there is a serious and violent conflict today between an "official" vs. "unofficial" Islam in Tatarstan. The "official Islam" is governed by the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Tatarstan (SBMT) which was formed by Catherine the Great and modeled on the hierarchical structure of the Russian Orthodox Church. This Spiritual Board, he said, has actually multiplied since the collapse of the USSR. At the head of the SBMT is a Mufti, the general word in Islam for a scholarly/spiritual leader.

Radical Islam raises tensions in Russia's Tatarstan - BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19179399

Best cities for centrists

Interesting Livability.com rating of cities' political leanings comes up with best cities for centrists. Notable ones in the top 10 Boise, ID, Bend, OR, and Spokane Valley, WA three places I have been meaning to get to.

http://livability.com/top-10/political-cities/best-cities-centrists/2014