Hills of the US midwest

Many people--including myself until relatively recently--have a mental map of the midwestern states that is pretty flat. While there are many flat plains, there are also a lot of low rolling hills. Many are direct or indirect products of the Ice Age. The hills of Wisconsin were under thick ice sheets which smoothed hills and left undulating terrain. The Sandhills and Loess Hills are dunes that were blown in by winds carrying sand from deposits left behind by glaciers to the northwest. Even before the Ice Age, the Midwest was under a large sea.

I definitely need to take Toyota cruise through some of them to discover more of my own country's huge, diverse landscapes.

Some hills of the US midwest:
-The Sandhills of Nebraska
-The Flint Hills of Kansas
-The Black Hills of South Dakota
-The Driftless region of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois
-The Loess Hills of Iowa

Sandhills, Nebraska - home of great Sandhill Crane migration on the Platte River every summer


Flint Hills of Kansas


Black Hills, South Dakota - home of Mount Rushmore


The Driftless region of Wisconsin


Broken Kettle Grasslands in the Loess Hills, Iowa - home of 135 bison


Map of North America during the Last Glacial Maximum i.e. farthest extent of ice during the last Ice Age including many areas of the Midwest under ice. Advancing and retreating ice scoured the region, leaving smoothed hills.


North America during the Late Cretaceous ~75 million years ago. The Western Interior Seaway covered much of the Midwest including lots of prehistoric sea creatures.

English speakers in Europe

Scandinavia and the Netherlands are extensions of the English-speaking world.

One source has Norway, which shows no data above, at 90% English speaking.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/03/norwegian-english-fusion-language/

Neglected infectious diseases - a major topic of study

Neglected infectious diseases
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/Neglected-Infectious-Diseases

Stamping out sleeping sickness
http://www.stampoutsleepingsickness.com/about-sos-/sleeping-sickness-and-nagana.aspx

Many diseases that affect millions of people in Africa and other developing countries have not received much research, partly because they do not affect people in developing countries.

On the site above, Bill Gates' Millenium Foundation names several "high opportunity targets" being funded including among others:

-Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
-Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
-Human papillomavirus (HPV)

Interactive map showing renewable energy in Virginia

Interactive map showing renewable energy in Virginia
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/renewables/map_virginia.asp#map

Shows both existing and planned

Sharing economy

The rise of the sharing economy
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy?fsrc=scn/ln_ec/the_rise_of_the_sharing_economy

Seoul, South Korea: aiming to be the "world's first sharing city"
http://www.shareable.net/blog/sharing-city-seoul-a-model-for-the-world

Sharehub is South Korea's official sharing site
see this list of their services http://english.sharehub.kr/services/

-Seoul is sharing via tool libraries, OpenCloset children's clothes, rental spaces from elderly to young people, and many other things through government programs.

Low-tech farming helps make African farmers climate-resilient

How Low-Tech Farming Innovation Can Make African Farmers Climate-Resilient

"Farmers started planting crops that enhance soil fertility such as peanuts, beans and pigeonpea, which provide a food source as well as other benefits such as a source of cash, livestock feed and even fuelwood. Families had improved child nutrition and food security was enhanced as well as land quality. These methods are now expanding to thousands of farmers through the Malawi Farmer to Farmer Agroecology project."

-Problem: Green Revolution too costly for many small farmers in Africa, puts all eggs in one basket with monocultures, not to mention causes pollution - chemical pesticides, pesticides

-Solution: “Agroecological methods – farming practices that mimic nature by adding organic material to soil, planting trees on cropped fields and using natural enemies to attack insect pests."

Encourage crop diversity, crop rotation - opposite of monoculture:
-"Farmers started planting crops that enhance soil fertility such as peanuts, beans and pigeonpea, which provide a food source as well as other benefits such as a source of cash, livestock feed and even fuelwood."

-Farmers experiment with their own lands, teach other famers directly

http://gizmodo.com/how-low-tech-farming-innovation-can-make-african-farmer-1732271015

I'm a big fan of low-tech. I have a flip phone and even that has too many features.

Dinosaurs in snowy Alaska

A ‘lost world’ of dinosaurs thrived in the snowy dark of Alaska, researchers say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/22/a-lost-world-of-dinosaurs-thrived-in-the-snowy-dark-of-alaska-researchers-say/

Usually you don't think of snow and dinosaurs as going together, turns out they did in Alaska.

Modern Europe was formed by milk-drinking Russians

Modern Europe was formed by milk-drinking Russians: Mass migration brought new genetic make-up to continent 5,000 years ago from the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3119310/How-white-Europeans-arrived-5-000-years-ago-Mass-migration-southern-Russia-brought-new-technology-dairy-farming-continent.html

Sharing economy in Seoul, South Korea: Great perspectives from a Fulbright scholar

Sharing economy in Seoul, South Korea: Great perspectives from a Fulbright scholar
http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/14/lessons-from-seouls-two-sharing-economies/

DC gentrification: flipping a city

Good visualization below of DC gentrification nudging eastward and southward into once-black neighborhoods.

I counted six new condos on a single block in the Mt. Vernon Triangle area last weekend. Driving through these areas the contrast could not be starker: young yuppie millenials supported by their parents sipping lattes on the way to the new Wal-Mart alongside the residents from the housing projects two blocks away. It feels like the whole city is in the process of being flipped.

From 2002 to 2013 according to this site there were 600 new condos built plus another 680 rental apartment buildings.

http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2014/10/07/map-fix-see-where-all-of-dcs-new-condos-have-been-built-over-12-years/


What I don't get is how there are that many people who can afford these luxury apartments--and they all seem to be luxury apartments. I believe people who really can't truly afford them are buying them anyway, that's the housing addiction we live by in America. See the Housing Bomb
http://www.amazon.com/The-Housing-Bomb-Environment-Threatening/dp/1421410656

Affordable housing in DC does not exist, unless you live in a bedroom in somebody else's condo.

Take a look at this graph: all the growth has been at the highest-rent levels while the lower-rent levels are phasing out. The Founding Fathers thought DC should never become a place of luxury where elites could take root, now it is becoming a boutique town.
http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2014/10/07/map-fix-see-where-all-of-dcs-new-condos-have-been-built-over-12-years/

And notice the highest growth is in $1500 "or more." In DC there "or more" is often a lot more.


I love the new "cool" names they are giving to the gentrified neighborhoods:
Mt. Vernon Triangle
NoMa
Atlas District

Each of these is essentially just a motherload of condos with the obligatory smattering along the street level of Starbucks and wanna-be chic bars and cafes, Wal-mart, Potbelly, these are the faces of the new DC--the same faces we see at every shopping center.

Even the new independent restaurants are still just restaurants, just more consumption. How about a High Line for DC, something to do?

What strikes me is how, despite the newness of the buildings, there is so little that is innovative about the construction.

By the way, whenever you hear someone say "there's nobody who is really from DC," that tells you two things: 1) that person is not really from DC and 2) they have no idea what they're talking about. My grandfather came to DC in the 1860s.

What a divided city!

Strange time zones: +14

There is actually a +14 time zone. It is found in Kiribati (pop. just over 100,000) and the Line Islands which are split between Kiribati and the US. These islands are mostly coral atolls including Kiritimati the largest atoll in the world by area.

So it is actually possible to be 26 hours ahead of another place on earth.


Kiritimati one of the Line Islands and part of the country of Kiribati

Profile of Kerala a unique state in India

Profile of Kerala a unique state in India situated along the tropical Malabar Coast.

-Highest human development index (HDI), literacy rate, life expectancy and lowest population growth in India

-Extremely multicultural and multireligious: 55% Hindu, 27% Muslim, 18% Christian

-Kerala has a communist state government yet also has an electoral system... hence the term "democratic communism"

-Gets massive monsoon rains in June-Aug and contains large areas of rainforest.

-Has been a key stop on global trade routes for centuries

Kerala's Democratic Communism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3AlXiCtaB8

Mongdragon Cooperatives of the Basque region of Spain

Mongdragon Cooperatives of the Basque region of Spain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZoI0C1mPek

The companies' goal is not just to make money but to create jobs. Employees are the owners.

Geography of languages

Jorie Graham discusses the benefits of writing in English vs. other languages.

Why Is English Better for Poetry Than the Romance Languages?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5zEuks2DmI

-Romance languages are based on common Latin from the Roman empire mixed with the underlying existing languages in the Roman provinces. She makes the point that the farther you go away from the center of the Roman Empire, the more influence the preexisting native language had on the modern Romance language that developed there.

The new scramble for Africa: Chinese, French, US

The new scramble for Africa - Al Jazeera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KM06hTeRSY

Discusses how China, France, and the US are engaged in Africa, which could be seen as the third in a series of historic eras of divisive foreign intervention:

1. Original scramble for Africa by European colonizing powers marked by Berlin Conference
2. Post-independence Cold War divisions that created wars and turmoil within many African countries
3. Africa's current turn to China and away from the West, France's ongoing deep relationship with Africa aka Francafrique, and US aid under the idea of fighting terrorism

-"China is creating these very powerful feedback loops for its own [interest]... that really cut Africa out of the equation in terms of the benefits." 17:50

-"So, you cry 'War on terror,' you get aid, and you stay in power."19:20

-On "Francafrique" the connectedness between modern France and Africa:
"[France offers African countries] boots on the ground and intelligence, the one thing the U.S. can't get in French-speaking Africa." 28:10

-Today France, the US, and China are contending to be the major foreign players in Africa, which could be seen as a new version of the previous scrambles for Africa i.e. "dividing up the pie" once again

-France is promoting democratic institutions
US is promoting security structures
China is promoting economic infrastructure...
are Africans benefiting? Africans have been "forced to live Western dreams, now offered Chinese dreams... will they live their own dream? It is critical to pinpoint an African agenda"... 35:25

"I'm constantly puzzled... that there hasn't been an internal debate on this continent about what we want to do with the Chinese.... African economic policy has been externalized..."

Interconnectedness of the world and GMO seeds

India's Vandana Shiva on real vs. false interconnectedness in the world and on GMO seeds
http://billmoyers.com/segment/vandana-shiva-on-the-problem-with-genetically-modified-seeds/

"What we have is an interconnectedness of the world through greed... and an exclusion of people.
This is not ecological interconnectedness."

Chinese companies face culture shock in countries that aren’t like China

Chinese companies face culture shock in countries that aren’t like China
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinese-companies-face-culture-shock-in-countries-that-arent-like-china/2015/08/14/a048eb64-3bbd-11e5-88d3-e62130acc975_story.html

-China's attempts at globalization are very different from the US: whereas the US spreads American culture worldwide through entertainment and media, China is much more insular and experiences cultural roadblocks when it stretches overseas

Fish ladders and fish cannons

Fish ladders give fish an alternative way to get through dams, which often block fish migration routes.

Salmon jumping up fish ladder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqR2g8darqs

How Fish ladders work - Science Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sabk7Khq0kQ

New Thompson Falls Dam fish ladder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bISGOvNLhk

Fish cannons in Washington State
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn6_6N_KDYw

China in Cambodia: controversial, eco-unfriendly dam on the Se San River

The Lower Sesan 2 Dam being built by China in Cambodia
|
The Push and Pull of China's Orbit
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2015/09/05/the-push-and-pull-of-chinas-orbit/

Building the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Cambodia is one example of how China is acting as a new alternative to the West for development funding. China is providing countless quick-fix infrastructure projects, often of substandard quality, to needy, underdeveloped countries which until recently have relied only on the West for aid, hoping to draw these countries into the Chinese sphere for the future.

Geography professor Ian Baird, who is quoted in the article above, on his blog calls the Lower Sesan 2 Dam a "disaster in the making."
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2014/08/09/cambodias-ls2-dam-is-a-disaster-in-the-making/

As a reservoir dam, the new dam will block fish migrations and also the flow of river nutrients that feed fish. In Cambodia, fish provide upwards of 70% of dietary protein.

Generally, dams built upstream have much less impact on fish stocks than those downstream because many fish live only in downstream areas. The Lower Sesan 2 Dam is

The Sesan Dam has already displaced thousands of people who received inadequate new housing.

So what's the alternative? Watch the following excellent 15 minute video which explains clearly  why dams cause a trade off between cheap electricity and food security in Cambodia:

Hydropower in Cambodia: Impacts and Alternatives - Conservation International
http://cambodiahydropower.weebly.com/

The article above mentions the poor quality of a road and bridge built by China in Cambodia in the past:

"While many Cambodians complain that Chinese roads are poorly built and prone to potholes, they serve a purpose. Two decades ago, the journey from Phnom Penh to the northeastern town of Stung Treng took four days: now, thanks to a Chinese road, it takes about seven hours.
'There is a bridge here, and a road now, and they are two very important things,” said Dy Polen, a restaurant owner. “Yes, the bridge is cracking, and I do care about quality, but it is better than before.'”

Last year I saw China building major highways in Nairobi, Kenya. Kenyan workers complained about the poor tools they were given, poor use of the skilled Kenyans working there, and poor pay. China is also building a "New East African Railway" system to connect the long-disconnected countries of East Africa... and facilitate the transport of resources to the Indian Ocean where they can be shipped to China.
For China in Africa see China's Second Continent by Howard French

For China in Asia see China's "String of Pearls" and "Silk Road" plans

Great Pacific garbage patch explained

Great Pacific garbage patch - good explanation - National Science Foudation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azwKxDVGmns

Key points
-the garbage patch doesn't stay in the middle of the Pacific, huge sections hundreds of km wide break out and reach shores far away ex. Oregon

-the garbage comes from many sources falls off boats, river discharge, land.

-by studying the garbage that comes in alongside the species that live on coasts, they can map a coastline to show which areas may be hazardous for specific species

Globalization at warp speed: financial vs. physical globalization

This article discusses the fact that moving money around the world today i.e. financial globalization is much more rapid than physical globalization (ships, containers, etc.) and therefore is more subject to quick momentary impulsive disasters.

Globalization at warp speed - Washington Post
by Robert Samuelson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/globalization-at-warp-speed/2015/08/30/152d3f0c-4d9d-11e5-84df-923b3ef1a64b_story.html

"In our mind’s eye, “globalization” evokes images of exports, container ships and supply chains. This physical globalization does not operate at warp speed. It takes time to deliver a cargo or construct a supply chain.

By contrast, financial globalization can operate at warp speed. With a few keyboard strokes, investors can dump stocks in one country and buy in another or do the same for bonds and currencies. Since the 1980s, this type of globalization has spread. Most countries have dismantled the restrictions that limited or prevented individuals and companies from moving money across borders. After World War II, these “capital controls” were widespread...

Large and unexpected events can trigger panic buying and selling around the world, as traders react to what they think other traders will do...

Cross-border money movements have grown and become more complex. These flows are too great to be bottled up; we can’t revert to widespread capital controls.
Still, globalization is quietly rewriting the economic rules in ways that suggest we may be losing control over events. We are not entirely at the whim of international markets — but we’re drifting in that direction. Not a comforting thought."