"War teaches Geography"... but so do sports, genealogy, and lots of other things

I first heard the phrase "War teaches Geography" from a video of the great geographic educator Harm de Blij, who passed away this year.

We learn about the Ukraine, the Middle East, etc. through maps of the regions in the news as conflicts there go on.

But sports teaches Geography as well: the World Cup taught many people about Brazil and also about dozens of countries which played in the games.

Genealogy certainly teaches Geography as you investigate where ancestors came from.

In fact, Geography is tied to just about everything. Food and cooking, movies, dance, architecture all teach Geography.

Amazon's largest fish going extinct

The pirarucu or arapaima, the largest Amazon River fish at up to 10 feet long, is going extinct.

The Amazon’s largest fish is going extinct
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/22/the-amazons-largest-fish-is-going-extinct/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3

The Right to the City: Among the most neglected human rights

The idea that people in a community have a "Right to the City" was coined by Henri Lefebvre. He meant that humans have a right to shape and mold the world they live in, not to simply be sold property and have access to places and resources that others have constructed.

This Right to the City is almost undetectable in the modern suburbs: everything is pre-planned like a machine that humans inhabit, not of their own creation but created by a "developer" off in an office somewhere who does not live in the community and has no personal contact with anyone there.

Interestingly, in some of the poorest neighborhoods humans have more exercise of their ability to create their own city: building costs and barriers to opening businesses are lower, and often graffiti and public art becomes a central part of the neighborhood whereas it would have been illegal in more affluent areas.

David Harvey gave a summary:
"The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights."

It is something to think about: when you pay to live in an upscale community, how much ability to shape and create the public places you live in are you getting for your dollar? Any at all?

West Virginia: a gorgeous state

Just got back from driving through I-64 in southern West Virgina. Amazingly, I had never been to that part of WV despite living in the DC area on and off for several decades. Although there were tourists, I can't believe more people don't head out there or least talk about it: lush forest on the slopes of the Appalachian mountains with winding rivers through the valleys like the New River Gorge. On the Virginia side, Staunton is one of my favorite towns in Virginia and is a straight shot across I-64 from Lewisburg, WV to the west and also to Lexington, VA to the east. I-64 west pulls off 81 the main Shenandoah highway not far south from Staunton, one of my favorite Virginia towns, and Charlottesville.

From high up on the New River Gorge overlook at Grandview State Park (city exit off I-64) you can see thousands of feet down to the winding river, a raft slowly floating down, and at 1 pm the coal train came through, I counted roughly 100 cars, amazing. Need to look into what else you can do at Grandview and where to get rafts, the water was very easy and smooth. I later read that the New River is one of the oldest rivers on the continent.

Few moderates in the Middle East

Great article by Fareed Zakaria about how there are few moderates to be found in the Middle East. He argues that the US position favoring supporting moderates is based on fantasy and that even those groups who at times have appeared moderate, like the Iraqi Sunnis who for years received US payments, later turn extremist because they have to to survive.

"The Middle East has been trapped for decades between repressive dictatorships and illiberal opposition groups — between Hosni Mubarak and al-Qaeda — leaving little space in between."

In truth, while the idea of allowing a nation to develop on its own terms sound good it only works when there is a critical mass of peace, stability, and moderate consensus, none of which exist in Iraq.


The Fantasy of Middle East Moderatesby Fareed Zakaria
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-fantasy-of-middle-eastern-moderates/2014/08/14/1e8807a8-23e6-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html?hpid=z2

Reindeer milk--on the rise in the future?

The tundra and boreal forest/taiga regions around the Arctic are full of reindeer. Arctic peoples have long herded and milked reindeer in Russia, Scandinavian countries, Canada, and the US. Could peoples like the Eskimo, the Sami, and indigenous Russian tribes create an industry around reindeer milk? I sure hope so.

Reindeer milk, the next tourism industry for Arctic?http://www.adn.com/article/reindeer-milk-next-tourism-industry-arctic

I am a milk aficionado. Don't do wine or cigars. I am interested in tasting milk from animals beyond the usual source, cows. Modern cow's milk comes from mutated Holstein cows and has been linked to autism; the problem likes in the protein A1 casein.

For about 8 years now I have been drinking goat milk, which is great except it costs 4 times what even organic cow's milk costs. Goat's milk is $16 a gallon.

I have heard that donkey milk has special properties like cleansing your system, but in Bolivia and Chile I was not able to track down donkey milk despite running around a market asking for it. "There used to be a guy who came with a donkey once a day... but he stopped coming last year" they said.

People drink many types of milk in various parts of the world--water buffalo in India where cows are sacred, camel in Africa and Asia, yak, and many more.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Up in Minnesota the "Land of lakes" the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with over 1000 miles of canoe trails. The whole area is riveted by lakes much like Finland.