Music came as work songs, lullabies, battle songs, religious music.
http://www.acslink.aone.net.au/christo/histmain.htm
"In both Africa and Europe there were stringed instruments, wind instruments, and percussion. African music represents something closer to the cacaphony of life, and children begin playing musical games by age three."
Drums=men.
"In West Africa, professional musicians were griots, in a low class, and the admired and scorned archivist. In Equatorial, the "mvets" were more admired, and didn't normally sing praises of the rich and powerful.
"In the USA, African music was virtually eliminated by slave owners. Slaves were mainly imported from the Mandingo, Wolof, Fanti, Ashanti, Yoruba and Calabari tribes of West Africa. Tribal groups were split up and drums were originally prohibited, but the American banjo is based on the West African gourd guitar. African work songs appropriately survived and slowly evolved into blues. New European instruments were taken up by the blacks. Jazz, which transformed European structured music with African techniques of interweaving rhythm and melodies, call-and-response patterns and 'vocalising' with instruments, became the first all-American music form.
"Originally jazz was dance music, a fusion of ragtime piano style with blues, spirituals and the brass music of marching bands common at the start of the twentieth century. African-American dance music was also kept alive in the form of R&B. The R&B idioms fused with country music and ballads to become rock and roll. After jazz, rock and roll proved to be the most influential fusion but as it spread across the globe, it soon became ‘white’ music. Soul also developed out of R&B fused with gospel music. Many of the best soul musicians developed their talents in church gospel choirs. Funk and rap followed."
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
water
Water exists totally around and within us, a simple molecule flowing through things and allowing reactions to happen.
Water sticks to other things, and so carves the landscape on its pathways to the ocean. It suspends life, folds enzymes into shape, can dissolve carbon bonds into energy, and prepare DNA for expression. As a source of yin, water breaks apart when the chlorophyll directs a ray of sunlight and creates oxygen gas while storing energy. As a product of yang, water is formed when a mitochondria digests electrons down toward oxygen, pulling hydrogens and forming H2O.
Water sticks to itself, and so settles below the air. A water molecule is only ten protons and eight neutrons, lighter than the ingredients of air: a nitrogen gas molecule is normally 14 protons and 14 neutrons, an oxygen gas molecule is normally 16 protons and 16 neutrons, and a carbon dioxide molecule is normally 22 protons, and 22 neutrons. Each molecule of air is heavier than each molecule of water, but water sticks to itself and pools below and into itself. Upon the surface, it absorbs the energy of the sun, rising and flowing, shaping the weather, the seasons, and the climate. Itself, water forms a shape that is always in transition, the shape of the rolling cloud, the dripping drop, the flowing stream, the ebbing and reaching glacier, and the rocking sea. Water sticks to itself and down to the center of the Earth, flowing back down to the deep all the way around this spherical home. From afar, the oceans reveal the structure of our planet's surface, with the continents as the highest places.
All life is in and around water. By weight, life is water. Humans are about 70% water; some plants are closer to 90%. Life is of course more than water, but it is largely intelligent water management. Water-life swims in the fluid. Land-life is structured around water conservation. As life synthesizes proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, a water molecule pops out when the new bond connects. As life catalyzes these molecules, waters hydrolyze the bonds apart, sticking a water back in. Bilayer membranes, the basic cellular structure of living things, are formed because they are not attracted to water.
If you push against it, water will give. And so, in order to move through it, a swimmer pushes not straight but with a changing angle – the fish gracefully twist a side-to-side wave through water. Water resists because it is sticky but does not push like the friction against earth.
We might as well appreciate water, this most simple and basic thing, the translucent source of a rainbow, the amorphous shaper of the land, the tasteless source of life experience. While water sticks to itself, it is still involved with many other things.
Water gives and flows back. It rains and comes back. To the ocean and then up and back over, as a drop onto land and then down, through, cleansing us along the way again, fertilizing through us again, energizing up and released back down to the Earth, and allowing the reactions of dynamic plants to happen again: a simple molecule that exists totally within and around us.
Water sticks to other things, and so carves the landscape on its pathways to the ocean. It suspends life, folds enzymes into shape, can dissolve carbon bonds into energy, and prepare DNA for expression. As a source of yin, water breaks apart when the chlorophyll directs a ray of sunlight and creates oxygen gas while storing energy. As a product of yang, water is formed when a mitochondria digests electrons down toward oxygen, pulling hydrogens and forming H2O.
Water sticks to itself, and so settles below the air. A water molecule is only ten protons and eight neutrons, lighter than the ingredients of air: a nitrogen gas molecule is normally 14 protons and 14 neutrons, an oxygen gas molecule is normally 16 protons and 16 neutrons, and a carbon dioxide molecule is normally 22 protons, and 22 neutrons. Each molecule of air is heavier than each molecule of water, but water sticks to itself and pools below and into itself. Upon the surface, it absorbs the energy of the sun, rising and flowing, shaping the weather, the seasons, and the climate. Itself, water forms a shape that is always in transition, the shape of the rolling cloud, the dripping drop, the flowing stream, the ebbing and reaching glacier, and the rocking sea. Water sticks to itself and down to the center of the Earth, flowing back down to the deep all the way around this spherical home. From afar, the oceans reveal the structure of our planet's surface, with the continents as the highest places.
All life is in and around water. By weight, life is water. Humans are about 70% water; some plants are closer to 90%. Life is of course more than water, but it is largely intelligent water management. Water-life swims in the fluid. Land-life is structured around water conservation. As life synthesizes proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, a water molecule pops out when the new bond connects. As life catalyzes these molecules, waters hydrolyze the bonds apart, sticking a water back in. Bilayer membranes, the basic cellular structure of living things, are formed because they are not attracted to water.
If you push against it, water will give. And so, in order to move through it, a swimmer pushes not straight but with a changing angle – the fish gracefully twist a side-to-side wave through water. Water resists because it is sticky but does not push like the friction against earth.
We might as well appreciate water, this most simple and basic thing, the translucent source of a rainbow, the amorphous shaper of the land, the tasteless source of life experience. While water sticks to itself, it is still involved with many other things.
Water gives and flows back. It rains and comes back. To the ocean and then up and back over, as a drop onto land and then down, through, cleansing us along the way again, fertilizing through us again, energizing up and released back down to the Earth, and allowing the reactions of dynamic plants to happen again: a simple molecule that exists totally within and around us.
undereating and living long
(speculation)
In the mitochondria of each cell, electrons from food are passed down the electron transport chain and onto oxygen molecules. Each oxygen molecule accepts four electrons, and binds with four hydrogen ions to become two molecules of water.
An oxygen molecule with an extra electron, however, is highly reactive and, if it escapes from the last component of the electron transport chain before becoming water, it causes damage in the cell. Most notably these "free radicals" react with cell membranes and DNA. Mitochondrial DNA, unlike nuclear DNA, does not generate repair proteins, and accumulates more damage. Free radical damage is considered one of the most important components of aging.
We produce and take "antioxidants" to neutralize free radicals before they cause too much damage. Ingesting antioxidants like vitamins C and E, however, seems not to increase (fly and rat) maximum lifespan significantly. (Perhaps because these vitamins do not get through the mitochondrial membrane.) Nor does exercise nor nutrional supplement.
Apparently the best way - the only documented way - to extend maximum lifespan is simply to oxidize less, which means eat less. Rather than repairing damage done or neutralizing the free radicals before they do more damage, produce fewer of them along the electron transport chain. Starved fruit flies and rats have a maximum lifespan one-third longer than well-fed fruit flies and rats. And people in Okinawa, who eat 70% the calories of the rest of the Japanese people, live longer than any regional group in the world. To meet people over 100, best to be in Okinawa.
While United Statesians immediately dismiss the unpleasantness of a starvation lifestyle and direct research toward repairing the damage done by overeating, I recall a friend from Japan telling me that Okinawans are well liked for their sense of humor.
In the mitochondria of each cell, electrons from food are passed down the electron transport chain and onto oxygen molecules. Each oxygen molecule accepts four electrons, and binds with four hydrogen ions to become two molecules of water.
An oxygen molecule with an extra electron, however, is highly reactive and, if it escapes from the last component of the electron transport chain before becoming water, it causes damage in the cell. Most notably these "free radicals" react with cell membranes and DNA. Mitochondrial DNA, unlike nuclear DNA, does not generate repair proteins, and accumulates more damage. Free radical damage is considered one of the most important components of aging.
We produce and take "antioxidants" to neutralize free radicals before they cause too much damage. Ingesting antioxidants like vitamins C and E, however, seems not to increase (fly and rat) maximum lifespan significantly. (Perhaps because these vitamins do not get through the mitochondrial membrane.) Nor does exercise nor nutrional supplement.
Apparently the best way - the only documented way - to extend maximum lifespan is simply to oxidize less, which means eat less. Rather than repairing damage done or neutralizing the free radicals before they do more damage, produce fewer of them along the electron transport chain. Starved fruit flies and rats have a maximum lifespan one-third longer than well-fed fruit flies and rats. And people in Okinawa, who eat 70% the calories of the rest of the Japanese people, live longer than any regional group in the world. To meet people over 100, best to be in Okinawa.
While United Statesians immediately dismiss the unpleasantness of a starvation lifestyle and direct research toward repairing the damage done by overeating, I recall a friend from Japan telling me that Okinawans are well liked for their sense of humor.
CHINA!
I just spent some time in China and wanted to write up some observations for the curious. I've appreciate what many of you all have sent from your travels.
HONG KONG
Hong Kong is a bustling city that is too big for its geography. The original city, built up from the start by British imperialists, is now crammed between Victoria Harbor and some abrupt, steep hills thick with green shrubs. Some impossible buildings come out diagonally from these sharp slopes; other impossible buildings come out of places that used to be underwater; and almost every building in Hong Kong is over twenty stories high. Three of the top ten tallest buildings in the world are there, and the entire skyline at night is colorful, not with flashing neon, but undulating peacock colors. There's a mix between a laser and firework show every evening at about 8, which is especially striking because it reflects onto the harbor water.
The streets are crowded crowded crowded, and most of the people are clearly of the same ethnicity: Han Chinese. Despite being under complete British control from 1840 to 1997, only a few people in a thousand are white. The remaining minorities look southeast Asian, and Indian, occasionally African; and on Sundays a big crowd of Filipino housekeeper women blanket over an unexciting paved square as if it were a beach. White people are very noticeable and usually seemed British, but, as one of these strange-looking people, I barely felt noticed, and not even other whites gave each other special acknowledgement.
As we millions (6.5 to be precise) packed together onto the narrow streets, brushing by tiny bright white drug stores selling packaged snacks I didn't understand and thick glossy fashion magazines, small restaurants serving noodle soup, and fruit stands selling grapes, white pears, and several different types of bananas, we pedestrians were carefully guided. Fences kept us crossing the road at just the right places and wide walkways guided us over the heaviest traffic. In a city of such tall buildings, built on such steep hills, there are numerous escalators, including the longest continuous moving sidewalk ever built, which goes up several city blocks.
With so many people so concentrated, it doesn't make much sense to own a car. There are public transit buses, trains, subways, and ferries operating frequently. Bicyclists would have a hard time getting around, facing either dense crowds and stairs or fast and chaotic car traffic. So most of the street traffic is red Toyota cabs, delivery trucks, and extremely luxurious cars.
Among the owners of this surprising number of luxury cars are the big bankers, investors, and traders profiting from the biggest container port in the world. The owners of the so-called "gate to Asia" can live up on the Peak, which by contrast to sea-level is a refuge of calm and tropical green, where the British Governors lived, where the Japanese ran their occupation, and where the tourists can come to shop and eat today.
I expected Hong Kong to be overcrowded with poor people living in unsafe apartment towers. Instead I found great wealth, urban gentrification (but for the occasional dirty-looking old apartment building) and only several homeless people—one man sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk right next to a running concrete truck; one person completely concealed behind their umbrella at the turn of an outdoor staircase.
But this was only in the central city area; the suburbs are poorer, and far enough into the suburbs is mainland China. The non-porosity of the border with the mainland (non-porous for people at least) helped make Hong Kong comparably much richer, meaning that the opening with the mainland is now causing social and real estate problems as the places equalize.
SOUTHEASTERN CHINA
Looking out the window of a crowded but smooth 24-hour train from Hong Kong to Shanghai, almost every patch of land I saw revealed evidence of intensive human management. Most of Southeastern China seems to be millions of smallish fields for crops, closely crowded next to crops of other species—rice everywhere, vegetables, fish farms, and occasional rows of fruit trees, like bananas or persimmons.
Along the gracefully curving paths within and between these fields, there are Chinese men and women working with their hands. Hoeing, cutting down, and quietly inspecting, they often wore the flat conical hats you'd think of as Chinese. Over hundreds of miles, I saw only two beasts of burden and no tractors, but I did see people working as soon as the sun appeared and, apparently patiently, all day. They looked still and peaceful as the train rushed by, but I know that life in the country is generally much more difficult than the life in the cities. Some country farmers survive with about $70 in cash each year and some children are unable to
afford clothing during the summer.
In-between, amongst, and adjoining these seemingly ancient fields, there was also the kind of ugly infrastructure that underlies a "developed" society—power plants and lines (including one nuclear plant), dams, piles of mined rocks, piles of trash, and floating garbage in the gray waterways.
SHANGHAI
On the train I was able to read and talk quite a bit, and in Shanghai I stayed with an American English teacher who had been living in China for two years. So my observations were more informed.
A few striking things about Shanghai. First of all, there are many bikes; but as of the last ten years, also many cars, and also many advertisements (90% of these are for, in order of frequency: cell phones, fashion designers, and chocolate or dairy treats.). Secondly, there is a large number of tall people. Only rarely did I tower over an entire crowd of people; about as often as a truly giant man walked by. Thirdly, Shanghai is like Hong Kong, with a couple buildings in the top ten tallest (or soon to be), bright showy colors, construction sites everywhere (mostly for big apartment complexes), a more modern, cleaner subway than in U.S. cities, and shopping everywhere. But in Shanghai over time, there is a gradually apparent darkness underneath the "face" (China's world of apparent social status).
It is very true that neither Hong Kong nor Shanghai were cities before they were built up as trading posts for (mostly) the British. Especially in Shanghai I sensed clearly a desire to mimic and then outdo the foreign powers that once dominated them.
Two guys on the train and a couple of city planners in Shanghai told me what many foreigners have told me: they would like to live in the United States, and they would like their country to be like the United States. So there is a wage premium for those who speak English or understand how the West does business. Regular Joes with a college degree from the U.S. can come to Shanghai, and even if they speak no Mandarin, can earn as much as the highest paid Chinese professionals. Native English speakers who also know some business jargon can make more than Chinese professionals with just a few hours' work a week. Ex-pat employees regularly make over $100,000, which is nearly equivalent to $1,000,000 living in Shanghai (because the median wage is about one-tenth the U.S.'s). I'm told Westerners can get away with almost anything, ranging from using the women's bathroom to actually urinating onto and into a police car right in front of the officers. This is exactly what a New Zealander I met claimed to have done, and I believed him, because it seemed consistent with his personality. In the U.S. the police would almost certainly beat him; if he were Chinese, he'd go to jail, perhaps, whimsically, for a while. But because he might be an investor, I'm told, the police looked away and did nothing. At the same time, foreigners are often charged twice, four times as much, because they can pay, and the inflated price nonetheless still seems reasonable compared to European or American prices. There is so much entrepreneurial buzz in China, I sometimes thought my name was "Rolex."
There's an interesting combination between eager welcoming of Westerners and a longer-term plan to kick them out. For the most part foreigners can only live in China if they are doing work to advance its economy: teaching English, sharing business know-how, directly investing, or working with a company that is. When this work is finished, the visa runs out. And every company, even if it is entirely the idea, or entirely funded by foreign money, must be at least 50% owned by a native Chinese man. This formula seems to be working. China's GDP has been compounding at a rate of about 10% a year for more than twenty years now, and it is already close to the size of the GDP of France, or the UK (or California). From the two older ex-pats I talked with most, my sense was that China is kind of like a new American west, unpredictable and full of opportunity for those willing to leave home for a very foreign place. The difference is that the main opportunities to be found in China are an oversupply of cheap labor and the freedom to pollute.
My birth year—1980—was also the year the one-child policy was implemented (and I'm a second child). As the first one-childers now have their one child, there is a new kind of demographic: single children doted over during richer times by six people (their parents and their grandparents). On the Shanghai subway I saw one such girl (slightly older), attended to by her mother and father, who stood attentively by as she sat down. When she finished her slurpee, she literally turned up her nose and handed her empty drink container to her father, summoned her new poster and shopping bag into her hands, and then used the poster like a wand to direct her father into a particular open seat. I was stunned by the whole scene. Whatever they want, I've heard these "Little Emperors" are used to getting it. Sometimes what they want is an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (the biggest fast-food chain in China); and childhood obesity is becoming more prevalent among kids whose grandparents survived the starvation of the Great Leap Forward. This generation is largely what marketers are referrring to when they speak of China's "untapped demand" for products.
Despite my pessimism about where materialistic capitalism leads, I should say that it seems many people are experiencing big improvements in their lives. Especially in the several main cities, I'm told food supplies are more secure, new buildings are safer, information is more available, and consumer choices are more varied. I could have bought any of a variety of Nike's (for the amazing price of: $100!) And I was able to look at ~some~ of the results after searching Google for "human rights violations China" at a public internet café. Perhaps most importantly, there is an optimism that the future will be better.
But underneath the smiling glitz of Shanghai there is the lingering dark side I mentioned. While there are many new apartment buildings going up in Shanghai—giving the appearance of success—what I didn't see is that the previous residents were forcibly removed to make way for these buildings. The government owns all the land in China, and people just lease its use. This allows for rapid gentrification. When a group of tenants got together to argue their case legally (a new kind of privilege), they actually, stunningly, won in court. But, quickly, the lead lawyers were sent away (without trial) for ten years' hard labor, and the court decision was overturned.
A few other examples of the darkness:
--The streets of Shanghai have fewer homeless people than the inner-cities of most American cities. But many of the children vending things on the street have been sold by their parents. Outside a night-club in Shanghai at 3 AM, it's hard to feel content knowing that the little girl selling flowers was probably ordered here by her
"boss."
--There is a state law that says all workers must go home when the temperature exceeds 38 C, but the state-controlled weather broadcasts seem never to report temperatures higher than 36 C.
--Anti-pollution laws are neither very strong (a "comparative advantage") nor well enforced (because of bribes), and dirty coal is the almost sole source for the electrical and manufacturing energy driving all this industrialization. Looking at the sky, I could very quickly draw a connection between the glitzy new shopping centers and the smoggy, hazy air above them. The skies aren't exactly cloudy, and the air isn't accurately called "brown" (when I was there at least), it was just never quite "blue" and always a little foggy or something. Twenty years ago, autumn skies used to be azul. Now, three-fourths of the days are smoggy like this, and all of Guangdong province is an acid rain region.
--Throughout my trip, I was told not to eat raw vegetables like lettuce (because of dirty water) and to ~peel~ my grapes (because of the pesticides), and I'm pretty sure the meat contains concentrated heavy metals (coal again). The paper even reported that 70% of the residents in Beijing and Shanghai experience hard-to-explain fatigue and respiratory irritation. I think China's aspirations for world power will be hampered by all the health problems caused by their own pollution.
--Local officials have for centuries been expected to take advantage of their power to grow rich, today routinely exacting bribes for business permits, for example. The result is a whole population of frustrated people used to enduring. For example, in the U.S. out-of-state drivers can occasionally expect to be targeted by local sheriffs for a speeding ticket; in China out-of-province drivers may have to pay hundreds of dollars just to stop a local police officer from acquiring their car.
Most disturbing of all, I confirmed from three sources a horror story about HIV and AIDs. Because China has faced a shortage of blood for medical transfusions, poor people have been compelled to give their blood, and local officials have been making money selling it. In a couple of regions, HIV got into the blood supply, leading to huge proportions of infected people. The officials have by now learned of their terrible error, but they have not stopped their practices--because adequate blood screens would cost too much. The Chinese government has also been under reporting its AIDs problem and has been reluctant to let the Red Cross in. (There are obviously more than 2 million AIDs cases in China.).
--Even in Hong Kong, many stores are selling statues of Mao and the once-mandatory little red books of his sayings, without much acknowledgement that he was arguably the worst dictator of the 20th century. He murdered hundreds of thousands of dissidents, including previously close advisors, starved millions (30+ million) by arrogantly and then stubbornly insisting on his poorly conceived central plan, persecuted and concentrated millions of other innocents onto hard labor camps, and practiced psychological warfare, like persuading children to turn in their parents, on his own people for decades. Mao has died, and China is experiencing "progress," but only to the point of admitting he was "30% wrong," or "50% wrong." I heard a NY Times journalist describe continuing horrors in China before suggesting that one sign of progress is that people are no longer compelled to publicly cannibalize enemies of the state. Surreal.
By the end of my trip I began to agree with one older ex-pat, who said: "take everything you think you know about China, flip it around, and multiply it by a million."
There ~are~ some advantages to central planning. I have been impressed to read about the government's large-scale efforts to reforest whole regions, and indeed on the train I saw hills turned into terraces and planted with trees, apparently to stop erosion and desertification. It is very illegal to pave over good farmland, and the government is actually tearing up some poorly located developments. As well, Chinese planners at the top level acknowledge that burning so much coal is polluting their country and the rest of the world; and there are some bold initiatives both to increase renewable energy supplies and also to produce more nuclear energy with a potentially much more stable "pebble" uranium reactor. The Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency is designing a "green GDP" as a more accurate measure of success than the more naive GDP we're stuck with. They're talking about "circular economies": designing things from the start to be recycled, and they have conceptualized "sustainability" into the country's Central Plan (which is a document with much more teeth than similar-sounding statements of intention that come from, say, the UN). Despite occasional clear thinking, however, and the central planners' actual ability to implement an overall environmental agenda, I don't foresee much environmental sanity in China. At the individual level, it seems common for Chinese people to throw trash on the ground, or out their window. I'm told the attitude is: the government will clean it up. And at the governmental level, the most important thing seems to be economic growth and world power: clean up later.
As impenetrable as the Chinese culture remains, I can share some small experiences about life on the (busy) streets. You'd think, for example, that people so familiar with living in crowds, would understand that passengers need to get off the subway before anyone should get on. But no: it's common for people to stand right in front of the door and then push against the tide of de-boarders to get on. Just as in Hong Kong, Shanghai people don't appear take special note of the conspicuous white people on the street. Only occasionally, a kid would smile out, "hello." At the same time, I felt watched. This became obvious after I tried to buy some roasted chestnuts on the street. A passing white guy heard the price and began arguing on my behalf, then a local Chinese woman stormed up to make my case as well, then also a friendly older man. The loud argument went on and on, with no decrease in the fervor after I'd paid (a lower price) and walked away with my nuts. Similarly, when a subway vendor tried to give me change as if I had paid her 10Yuan instead of the 100Yuan I'd given her, a woman emerged from the crowd behind me to help.
Everywhere I was in Shanghai I felt safe. I was ~wary~ around tourist areas, where a bicyclist going the other way tried to grab my bag. But in most places I just didn't feel eyed, even though I knew I represented wealth to many people. Ex-pats who lived there said they'd be comfortable counting wads of money in public.
Though I've heard that possession of even small amounts of drugs is an executable offense, prostitution is everywhere. It happens in the barbershops mostly, but also through escort services, and sometimes there's even soliciting inside clubs. I heard about a business deal held up in Italy because the lead Chinese representative had blackmailed his (Chinese) assistant and refused to sign the deal until she submitted to him.
THIS CENTURY
Over the next twenty years, the Chinese planners in Beijing intend to move 30% of the whole population from the countryside to cities, where they will take new manufacturing jobs, and some may rise above poverty. By this time, China will likely have the second-largest economy in the world and will be burning coal at a rate 50% faster.
The international political consequences will be huge. China is ready to be acknowledged, especially by its former European colonists and Japanese invaders, as a top world power, and it has its eye on several extraterritorial properties including Taiwan, the oil-yielding Spratly Islands, and a couple of strategic islands now considered part of Japan. With the one-child policy, families have sought more males than females, creating a demographic situation that has historically built large, restless armies.
The social changes inside the country may be tumultuous: currently the Chinese big-city people seem giddily, atheistically materialistic, and there are many more to be brought in to this attitude. But there are already clear signs of the kind of decadent despair that prevails in America. Are the self-centered "Little Emperors" prepared to take care of a huge number of elders?
The Chinese economic appetite is quite likely to lead to resource wars, of some kind, somewhere. As the final, biggest reservoirs of oil become more important, Asians are already bigger customers of Middle Eastern oil than Westerners—and China's recent surge helped send the price of oil way up. Less conspicuously but also up are the prices of construction materials and commodities like copper. Most concerningly, the agricultural region of northern China is feeding 200 million people, temporarily, by running down the underground aquifers. The fallout from this unsustainable practice could be enormous.
China is a big bumbling giant getting bigger. It was fascinating to visit, even if only for a tantalizing moment. In any case, wherever you are this century, expect to see more Chinese faces.
HONG KONG
Hong Kong is a bustling city that is too big for its geography. The original city, built up from the start by British imperialists, is now crammed between Victoria Harbor and some abrupt, steep hills thick with green shrubs. Some impossible buildings come out diagonally from these sharp slopes; other impossible buildings come out of places that used to be underwater; and almost every building in Hong Kong is over twenty stories high. Three of the top ten tallest buildings in the world are there, and the entire skyline at night is colorful, not with flashing neon, but undulating peacock colors. There's a mix between a laser and firework show every evening at about 8, which is especially striking because it reflects onto the harbor water.
The streets are crowded crowded crowded, and most of the people are clearly of the same ethnicity: Han Chinese. Despite being under complete British control from 1840 to 1997, only a few people in a thousand are white. The remaining minorities look southeast Asian, and Indian, occasionally African; and on Sundays a big crowd of Filipino housekeeper women blanket over an unexciting paved square as if it were a beach. White people are very noticeable and usually seemed British, but, as one of these strange-looking people, I barely felt noticed, and not even other whites gave each other special acknowledgement.
As we millions (6.5 to be precise) packed together onto the narrow streets, brushing by tiny bright white drug stores selling packaged snacks I didn't understand and thick glossy fashion magazines, small restaurants serving noodle soup, and fruit stands selling grapes, white pears, and several different types of bananas, we pedestrians were carefully guided. Fences kept us crossing the road at just the right places and wide walkways guided us over the heaviest traffic. In a city of such tall buildings, built on such steep hills, there are numerous escalators, including the longest continuous moving sidewalk ever built, which goes up several city blocks.
With so many people so concentrated, it doesn't make much sense to own a car. There are public transit buses, trains, subways, and ferries operating frequently. Bicyclists would have a hard time getting around, facing either dense crowds and stairs or fast and chaotic car traffic. So most of the street traffic is red Toyota cabs, delivery trucks, and extremely luxurious cars.
Among the owners of this surprising number of luxury cars are the big bankers, investors, and traders profiting from the biggest container port in the world. The owners of the so-called "gate to Asia" can live up on the Peak, which by contrast to sea-level is a refuge of calm and tropical green, where the British Governors lived, where the Japanese ran their occupation, and where the tourists can come to shop and eat today.
I expected Hong Kong to be overcrowded with poor people living in unsafe apartment towers. Instead I found great wealth, urban gentrification (but for the occasional dirty-looking old apartment building) and only several homeless people—one man sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk right next to a running concrete truck; one person completely concealed behind their umbrella at the turn of an outdoor staircase.
But this was only in the central city area; the suburbs are poorer, and far enough into the suburbs is mainland China. The non-porosity of the border with the mainland (non-porous for people at least) helped make Hong Kong comparably much richer, meaning that the opening with the mainland is now causing social and real estate problems as the places equalize.
SOUTHEASTERN CHINA
Looking out the window of a crowded but smooth 24-hour train from Hong Kong to Shanghai, almost every patch of land I saw revealed evidence of intensive human management. Most of Southeastern China seems to be millions of smallish fields for crops, closely crowded next to crops of other species—rice everywhere, vegetables, fish farms, and occasional rows of fruit trees, like bananas or persimmons.
Along the gracefully curving paths within and between these fields, there are Chinese men and women working with their hands. Hoeing, cutting down, and quietly inspecting, they often wore the flat conical hats you'd think of as Chinese. Over hundreds of miles, I saw only two beasts of burden and no tractors, but I did see people working as soon as the sun appeared and, apparently patiently, all day. They looked still and peaceful as the train rushed by, but I know that life in the country is generally much more difficult than the life in the cities. Some country farmers survive with about $70 in cash each year and some children are unable to
afford clothing during the summer.
In-between, amongst, and adjoining these seemingly ancient fields, there was also the kind of ugly infrastructure that underlies a "developed" society—power plants and lines (including one nuclear plant), dams, piles of mined rocks, piles of trash, and floating garbage in the gray waterways.
SHANGHAI
On the train I was able to read and talk quite a bit, and in Shanghai I stayed with an American English teacher who had been living in China for two years. So my observations were more informed.
A few striking things about Shanghai. First of all, there are many bikes; but as of the last ten years, also many cars, and also many advertisements (90% of these are for, in order of frequency: cell phones, fashion designers, and chocolate or dairy treats.). Secondly, there is a large number of tall people. Only rarely did I tower over an entire crowd of people; about as often as a truly giant man walked by. Thirdly, Shanghai is like Hong Kong, with a couple buildings in the top ten tallest (or soon to be), bright showy colors, construction sites everywhere (mostly for big apartment complexes), a more modern, cleaner subway than in U.S. cities, and shopping everywhere. But in Shanghai over time, there is a gradually apparent darkness underneath the "face" (China's world of apparent social status).
It is very true that neither Hong Kong nor Shanghai were cities before they were built up as trading posts for (mostly) the British. Especially in Shanghai I sensed clearly a desire to mimic and then outdo the foreign powers that once dominated them.
Two guys on the train and a couple of city planners in Shanghai told me what many foreigners have told me: they would like to live in the United States, and they would like their country to be like the United States. So there is a wage premium for those who speak English or understand how the West does business. Regular Joes with a college degree from the U.S. can come to Shanghai, and even if they speak no Mandarin, can earn as much as the highest paid Chinese professionals. Native English speakers who also know some business jargon can make more than Chinese professionals with just a few hours' work a week. Ex-pat employees regularly make over $100,000, which is nearly equivalent to $1,000,000 living in Shanghai (because the median wage is about one-tenth the U.S.'s). I'm told Westerners can get away with almost anything, ranging from using the women's bathroom to actually urinating onto and into a police car right in front of the officers. This is exactly what a New Zealander I met claimed to have done, and I believed him, because it seemed consistent with his personality. In the U.S. the police would almost certainly beat him; if he were Chinese, he'd go to jail, perhaps, whimsically, for a while. But because he might be an investor, I'm told, the police looked away and did nothing. At the same time, foreigners are often charged twice, four times as much, because they can pay, and the inflated price nonetheless still seems reasonable compared to European or American prices. There is so much entrepreneurial buzz in China, I sometimes thought my name was "Rolex."
There's an interesting combination between eager welcoming of Westerners and a longer-term plan to kick them out. For the most part foreigners can only live in China if they are doing work to advance its economy: teaching English, sharing business know-how, directly investing, or working with a company that is. When this work is finished, the visa runs out. And every company, even if it is entirely the idea, or entirely funded by foreign money, must be at least 50% owned by a native Chinese man. This formula seems to be working. China's GDP has been compounding at a rate of about 10% a year for more than twenty years now, and it is already close to the size of the GDP of France, or the UK (or California). From the two older ex-pats I talked with most, my sense was that China is kind of like a new American west, unpredictable and full of opportunity for those willing to leave home for a very foreign place. The difference is that the main opportunities to be found in China are an oversupply of cheap labor and the freedom to pollute.
My birth year—1980—was also the year the one-child policy was implemented (and I'm a second child). As the first one-childers now have their one child, there is a new kind of demographic: single children doted over during richer times by six people (their parents and their grandparents). On the Shanghai subway I saw one such girl (slightly older), attended to by her mother and father, who stood attentively by as she sat down. When she finished her slurpee, she literally turned up her nose and handed her empty drink container to her father, summoned her new poster and shopping bag into her hands, and then used the poster like a wand to direct her father into a particular open seat. I was stunned by the whole scene. Whatever they want, I've heard these "Little Emperors" are used to getting it. Sometimes what they want is an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (the biggest fast-food chain in China); and childhood obesity is becoming more prevalent among kids whose grandparents survived the starvation of the Great Leap Forward. This generation is largely what marketers are referrring to when they speak of China's "untapped demand" for products.
Despite my pessimism about where materialistic capitalism leads, I should say that it seems many people are experiencing big improvements in their lives. Especially in the several main cities, I'm told food supplies are more secure, new buildings are safer, information is more available, and consumer choices are more varied. I could have bought any of a variety of Nike's (for the amazing price of: $100!) And I was able to look at ~some~ of the results after searching Google for "human rights violations China" at a public internet café. Perhaps most importantly, there is an optimism that the future will be better.
But underneath the smiling glitz of Shanghai there is the lingering dark side I mentioned. While there are many new apartment buildings going up in Shanghai—giving the appearance of success—what I didn't see is that the previous residents were forcibly removed to make way for these buildings. The government owns all the land in China, and people just lease its use. This allows for rapid gentrification. When a group of tenants got together to argue their case legally (a new kind of privilege), they actually, stunningly, won in court. But, quickly, the lead lawyers were sent away (without trial) for ten years' hard labor, and the court decision was overturned.
A few other examples of the darkness:
--The streets of Shanghai have fewer homeless people than the inner-cities of most American cities. But many of the children vending things on the street have been sold by their parents. Outside a night-club in Shanghai at 3 AM, it's hard to feel content knowing that the little girl selling flowers was probably ordered here by her
"boss."
--There is a state law that says all workers must go home when the temperature exceeds 38 C, but the state-controlled weather broadcasts seem never to report temperatures higher than 36 C.
--Anti-pollution laws are neither very strong (a "comparative advantage") nor well enforced (because of bribes), and dirty coal is the almost sole source for the electrical and manufacturing energy driving all this industrialization. Looking at the sky, I could very quickly draw a connection between the glitzy new shopping centers and the smoggy, hazy air above them. The skies aren't exactly cloudy, and the air isn't accurately called "brown" (when I was there at least), it was just never quite "blue" and always a little foggy or something. Twenty years ago, autumn skies used to be azul. Now, three-fourths of the days are smoggy like this, and all of Guangdong province is an acid rain region.
--Throughout my trip, I was told not to eat raw vegetables like lettuce (because of dirty water) and to ~peel~ my grapes (because of the pesticides), and I'm pretty sure the meat contains concentrated heavy metals (coal again). The paper even reported that 70% of the residents in Beijing and Shanghai experience hard-to-explain fatigue and respiratory irritation. I think China's aspirations for world power will be hampered by all the health problems caused by their own pollution.
--Local officials have for centuries been expected to take advantage of their power to grow rich, today routinely exacting bribes for business permits, for example. The result is a whole population of frustrated people used to enduring. For example, in the U.S. out-of-state drivers can occasionally expect to be targeted by local sheriffs for a speeding ticket; in China out-of-province drivers may have to pay hundreds of dollars just to stop a local police officer from acquiring their car.
Most disturbing of all, I confirmed from three sources a horror story about HIV and AIDs. Because China has faced a shortage of blood for medical transfusions, poor people have been compelled to give their blood, and local officials have been making money selling it. In a couple of regions, HIV got into the blood supply, leading to huge proportions of infected people. The officials have by now learned of their terrible error, but they have not stopped their practices--because adequate blood screens would cost too much. The Chinese government has also been under reporting its AIDs problem and has been reluctant to let the Red Cross in. (There are obviously more than 2 million AIDs cases in China.).
--Even in Hong Kong, many stores are selling statues of Mao and the once-mandatory little red books of his sayings, without much acknowledgement that he was arguably the worst dictator of the 20th century. He murdered hundreds of thousands of dissidents, including previously close advisors, starved millions (30+ million) by arrogantly and then stubbornly insisting on his poorly conceived central plan, persecuted and concentrated millions of other innocents onto hard labor camps, and practiced psychological warfare, like persuading children to turn in their parents, on his own people for decades. Mao has died, and China is experiencing "progress," but only to the point of admitting he was "30% wrong," or "50% wrong." I heard a NY Times journalist describe continuing horrors in China before suggesting that one sign of progress is that people are no longer compelled to publicly cannibalize enemies of the state. Surreal.
By the end of my trip I began to agree with one older ex-pat, who said: "take everything you think you know about China, flip it around, and multiply it by a million."
There ~are~ some advantages to central planning. I have been impressed to read about the government's large-scale efforts to reforest whole regions, and indeed on the train I saw hills turned into terraces and planted with trees, apparently to stop erosion and desertification. It is very illegal to pave over good farmland, and the government is actually tearing up some poorly located developments. As well, Chinese planners at the top level acknowledge that burning so much coal is polluting their country and the rest of the world; and there are some bold initiatives both to increase renewable energy supplies and also to produce more nuclear energy with a potentially much more stable "pebble" uranium reactor. The Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency is designing a "green GDP" as a more accurate measure of success than the more naive GDP we're stuck with. They're talking about "circular economies": designing things from the start to be recycled, and they have conceptualized "sustainability" into the country's Central Plan (which is a document with much more teeth than similar-sounding statements of intention that come from, say, the UN). Despite occasional clear thinking, however, and the central planners' actual ability to implement an overall environmental agenda, I don't foresee much environmental sanity in China. At the individual level, it seems common for Chinese people to throw trash on the ground, or out their window. I'm told the attitude is: the government will clean it up. And at the governmental level, the most important thing seems to be economic growth and world power: clean up later.
As impenetrable as the Chinese culture remains, I can share some small experiences about life on the (busy) streets. You'd think, for example, that people so familiar with living in crowds, would understand that passengers need to get off the subway before anyone should get on. But no: it's common for people to stand right in front of the door and then push against the tide of de-boarders to get on. Just as in Hong Kong, Shanghai people don't appear take special note of the conspicuous white people on the street. Only occasionally, a kid would smile out, "hello." At the same time, I felt watched. This became obvious after I tried to buy some roasted chestnuts on the street. A passing white guy heard the price and began arguing on my behalf, then a local Chinese woman stormed up to make my case as well, then also a friendly older man. The loud argument went on and on, with no decrease in the fervor after I'd paid (a lower price) and walked away with my nuts. Similarly, when a subway vendor tried to give me change as if I had paid her 10Yuan instead of the 100Yuan I'd given her, a woman emerged from the crowd behind me to help.
Everywhere I was in Shanghai I felt safe. I was ~wary~ around tourist areas, where a bicyclist going the other way tried to grab my bag. But in most places I just didn't feel eyed, even though I knew I represented wealth to many people. Ex-pats who lived there said they'd be comfortable counting wads of money in public.
Though I've heard that possession of even small amounts of drugs is an executable offense, prostitution is everywhere. It happens in the barbershops mostly, but also through escort services, and sometimes there's even soliciting inside clubs. I heard about a business deal held up in Italy because the lead Chinese representative had blackmailed his (Chinese) assistant and refused to sign the deal until she submitted to him.
THIS CENTURY
Over the next twenty years, the Chinese planners in Beijing intend to move 30% of the whole population from the countryside to cities, where they will take new manufacturing jobs, and some may rise above poverty. By this time, China will likely have the second-largest economy in the world and will be burning coal at a rate 50% faster.
The international political consequences will be huge. China is ready to be acknowledged, especially by its former European colonists and Japanese invaders, as a top world power, and it has its eye on several extraterritorial properties including Taiwan, the oil-yielding Spratly Islands, and a couple of strategic islands now considered part of Japan. With the one-child policy, families have sought more males than females, creating a demographic situation that has historically built large, restless armies.
The social changes inside the country may be tumultuous: currently the Chinese big-city people seem giddily, atheistically materialistic, and there are many more to be brought in to this attitude. But there are already clear signs of the kind of decadent despair that prevails in America. Are the self-centered "Little Emperors" prepared to take care of a huge number of elders?
The Chinese economic appetite is quite likely to lead to resource wars, of some kind, somewhere. As the final, biggest reservoirs of oil become more important, Asians are already bigger customers of Middle Eastern oil than Westerners—and China's recent surge helped send the price of oil way up. Less conspicuously but also up are the prices of construction materials and commodities like copper. Most concerningly, the agricultural region of northern China is feeding 200 million people, temporarily, by running down the underground aquifers. The fallout from this unsustainable practice could be enormous.
China is a big bumbling giant getting bigger. It was fascinating to visit, even if only for a tantalizing moment. In any case, wherever you are this century, expect to see more Chinese faces.
human water management
Human management of freshwater has always been at the center of civilizations. Not only did most human cities emerge along rivers, but historically we remember civilizations that grew powerful because they learned to irrigate their crops better, and then to plumb their cities more effectively. At the dawn of civilization, the Sumerians emerged as dominant in their region after building extensive dams and canals to use the flood waters of the Euphrates for irrigation. The Romans, who inspired centuries of history around the Mediterranean shores, are quite possibly best remembered for their incredible aqueducts, which made farms and cities possible in deserts, and allowed hundreds of thousands of Romans to live closely together--aided by public fountains and baths, fire-extinguishing capability, complex sewers, and regular street-washing. In recent history, drilling for aquifers and channeling rivers onto dry areas permitted the rapid development of the American West, creating abundantly fertile agricultural centers in grassland/deserts like the Central Valley of California. Giant river damming projects also produced large amount of electricity, helping new cities blossom. Thus the large-scale management of western American water--damming rivers and drilling into aquifers, became in this century an idealized model for economic development around the world.
There is little doubt that the arrogation of freshwater will remain a central issue, motivating, creating, and threatening our societies into the next century as well. This is true in large part because exactly the same management practices that brought great wealth to people have often simultaneously destroyed it, just over a longer period of time. Many ecologists now agree that the deserts of the Middle East were largely created by human practices, beginning with the over-irrigation of fields. Too much water has left behind arid landscapes—because it washed away topsoil or brought salt to the fields from upstream (by gravity and evaporation) or from deeper ground (by osmosis). Despite huge aqueducts, the Mediterranean fields that once propelled the Roman Empire grew less productive and then insufficient, contributing to the Empire's relocation east to Byzantium(1). In recent history much of the last century's growth in population, in the U.S. and the developing world, has been dependent on unsustainable water sources, making billions of people alarmingly dependent on falling aquifers and dwindling rivers. Many mechanized farming practices and the careless paving involved in rapid urbanization are both accelerating the trend toward desertification (2).
At its worst water scarcity and misuse is expected to lead to war. Both the United Nations and the CIA have predicted future wars over water. Former UN Secretary General Boutrous Boutrous Ghali has predicted that the next war in his region will be over the Nile. In the last fifty years Egypt has already sent troops into both Sudan and Ethiopia to protect the headwaters of the Nile, and the population of that region is expected to double. A primary Israeli motive in the Six-Day War was to secure its water supply by conquering the Golan Heights from Syria. Today, as millions more Israelis are recruited into the country, and as Jordanians and Palestinians swell their own populations, the water they must share, from the Sea of Galilee down the Jordan River, is diminishing. In southern India a long-standing dispute between the upstream city of Karnataka and the downsream city of Tamil Nadu has lead to riots and fighting in the streets (3). While water tables, in places from China to South Africa to the American Midwest, fall from overpumping, and an increasing number of rivers, from the Yellow to the Ganges to the Colorado, fail to reach the ocean at certain times of year, the proportion of people without access to clean water is over 20%, while the number without proper sanitation sewers is over 30% (2). Water shortages and its effects are arguably much more urgent than the fossil fuel shortages that have received so much more attention in the
U.S..
In countries that can afford it, water scarcities can be dealt with by importing water, especially the more economical "virtual imports" of water. One ton of grain is roughly equivalent to 1000 tons of water, and one ton of beef can require more than fifty times that. So, when the water tables of northern China collapse below the minimum level, as they are expected to in the upcoming years, and the farmers are unable to grow as much food, the extra demand on the international grain market will likely cause a sudden increase in price. After watching Chinese demand increase the international price of commodities like oil and copper, it is less difficult to imagine a sharp increase in the price of grain (4).
Even in places where water scarcities are less imminent, big changes are in the works. World Bank loans in the developing world are increasingly contingent on privatizing water utilities. States and cities in the U.S. unable to find the money to fix the aging infrastructure of their water works are beginning to look more favorably on privatization schemes. Between 1990 and 2002 the number of people receiving tap water from private companies increased from approximately 50 million to 300 million. Water has long been the domain of governments -- some argue that large-scale water management was the historic motivation for big governments in the first place. So as private corporations move into this turf, the battle will likely be contentious. Citizens of Cochabamba, Bolivia already rioted after an American consortium bought full rights to a region's water, even including personal wells, and then raised the price up to 150% (5).
All these threats create a situation where water conservation and re-use make more sense than provisioning more water. Compared to the costs of proposed desalination projects, water pipelines and tankers, increased food prices, and military budgets, the cost of water efficiency is much more affordable. And there are several obvious methods to avoid waste. Drip-irrigation, with water placed precisely where and when crops need it, can increase agricultural yields with half as much water. Eating plant calories rather than meat calories, as alluded to earlier, can be 50,000 times more water-efficient. Choosing native vegetation for landscaping can completely eliminate artificial watering. Collecting and using the rainwater that falls on the roof can simultaneously reduce the burden on stormwater systems while providing surprising quantities of the freshest kind of water. Using purified water only for drinking and washing, then reusing the resultant gray-water for toilets, and then reusing toilet water for landscapes are simple ways to get more out of a smaller amount of water. With such techniques households in many parts of the world can become independent of water delivery pipes (6).
As desertification becomes a more obvious problem, related to loss of agriculture, habitat, and species, poisonous dust storms, and depleted ecosystem services like weather stability, it makes sense to make water plans on a larger scale. Digging extensive swales and terraces, and nurturing vegetation in certain dry areas can increase the amount of rain water held in the soil. With more water in the ground, more rain can evaporate to areas further from the ocean, with the possibility of shrinking deserts, greening the land, protecting species, and even increasing the total biomass of life (7).
How we decide to manage fresh water into the future may define our civilization even more than it has in the past. The natural political relationship between those upstream and downstream will become more obvious, and may even re-orient political domains from national boundaries (based more on languages and strategic military factors) to watersheds. How we answer questions about who owns water and how much the poorest should pay for it will define how members of our society relate to each other in a fundamental way. Our ability to learn from long-term, ancient mistakes with water management may even allow our civilization to transcend itself and become one that reverses the drying up of Earth. Instead of causing erosion, salting, and siltation, instead of being a people who drain wetlands, we can become people who reverse erosion and thicken moist soils, refill wetlands, and water the desert.
But the optimistic forecasts are not inevitable. Or, rather, people may not shift towards more intelligent management before leaving a stain of deaths and wars in our memory. Minimizing this kind of priceless cost will take more people thinking more broadly about water planning, and then communicating better ideas with each other. The rapidity and depth of this project will be historically significant.
1. Ponting, Clive. A Green History of the World. Penguin 1993. pp. 68-88
2. Brown, Lester, and Brian Halweil. "Population Outrunning Water
Supply" Worldwatch Institute Press Release. Sept. 23, 1999
3. Gleick, Peter. "Water Conflict Chronology."
www.worldwater.org/conflict . August 18, 2003
4. Brown, Lester, and Brian Halweil. "China's Water Shortage Could
Shake World Water Markets." Worldwatch Press Release. April 22, 1998
5. Marsden, Bill. "Cholera and the Water Barons." The Center for
Public Integrity. August 2004
6. Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins. Natural Capitalism.
Little, Brown and Company. 1999 pp. 213-233
7. Mollison, Bill. Permaculture. Tagari 1988. pp 308-410
There is little doubt that the arrogation of freshwater will remain a central issue, motivating, creating, and threatening our societies into the next century as well. This is true in large part because exactly the same management practices that brought great wealth to people have often simultaneously destroyed it, just over a longer period of time. Many ecologists now agree that the deserts of the Middle East were largely created by human practices, beginning with the over-irrigation of fields. Too much water has left behind arid landscapes—because it washed away topsoil or brought salt to the fields from upstream (by gravity and evaporation) or from deeper ground (by osmosis). Despite huge aqueducts, the Mediterranean fields that once propelled the Roman Empire grew less productive and then insufficient, contributing to the Empire's relocation east to Byzantium(1). In recent history much of the last century's growth in population, in the U.S. and the developing world, has been dependent on unsustainable water sources, making billions of people alarmingly dependent on falling aquifers and dwindling rivers. Many mechanized farming practices and the careless paving involved in rapid urbanization are both accelerating the trend toward desertification (2).
At its worst water scarcity and misuse is expected to lead to war. Both the United Nations and the CIA have predicted future wars over water. Former UN Secretary General Boutrous Boutrous Ghali has predicted that the next war in his region will be over the Nile. In the last fifty years Egypt has already sent troops into both Sudan and Ethiopia to protect the headwaters of the Nile, and the population of that region is expected to double. A primary Israeli motive in the Six-Day War was to secure its water supply by conquering the Golan Heights from Syria. Today, as millions more Israelis are recruited into the country, and as Jordanians and Palestinians swell their own populations, the water they must share, from the Sea of Galilee down the Jordan River, is diminishing. In southern India a long-standing dispute between the upstream city of Karnataka and the downsream city of Tamil Nadu has lead to riots and fighting in the streets (3). While water tables, in places from China to South Africa to the American Midwest, fall from overpumping, and an increasing number of rivers, from the Yellow to the Ganges to the Colorado, fail to reach the ocean at certain times of year, the proportion of people without access to clean water is over 20%, while the number without proper sanitation sewers is over 30% (2). Water shortages and its effects are arguably much more urgent than the fossil fuel shortages that have received so much more attention in the
U.S..
In countries that can afford it, water scarcities can be dealt with by importing water, especially the more economical "virtual imports" of water. One ton of grain is roughly equivalent to 1000 tons of water, and one ton of beef can require more than fifty times that. So, when the water tables of northern China collapse below the minimum level, as they are expected to in the upcoming years, and the farmers are unable to grow as much food, the extra demand on the international grain market will likely cause a sudden increase in price. After watching Chinese demand increase the international price of commodities like oil and copper, it is less difficult to imagine a sharp increase in the price of grain (4).
Even in places where water scarcities are less imminent, big changes are in the works. World Bank loans in the developing world are increasingly contingent on privatizing water utilities. States and cities in the U.S. unable to find the money to fix the aging infrastructure of their water works are beginning to look more favorably on privatization schemes. Between 1990 and 2002 the number of people receiving tap water from private companies increased from approximately 50 million to 300 million. Water has long been the domain of governments -- some argue that large-scale water management was the historic motivation for big governments in the first place. So as private corporations move into this turf, the battle will likely be contentious. Citizens of Cochabamba, Bolivia already rioted after an American consortium bought full rights to a region's water, even including personal wells, and then raised the price up to 150% (5).
All these threats create a situation where water conservation and re-use make more sense than provisioning more water. Compared to the costs of proposed desalination projects, water pipelines and tankers, increased food prices, and military budgets, the cost of water efficiency is much more affordable. And there are several obvious methods to avoid waste. Drip-irrigation, with water placed precisely where and when crops need it, can increase agricultural yields with half as much water. Eating plant calories rather than meat calories, as alluded to earlier, can be 50,000 times more water-efficient. Choosing native vegetation for landscaping can completely eliminate artificial watering. Collecting and using the rainwater that falls on the roof can simultaneously reduce the burden on stormwater systems while providing surprising quantities of the freshest kind of water. Using purified water only for drinking and washing, then reusing the resultant gray-water for toilets, and then reusing toilet water for landscapes are simple ways to get more out of a smaller amount of water. With such techniques households in many parts of the world can become independent of water delivery pipes (6).
As desertification becomes a more obvious problem, related to loss of agriculture, habitat, and species, poisonous dust storms, and depleted ecosystem services like weather stability, it makes sense to make water plans on a larger scale. Digging extensive swales and terraces, and nurturing vegetation in certain dry areas can increase the amount of rain water held in the soil. With more water in the ground, more rain can evaporate to areas further from the ocean, with the possibility of shrinking deserts, greening the land, protecting species, and even increasing the total biomass of life (7).
How we decide to manage fresh water into the future may define our civilization even more than it has in the past. The natural political relationship between those upstream and downstream will become more obvious, and may even re-orient political domains from national boundaries (based more on languages and strategic military factors) to watersheds. How we answer questions about who owns water and how much the poorest should pay for it will define how members of our society relate to each other in a fundamental way. Our ability to learn from long-term, ancient mistakes with water management may even allow our civilization to transcend itself and become one that reverses the drying up of Earth. Instead of causing erosion, salting, and siltation, instead of being a people who drain wetlands, we can become people who reverse erosion and thicken moist soils, refill wetlands, and water the desert.
But the optimistic forecasts are not inevitable. Or, rather, people may not shift towards more intelligent management before leaving a stain of deaths and wars in our memory. Minimizing this kind of priceless cost will take more people thinking more broadly about water planning, and then communicating better ideas with each other. The rapidity and depth of this project will be historically significant.
1. Ponting, Clive. A Green History of the World. Penguin 1993. pp. 68-88
2. Brown, Lester, and Brian Halweil. "Population Outrunning Water
Supply" Worldwatch Institute Press Release. Sept. 23, 1999
3. Gleick, Peter. "Water Conflict Chronology."
www.worldwater.org/conflict . August 18, 2003
4. Brown, Lester, and Brian Halweil. "China's Water Shortage Could
Shake World Water Markets." Worldwatch Press Release. April 22, 1998
5. Marsden, Bill. "Cholera and the Water Barons." The Center for
Public Integrity. August 2004
6. Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins. Natural Capitalism.
Little, Brown and Company. 1999 pp. 213-233
7. Mollison, Bill. Permaculture. Tagari 1988. pp 308-410
the grace of flowering plants
the grace of flowering plants
Pushing aside forests of cycads and conifers and overgrowing vast fern groves, the angiosperms impressively bloomed across the land about 100 million years ago. Dominating the lands, except where the conifers found refuge up the slopes and away from the Equator, these flowering plants proliferated rapidly as the Mesozoic Era ended, and they continued to diversify during the Cenozoic. Today angiosperms are by far the most dominant, diverse, and recently unique of plant varieties; they are the homes and the source for most of the world's animals.
Before angiosperms, there had been only plants without flowers. The ground had been dominated by mosses and ferns, then forests of palm tree-esque cycads, then forests of coney conifer trees. The advent of angiosperms was dramatic. Today they are the grasses and flowers and fruit-producing trees, most of the shrubs, most of the tropical trees, and almost every kind of deciduous tree. Angiosperms have shaped this age of life on Earth in all but the most plate-tectonically large ways.
About a hundred-forty million years ago, as the single Pangaean continent was splitting south into Gondwanaland and north into Laurasia, a single angiosperm emerged as a new variety of plant. It may have been in what we call China today, but Austalia and Portugal also contain fossils of these early ancestors. The first flowers evolved from leaves and were probably green, the first red fruits evolved around the seed. These early angiosperms were small herbaceous plants adapted to disrupted ecosystems, and after developing through about 40 million seasons around the Sun, they became rapidly more abundant and diverse.
Old Gondwanaland was the location for most of this blossoming. In the Rift Valley between modern Africa and South America, in lower altitudes, perhaps where ocean flooding had killed off the old conifer forests, the angiosperms productively inhabited their niche. Plants had first learned to spread pollen by water, then they learned to spread in wind; the angiosperm began to spread by using the existing flying and eating patterns of insects. Going between similar trees, these insects began to carry pollen on their backs.
More accurately pollinating each other, the angiosperms also produced seeds faster than other plants -- more than once a year. They reproduced fast. These seeds were also double-fertilized, by two sperms, and one offspring was a fruity encasing, which -- by fruit! -- gave angiosperms the fertile range of animals. Thicker plants began to cover more areas, holding more nutrients, more biomass, and more water in the soil. By about 90 million years ago, so quickly that Darwin called their rapid emergence in the fossil record "an abominable mystery," angiosperms came to dominate the land. After about 65 million years ago, the thickest angiosperm forests achieved a closed canopy.
While they drove aside the cycads, conifers, and ferns, expediting the extinction of many old types of plant, the angiosperms also increased both the total mass of life and the total number of Earth's reproducing species. Interactions with the insects and animals became more specific and subtle: by 55 million years ago, the plants had become sophisticated with colors, smells, and nectars, new varieties of organic chemicals intended for both bribe and defense. Today flies like flowers with traps or smells of decay; the bees like the sweet fragrances and yellow, blue, and white petals; while birds and mammals prefer the reddish colors and only a little odor.
The angiosperms diversified the species of certain families of insect -- the first ants and butterflies, termites, grasshoppers, and aphids emerged -- insects who found niches in specific flowers, branches, trunks, and soil spaces. Angiosperms diversified the dinosaurs, doubling the number of species just before the dinosaurs' extinction and proflierating their only surving ancestors - birds. The angiosperms diversified mammals -- shaping tree-crawlers and climbers, swingers, and fliers -- mammals who ate the swollen populations of insects, and partook directly in the new nectars and fruits.
As the climate cooled and dried about 30 million years ago, some angiosperms reached out to cover the the vast stretches of land left by receding forests: the grasses evolved. Again they covered new terrain, inhabited disrupted areas faster, and produced new sources of food.
From the trees, big grazing mammals evolved onto the grasslands. Predators soon followed. Living at the edge of the forest and grassland, a group of primates began to manifest in human-like forms. They were hunters and gatherers, and by 200,000 years ago one strain became humans.
By 50,000 years ago, people moved from Africa and discovered ever-more of the angiosperms' bounty. Grasses provided the wheat, barley, millet, rice, oats, and corn as people became grain-raisers north of the equator after about 10,000 years ago. The legume family provided the beans and peas. The rose family produced plums, peaches, pears, strawberries, loquats, cherries, nectarines, apricots, raspberries, blackberries, and almonds.
People found new fruits in plants around the world. They found that a burst of creativity (about 4 million years ago) on the land somewhere between modern Kazakstan and China produced a bountiful diversity of apples. The first citrus ancestors of oranges came into color on an everygreen tree in the area around Malaysia (about 20 million years ago).
The angiosperm plants have always been our primary sustenance -- we could not exist if they had not preceded us. Photosynthesis by angiosperms provides the food calories for our lives, with almost no exceptions. Ecosystems rooted with angiosperms have until recently comprised most of the components of our habitat. They are our nourishment, home, medicine, and even inspiration.
The beauty of a tomato fruit shaped by humans from the vines of Peru inspired this writing.
Corn and rice fruits from stalks of the grass family, beans and peanuts from the soil-restoring legume family, broccoli from the old mustard family grapes, from the vines of Mediterranean western Asia, and nectar collected from clover flowers by bees, these flowers and fruits nourished this writing.
And for perhaps a third of the paper of this magazine -- all the hardwoods -- we have the angiosperms to thank. Colorful, fragrant, sweet, and inherently sexy -- fast-spreading trees, the makings for us -- thank you.
Pushing aside forests of cycads and conifers and overgrowing vast fern groves, the angiosperms impressively bloomed across the land about 100 million years ago. Dominating the lands, except where the conifers found refuge up the slopes and away from the Equator, these flowering plants proliferated rapidly as the Mesozoic Era ended, and they continued to diversify during the Cenozoic. Today angiosperms are by far the most dominant, diverse, and recently unique of plant varieties; they are the homes and the source for most of the world's animals.
Before angiosperms, there had been only plants without flowers. The ground had been dominated by mosses and ferns, then forests of palm tree-esque cycads, then forests of coney conifer trees. The advent of angiosperms was dramatic. Today they are the grasses and flowers and fruit-producing trees, most of the shrubs, most of the tropical trees, and almost every kind of deciduous tree. Angiosperms have shaped this age of life on Earth in all but the most plate-tectonically large ways.
About a hundred-forty million years ago, as the single Pangaean continent was splitting south into Gondwanaland and north into Laurasia, a single angiosperm emerged as a new variety of plant. It may have been in what we call China today, but Austalia and Portugal also contain fossils of these early ancestors. The first flowers evolved from leaves and were probably green, the first red fruits evolved around the seed. These early angiosperms were small herbaceous plants adapted to disrupted ecosystems, and after developing through about 40 million seasons around the Sun, they became rapidly more abundant and diverse.
Old Gondwanaland was the location for most of this blossoming. In the Rift Valley between modern Africa and South America, in lower altitudes, perhaps where ocean flooding had killed off the old conifer forests, the angiosperms productively inhabited their niche. Plants had first learned to spread pollen by water, then they learned to spread in wind; the angiosperm began to spread by using the existing flying and eating patterns of insects. Going between similar trees, these insects began to carry pollen on their backs.
More accurately pollinating each other, the angiosperms also produced seeds faster than other plants -- more than once a year. They reproduced fast. These seeds were also double-fertilized, by two sperms, and one offspring was a fruity encasing, which -- by fruit! -- gave angiosperms the fertile range of animals. Thicker plants began to cover more areas, holding more nutrients, more biomass, and more water in the soil. By about 90 million years ago, so quickly that Darwin called their rapid emergence in the fossil record "an abominable mystery," angiosperms came to dominate the land. After about 65 million years ago, the thickest angiosperm forests achieved a closed canopy.
While they drove aside the cycads, conifers, and ferns, expediting the extinction of many old types of plant, the angiosperms also increased both the total mass of life and the total number of Earth's reproducing species. Interactions with the insects and animals became more specific and subtle: by 55 million years ago, the plants had become sophisticated with colors, smells, and nectars, new varieties of organic chemicals intended for both bribe and defense. Today flies like flowers with traps or smells of decay; the bees like the sweet fragrances and yellow, blue, and white petals; while birds and mammals prefer the reddish colors and only a little odor.
The angiosperms diversified the species of certain families of insect -- the first ants and butterflies, termites, grasshoppers, and aphids emerged -- insects who found niches in specific flowers, branches, trunks, and soil spaces. Angiosperms diversified the dinosaurs, doubling the number of species just before the dinosaurs' extinction and proflierating their only surving ancestors - birds. The angiosperms diversified mammals -- shaping tree-crawlers and climbers, swingers, and fliers -- mammals who ate the swollen populations of insects, and partook directly in the new nectars and fruits.
As the climate cooled and dried about 30 million years ago, some angiosperms reached out to cover the the vast stretches of land left by receding forests: the grasses evolved. Again they covered new terrain, inhabited disrupted areas faster, and produced new sources of food.
From the trees, big grazing mammals evolved onto the grasslands. Predators soon followed. Living at the edge of the forest and grassland, a group of primates began to manifest in human-like forms. They were hunters and gatherers, and by 200,000 years ago one strain became humans.
By 50,000 years ago, people moved from Africa and discovered ever-more of the angiosperms' bounty. Grasses provided the wheat, barley, millet, rice, oats, and corn as people became grain-raisers north of the equator after about 10,000 years ago. The legume family provided the beans and peas. The rose family produced plums, peaches, pears, strawberries, loquats, cherries, nectarines, apricots, raspberries, blackberries, and almonds.
People found new fruits in plants around the world. They found that a burst of creativity (about 4 million years ago) on the land somewhere between modern Kazakstan and China produced a bountiful diversity of apples. The first citrus ancestors of oranges came into color on an everygreen tree in the area around Malaysia (about 20 million years ago).
The angiosperm plants have always been our primary sustenance -- we could not exist if they had not preceded us. Photosynthesis by angiosperms provides the food calories for our lives, with almost no exceptions. Ecosystems rooted with angiosperms have until recently comprised most of the components of our habitat. They are our nourishment, home, medicine, and even inspiration.
The beauty of a tomato fruit shaped by humans from the vines of Peru inspired this writing.
Corn and rice fruits from stalks of the grass family, beans and peanuts from the soil-restoring legume family, broccoli from the old mustard family grapes, from the vines of Mediterranean western Asia, and nectar collected from clover flowers by bees, these flowers and fruits nourished this writing.
And for perhaps a third of the paper of this magazine -- all the hardwoods -- we have the angiosperms to thank. Colorful, fragrant, sweet, and inherently sexy -- fast-spreading trees, the makings for us -- thank you.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
becoming the web
I'm trying to filter out the good stuff for you.
Send me what you think, too.
Intelligently webbing good memes, we're at a new level.
memefilter@gmail.com
Send me what you think, too.
Intelligently webbing good memes, we're at a new level.
memefilter@gmail.com
Tuesday, January 22, 2002
Being the Music
Being the Music
January 22, 2002
By Peter Stair
From dreaming, I wake up. The sun touches me. I feel energized. I breathe the trees. I feel at home. I drink some cool water. From dry and stale, I become lubricated and refreshed.
I pace myself. Not too much movement. Not ready to breathe heavily yet. Not too much sound. Still listening to silent dreams. Too much of almost anything and I will become grumpy.
So: slow, please, I’m tuning up. I’m going to make music today.
I pace myself. I walk. Stretching out, loosening up. From dream to ground. To left from right. I’m finding the rhythm. I find it . . .
. . . and I begin gliding. From discrete steps to a continuous flow.
I notice more rhythms around me. The rocking of the trees. The zig-zag of an insect. The rapid hum of a machine. The whish of a car. The bouncing of molecules against my skin (a slow beat means “cold”) The frequencies of the sky. These are the vibrations that comprise the world of my perception. Today I find a harmonic collection. This part of the country makes some beautiful music!
Class. My professor speaks, emphasizing and pausing in clarifying ways. He is singing. I temporarily don’t understand his harmony. I sing my own version of what he’s saying, but I end with an up-note, as if I’m waiting completion. I am a question mark: raised shoulders, raised eyebrows, leaning forward. I’m waiting for him to bring us back down from my up note and eventually back to the tonic home note. When he does, I get a subtle rush of relief, and I nod with a rhythm and depth that says, “Thank you. I understand.” He ends the lecture on a concluding down note. We close our notebooks in applause.
I walk through a briar patch of other people walking and biking, each at different angles, speeds and awarenesses. If one person were to direct all of our movements, many of us would crash, or not move as quickly. But, when we feel each other, the most effective thing is anarchy. If we expect the other person to change their direction and speed too much, or if we change our own rhythm too unpredictably, we struggle with each other, and we become trapped in the briar patch. Today, we don’t dodge. We harmonize.
I stop to talk with a friend. She is beautiful. We make music. I say something brief. She says something longer, in her higher octave. I say something brief again. She says something brief. I listen to her, I see her, I smell her. I feel the melody of our conversation. Another friend gracefully enters and pipes in. We more than look at each others’ eyes.
I walk back to my home — returning my music to a tonic note. I eat. One bite at a time. I chew, one chomp after another. I drink, one sip, then another. I become a rhythm.
I am a permanent flow. Within a couple weeks, I will have entirely rebuilt my skin. Within about two months I will remake my red blood cells. A few years from now, I will finish completely reconstituting my bones. Within a few more years, I will have replaced the molecules that make up my DNA. I will eventually breathe, sweat, poop and pee the contents of my body.
I am simply the information that directs this flow. I am the score.
Between the “in” and the “out” is the energy that is me. Thinking, talking, smelling, smiling. In between are the movements that comprise my day. These movements are the dance of my life.
The day is getting warmer, and my pace is getting faster. I decide to rush to class because I want to finish composing an e-mail, and I think I will enjoy the rushing of wind in my face and of blood in my muscles and gliding on my bike and humming fast music . . . and then sliding, panting, into the classroom.
I do this, and I enjoy it. There’s something profound about myself that I don’t really understand, but it’s also something I’m willing to accept without thinking much: being alive feels good.
Today I will learn to be more alive. I read, and I learn. I talk with other people, and I learn. I watch other people interact, and I learn. I feel my body, my little sorenesses and sadnesses, and I learn what I can avoid doing again. I will learn to be less stagnant, more alive.
The discussion section I attend is an opportunity to improvise. I have the ability to speak at any moment, but I choose to speak when certain cues are right. I can let my TA finish, or if it makes better music, I can interrupt her when I don’t understand. I can walk out anytime, but I leave to go to the bathroom at a certain moment, and with a certain, more harmonious body language.
Every moment is another opportunity for me to improvise. More than other organisms or natural processes, I have the ability to change my melody rapidly. Like a vocalist or a soloist in an orchestra, I have leeway. The sun, the plants, the insects create the beat and underscore that allows me to do some interesting things on top. I can do a hand-stand right now. I can stop breathing for a few moments. I can sit over there instead of here. It’s not all instinct.
It’s especially interesting how I play music with other humans. How well do we support each other? We spontaneously create a soccer game before dinner. We talk sporadically, harmonizing our desires to listen, speak and move.
But! I fail to pass the soccer ball where I wanted it to go — I’m off-pitch. I interrupt someone in a disruptive way — I’m off-pace. I continue to eat more chocolate chips than I feel good eating — I’m a broken record. I can easily make bad music.
So, feeling sluggish, I clean out my filters by exercising. I rush blood, sweat, air and heat through my pipes. I stretch, loosen and become a clearer vessel. Now I feel more like smiling to the stranger I pass.
I shower off my exterior, feeling far from stagnant.
I reorder my room, reducing the dissonance of the pathway across it.
I prepare sleep. But I play slow music on my computer before I get into bed.
Sleep is the long, deep tonic note that I must always, and will ultimately, return to. From movement to rest. Tension and release is the repeating story of the universe. What a day I’ve had!
I dream, as usual, of a double helix. From what angle do I see it tonight? It is a circular / linear, unified / binary, yin / yang universe I live in.
From dreaming, I wake up.
The sun’s excess touches me. I feel energized. I breathe the trees’ extras. I feel at home.
Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology. If you read his column last week (available at The Daily’s Web site) you would understand what he means when he says he’s schizophrenic. He’s never written a column, or anything, quite like this. Will it sound “on” or “off” pitch to others? E-mail him at pstair@stanford.edu.
January 22, 2002
By Peter Stair
From dreaming, I wake up. The sun touches me. I feel energized. I breathe the trees. I feel at home. I drink some cool water. From dry and stale, I become lubricated and refreshed.
I pace myself. Not too much movement. Not ready to breathe heavily yet. Not too much sound. Still listening to silent dreams. Too much of almost anything and I will become grumpy.
So: slow, please, I’m tuning up. I’m going to make music today.
I pace myself. I walk. Stretching out, loosening up. From dream to ground. To left from right. I’m finding the rhythm. I find it . . .
. . . and I begin gliding. From discrete steps to a continuous flow.
I notice more rhythms around me. The rocking of the trees. The zig-zag of an insect. The rapid hum of a machine. The whish of a car. The bouncing of molecules against my skin (a slow beat means “cold”) The frequencies of the sky. These are the vibrations that comprise the world of my perception. Today I find a harmonic collection. This part of the country makes some beautiful music!
Class. My professor speaks, emphasizing and pausing in clarifying ways. He is singing. I temporarily don’t understand his harmony. I sing my own version of what he’s saying, but I end with an up-note, as if I’m waiting completion. I am a question mark: raised shoulders, raised eyebrows, leaning forward. I’m waiting for him to bring us back down from my up note and eventually back to the tonic home note. When he does, I get a subtle rush of relief, and I nod with a rhythm and depth that says, “Thank you. I understand.” He ends the lecture on a concluding down note. We close our notebooks in applause.
I walk through a briar patch of other people walking and biking, each at different angles, speeds and awarenesses. If one person were to direct all of our movements, many of us would crash, or not move as quickly. But, when we feel each other, the most effective thing is anarchy. If we expect the other person to change their direction and speed too much, or if we change our own rhythm too unpredictably, we struggle with each other, and we become trapped in the briar patch. Today, we don’t dodge. We harmonize.
I stop to talk with a friend. She is beautiful. We make music. I say something brief. She says something longer, in her higher octave. I say something brief again. She says something brief. I listen to her, I see her, I smell her. I feel the melody of our conversation. Another friend gracefully enters and pipes in. We more than look at each others’ eyes.
I walk back to my home — returning my music to a tonic note. I eat. One bite at a time. I chew, one chomp after another. I drink, one sip, then another. I become a rhythm.
I am a permanent flow. Within a couple weeks, I will have entirely rebuilt my skin. Within about two months I will remake my red blood cells. A few years from now, I will finish completely reconstituting my bones. Within a few more years, I will have replaced the molecules that make up my DNA. I will eventually breathe, sweat, poop and pee the contents of my body.
I am simply the information that directs this flow. I am the score.
Between the “in” and the “out” is the energy that is me. Thinking, talking, smelling, smiling. In between are the movements that comprise my day. These movements are the dance of my life.
The day is getting warmer, and my pace is getting faster. I decide to rush to class because I want to finish composing an e-mail, and I think I will enjoy the rushing of wind in my face and of blood in my muscles and gliding on my bike and humming fast music . . . and then sliding, panting, into the classroom.
I do this, and I enjoy it. There’s something profound about myself that I don’t really understand, but it’s also something I’m willing to accept without thinking much: being alive feels good.
Today I will learn to be more alive. I read, and I learn. I talk with other people, and I learn. I watch other people interact, and I learn. I feel my body, my little sorenesses and sadnesses, and I learn what I can avoid doing again. I will learn to be less stagnant, more alive.
The discussion section I attend is an opportunity to improvise. I have the ability to speak at any moment, but I choose to speak when certain cues are right. I can let my TA finish, or if it makes better music, I can interrupt her when I don’t understand. I can walk out anytime, but I leave to go to the bathroom at a certain moment, and with a certain, more harmonious body language.
Every moment is another opportunity for me to improvise. More than other organisms or natural processes, I have the ability to change my melody rapidly. Like a vocalist or a soloist in an orchestra, I have leeway. The sun, the plants, the insects create the beat and underscore that allows me to do some interesting things on top. I can do a hand-stand right now. I can stop breathing for a few moments. I can sit over there instead of here. It’s not all instinct.
It’s especially interesting how I play music with other humans. How well do we support each other? We spontaneously create a soccer game before dinner. We talk sporadically, harmonizing our desires to listen, speak and move.
But! I fail to pass the soccer ball where I wanted it to go — I’m off-pitch. I interrupt someone in a disruptive way — I’m off-pace. I continue to eat more chocolate chips than I feel good eating — I’m a broken record. I can easily make bad music.
So, feeling sluggish, I clean out my filters by exercising. I rush blood, sweat, air and heat through my pipes. I stretch, loosen and become a clearer vessel. Now I feel more like smiling to the stranger I pass.
I shower off my exterior, feeling far from stagnant.
I reorder my room, reducing the dissonance of the pathway across it.
I prepare sleep. But I play slow music on my computer before I get into bed.
Sleep is the long, deep tonic note that I must always, and will ultimately, return to. From movement to rest. Tension and release is the repeating story of the universe. What a day I’ve had!
I dream, as usual, of a double helix. From what angle do I see it tonight? It is a circular / linear, unified / binary, yin / yang universe I live in.
From dreaming, I wake up.
The sun’s excess touches me. I feel energized. I breathe the trees’ extras. I feel at home.
Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology. If you read his column last week (available at The Daily’s Web site) you would understand what he means when he says he’s schizophrenic. He’s never written a column, or anything, quite like this. Will it sound “on” or “off” pitch to others? E-mail him at pstair@stanford.edu.
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
Time, Life, Acceling
Time, Life, Acceling
January 15, 2002
By Peter Stair
I wake up this morning and have only five minutes to get where I’m going, so I don’t want to be where I am.
I throw off the covers of my nicely warmed bed and throw my notebooks into my bag, which I toss over my shoulder, and then jump onto my bike and race to class. I sit down in class just after the professor starts and settle down from my momentary frenzy. I slept only six hours last night.
So my head nods as the teacher drones about some new set of observations and connections humans made not long ago. He’s pretty excited about all the stuff we’re learning so quickly in his field these days. He makes a joke about an ignorant conception of the world that people used to have, and I’m temporarily jolted out of my daze. I don’t get the joke, because I haven’t been paying attention, and I didn’t have time to drink my coffee this morning, so I’m too slow for him. I’m not going to understand much today, so I just want to get through this class. So, when I hear the professor wrapping up, I start packing up, and the professor is like, “one more minute,” but I’ve already decided that he’s finished, and when he does stop speaking I’m the third person out of the room. “Hi,” I nod to someone I know from my freshman dorm. We haven’t actually stopped to talk all quarter.
So I’m on my bike again and I’m going to my next class, which is far away and was scheduled so that I have only seven minutes to get there, and I don’t recognize anyone I know until it’s too late to say, “hi.” I get upset with the slow walkers spread out in front of me and at the guy who’s recklessly weaving around people on his bike. And I just don’t understand why other people have to be such a problem.
So I get to my next class, and I snatch a seat. It’s another class that’s only mildly interesting. This is one of those classes where I really respect the professor, but I don’t have time to do all the reading. I think I miss a lot.
I sometimes think about living on campus without all the deadlines and pressures. I could just learn what I want to learn, hang out with friends, go skiing and visit all the other interesting places in this area. But I really shouldn’t be upset by my life. This is the best time of my life, after all. I think I like it here. I like it. Actually, I know I like it. A lot.
The professor finishes, and I jump back on my bike and go back to my dorm, but I forget to stop by the Bookstore to buy new batteries for my alarm clock, and so I rush back to get them. But I can’t stand lines, even though I have to.
I know that I’m going to be late to lunch with an old friend I haven’t seen in a while. Luckily I know she will be late also. We grab food and talk to each other. I’m so impressed by how busy she’s been.
But she has to rush off to a meeting, and I have to go to another class. So we agree to meet again sometime.
After class, I bike back to my room. I haven’t checked e-mail all day! But it’s just announcements for events I don’t have time to go to. I start catching up on my reading, but I realize that I need to exercise. The gym is crowded, and my favorite machine is broken, so I try out a new and unfamiliar machine. It feels strange, but, hey, change is good. Then I notice that I have only 45 minutes before dinner, so I try to work extra hard, even on my strange machine.
I make it back to dinner in time to get some of the good food! But I don’t stay for long, because I need to do some reading. But it’s hard to stick with, even though it’s about dinosaurs and a meteor and the scramble to survive. I’m not understanding it.
So I check e-mail again and get a really long and thoughtful e-mail from a friend on the East Coast. But it’s too good: I don’t have the time to respond properly right now. I really like this friend.
So my attention wanders, and I pick up my stuffed dinosaur. Here’s one that didn’t go extinct, I think cleverly. But he doesn’t look like a survivor at all. He’s goofy-looking and soft, and he looks like he’d be really slow. And, though I’ve only had him for a little while, I’ve used him enough that he’s already old and I should get a new one. But — ahhh — what am I doing? I don’t have time for this.
I do the reading for another class, but I don’t do as much as I need to. I start responding to my friend’s e-mail, but I don’t want to send him a 20 page e-mail, so I have to think about what I want to say. I’ll finish it later.
I continue my reading. I’m catching up. I think this is progress!
I decide I’m going to go to bed a little bit earlier than usual today. So I move some piles around in my room, and get into bed. Another day over. But I start thinking about all the things I still have to do, like that application, and solidifying my plans for spring break, and deciding what I’m going to do this summer, and getting my brother a birthday present, and I’m still way behind on reading. Damn! I didn’t do anything today.
I’m sick and tired of doing so much, I think. But it’s not that bad. I like being busy. I think I might be getting a little sick. Hopefully just a little, though, because I don’t have the time to be sick. I’m sick of being sick.
Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology. He wants to pay tribute to Jorge Luis Borges for his brief profundity, and likes the movie “Koyanisquatsi” (“out of balance”). “Make Haste or you will become Waste,” his grandfather always told him, or something like that. He likes when people take the time to send him comments at pstair@stanford.edu.
January 15, 2002
By Peter Stair
I wake up this morning and have only five minutes to get where I’m going, so I don’t want to be where I am.
I throw off the covers of my nicely warmed bed and throw my notebooks into my bag, which I toss over my shoulder, and then jump onto my bike and race to class. I sit down in class just after the professor starts and settle down from my momentary frenzy. I slept only six hours last night.
So my head nods as the teacher drones about some new set of observations and connections humans made not long ago. He’s pretty excited about all the stuff we’re learning so quickly in his field these days. He makes a joke about an ignorant conception of the world that people used to have, and I’m temporarily jolted out of my daze. I don’t get the joke, because I haven’t been paying attention, and I didn’t have time to drink my coffee this morning, so I’m too slow for him. I’m not going to understand much today, so I just want to get through this class. So, when I hear the professor wrapping up, I start packing up, and the professor is like, “one more minute,” but I’ve already decided that he’s finished, and when he does stop speaking I’m the third person out of the room. “Hi,” I nod to someone I know from my freshman dorm. We haven’t actually stopped to talk all quarter.
So I’m on my bike again and I’m going to my next class, which is far away and was scheduled so that I have only seven minutes to get there, and I don’t recognize anyone I know until it’s too late to say, “hi.” I get upset with the slow walkers spread out in front of me and at the guy who’s recklessly weaving around people on his bike. And I just don’t understand why other people have to be such a problem.
So I get to my next class, and I snatch a seat. It’s another class that’s only mildly interesting. This is one of those classes where I really respect the professor, but I don’t have time to do all the reading. I think I miss a lot.
I sometimes think about living on campus without all the deadlines and pressures. I could just learn what I want to learn, hang out with friends, go skiing and visit all the other interesting places in this area. But I really shouldn’t be upset by my life. This is the best time of my life, after all. I think I like it here. I like it. Actually, I know I like it. A lot.
The professor finishes, and I jump back on my bike and go back to my dorm, but I forget to stop by the Bookstore to buy new batteries for my alarm clock, and so I rush back to get them. But I can’t stand lines, even though I have to.
I know that I’m going to be late to lunch with an old friend I haven’t seen in a while. Luckily I know she will be late also. We grab food and talk to each other. I’m so impressed by how busy she’s been.
But she has to rush off to a meeting, and I have to go to another class. So we agree to meet again sometime.
After class, I bike back to my room. I haven’t checked e-mail all day! But it’s just announcements for events I don’t have time to go to. I start catching up on my reading, but I realize that I need to exercise. The gym is crowded, and my favorite machine is broken, so I try out a new and unfamiliar machine. It feels strange, but, hey, change is good. Then I notice that I have only 45 minutes before dinner, so I try to work extra hard, even on my strange machine.
I make it back to dinner in time to get some of the good food! But I don’t stay for long, because I need to do some reading. But it’s hard to stick with, even though it’s about dinosaurs and a meteor and the scramble to survive. I’m not understanding it.
So I check e-mail again and get a really long and thoughtful e-mail from a friend on the East Coast. But it’s too good: I don’t have the time to respond properly right now. I really like this friend.
So my attention wanders, and I pick up my stuffed dinosaur. Here’s one that didn’t go extinct, I think cleverly. But he doesn’t look like a survivor at all. He’s goofy-looking and soft, and he looks like he’d be really slow. And, though I’ve only had him for a little while, I’ve used him enough that he’s already old and I should get a new one. But — ahhh — what am I doing? I don’t have time for this.
I do the reading for another class, but I don’t do as much as I need to. I start responding to my friend’s e-mail, but I don’t want to send him a 20 page e-mail, so I have to think about what I want to say. I’ll finish it later.
I continue my reading. I’m catching up. I think this is progress!
I decide I’m going to go to bed a little bit earlier than usual today. So I move some piles around in my room, and get into bed. Another day over. But I start thinking about all the things I still have to do, like that application, and solidifying my plans for spring break, and deciding what I’m going to do this summer, and getting my brother a birthday present, and I’m still way behind on reading. Damn! I didn’t do anything today.
I’m sick and tired of doing so much, I think. But it’s not that bad. I like being busy. I think I might be getting a little sick. Hopefully just a little, though, because I don’t have the time to be sick. I’m sick of being sick.
Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology. He wants to pay tribute to Jorge Luis Borges for his brief profundity, and likes the movie “Koyanisquatsi” (“out of balance”). “Make Haste or you will become Waste,” his grandfather always told him, or something like that. He likes when people take the time to send him comments at pstair@stanford.edu.
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
True or false? The world in which we live
True or false? The world in which we live
January 8, 2002
By Peter Stair
Over break I tried my first fat free potato chips. They were tasty. They were cooked with a chemically engineered lipid, called olestra, which our taste buds recognize but our enzymes cannot properly digest. They are emblematic of our time: The Age of Illusions.
On my way home I took my first pilgrimage to Las Vegas, the mecca of the Age of Illusion.
It is a place of smoke and mirrors, flashing lights and seductive smiles. It is a place of windowless casinos, where the realities of night and day are lifted. Human companionship is offered as if it could be bought and hapless gamblers are made invisible. It is a place where Believers are encouraged to believe the illusion that there are short-cuts to personal and financial success. It is a desert which nonetheless gives the appearance of plentitude, where fountains gush, wastes are whisked away to some seemingly infinite dump and, if you gamble, drinks are ostensibly “cheap.”
Mirages.
Extravagant as Las Vegas can be, it is a brilliant satire of our culture.
At Stanford and elsewhere, we increasingly live in a world of 90 degree angles, concrete ground, cultivated gardens and fake flowers. Fruits have brand names, as if they were manufactured. Toilets and garbage trucks flush away our excrement, as if it simply disappeared. And, as we build our cities into the clouds, entertainment is our most common source of information. Living in illusion, we’re buffered, detached, ignorant of the vital feedback we need from our environmental support systems.
Socially, also, we’ve become more sheltered from each other. Computers and mobility separate us from the people we live with, just as cement and sewers separate us from the ground we live on. Instead of interacting with the people around us, we can use our cell phones to interact with people more distant. Instead of talking personally to someone, we can e-mail them. And when we feel sexy, we can have “virtual sex.” Less grounded and intimate in many relationships, we increase the likelihood that we’re living in delusion.
We’re inundated with opportunities to live in unreal, virtual worlds. We spend an increasing amount of our time playing on our computers and watching our televisions, meaning we spend more of our days interacting with neither the non-human world, nor humans themselves. In this world, we often actually prefer information that is specifically unrepresentative of reality. Our journalists tell us more often about unusual events than about broad trends. Our entertainers give us special effects and melodramas. Magazine covers are mostly digitally altered, airbrushed photos. We can pretend we’re video game characters who perform physically impossible feats.
Now, when we do interact with other humans, we increasingly talk about this virtual world we’ve created. We talk about our gizmos and games. We gossip about people we don’t even know, and who probably don’t really exist: personas with permanent stage names, like P. diddy and Kramer. Even when deciding whom to be our leaders, we talk about candidates with “image problems,” people without the “media savvy” to “perform” the role properly. A memorable slogan of our times is “image is everything.”
So what happens to us, as we construct the illusions of our age? As our world slowly becomes un-moored from reality, we risk a painful crash down to reality. Speculative bubbles burst. Enron goes out of business. The Titantic crashes. Liars get trapped. Terrorists follow through on threats we’d ignored. Illusions are dangerous.
But, more than that, it’s just not as much fun to live in fantasy. Picture someone at a dance party who’s flailing around, moving far too quickly and out of sync. That’s you and I. We can become so deaf to the music of the natural world that we lose our ability to dance to it, and, since we don’t hear the same beat, we have a harder time dancing with each other.
Sheltered in our cities, we can more easily believe we’re prospering, because it is easier to dismiss problems like global climate instability, nuclear waste, species extinction, soil erosion, collapsing fisheries and falling water tables.
“What environmental problem?” We can say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Sheltered by our computers and our televisions, we more often take our social cues from non-reality. My father, an emergency room doctor, tells me that more people, confronted with unusual circumstances, are emulating the actors they see on TV. More fly into rages, threaten lawsuits, or command dramatically, “do everything, doctor!” They are making their world a TV world.
When we take too many cues from non-reality, we have difficulty interacting with reality. Alejandro Martinez, director of Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services, told me last year that she’d seen an “unprecedented number” of room-mates and dorm-mates having trouble getting along. She theorized that students who grew up with computers might incorrectly expect other humans to be just as pliable. Are we more often becoming social misfits?
Yet, despite the dangers of illusion, many of us at Stanford are working to further virtualize our world. Every time we work primarily for a credential or grade, we de-emphasize our value for actual growth and cast a vote for the world of appearances. How often do we plan or describe our life as if it were a resume?
We are programmers who will design the most exciting new video games. We are journalists or marketers who will work in an enormous and growing public relations industry, an industry that serves primarily to distort our information. We are teachers who will teach illusions. We are engineers or product designers who will further shelter people from the “discomforts” of reality. We are artists who will devote our talents not to elucidating deep truths but to the art form of the Age of Illusions: advertising, an art-form that seduces us into believing that buying something is always the solution.
We are illusionists.
But why feel bad about who we are when we can also work to spread clarity. Aware that cities are not the world, and that movie characters are not actual people, we can receive information more skeptically. We can practice trusting our own experiences more often, and words less often. We can become more experimental. Then we can become more creative in how we go about our daily lives. Psychologists call this awakening process “self-actualization.”
There is a difference between authentically connecting with our natural world and being safe from natural perils. There is a difference between being honest with other people and being rude. But I’m not so concerned about demarcating the boundary.
Because I think we know true connection and honesty when we feel it. And they feel so good ! I know the dissatisfaction of an entirely false smile, or a day spent in an office building, or a day writing e-mails. But I also know the feeling of looking into someone’s eyes and truly connecting with them. I know the feeling of communing with a tree, understanding its slower pace of living. We know how authentic, fresh and right these experiences are.
The real world is a beautiful place to live.
Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology, honestly. He’s not sure what he thinks about currencies and the gold standard. To be frank, he struggled to find an authentic tone in writing this column. For those interested in shedding illusions, he recommends a visit to a nearby organization called Magic, Inc. He is sincere in wanting to hear your feedback at pstair@stanford.edu.
January 8, 2002
By Peter Stair
Over break I tried my first fat free potato chips. They were tasty. They were cooked with a chemically engineered lipid, called olestra, which our taste buds recognize but our enzymes cannot properly digest. They are emblematic of our time: The Age of Illusions.
On my way home I took my first pilgrimage to Las Vegas, the mecca of the Age of Illusion.
It is a place of smoke and mirrors, flashing lights and seductive smiles. It is a place of windowless casinos, where the realities of night and day are lifted. Human companionship is offered as if it could be bought and hapless gamblers are made invisible. It is a place where Believers are encouraged to believe the illusion that there are short-cuts to personal and financial success. It is a desert which nonetheless gives the appearance of plentitude, where fountains gush, wastes are whisked away to some seemingly infinite dump and, if you gamble, drinks are ostensibly “cheap.”
Mirages.
Extravagant as Las Vegas can be, it is a brilliant satire of our culture.
At Stanford and elsewhere, we increasingly live in a world of 90 degree angles, concrete ground, cultivated gardens and fake flowers. Fruits have brand names, as if they were manufactured. Toilets and garbage trucks flush away our excrement, as if it simply disappeared. And, as we build our cities into the clouds, entertainment is our most common source of information. Living in illusion, we’re buffered, detached, ignorant of the vital feedback we need from our environmental support systems.
Socially, also, we’ve become more sheltered from each other. Computers and mobility separate us from the people we live with, just as cement and sewers separate us from the ground we live on. Instead of interacting with the people around us, we can use our cell phones to interact with people more distant. Instead of talking personally to someone, we can e-mail them. And when we feel sexy, we can have “virtual sex.” Less grounded and intimate in many relationships, we increase the likelihood that we’re living in delusion.
We’re inundated with opportunities to live in unreal, virtual worlds. We spend an increasing amount of our time playing on our computers and watching our televisions, meaning we spend more of our days interacting with neither the non-human world, nor humans themselves. In this world, we often actually prefer information that is specifically unrepresentative of reality. Our journalists tell us more often about unusual events than about broad trends. Our entertainers give us special effects and melodramas. Magazine covers are mostly digitally altered, airbrushed photos. We can pretend we’re video game characters who perform physically impossible feats.
Now, when we do interact with other humans, we increasingly talk about this virtual world we’ve created. We talk about our gizmos and games. We gossip about people we don’t even know, and who probably don’t really exist: personas with permanent stage names, like P. diddy and Kramer. Even when deciding whom to be our leaders, we talk about candidates with “image problems,” people without the “media savvy” to “perform” the role properly. A memorable slogan of our times is “image is everything.”
So what happens to us, as we construct the illusions of our age? As our world slowly becomes un-moored from reality, we risk a painful crash down to reality. Speculative bubbles burst. Enron goes out of business. The Titantic crashes. Liars get trapped. Terrorists follow through on threats we’d ignored. Illusions are dangerous.
But, more than that, it’s just not as much fun to live in fantasy. Picture someone at a dance party who’s flailing around, moving far too quickly and out of sync. That’s you and I. We can become so deaf to the music of the natural world that we lose our ability to dance to it, and, since we don’t hear the same beat, we have a harder time dancing with each other.
Sheltered in our cities, we can more easily believe we’re prospering, because it is easier to dismiss problems like global climate instability, nuclear waste, species extinction, soil erosion, collapsing fisheries and falling water tables.
“What environmental problem?” We can say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Sheltered by our computers and our televisions, we more often take our social cues from non-reality. My father, an emergency room doctor, tells me that more people, confronted with unusual circumstances, are emulating the actors they see on TV. More fly into rages, threaten lawsuits, or command dramatically, “do everything, doctor!” They are making their world a TV world.
When we take too many cues from non-reality, we have difficulty interacting with reality. Alejandro Martinez, director of Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services, told me last year that she’d seen an “unprecedented number” of room-mates and dorm-mates having trouble getting along. She theorized that students who grew up with computers might incorrectly expect other humans to be just as pliable. Are we more often becoming social misfits?
Yet, despite the dangers of illusion, many of us at Stanford are working to further virtualize our world. Every time we work primarily for a credential or grade, we de-emphasize our value for actual growth and cast a vote for the world of appearances. How often do we plan or describe our life as if it were a resume?
We are programmers who will design the most exciting new video games. We are journalists or marketers who will work in an enormous and growing public relations industry, an industry that serves primarily to distort our information. We are teachers who will teach illusions. We are engineers or product designers who will further shelter people from the “discomforts” of reality. We are artists who will devote our talents not to elucidating deep truths but to the art form of the Age of Illusions: advertising, an art-form that seduces us into believing that buying something is always the solution.
We are illusionists.
But why feel bad about who we are when we can also work to spread clarity. Aware that cities are not the world, and that movie characters are not actual people, we can receive information more skeptically. We can practice trusting our own experiences more often, and words less often. We can become more experimental. Then we can become more creative in how we go about our daily lives. Psychologists call this awakening process “self-actualization.”
There is a difference between authentically connecting with our natural world and being safe from natural perils. There is a difference between being honest with other people and being rude. But I’m not so concerned about demarcating the boundary.
Because I think we know true connection and honesty when we feel it. And they feel so good ! I know the dissatisfaction of an entirely false smile, or a day spent in an office building, or a day writing e-mails. But I also know the feeling of looking into someone’s eyes and truly connecting with them. I know the feeling of communing with a tree, understanding its slower pace of living. We know how authentic, fresh and right these experiences are.
The real world is a beautiful place to live.
Peter Stair is a junior studying human ecology, honestly. He’s not sure what he thinks about currencies and the gold standard. To be frank, he struggled to find an authentic tone in writing this column. For those interested in shedding illusions, he recommends a visit to a nearby organization called Magic, Inc. He is sincere in wanting to hear your feedback at pstair@stanford.edu.
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