tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60753581976137095542024-03-28T20:28:50.770-07:00Articles by Chris McGowanUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-22054938135896682812019-10-13T16:44:00.001-07:002019-10-14T18:34:50.130-07:00The Baru Nut: Brazil's New Superfood<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>by Chris McGowan</b></span></div>
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(translation of Aldicir Scariot<br />
interview by Luciana Dutra)
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Could a little-known nut from Brazil become a global
super food and help save South America’s two biggest ecosystems? <i>Baru</i> is
a smooth brown nut with a delicate taste that is somewhere between a peanut and
a cashew; it is packed with protein and nutrients. It comes from the <i>baruzeiro</i>
tree (Dipteryx alata Vogel), which grows mostly in the <i>Cerrado</i> region of
Brazil, a giant savanna in the heart of the continent that covers some two
million square kilometers, about 21% of the country. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Cerrado is South America’s second largest biome
after the Amazon rain forest and has come under even greater attack – it
has
lost some fifty percent of its original vegetation, due mostly to cattle
ranching and soy production, which are powering Brazil's current
agricultural boom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">...Cultivating a native tree like the
baruzeiro, or at
least preserving those still standing, is one small step towards
reversing the
ecological devastation in the region. There is a big incentive for local
farmers to do this: the baru nut is a powerhouse treat that could
generate
serious national and global sales and join the pantheon of better-known
nuts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <a href="https://jcmcgowan.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-baru-nut-brazils-new-superfood.html">Read more</a>.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-91243549095195472018-07-12T18:07:00.002-07:002024-03-27T21:07:05.318-07:00Immersion in Pandora: The Virtual World of Avatar<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Immersive Breakthroughs in Avatar, its Many Influences and Borrowings, and the Riddle of Consciousness</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiobQ20EDc80cil3P19zMtfUYn8bySyEsbg2kjgLXOGJnKlMIcJr7pSH-HTVK-liuFYfL8PkNYmcv4HDCzdrjWMc8_HlcR9_Y7I48JP9VdgW2NE9XKSqc6SUc_8YYtipeKWjgOQ84grko-x/s1600/Avatar-2-Sequels-Underwater-Scenes-Motion-Capture.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="600" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiobQ20EDc80cil3P19zMtfUYn8bySyEsbg2kjgLXOGJnKlMIcJr7pSH-HTVK-liuFYfL8PkNYmcv4HDCzdrjWMc8_HlcR9_Y7I48JP9VdgW2NE9XKSqc6SUc_8YYtipeKWjgOQ84grko-x/s320/Avatar-2-Sequels-Underwater-Scenes-Motion-Capture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>by Chris McGowan</b><br />
(first published Nov. 22, 2010 in <i>The</i> <i>Huffington Post</i>)<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a filmmaker, James Cameron is a
thrill master, but not a deep thinker. The themes in his films, noble as they
are, are nothing new, and his sci-fi ideas are old hat compared to what’s
explored in the best science-fiction literature. Yet the man knows how to
enthrall and deliver “shock and awe,” and along the way he inevitably moves the
craft and technology of filmmaking up to a higher level. <i>Terminator 2</i>
dazzled with the new CGI effect of morphing; and <i>Avatar</i> has set the bar higher for digitally
created characters and 3D filmmaking. More importantly perhaps, it offers the
audience a compelling immersion in a simulated reality, an experience somewhere
between watching a movie in a theater and entering a virtual world in
cyberspace.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Avatar</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is a beautiful movie, stunningly so at times, and the visual splendor lies in the inherent beauty of the
alien world in which we are immersed. Pandora’s lush rain forest, its colorful
flora and fauna, the spectacular gorges and long waterfalls, and the moons and
blue Jovian-type planet Polyphemus in the sky are rendered with painstaking
detail and depth. Cameron's team and Weta Digital's VFX masters have created a convincing exoplanet environment, worth
the price of admission all on its own.</span><br />
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a Roger Dean dragon (left) and <i>Avatar's </i>banshees<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Visually, <i>Avatar</i> owes a debt
to artist Roger Dean, known for his Yes album covers in the 1970s. The film’s
floating “Hallejulah Mountains” and dragon-like banshees appear based on the
levitating mountains and fantastic dragons of Dean’s fantasy-art paintings.
There are also resonances of movies like <i>The Lost World</i> and <i>King Kong</i>
in which dinosaurs and exotic bugs roamed tropical jungles. Most of all,
Cameron seemed inspired by his post-Titanic fondness of exploring the deep sea
in submersibles; he has transplanted the ocean’s bioluminescent fauna and
hovering creatures (like jellyfish) in altered forms into a rain-forest
environment. [Update: in 2014, a </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">New York judge dismissed Dean's $50 million copyright-infringement lawsuit against Cameron.]</span></div>
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More Roger Dean art, including floating islands</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">At moments, the phosphorescent
colors are a little too intense and feel like an interlude in a ‘60s “black
light” room full of psychedelic art; of course, this may endear the movie to
future generations of chemically altered viewers. My other minor complaint
about the Pandoran reality was Cameron’s apparent obsession with optical
fibers, tendril-like versions of which keep popping up all over the place, from
the Na’vi-animal interfaces to the Tree of Souls. Or perhaps it’s an obscure
reference to Carlos Castaneda’s books, which describe us all as being composed
of “luminous fibers”?</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Avatar</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> may have borrowed some ideas or at least names from the
great Russian science-fiction authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky; the
brothers’ <i>Noon Universe</i> (or “World of Noon”) cycle of novels from the 1960s
included a lushly forested planet called Pandora populated by a humanoid race
called the Nave. Cameron’s movie also follows in the footsteps of the Edgar
Rice Burroughs <i>John Carter of Mars</i> novels, as did George Lucas’s <i>Star
Wars</i> films. In the John Carter tales, a paralyzed Civil War hero
“incarnates” in a facsimile of his own body on Mars, where he fights with and
against red and green-skinned Martians, falls in love with a red princess, and
encounters many strange beasts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Arkady and Boris Strugatsky</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some have said that <i>Avatar</i> is
yet another story of an individual from a colonialist nation who joins an
exploited society, sees the world through their eyes, and becomes a hero or
messiah. At the end, he atones for his own culture’s imperialistic sins (call
it “white guilt” if you will, but skin color is not the point). Certainly, <i>Avatar</i>
owes more than a little to movies like <i>Dances with Wolves</i>, and the Na’vi
people resemble lanky ten-foot-tall blue Native Americans and share some of
their spirituality. The Na’vi worship nature and have a reverence for all
living beings, including those they must kill in order to survive. <i>Avatar</i>
decries the genocide of indigenous peoples and the plundering of nature in
order to seize natural resources (<i>unobtainium</i> in this case rather than oil or
gold). Casting the Cherokee actor Wes Studi (<i>Dances with Wolves, Last of the
Mohicans</i>) as the character Eytucan reinforces the Native-American
connection on a subliminal level. Yet while <i>Avatar</i> is undeniably
political, it is mostly archetypal.</span><br />
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Wes Studi (left) in <i>Dances with Wolves</i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Avatar</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> takes us on the hero’s journey (as per mythologist Joseph
Campbell) or a reluctant hero’s adventure (as per screenwriting courses).
Stories of outsiders who enter other cultures, endure trials, and become heroes
are heard around the world. And the desire of city folk to experience tribal
life, at least via a ripping yarn, has probably been a campfire staple ever
since most of humanity moved from being hunter-gatherers to farmers and
merchants. And doesn’t everyone fantasize about starting life completely anew,
in another place or time? (In this case, it’s with an alien body with working
legs in a far-away solar system.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <i>Avatar's</i> Tree of Souls</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The movie’s title and Jake Sully’s
conscious immersion in a Na’vi body bring up other spiritual elements. In Hindu
mythology, an “avatar” is the manifestation of one deity as another (such as
Krishna being an avatar, or incarnation, of Vishnu). In video games and virtual
reality, an avatar is the on-screen representation of a player, who controls
its behavior. For most of the movie, the latter definition applies; the Na’vi
is a representation of Jake. He experiences the world remotely through the
Na’vi body’s senses and controls it like a puppet, while his consciousness
remains in his own body. At the end, his mind is transferred to the new body
via the Tree of Souls. In other words, he goes from being a “cyberspace avatar”
to a full, new incarnation. When it happens, are those luminous
tendrils/fiber-optic cables channeling Jake’s soul (as per much Earthly
religious belief) or a neural net that constitutes his mind (as per
materialists)? It would appear that they are one and the same on Pandora, as
all living organisms are connected there to the same “bio-botanical neural
network.” (On our Earth, science is still working out the riddle of consciousness.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a story, <i>Avatar</i> offers a
recycling of familiar elements; as an experience it breaks new ground. In the
near future, we will immerse our minds in interactive simulated realities with
next-generation goggles, data gloves, or other devices. Let’s hope they are as
beautiful as the Pandoran world in <i>Avatar</i>. Cameron has delivered the
most immersive film to date, one that offers a tantalizing glimpse of the
future of entertainment in many realms.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Also see: my <i>VFX Voice</i> article about the <a href="http://vfxvoice.com/avatar-flight-of-passage-a-cinematic-multi-sensory-3d-experience-that-soars/">Avatar: Flight of Passage</a> immersive ride at Disneyland Orlando. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-34353818833912612202018-07-11T10:50:00.002-07:002018-07-12T07:15:26.941-07:00Spooky Secrets: A Brief History of Halloween<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkx1fVjm4_mQWALD5AacC4rdDQhHwn-1gOGpiqxp21SiiLaVB7Pg8Opvj6BIteNJiu_c3NtvSiCaKAHJ_rGEVJKcgEwiHZnzxNwmplGanmIuP0hAABI8V34qdURLM81cihN8tywCtV3UcB/s1600/images2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkx1fVjm4_mQWALD5AacC4rdDQhHwn-1gOGpiqxp21SiiLaVB7Pg8Opvj6BIteNJiu_c3NtvSiCaKAHJ_rGEVJKcgEwiHZnzxNwmplGanmIuP0hAABI8V34qdURLM81cihN8tywCtV3UcB/s1600/images2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
by Chris McGowan</div>
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Night falls and a fierce knocking
assails your quiet home. Mischievous laughter resounds outside. You open the
front door. Osama bin Laden, Lady Gaga, Barack Obama and a
green witch rustle bags and yell “trick or treat.” You hand them candy
and send them on their way, to other houses decorated with spider webs,
tombstones and glowing hollowed-out pumpkins. By morning, some of these
dwellings (usually those with teenage inhabitants) will be decorated with
shaving cream and eggs, their trees festooned with toilet paper. Meanwhile, at
parties around town, adults dressed as vampires and French maids dance and
drink into the wee hours. From whence did Halloween, this peculiar and
supposedly all-American holiday, derive?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUu6KGzTo1whTYSD9ahjQKNBuvNyDS3NmSnKGACPtbyknHGqzQW_3mnoVY-tDvSuYK3fQWAxKi7hyphenhyphenfMNsTAK1pp6iVOIEp8qidhbWBn4445Sc3ToiWPxquC1ZrBfZADOf0aHgbHcSbzVMy/s1600/druids_stonehenge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="511" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUu6KGzTo1whTYSD9ahjQKNBuvNyDS3NmSnKGACPtbyknHGqzQW_3mnoVY-tDvSuYK3fQWAxKi7hyphenhyphenfMNsTAK1pp6iVOIEp8qidhbWBn4445Sc3ToiWPxquC1ZrBfZADOf0aHgbHcSbzVMy/s320/druids_stonehenge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Druids at Stonehenge</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Halloween’s roots lie in the ancient
Celtic festival of Samhain, which was celebrated in the British Isles on a full
moon around November 1st. Samhain was the most important of the Celtic fire
festivals, or holy days, because it was the start of the New Year. The harvest
had ended, the last crops had been picked, and a chill was in the air. The dark
half of the year was beginning. On the night of Samhain, the Celts believed
that the souls of the dead were restless, on the move, and could cross over
into the world of the living.<br />
<br />
In his book <i>The Pagan Mysteries
of Halloween</i>, Jean Markale describes Samhain (pronounced “sow-en”) as an
important festival that served to unite the tribe. To commemorate the New Year,
fires all over the Celtic world were extinguished the night of Samhain, then
relit from ceremonial blazes kindled by Druids, the religious leaders of the
pre-Christian Celts. Animals were slaughtered and sacrificed to Celtic deities.“In marking the onset of winter,
Samhain was closely associated with darkness and the supernatural,” adds
Nicholas Rogers, a York University history professor, in <i>Halloween: From
Pagan Ritual to Party Night</i>. “The festival was closely related with
prophecy and story-telling.” It was a time out of time, “charged with a
peculiar preternatural energy.”<br />
<br />
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<br />
The old ways began to change with foreign influence some two millennia ago. The Romans invaded England in the
first century A.D., and their festival for Pomona (the goddess of fruits and trees)
may have added light-hearted traditions such as apple bobbing to Samhain.
Later, the Celts converted to Christianity, a process that began in England in
the 4th century and in Ireland (with the arrival of St. Patrick) in the 5th
century A.D. The Christian Church could not utterly abolish the Samhain
celebration, but ultimately they co-opted it, intentionally or otherwise, with
two alterations of the Catholic calendar.<br />
<br />
First, Pope Gregory IV (827-844 A.D.) changed the date of a festival honoring Christian saints to November 1
and called it the Feast of All Saints. The celebration of All Saints’ Day
became known as All Hallow Mass or Hallowmas in England. The night of October
31 became All Hallows Eve.<br />
<br />
Then, in 998, the French monastic
order of Cluny initiated a mass for the souls of the Christian dead, later
moved to the day after All Saints Day. The new feast day of All Souls held
further resonance for Celts accustomed to Samhain, a time so linked to the
spirits of the dead. By the end of the twelfth century, the festivals of All
Saints and All Souls (together called Hallowtide in Great Britain) were
well-established highlights of the Christian year. And Hallows Eve, which
preceded them, had effectively supplanted Samhain, while retaining its aura of
eerie mystery. The beliefs that spirits were on the loose and that
communication was possible between this world and the underworld survived in
All Hallows Eve, as did a few rituals of the Celtic festival, like fire rites
and divination.<br />
<br />
The church masses of Hallowtide
served as insurance against hauntings. As night fell and All Souls’ Day
arrived, “bells were rung for the souls in purgatory,” writes Rogers. Across
Catholic Europe, “food was laid out for the dead, whose souls were expected to
return to their former abodes on All Souls’ Day,” a practice we see today in
Mexico’s Day of the Dead.<br />
<br />
In England and elsewhere, it was a
custom for the rich to give out food in return for prayers, a practice called
“souling.” “Soul cakes” (square biscuits with currants) were baked and given to
relatives, poor neighbors or beggars on All Souls’ Day. In return, the
recipients promised to pray for the dead relatives of the donors. While
“soulers” went door to door during Hallowtide, less solemn revelers also took
to the streets.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Soul cakes</div>
<br />
Costumed folk began a “season of misrule” full of “disguisings, masks and mummeries.” They sang, danced, drank,
rode hobbyhorses, cross-dressed and impersonated officials, inverting the
established order. Hallowtide had a little of the atmosphere of Carnival or
Mardi Gras. Celebrants demanded food, ale, and coins from their neighbors and
mocked those who wouldn’t comply. The use of masks on Hallows Eve may have
started with these merrymakers; and mummers and soulers asking for donations
may have been a precedent for trick-or-treating.<br />
<br />
Hallowmas fell out of favor in
England during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, and All Souls’
Day was eliminated from the calendar. Yet All Hallows Eve continued as a time
of supernatural intensity and became popularly known as Halloween in the 18th
Century. In Ireland and Scotland, “Halloween was largely untouched by the
Protestant Reformation,” writes Rogers. “In the Scottish highlands, hallow
fires blazed from cairns and hilltops. In some areas, there were torchlight
processions around the fields to ensure their fertility or to ward off evil
spirits and witches... many of these customs recalled the fire rituals of
Samhain that were to be found in the ancient Celtic sagas.”<br />
<br />
Mummery and begging for treats on Halloween
continued. In Scottish villages “it was not the deceased themselves who
returned but young people who personified the spirits of the dead by hiding
their faces under masks and wearing long white robes or grotesque costumes made
from straw... they went in search of treats, treats that, of course,
represented the offerings made to the deceased,” writes Markale, author of<i>
The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween</i>. He adds that some carried hollowed-out
turnips with a candle inside, representing a wandering spirit. These were
called “jack ‘o’ lanterns” after an Irish legend about Jack, a man unwelcome in
both heaven or hell, who was doomed to wander the earth eternally.<br />
<br />
Halloween was associated with
divinatory rituals, omens that foretold marriages or deaths, and premonitory
dreams. Families and young woman enjoyed fortunetelling games in the parlor.
Meanwhile, outside in the dark night, high-spirited boys were on the loose.
Many of the pranks were “threshold tricks,” wherein “doors were nailed shut,
windows broken, gates taken off hinges and fences de-picketed,” according to
Mark Alice Durant in <i>Dressed for Thrills</i>. The pranksters understood that
Halloween “was a night of a different order,” adds Durant.<br />
<br />
In North America, Halloween began to
arrive in force in the 1840s. Rural immigrants from Ireland flooded into
America and Canada because of the Great Potato Famine and brought Halloween
customs from their homeland. A steady stream of Scots also carried Celtic
traditions to the New World. The restless energy of the “mischief night” found
expression in new surroundings: rowdy boys knocked down fences, tipped over
outhouses, and wreaked other havoc. And families upgraded a harmless custom,
thanks to the new land’s plant life, making jack ‘o’ lanterns out of pumpkins,
easily carved into large, grinning demonic faces.<br />
<br />
By the late 1800s in North America,
Halloween had developed into a family festival full of parties, seasonal foods
(pumpkins, maize and apples) and costumes. Ghost stories were told, contests
were held, and games were played. Masks for Halloween were on sale by the late
19th century. Retailers advertised candies and nuts for the night. Black cats
and bats became Halloween motifs, apparently because of the influence of Edgar
Allen Poe and gothic writers.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Halloween lost its religious
overtones and changed into a secular, community-oriented celebration. It was no
longer regarded as primarily an Irish or Scottish festival, and became a
fixture in the North American calendar. Such acceptance did not diminish the pranks
committed by young males that night, who now saw Halloween as their best
opportunity to let loose. By the 1920s, there was public concern about how wild
the night was getting. Mischief often veered into vandalism. Towns and clubs
began to organize “safe” Halloween events — carnivals, dances and street fairs
— to keep youngsters occupied.<br />
<br />
The Halloween decorations of the time were similar to those of today: “Black
cats, bats, Jack ‘o’ Lanterns, ghosts and witches predominate. Autumn leaves,
cornstalks, fruits and vegetables carry the idea of a harvest celebration.
Orange and black crepe paper are indispensable in decorating,” observes an
instructional booklet from Boston. Costumes were typically homemade, often from
sacks, old clothes, soot and shoe polish. Commercial costume companies began to
sell outfits based on celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Mickey Mouse
and Dick Tracy.<br />
<br />
While the practice of begging for,
or demanding, food on Hallows Eve was centuries old, the words “trick or treat”
apparently came into use in the 1930s. The earliest known appearance of the
phrase in print was in an <i>American Home</i> article written by Doris Hudson
Moss in 1939, according to author David Skal (<i>Death Makes a Holiday</i>) and
others. Rogers writes, “Trick-or-treating radically altered the dynamics of
festive license without eliminating its masking or playful features.” The
holiday became a boon for food manufacturers and retailers.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Vintage mask, from <i>Dressed for Thrills</i></div>
<br />
<br />
During the 1960s and ‘70s, Halloween
became a thoroughly secular, consumer-oriented event. The booming plastics
industry made it possible to cheaply sell realistic masks, noses, fangs and
props. Middle-class parents bought full Halloween get-ups at mass-market stores
for the family. For children, the main point of Halloween became to dress up
and collect as much tasty candy as possible. There wasn’t much sense of
actually dealing out nasty “tricks” to people who didn’t offer sufficient
goodies, but many boys harassed friends, neighbors and random victims with
armaments like eggs, toilet paper and shaving cream.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Today’s Halloween has become popular
in many places around the world. In America, suburban homes have bigger and
spookier lawn displays each year. Office cubicles are festooned with orange and
black crepe paper and bowls of candy. Hundreds of thousands show up at work in
full Halloween garb. Costume parties for adults are commonplace. “Haunted
houses” are popular seasonal attractions. The merchandising for the holiday is
enormous, second only to that of Christmas. Halloween is big business,
generating billions of dollars in sales; Hallows Eve has been possessed by
Hollywood and Walmart.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The Halloween of this century has
pretty much lost its uncanny power, unless one is four years old and terrified
of an uncle dressed as Count Dracula. There aren’t many Americans now who
believe that spirits are on the loose the night of October 31. Although death
is the central theme of Halloween, celebrants deal with the grim reaper only on
a playful level. Yet perhaps this somehow helps children, and us, cope with the
most fearful realities of life.<br />
<br />
For adults, it may be that Halloween
is evolving into a masquerade event like Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnival
in other countries. These are “inversion rituals,” in which ordinary people can
break the rules, flout convention, and mock authority for a few days, until the
normal social order reasserts itself. Halloween no longer retains the sense of
awe and wonder associated with Hallows Eve and Samhain in the past, yet it
remains an intriguing, still-evolving ritual that fuses a wealth of folk
beliefs and cultural traditions.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_______ </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-75473850708148782362018-07-10T09:10:00.002-07:002018-07-10T09:10:46.664-07:00Biofuel Could Eat Brazil's Savannas & Deforest the Amazon<div class="headline js-headline">
<h1 class="headline__title">
</h1>
</div>
<div class="byline byline--wide yr-byline" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="byline">
<div class="byline__authors">
<div class="author-list" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFFJbcrjYt3AdNKbo6wUCs5qK0jkh3f2k99CJ9W5JNjvr3Ku6SBtlo3o_3NXLy-itO75TiHEVyyaPfRByzATiD_kRR5rU6k_qokB7S526TfqKlxqG1G4s0TmkMdzQGN9ztTodFZ-eTcLZq/s1600/cerrado-chapada-dos-veaderos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="640" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFFJbcrjYt3AdNKbo6wUCs5qK0jkh3f2k99CJ9W5JNjvr3Ku6SBtlo3o_3NXLy-itO75TiHEVyyaPfRByzATiD_kRR5rU6k_qokB7S526TfqKlxqG1G4s0TmkMdzQGN9ztTodFZ-eTcLZq/s320/cerrado-chapada-dos-veaderos.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="author-list" style="text-align: center;">
<br />By <span>Chris McGowan</span></div>
<div class="author-list" style="text-align: center;">
<span>(September 14, 2007, <i>The Huffington Post</i>) </span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="js-sharebar share-bar share-bar--sticky yr-left-rail fixed" data-mobilepath="/us/entry/64466" data-rapid-parsed="sec" data-sharingimage="" data-sharingtitle="Biofuel Could Eat Brazil's Savannas & Deforest the Amazon" data-sharingtweetname="HuffPostGreen" data-sharingtweettext="Biofuel+Could+Eat+Brazil%27s+Savannas+%26+Deforest+the+Amazon" data-sharingurl="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-mcgowan/biofuel-could-eat-brazils_b_64466.html" id="left-rail" style="left: 20px; top: 120px;">
<ul class="share-bar__list yr-share" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" data-rapid-subsec="share"><div class="js-sharebar-comments share-bar__comments yr-share-item yr-track" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-share-name="comments_open" data-type="comments" data-ylk="subsec:share;ct:story;itc:0;slk:comments_open">
</div>
</ul>
</div>
These days, when you fill up your car with a gasoline-and-ethanol
blend, you are probably burning ethyl alcohol made from American corn. A
few years from now, your commute may be powered by ethanol from sugar
cane grown in Brazil’s <em>cerrado</em>, a biodiversity hotspot that is
the largest savanna in South America and disappearing at a faster rate
than the Amazon. You may be hastening the demise of the world’s largest
rain forest as well. And you won’t be alone: AOL founder Steve Case,
film producer Steven Bing, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, global
financier George Soros, and other well-known investors (see below) could
end up playing leading roles in Brazilian deforestation. Case and his
colleagues are banking on Brazilian biofuel. They may be hoping to make a
green investment that will help save the world, or they may just want
to get a piece of the next gold rush. But they probably don’t understand
the importance of the cerrado, or the possible environmental
consequences of their actions.<br />
<br />
Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and some biofuel
boosters claim that Brazilian ethanol production will not affect the
Amazon (it will, mostly indirectly). Some also say that the Amazon’s
deforestation rate has slowed dramatically (true, if you’ve got a short
attention span). Actually, the Amazon is still in grave danger.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Soybean plantation, Cerrado, Brazil</div>
<br />
Ethanol advocates in Brazil assert that millions of hectares are
available for growing sugar cane outside of the Amazon rain forest in
“grasslands,” “scrublands” or “degraded pasturelands,” by which they
refer to land in the cerrado or in Brazil’s Southeast. The cerrado is
treated as a sort of under-utilized wasteland, rather than the
species-rich biome that it is. Referring to it only as “grasslands” is
like using that word alone to denote the famed savanna that is East
Africa’s Serengeti. The cerrado is important as more than just potential
pasture or cane acreage, and it is under siege.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Ethanol Explosion & Biofuel Boom</strong><br />
We are at the beginning of a biofuel boom that will reshape the
world’s energy map. The U.S. and Brazil are the world’s two biggest
producers of ethanol, having contributed 4.9 and 4.5 billion gallons,
respectively, in 2006. Total world production was 13.5 billion gallons .
A gallon of ethanol is equivalent to about two-thirds a gallon of
gasoline in terms of energy content (some say 70%).<br />
The U.S. makes its ethanol from corn, with the Bush administration
providing heavy subsidies, while Brazil makes its alcohol from sugar
cane. Americans currently consume more ethanol than they produce, with
demand reaching 5.4 billion gallons last year; the latter was equivalent
to about 3.6 billion gallons of gas, or more than 2% of annual U.S.
gasoline consumption. Brazil, meanwhile, is the world’s biggest exporter
of ethanol, selling about 20% of its production to the U.S., Japan and
India, primarily.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Native vegetation (left) and Soybeans (right)</div>
<br />
Making ethanol on a significant scale will use up a lot of land.
President George W. Bush wants to see biofuel production of 35 billion
gallons by 2017. The U.S. and other countries hope to substitute as much
as 15% of domestic gasoline for ethanol over the next decade. It will
take a lot of corn and cane to achieve it. America’s production of
ethanol used up 13% of our corn crop in 2005, and that percentage may be
at 20% now. World corn, wheat, dairy and beef prices have risen as a
result. <br />
However, cane is more viable as an ethanol crop in terms of energy
inputs, and most of it will have to come from Brazil. Producing an
additional 27 billion gallons there would require roughly 42 million
more acres devoted to sugar cane (see figures below). Brazil’s
Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes estimates there are still 150
million hectares (370 million acres) available for agriculture in
Brazil. He and Lula believe there is more than enough “unused” pasture
and farmland to absorb a ten-fold increase in Brazil’s ethanol
production. South Africa and India are also expected to enter the
biofuel business in a big way, to meet global demand.<br /><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTxwK1MqOgd3EohSJOnwExv7wJIjnY1ArH1uqZKJcRlsusCI7dL1fTFdX5GX0U33JI6uFU_so9Hqnkp02OJFKGUnV8cNKaE3LWmEjgyYaU6SOLMpTjz686UuYIR8tuxKUQg38PO0OavsP/s1600/Bioma-Cerrado-Caracter%25C3%25ADsticas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="500" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTxwK1MqOgd3EohSJOnwExv7wJIjnY1ArH1uqZKJcRlsusCI7dL1fTFdX5GX0U33JI6uFU_so9Hqnkp02OJFKGUnV8cNKaE3LWmEjgyYaU6SOLMpTjz686UuYIR8tuxKUQg38PO0OavsP/s320/Bioma-Cerrado-Caracter%25C3%25ADsticas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Those are figures that fire the imaginations of investors, including
green ones. Yet, there’s a small problem. Brazil is already the world
leader in annual deforestation, even without a huge leap in biofuel
production. It is a world bread basket, number one in soybean, orange
juice, coffee and sugar exports, number two in beef, and high in other
agricultural products. As the world’s population grows, so will Brazil’s
agricultural production, resulting in more pressure on the Amazon and
cerrado. A lot more deforestation is on the way, even without
large-scale ethanol production.<br />
<br />
<strong>Where Brazil Grows Its Cane</strong><br />
Brazil currently grows sugar cane on about 6 million hectares (15
million acres), with about half that earmarked for ethanol (an acre of
cane produces about 650 gallons of ethanol ). It takes fewer fossil
fuels to convert sugar cane to alcohol than it does corn, and the plant
waste can be used to generate heat and electricity at the distilleries.
Making ethanol from sugar cane is relatively efficient and
cost-competitive, and it doesn’t require the tax credit and import
tariff currently propping up U.S. ethanol producers.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Lobo Guara (Maned Wolf) </div>
<br />
About 60% of Brazil’s sugar cane is grown in the state of São Paulo,
in the Southeast. São Paulo is Brazil’s wealthiest state, its
manufacturing heart and a rich agricultural area. It was once covered by
the Atlantic Rain Forest, an ecosystem that centuries ago occupied at
least one million square kilometers of Brazil. The “Mata Atlantica,”
smaller than the Amazon but also rich in biodiversity, was located in
the South and Southeast, ranged in a coastal strip along Brazil’s
Northeast, and was about 93% removed during the country’s colonization
(remnants of the Atlantic Rain Forest are still under threat). Cane is
also grown in many other Brazilian states as well, including in the
Northeast and Center-West.<br />
<br />
So what’s the problem? And who cares about grasslands?<br />
<br />
<strong>The Cerrado: A Biodiversity Hotspot</strong><br />
The cerrado is located south of the Amazon, on the central Brazilian
plateau in the Center-West region of the country. The vast savanna is
one of the richest biological regions in the world, in terms of bird,
reptile, fish and insect species. It is home to more than 400 tree
species, 10,000 plant species, and 800 bird species. Parrots, jaguars,
giant anteaters, capybaras, marsupials, and many monkey species live
there. It is the world’s most biologically diverse savanna, home to at
least 5% of Earth’s flora.<br />
<br />
The cerrado region covers about 23% of Brazil, some two million
square kilometers, roughly the size of Western Europe. It varies in
form, ranging from dense grassland with shrubs and small trees to almost
closed woodlands. The cerrado is a vegetation formation of great
antiquity, that may have existed in “prototypic form in the Cretaceous,
before the final separation of the South American and African
continents.”<br />
<br />
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<br />
While the cerrado is not as famous as the Amazon, it is in just as
much ecological peril. In fact, it is disappearing at a faster rate in
proportion to its size. More than 50% of its original vegetation has
been destroyed due to ranching and agriculture, and half of the
remaining areas have been seriously impacted. It is being deforested at a
rate of about 1.5% per year. Agriculture and ranching have
dramatically increased in the cerrado region over the last three
decades, and Brazil’s Center-West now accounts for more than 40% of
Brazil’s soybean production (Brazil is the world’s leader), 23% of its
corn, and 20% of rice, coffee and beans, in addition to heavy beef and
pork production.<br />
<br />
Conservation International believes that the cerrado
may disappear almost entirely by the year 2030. <br />
Further deforestation of the cerrado will have a major impact outside
its own region. The cerrado is important as a watershed area for
various large rivers that run through the Amazon rain forest. Some
700,000 sq. km. of the cerrado is located within the Amazon basin (the
total area that drains into the Amazon River system; not to be confused
with the Amazon rain forest).<br />
<br />
The cerrado’s fate also concerns the famed Pantanal, the world’s
largest contiguous wetland, with 140,000 square kilometers in Brazilian
territory. It borders the cerrado in Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul
states, and has 650 species of birds, 80 species of mammals, 360 fish
species and 50 reptile species. The Pantanal is under environmental
threat as well.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Actinocephaplus plants, Cerrado</div>
<br /> <strong>Biofuel, Celebrity Investors & the Cerrado</strong><br />
To increase its ethanol production, Brazil is growing more sugar cane
in São Paulo and Paraná states in the South. It is also ramping up
production in the Center-West states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul
and Goiás. A large part of those three states is covered by cerrado
vegetation.<br />
<br />
Celebrity investors are putting money into Center-West biofuel
production. AOL founder Steve Case, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla,
supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, film producer Steve Bing and former
World Bank president James Wolfensohn are among the investors in
Bermuda-based Brenco (Brazilian Renewable Energy Co.), which plans to
produce 3.8 billion liters of ethanol in Brazil by 2015, it was
announced Aug. 24. Brenco will produce its ethanol in the cerrado
region, in Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás states.<br />
<br />
George Soros is also making ethanol in the cerrado region. Soros is
the main shareholder in Adeco Agropecuaria Brasil Ltda, and is
investing $900 million in three sugar and ethanol plants in Mato Grosso
do Sul. They will have a joint processing capacity of 11 million tons of
cane per year and produce 1 billion liters of ethanol annually.<br />
<br />
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are two other famous
investors who recently visited Brazil to research possible ethanol
investments.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Other major investments are underway in the cerrado region. ADM
(Archer Daniels Midland) is building a biodiesel production plant,
utilizing soybeans, near Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso. It is expected to
have an annual capacity of 180,000 metric tons.<br />
<br />
Biofuel production will directly impact the cerrado as sugar cane and
soybeans replace native vegetation. It will indirectly affect it as
cattle ranching and soybean farming (for food) moves there, after being
displaced in São Paulo by today’s highly lucrative ethanol business.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Hyacinth Macaw</span></div>
<br />
<strong>The Amazon’s Deforestation Rate</strong><br />
The Amazon rain forest’s annual rate of deforestation showed a
decline the last two years as compared to 2005, but that’s not saying
much. Since 1988, the rate has fluctuated between a low of 11,030 square
kilometers (1991) and a high of 29,059 sq. km. (1995) lost per year.
The year 2004 saw 27,379 sq. km. destroyed, while 2006 was down to
14,039 sq. km., according to data from Brazil’s INPE (National Institute
of Space). No one should get too excited: the rate also dropped to
13,227 sq. km. in 1997 and then climbed up to the ‘04 level. One year
does not make a trend, and the rate needs to keep dropping for many
burning seasons to come.<br />
<br />
The Amazon has lost 17-20% of its forest . Scientists are worried
that another twenty percent will disappear during the next three
decades, which will seriously impact the region’s ecology and rainfall
patterns (the Amazon produces half its own rainfall through moisture its
plants release into the atmosphere). A tipping point may be reached
where remaining trees will dry out; some scientists fear the Amazon rain
forest will largely disappear by the end of this century. Global
warming could exacerbate the problem, and Amazonian deforestation will
worsen global warming.<br />
<br />
<strong>Biofuel’s Threat To The Amazon</strong><br />
The Amazon will be affected by the biofuel boom both directly and
indirectly. Biofuel crops such as soybeans and palm oil (both used to
make biodiesel) are grown on a large scale there. And, contrary to what
President Lula and some others have claimed, cane is indeed cultivated
there. In July, Brazilian authorities raided an Amazon sugar cane
plantation, in which 1,000 laborers were found working in horrendous
debt-slavery conditions. The company, Para Pastoril e Agricola SA,
grows cane for ethanol on a 10,000-hectare (24,700 acre) plantation in
Pará state, in the Amazon. Global bank HSBC Holdings PLC got unwelcome
publicity for loans it had made to the firm, as did Lula - who had been
calling ethanol producers “national heroes.” Many sugar-cane cutters in
Brazil work in miserable conditions.<br />
<br />
Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes has announced that
Brazil will restrict the planting of sugar cane in the Amazon and
Pantanal in the next few years. Yet he also has been quoted that “Cane
does not exist in Amazonia.” Stephanes should perhaps visit the Para
Pastoril e Agricola plantation. It would be a miracle if Stephanes
actually restricts anything at all. The Lula administration does not
have a noteworthy environmental record.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Lula suspects that European competitors are trying to
undermine Brazil’s biofuel production by raising environmental concerns.
“We have adversaries that will make up any kind of slander against the
quality of ethanol and biodiesel.”<br />
<br />
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<br />
So, sugar cane is grown on a small scale in the Amazon, and more of
it will be planted there in the near future, even if the bulk of
production occurs in the Southeast and Center-West. In addition,
climactic alterations wrought by deforestation could change the Amazon’s
climate, making it more suitable for large-scale sugar-cane production.<br />
<br />
Biofuel will affect the Amazon rain forest in four ways. First, there
will be increased biofuel production in some form. Secondly, since 700
sq. km. of the cerrado lie in the Amazon river basin, deforestation and
irrigation in the cerrado will affect the rain-forest areas to the
North. Thirdly, much soybean production and ranching will move into the
Amazon as farmers in Brazil’s South and Center-West invest further in
sugarcane. And, fourthly, the massive allocation of corn in the U.S. for
ethanol production, and its effect on the planting of soy and other
U.S. food crops, will create a greater global demand for Brazilian soy
and corn, which in turn will cause more agricultural expansion into the
Amazon.<br />
<br />
A Brazilian Forestry code limits the deforestation allowable on
Amazon rain forest or cerrado land, and require large “legal reserves”
of protected natural vegetation. However, Brazil is a country with an
ineffective judicial system, and little enforcement. The law won’t make
much difference, not in the near future.<br />
<br />
In terms of biodiversity, the outlook isn’t pretty. Brazil will lose
out because of species loss, should the cerrado be further devastated.
The cerrado, like the Amazon, can be a source of important new medicines
and chemicals derived from the vast variety of plant and insect species
there, many not yet discovered. In addition, further deforestation will
cause soil erosion, damage watershed, and cause climactic change in
Brazil. It would make sense if soy and cane growers developed biofuel
only on already degraded land in the cerrado, or in São Paulo state, as
promised in speeches by politicians, but it’s unlikely to happen.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<strong>Conservation, Alternative Energy & Cellulosic Ethanol</strong><br />
So, where your ethanol comes from is important. Making ethanol from
food crops is not a wise strategy for various reasons (see my blog <em>Gas, Grass or Corn...Nobody Rides for Free</em>).<br />
Neither is producing it from crops grown in biodiversity hotspots, nor
creating biofuel through agriculture that shifts other crops into
environmentally threatened zones.<br />
<br />
The best approach is investing in cellulosic ethanol production,
which will make ethyl alcohol from the cellulose in trees and grasses
(including the “switchgrass” often referred to by President Bush).
Cellulosic ethanol has a high net energy balance, and can be grown on
degraded land or areas that are less important in terms of biodiversity.
It is a few years away from being viable.<br />
<br />
What make the most sense of all is energy conservation and
alternative energy (as in wind and solar power). Shouldn’t we be
investing in these instead of giving pork-barrel subsidies to American
farmers to make ethanol out of corn, which can’t even compete with
Brazil’s ethanol? Why can’t we spend billions on a “Manhattan Project”
for conservation and efficiency, and have it run by an energy genius
like the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Amory Lovins?<br />
<br />
And wouldn’t it be great if Steve Case, Vinod Khosla, Ron Burkle,
Steve Bing, James Wolfensohn, George Soros, Larry Page and Sergey Brin
invested in environmentally enlightened energy companies that dealt with
solar power, wind power, cellulosic ethanol, or energy management and
conservation?<br />
<br />
In conclusion, Brazil is already on a perilous path of deforestation.
A dramatic increase in its biofuel production is not the best answer to
global energy woes, nor the best strategy for the country’s future, in
terms of the environment. Foreign investment in ethanol and biodiesel
will help accelerate the disappearance of the cerrado and the Amazon.
Both could be gone in a few decades.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_______ </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-24254054594425016832018-07-10T08:41:00.002-07:002018-07-12T14:12:30.515-07:00The Importance of Being Cerrado: Brazil's Other Huge, Endangered Ecosystem<div class="js-sharebar-comments share-bar__comments yr-share-item yr-track" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-share-name="comments_open" data-type="comments" data-ylk="subsec:share;ct:story;itc:0;slk:comments_open">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
by Chris McGowan<br />
(March 18, 2010, <i>The Huffington Post</i>)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Everyone knows the vital importance of the Amazon rain forest for our
planet, but few are aware that right next door is another endangered
ecosystem of great size and considerable significance. The Cerrado is a
vast savanna that stretches across two million square kilometers in
central Brazil, covering an area larger than Alaska. The Cerrado deserves our attention: it is one of the oldest
and most diverse tropical ecosystems and is under grave threat because
of the country’s agricultural boom. The Cerrado has lost 48% of its
original vegetation and is disappearing faster than the Amazon rain
forest; it may be gone before we realize what we’ve lost. And its health
affects its neighboring biome’s health; many large tributaries of the
Amazon River originate in the Cerrado.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrgxsUtWCzQRVS3D7Gsq8txGPSd7T2WJ39o_T-20w5zjDsr1HgN9DtUooV85XGxz9J0lhYA8II_KgSzXia1E0V0PVUKuQxuJePul-Yj28cC5AQr0fEBN1tXerm7f8LKHXeXoYiCslZ1zT2/s1600/o-tamandua-bandeira-um-dos-mamiferos-encontrados-no-cerrado-esta-ameacado-extincao-591b0d0476d6d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="885" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrgxsUtWCzQRVS3D7Gsq8txGPSd7T2WJ39o_T-20w5zjDsr1HgN9DtUooV85XGxz9J0lhYA8II_KgSzXia1E0V0PVUKuQxuJePul-Yj28cC5AQr0fEBN1tXerm7f8LKHXeXoYiCslZ1zT2/s320/o-tamandua-bandeira-um-dos-mamiferos-encontrados-no-cerrado-esta-ameacado-extincao-591b0d0476d6d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Tamandua (Anteaster)</div>
<br />
The Cerrado consists of open grasslands, grasslands mixed with shrubs
and small trees, and dry-forest woodlands. The region is much drier
than the Amazon, which it borders along the latter’s southeastern edge;
the Cerrado has a long annual dry season and its plants are
drought-tolerant and often fire-adapted. Jaguars, giant anteaters, maned
wolves, foxes, pampas deer, tapirs, capybaras, and monkeys live in the
Cerrado, as do nearly 200 other mammals, 600 bird species, 220 reptiles,
and more than 10,000 plant species (44% endemic, according to
Conservation International). The Cerrado is the most biologically
diverse savanna on Earth. It is the home of many of Brazil’s indigenous
peoples, who have been adversely affected by the deforestation, and the
location of major cities like Brasília, the country’s capital.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOobyZMvb-6R0skqJdfvpgCld4g_KPjBxZ4rdv97clvlWSsGtHRUEUwZ1EZUyH5R4nIrNkwhf4QV2jUUbSLwGx8DwbtqvO6VuAxdFG1IJ5x4ZXIVx7DMRXALNO44mE3kR1Zh6TfSkbu1n/s1600/ipe-amarelo-cascudo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1052" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOobyZMvb-6R0skqJdfvpgCld4g_KPjBxZ4rdv97clvlWSsGtHRUEUwZ1EZUyH5R4nIrNkwhf4QV2jUUbSLwGx8DwbtqvO6VuAxdFG1IJ5x4ZXIVx7DMRXALNO44mE3kR1Zh6TfSkbu1n/s320/ipe-amarelo-cascudo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Ipe Amarelo (Handroanthus chrysotrichus)</div>
<br />
The acidic red soils of the Cerrado were considered infertile until
the late 20th century. Then, thanks to research by Embrapa, a Brazilian
government agency, a suitable mixture of phosphorus and lime was applied
to Cerrado soils, turning them into prime farmland. The agricultural
boom that resulted is startling: the region now contributes the majority
of Brazil’s enormous soybean output, and a substantial part of its
corn, rice, and cotton production. It is also leads the country in
cattle ranching. Farmers are stripping the Cerrado of its native
vegetation to plant crops, create pasture for livestock, and to make
charcoal for the steel industry. According to a Sept. 6th, 2009 article
in the newspaper <i>O Globo</i>, 48.5% of the Cerrado region had lost
its natural vegetation as of 2008, a big jump from the 38.9% figure for
2002. The figures come from a study by Brazil’s Ministry of the
Environment (MMA); some scientists cite higher numbers.<br />
<br />
These figures are even scarier when one considers that only 10.6% of
the Cerrado had been cleared as of 1970, according to scientists Carlos
A. Klink and Adriana G. Moreira, in an article in the book <i>The Cerrados of Brazil: Ecology and Natural History of a Neotropical Savanna</i>.
This rapid conversion of the Cerrado has helped to power the Brazilian
economy in recent years, and there is big money at stake. It is not
surprising then that those who promote agriculture in the Cerrado tend
to describe its natural vegetation as “scrub” and “wasteland.” They also
take pains to misleadingly argue that biofuel will have no effect on
the Cerrado, when indirectly it could have a devastating effect by
shifting even more soy farming and cattle ranching to the region (see my
blog <a data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="1" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="elm:context_link;itc:0" href="http://chrismcgowanarchive.blogspot.com/2018/07/biofuel-could-eat-brazils-savannas.html" rel="" target="_hplink">Biofuel Could Eat Brazil’s Savannas & Deforest the Amazon</a>).<br />
<br />
There are arguments that abandoned pastureland in the Cerrado can
provide plenty of space for more agriculture and that the region can
easily become the breadbasket of the world. Embrapa maintains that
“production in the Cerrado can increase on existing lands with greater
efficiency, not needing expansion. Grain production in the Cerrado, for
example, increased 129.7 percent from 1991 to 2007, but the area
harvested increased by only 25.9 percent,” wrote Sara Llana in the Nov.
12, 2008 <i>Christian Science Monitor</i>. Nevertheless, the pace of
Cerrado destruction continues unabated, with 194,000 square kilometers
of deforestation from 2002 to 2008, according to the MMA study quoted by
<i>O Globo</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy3ZdZ70i00__NcvuNoPbCfN39hvu3S8CYuK5imIHnoNy1ipB66WFwounqwYt2tdAY1mtgK7jq6GYvmwTRu5JkQyNCN0e4X4hiQzkFTVu8oirlQ2VjMMfgcbdZ_4kOfT0Y71ALx-geNvHb/s1600/a-estufa-do-cerrado-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="923" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy3ZdZ70i00__NcvuNoPbCfN39hvu3S8CYuK5imIHnoNy1ipB66WFwounqwYt2tdAY1mtgK7jq6GYvmwTRu5JkQyNCN0e4X4hiQzkFTVu8oirlQ2VjMMfgcbdZ_4kOfT0Y71ALx-geNvHb/s320/a-estufa-do-cerrado-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
If we lose the Cerrado, we lose the possible medical and other uses
that may one day come from the known and unknown species of the biome.
In addition, the Cerrado is a large part of the watershed for the mighty
San Francisco and Paraguay River systems, and contains 700,000 square
kilometers of land located within the Amazon Basin (the total area that
drains into the Amazon River system; not to be confused with the Amazon
rain forest). If farmers remove the native Cerrado vegetation, ruin its
ecosystems, and pour fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides onto
hundreds of thousands of square kilometers there, the Amazon rain forest
downstream will suffer from pollution and a possible loss of rainfall.
Brazil will be despoiling some of its most important water resources. In
addition, Cerrado deforestation is a major part of Brazil’s carbon
emissions every year, a problem that must be addressed.<br />
<br />
The loss of Cerrado vegetation is also a blow to the culinary world. The region has native fruits like <i>araticum, buriti, cagaita, ingá, jatobá, magaba, pitaya, pitomba</i> and <i>pequi</i> that are eaten regionally but are often little known in the rest of Brazil. One of my favorite Cerrado foods is the delicious <i>baru</i> nut, which comes from the <i>baruzeiro</i>
tree (dipteryx alata). The brown nut has a rich taste and high mineral
and protein content; it is every bit as appealing as popular nuts like
almonds, peanuts and cashews and would sell well on the international
market. Unfortunately, the tree is considered “vulnerable” by the IUCN
(International Union for Conservation of Nature), which has written,
“the species has suffered from habitat conversion to agriculture. In
addition, exploitation of its excellent timber and medicinal seeds has
led to massive declines in population numbers.”<br />
<br />
At the present rate of destruction, the Cerrado ecosystem could
disappear almost entirely within a few decades. Less than two percent of
the Cerrado is located within national parks or conservation areas,
according to the Nature Conservancy (in addition, a percentage of native
habitat is supposed to be protected on all private land, by law).<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
A mother Ema and her offspring</div>
<br />
Fortunately, Brazil’s environmental minister Carlos Minc is one
individual who is conscious of the Cerrado’s plight. Speaking of the
deforestation of the Amazon and the Cerrado on Sept. 10, he commented,
“Happily, with government programs we managed to reduce the deforestion
of the Amazon biome by half. The bad news is we couldn’t do the same for
the Cerrado.” That day, Minc announced a plan to prevent deforestation
and wildfires in the Cerrado biomes, along the lines of similar plans
currently in action in the Amazon.<br />
<br />
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first environmental
minister, Marina Silva, resigned in May of 2008, frustrated by
interference by agricultural interests (and her boss), especially in
terms of her attempts to protect the Amazon. She is now running for
president herself next year, against Lula’s hand-picked candidate, Dilma
Rousseff. Carlos Minc took over Silva’s job and has also clashed with
the agricultural lobby, yet seems to be making progress. He says that
Brazil will increase the amount of Cerrado land under protection. Let’s
hope Minc keeps working hard to save the Amazon and the Cerrado both,
and that he isn’t fired by Lula, who usually puts development first.<br />
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_______ </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-43654429948592175762017-05-15T15:35:00.000-07:002019-06-06T21:08:20.824-07:00An Appreciation of the Criterion Collection<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6Fx_blTls4ZuhA4ygFlEUsVRXJW4T1V8K26DdAl-obb2DEJSJzwBE-5656pFI3VwZsJjQ9o2Pk5VF91zc7wggGwCZIALi71I6sjnpXLSy96Tl6pFJMhxsfK7PwRXQgTolNEfz5kKUwXw/s1600/JC+Criterion+catalog+94.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6Fx_blTls4ZuhA4ygFlEUsVRXJW4T1V8K26DdAl-obb2DEJSJzwBE-5656pFI3VwZsJjQ9o2Pk5VF91zc7wggGwCZIALi71I6sjnpXLSy96Tl6pFJMhxsfK7PwRXQgTolNEfz5kKUwXw/s320/JC+Criterion+catalog+94.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>
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<i>In 1994, I wrote an essay titled "An Appreciation of the Criterion Collection" for the company's tenth-anniversary catalog. A small company in Santa Monica, Criterion single-handedly created a market in the 1980s for the nascent laserdisc format with its painstaking releases of classic American and international films with their aspect ratios intact and a wealth of interactive supplementary material. This content was later transferred over to the DVD and Blu-ray formats. Criterion was a pioneer in interactive media and popularized letterboxed releases, which arguably led to an acceptance of widescreen TVs by early adopters and, now, full widescreen formats shown on our big-screen televisions.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Here is the original text:</i><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> A Tribute To The Criterion Collection</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(originally published in 1994)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">by
Chris McGowan</span></b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">A decade ago, in the Orwellian year of 1984, The Voyager Company
introduced its Criterion Collection line of special edition laserdiscs. Few of
us then could have predicted how much this event would eventually benefit film
lovers. And fewer still could have known how Voyager, in its way, would strike
a blow against the gray world of uniformity prophesied by novelist George
Orwell. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Why is the Criterion Collection so significant?</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">The cinema at its best is an eloquent and powerful expression of the
human spirit. It can inspire, astonish, provoke, and enlighten. Frequently, it
runs afoul of private interests and collective imperatives, giving us an
unflinchingly honest look at life, culture, and politics. This is never Big
Brother's cup of tea. Directors like Altman, Bergman, Bunuel, Fellini,
Kurosawa, Renoir, and Welles struggle to reveal the human condition, not to
pacify the populace or rally support among the troops.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Criterion has taken many of the most profound and important movies from
around the world and presented them in their entirety. The director's vision is
uncensored, restored, and as complete as possible. It is presented with the
best possible film-to-video transfer, and preserved in a format—the laserdisc—that
is fairly permanent compared to the fragile medium of videotape. Add to that
the remarkable extras included with many Criterion editions, and the folks at
Criterion have become the <i>de facto</i> guardians of some of our most precious
cultural works.</span><br />
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Criterion was also a key player in the establishment of laserdiscs as
the home video format of choice for cinephiles. The debut of the first
Criterion Collection titles—<i>Citizen Kane</i> and <i>King Kong</i> in 1984—convinced
many film aficionados to invest in a laserdisc player. Both releases featured
state-of-the-art transfers and electronic enhancements of the image. They were
in the CAV (full feature) format, which allowed the viewing of individual film
frames and the inclusion of supplemental material such as text and photographs.
Voyager was the first company to use these features to enhance a feature film
presentation. <i>Citizen Kane</i> and <i>King Kong</i> had production shots,
film essays, and trailers.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">And over the years, the Collection kept adding more to the discs. <i>The
Magnificent Ambersons</i> included storyboards, the entire original shooting
script, and the text of an earlier radio-play version. <i>Close Encounters Of
The Third Kind</i> enabled us to watch either of two versions of the movie (!).
<i>Ghostbusters</i> was a primer in special effects technology. <i>The Fisher
King</i> featured deleted scenes and costume tests. And <i>Akira</i> had
thousands of frames of original artwork and an in-depth study of the animation
process.</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPHiS7KPXUE8ahYw7zhGxcAvZP8V3r6kmov1UXugHNxIOD8xTdMSX3ADXnHJquoVV3sthLN6rBA9GGkgiTQVQA1qOKICvkjeKnTEtPU_UIasoAVUg2GSvhcK3BTtDCiyS7yXng4dSsiE2s/s1600/7baa87b43f169eb896fec55b30a9a2b4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="784" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPHiS7KPXUE8ahYw7zhGxcAvZP8V3r6kmov1UXugHNxIOD8xTdMSX3ADXnHJquoVV3sthLN6rBA9GGkgiTQVQA1qOKICvkjeKnTEtPU_UIasoAVUg2GSvhcK3BTtDCiyS7yXng4dSsiE2s/s320/7baa87b43f169eb896fec55b30a9a2b4.jpg" width="314" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><br />Criterion took the special, but previously unused, features possible
only in the laserdisc medium and utilized them in wildly imaginative ways. For
example, every laserdisc has multiple audio tracks. On <i>King Kong</i>,
Criterion pulled off a neat trick and took full advantage of that capability:
they included both the movie's regular soundtrack and a parallel audio
commentary by film historian Ron Haver. The latter provided a shot-by-shot,
scene-by-scene analysis as the movie played. This was an astounding innovation,
and over the past decade, Voyager has released dozens of classic movies with
film critics, screenwriters, and directors like Altman, Coppola, Gilliam,
Malle, Pollack, Schlesinger, and Scorsese supplying on-disc commentaries.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Many of these directors are probably still in shock at finding their
films so lovingly treated, after years of dealing with hostile or indifferent
studio executives. The filmmakers discuss their daily decisions, mistakes, and
flashes of inspiration during the shoots. They reveal the intended meanings and
the accidental symbols contained in their films. And as they reminisce and
analyze, we see on screen exactly what they are talking about. What film
student or professor could have imagined this in his or her wildest reverie
just 15 years ago? These are the world's greatest film seminars, often led by
the directors (or other key figures) of the movies themselves!</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">What Criterion has done is to invent the annotated movie, replete with
subtext, missing text, and might-have-been text. Those of us who love great
films owe Voyager an incalculable debt for that, as well as for another heroic
feat: the presentation of films in their original aspect ratios.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Before the Criterion Collection existed, all Cinemascope and other
widescreen films suffered a debilitating pan-and-scan treatment that lopped off
their sides to fit them into the square-ish television screen, be it for
broadcast or home video release. "Enough!" cried Criterion, and inaugurated
a policy of releasing all films in their original aspect ratios, presenting
widescreen films without cropping them to the dimensions of a TV screen.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDjPqSYlUIfwkL02OZLdZfoCYWiP70ckxCyUhq_WWRwuQt0n1oVNgEQaEXY7tGE1FRaSlsg1jKtzeKyyoFesD_jC-Tr7ahE7PWUe0vnOs1jXBITQsbpB80e24fuzotzZ9I3WBEm5zOpLj/s1600/blade_runner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="591" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDjPqSYlUIfwkL02OZLdZfoCYWiP70ckxCyUhq_WWRwuQt0n1oVNgEQaEXY7tGE1FRaSlsg1jKtzeKyyoFesD_jC-Tr7ahE7PWUe0vnOs1jXBITQsbpB80e24fuzotzZ9I3WBEm5zOpLj/s320/blade_runner.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Skeptics (most of the home video industry) laughed, but the cineastes
went crazy. Criterion pressed on, with <i>Blade Runner, Lawrence Of Arabia</i>,
and other letterboxed films. Eventually, the other video labels followed suit
and began to release widescreen versions in droves, and some special editions
as well. By 1993 there were more than 700 widescreen laserdisc titles available
in North America—and it all started with Criterion. [Today there are thousands
of widescreen DVDs, not to mention widescreen TVs].</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Under its line of Voyager laserdiscs, many other feats have been
accomplished: the first annotated TV episodes (<i>I Love Lucy</i>); the first
annotated collection of music videos (<i>The Residents: 20 Twisted Questions</i>);
the release of many wonderful titles in the areas of art, poetry, mythology,
and philosophy; trend setting CD-ROM multimedia productions; and electronic
books.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Looking back to Voyager's beginning, it was rather presumptuous on their
part to name a laserdisc line "The Criterion Collection." Yet it has
certainly lived up to the word, in two ways. In the Chambers dictionary,
"criterion" is defined as "a means or standard of judging; a
test; a rule; standard or canon." Criterion laserdiscs have become the
standard by which we judge other laserdiscs. And they are also the standard for
judging the movies they present, by giving us the insights and intentions of
those who made them.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi61o4mYrU2Yhdny3N2gxoGELn9Vq1EVlTRVAGiSkCOlgVixIw1YFB8NNJ8ZBNc088i7yFJE9Vk3UofPCPoYJ4G0CZ3nwJ5od9flpQk0mjLlxKPzwrjMde4ef-AlGAkK1H1C7JiYc9oIeEt/s1600/s-l640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi61o4mYrU2Yhdny3N2gxoGELn9Vq1EVlTRVAGiSkCOlgVixIw1YFB8NNJ8ZBNc088i7yFJE9Vk3UofPCPoYJ4G0CZ3nwJ5od9flpQk0mjLlxKPzwrjMde4ef-AlGAkK1H1C7JiYc9oIeEt/s320/s-l640.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">There are many filmmakers who would agree with Terry Gilliam, who
remarked rather whimsically: "It's nice working with people for whom
profit isn't the only reason for existence. They seem to be actually interested
in film."</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">And then there is Louis Malle, who simply states: "Voyager is
spectacular!"</span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">We eagerly await the next ten years. </span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2GC0TdZkVnGqqf0Ymj8w4OWJsFIbd9_yadqZs_DaXyM4YgCxZkYZD7bjjHE3sKeY6t6L_gp-MVWQJCtHh5_go2Jn4upgEfIarKFCC8JZBez0SJWxTDh2G5IHpb5MHuyEhB1JB257jU9jt/s1600/JC+Crit+catalog+essay+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2GC0TdZkVnGqqf0Ymj8w4OWJsFIbd9_yadqZs_DaXyM4YgCxZkYZD7bjjHE3sKeY6t6L_gp-MVWQJCtHh5_go2Jn4upgEfIarKFCC8JZBez0SJWxTDh2G5IHpb5MHuyEhB1JB257jU9jt/s320/JC+Crit+catalog+essay+1.jpg" width="244" /></a> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">_______</span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6075358197613709554.post-89665135168595973642016-08-15T15:34:00.001-07:002024-03-27T21:14:00.878-07:00The Deodar Tree: Sacred Conifer from the Himalayas<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyoCLMHapsXvWuwbfxmOEtLVEt0M8OiCNWPdgmj3rR0MpvuV0qyIh8ThniHDf7Ppi6S2yIVF8I3YIY7juCr2banOz4Mr2r1bm2UvayiVyJshFnrjxSubUaE40jqHI507a5Ii7lhHrKNtzG/s1600-h/deodar1.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175010458428760610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyoCLMHapsXvWuwbfxmOEtLVEt0M8OiCNWPdgmj3rR0MpvuV0qyIh8ThniHDf7Ppi6S2yIVF8I3YIY7juCr2banOz4Mr2r1bm2UvayiVyJshFnrjxSubUaE40jqHI507a5Ii7lhHrKNtzG/s200/deodar1.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a><br />
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The deodar is a sacred tree in the northwestern Himalayas that has been planted extensively as an ornamental in Europe and North America. The towering, stately conifer has a striking appearance; its expressively pointed and drooping branches make it look like a sentient tree from an enchanted forest. One could imagine a deodar picking up its immense roots and striding forth, like an Ent from <i>The Lord of the Rings.</i> A dense forest of them in Kashmir must seem haunted indeed in the summer moonlight.</div>
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I grew up with deodars, as my grandparents’ house in Southern California had two enormous ones in the backyard, the silver-green tops of which were visible blocks away. I spent many an hour climbing up the thick branches, which were wide-spaced and easy to negotiate, and sitting with my back to the rough grey-brown bark. The sap was fragrant and hard to wash off my hands. I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed spending time aloft in those trees. Squirrels raced in spirals up and down the big trunks and chattered from the heights. And great horned owls perched in the branches at night, hooting in the wee hours.</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175010084766605842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXKgyVIVmpYLxrHaq8pxn6MT-e38rEoP462DymVdKh-EeVrKpHBkRGRe0NQfqze1aFlKfiHb4dOa5rjhgAao1CjAl_W8GqOrQfkzelVxtqDQu35CziqBXWbMaxHzOaYgIhwgNYE78JaMs/s200/ChristmasTreeLanePostcard.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /><br />
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We lived only a few miles away from Altadena, a neighborhood squeezed between Pasadena and the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. Deodars shade many lawns there, and provide a place-name: Deodara Drive. Two hundred of the conifers line Santa Rosa Avenue, and residents string them with lights every December, creating Altadena’s “Christmas Tree Lane,” a popular yuletide destination. Glowing lights also adorn tall deodars during the holidays in nearby San Marino on St. Albans Avenue. A few blocks away, the Huntington Library and Gardens is home to some impressive deodars planted in 1912, according to botanist Jim Bauml.</div>
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Growing up in the area, I was always curious about deodars, even more so when I discovered their origin. The word deodar comes from devadaru, a Sanskrit word that translates to “divine wood” or “timber of God.” The deodar is revered in the Himalayas and frequently mentioned in Hindu stories. Kashmiri and Punjabi villagers worshipped the “devadara” tree god.</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175013911582466658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikZz64a_jrkwVmiNylztxg3i-iuytsTmtMFm5kC31PJJL_KKy5nRvo1crQNcVhuDmn3CJeUzzmOrUdWARYbrYglSat4RoPcmYBlcSi_WcINf3vp2cLU4fzb5mKX6UVjDkKcO9COG25wqMP/s200/deodarspak_.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /><br />
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Deodars range across the Hindu Kush and Himalayas, at elevations from about 3,500 to 12,000 feet. They are native to northeastern Afghanistan, Pakistan (where it is the national tree), India and western Nepal. Deodars are common in the regions of Punjab, Kashmir and the Himachal Pradesh. Extensive forests still exist in the basin of the main tributaries of the Indus River. They can live to be a thousand years old and grow as tall as 250 feet, which was first established by British botanist Dr. J. Lindsay Stewart, Conservator of Forests in the Punjab region in colonial India in the mid-19th century.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Cedrus Deodara</span> is a member of an Old World genus of “true cedars,” that also includes the Biblically famous <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Cedrus Libani</span>, or cedar of Lebanon. It is also related to the Atlas Cedar of the mountains of Northern Africa. The wood has a fine close grain capable of receiving a high polish, and it is in high demand as a building material. Deodar wood is often used both to construct religious temples and to landscape the grounds around them. “As Himalaya is considered to be the home of gods, it is believed that the forests are the part of their house. The landscape around temple is considered sacred and is preserved as temple grove. The tree of Cedrus deodara is believed to be the tree of God and is planted around temples,” wrote the authors of a 2006 article in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Journal of American Science</span>.</div>
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Deodar wood is extremely durable and rot-resistant. Deodar pillars of the great Shah Hamaden Mosque in Kashmir are over four centuries old. Hindu temples have been reputedly been built with deodar wood that has lasted 600 to 800 years. A 1926 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Scientific American</span> article described a bridge in Kashmir with deodar timber that was little decayed after four centuries of exposure to river water.<br />
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When the British colonized India, deodar wood became the most sought after timber in the country and was used extensively for the construction of barracks, public buildings, bridges, canals and railway cars. The demand became so great that numerous deodar forests were harvested beyond the point of recovery and conservationist action was initiated in 1864 by the aforementioned Dr. Stewart. Unfortunately, deodar deforestation has picked up in recent decades, across the Hindu Kush and Himalayas.<br />
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Deodar wood is also prized for its curative properties. According to Indian Ayurvedic medicine, deodar bark, oil and wood powder possess anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties; and are used against fever, diarrhea and dysentery, for skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis, and to aid digestion. Insects avoid the wood, and an oil distilled from the deodar has been used as an application to the feet of horses, cattle and camels as a preventive against the bites of the troublesome Himalayan “potu” fly. The aromatic wood is used as incense. And, as if all that weren’t enough, Hindu Kush sibyls (female oracles) have used the smoke of burning deodar wood for divine inspiration. Clearly, the deodar is a most useful tree.<br />
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Deodar seeds made their way to Great Britain in 1831, and ten years later to Ireland and Scotland. In 1885, an Altadena resident named John Woodbury planted two hundred deodar saplings in parallel rows on his family’s rancho, down what is now Santa Rosa Avenue. They have been festooned with Christmas lights every year since 1920.<br />
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The next time you see one of these beautiful, striking trees in Pasadena or Palo Alto, San Francisco or Seattle, remember that it’s not a pine tree. Rather, you are gazing upon devadaru, the “tree of God.”<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">To help preserve remaining stands of deodars in their native habitats, these organizations are both involved with conservation and reforestation efforts in the Himalayas:</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.thesiredmundhillaryfoundation.ca/">Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/">World Wildlife Fund</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0