Saturday, December 16, 2017

Putting Voter Suppression on the Map

As I mentioned in Dying to Vote after watching Selma last year, fear of black voters was the main motivator of those who violently opposed the civil-rights movement. Overcoming obstacles to the vote likewise became the chief concern of the movement. A half-century after the shameful events in Alabama, we all celebrate a narrow victory over bigotry in Alabama that would have been won by a wider margin, had the spirit of Bull Conner not continued to guide the state's political leadership.

The current "Weekend Read" article by the Southern Poverty Law Center is essential reading for anybody who is interested in the foundational concept of one person, one vote. That is, it should be essential reading for everybody. It details the many ways in which political elites in Alabama continue to work against the voting rights of African Americans. It is a very well-researched article, full of links to careful documentation of its alarming claims.

The 2013 reversal of key provisions of the Voting Rights Act led to predictable -- and predicted --outcomes. Alabama was among the first states to follow the Supreme Court's dog whistle, and to enact rules touted as preventing voter fraud but calculated to suppress votes.

An example can be found on the map of states in which a required photo-ID cannot be obtained, because of the closure of licensing offices. The U.S. Department of Transportation has confirmed what those who know Alabama can discern right away: this map disproportionately favors white voters.
Map: Kyle Whitmire
As blogger Kyle Whitmire of AL.com discerned by making his own map, the closure of licensing offices was guided by race. Just as a driver's license became essential to exercising one's Constitutional right to vote, the state closed licensing facilities in 8 of the 10 counties with the greatest proportion of minority voters, including many counties in the state's famed Black Belt, a region (shown in blue below) that voted most heavily for Doug Jones in the recent special election for the U.S. Senate.
Narrow victory over voter suppression.
Map: New York Times
The state did not limit its voter suppression to the one-two punch of requiring drivers licenses and then selectively closing the offices where they could be obtained. Ironically, Secretary of State John Merrill argued against the automatic voter registration that many states now attach to those very same licenses. Apparently in complete ignorance of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, he argued that "just because you turned 18 doesn't give you the right to do anything."

Alabama is not the sole exponent of voter suppression in the U.S., of course, nor has the practice historically been limited to one party or the other. As the demographics of the country shift toward more racial diversity, however, the use of maps, registration rules, immigration law, and criminal law to suppress votes increases.

All of these tools are increasingly favored as ways for politicians to choose their voters, rather than taking the risk of allowing the reverse to happen. My Bad Salamander post cites some particularly egregious examples of mapping with political intent; my Embattled Borderlands and Human Sieve posts, while not specifically about voting, hint at the political uses of immigration policies.

Lagniappe

Although many of Roy Moore's partisan supporters argued that the "voters of Alabama" should settle the question of whether the accused pedofile should serve as a U.S. Senator, they are now working feverishly to suppress those voters for just long enough to preclude their input on a "tax bill" that will restructure wealth distribution, environmental protection, health care, reproductive rights, and much more. Sen. Mitch McConnell -- who initially opposed Roy Moore -- is now rushing the bill through the senate, while delaying the seating of Senator Jones, a well-known nemesis of the KKK.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Ventura's Second Burn


As reported by CNBC, recent fires in California have been quite startling when viewed in satellite images, most dramatically in the December 5 image above, captured by the European Space Agency Sentinel-2. The report includes the long-archaic superlative "visible from space," which is also true of objects as small as my garage on publicly-available imagery and as small as my dog's eyelashes with spy satellites. (Well, maybe I exaggerate; I have no way of knowing.)

Back to the original story -- the reporting provides several examples of the use of geotechnologies on the part of NASA and other agencies both for monitoring climate change and other changes in earth systems, and to guiding responses to disasters. It may be in part because the monitoring verifies uncomfortable truths about human interactions with the environment, that NASA is being directed to return its focus to lunar exploration.

Using clear-sky imagery -- from NASA by way of Google -- the same area of Ventura County can be seen to include not only seascapes, hilly scrubland, and urban areas, but also active petroleum exploration. Into the area between Dulah and Route 33 to see that each of the speckles in that part of the image is a parking pad around a petroleum well.



Lagniappe: Artistic Relief

Like many people of a certain age, I cannot hear the words "Ventura County" without this song playing in my head, as it has been doing now for a couple of weeks. The YouTube user "Stay Tuned" has done us the favor of creating a slideshow that pays homage to the beauty of the area in more settled times.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Finity

I write this post from our family's "Whaling House" near the historic whaling port of New Bedford, where we are members of the Whaling Museum. I am also an active member Whaling City Rowing and the Azorean Maritime Heritage Society, where I have learned how to row whaleboats. We even have a harpoon leaning in the corner. 

Like many others in the area, I enjoy the stories of Moby-Dick and the Essex, and learning about the lives of those who worked in this most gruesome of trades for more than a century. I have learned that I need to be careful, as my enthusiasm has occasionally given students the impression that I actually hunt whales myself. That became clear when I showed a class this image of spermaceti oil that was recovered from a beached sperm whale on Nantucket.  
Pure spermaceti oil at the Whaling Museum of Nantucket; for a brief time,  this snapshot I took was the official WikiMedia image of the historic material. 
I had to assure the class that I had not hunted the whale from which these samples were collected, and that I fully support the end of whale-hunting. Indeed, the institutions I mention above all support the protection of whales, though some whaling nations continue to block protection measures.

All of this is prelude to two important stories that I heard on the radio yesterday that I see as related to each other, and to the problem of the finity of natural resources. Both stories were reported by the talented science journalists Dr. Heather Goldstone and Elsa Parton on Living Lab Radio.

I recommend taking the time to listen to each story carefully, and to contemplate what they teach us about the interactions among perpetual, renewable, and finite resources. (Vocabulary note: Some geographers, including this one, consider "renewable" the appropriate term for biological resources that can be renewed but whose overuse can lead to their decline. More common usage also applies the term "renewable" to resources we would call "perpetual," such as wind and solar power.)

The first story is an interview with Frank O'Sullivan, who has co-authored important studies on the futures of natural gas and of solar energy. In Can We Skip?, he and Heather Goldstone spend 15 minutes carefully comparing the two and addressing whether one can be viewed as a bridge to the other. The reasons that natural gas is environmentally better than coal are explained, as are recent and expected trends in its use, particularly in New England. The conversation also details why natural gas is neither a permanent solution nor something we can easily abandon right now.
Image: Smithsonian Ocean Portal
From this story about 21st-century energy resources, the program moved to the latest of several it has aired on the plight of the right whale, whose demise was part of the story of energy a century ago. The name of this whale (actually three related species of baleen whale) reveals something about its plight. 

A source of both baleen (the plastic of pre-petroleum days) and lamp oil, whalers referred to these species as the "right" ones to hunt. A vast, renewable, and seemingly infinite resource was thus hunted to a small fraction of its prior population.  The official marine mammal of Massachusetts now numbers only 450 individuals, which are dying at a steady rate because of collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear, especially lobster pots. A conversation with Woods Hole expert Mark Baumgartner explains what has made this great whale so vulnerable, and promising technology to help save it from extinction.

I was interested to hear these two stories together, because of two earlier posts on this blog that connect fossil fuels and whaling -- Peak Whale (2011) and Plank to the Future (2013).

Saturday, December 09, 2017

Pottersville Public

SPOILER ALERT: I take it for granted that everyone has seen It's A Wonderful Life, but of course each person has to have a first time. If you have not yet seen this, please go find it and come back to this commentary. I think it is especially important to watch it if English is not your first language -- as with the film Wizard of Oz, this is full of expressions that have become common in American English.

My favorite librarian and I have watched It's a Wonderful Life together just about every year we have been together, and I know I had watched it quite a few times before that; so I have seen it at least three dozen times.

We know every line, and find ourselves speaking lines from the film to each other throughout the year. Among the most common:
"I've been nominated for membership in the National Geographic Society."
and
"She's ... she's just about to close up the library!"
Last week, we had a special treat, seeing it on the big screen at the historic Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford. When I hear the cliché that films are better on the big screen, I think of films with sweeping landscapes -- or seascapes, as in Moby-Dick. We had seen that film on the same screen a few weeks ago -- in the audience with some who had watched it with Gregory Peck during its premiere. The Z (of which we are members) has been working with the mayor to organize free screenings of classic films.

I did not expect as much from the big-screen viewing of the Jimmy Stewart classic, which is focused very closely on one person and his relationships with other people. Sweeping landscapes have nothing to do with it. I was pleased to learn that I was mistaken -- seeing the film as the director intended reveals so much about a director's craft that a small screen cannot convey.

As well as I know the story, seeing it on the large screen allowed me to fall more deeply into it than usual. I frequently think about the class implications of the dystopian sequence at the end of the film. Without the equalizing influence of George Bailey and the Building & Loan, the already uneven distribution of wealth in Bedford Falls becomes more extreme. Capra paints a grim alternative history, plunging the viewer for just a dozen minutes or so into a community that has spun out of control.

And yet, and yet ...

Even in Pottersville, even in the fevered imaginings of the selfish Henry Potter -- "a warped, frustrated old man" -- there is a public library. Increasingly, public libraries -- along with public schools, streets, and other basic services -- face drastic cuts and even elimination.


We only see its exterior, and the lighting is spooky. But in Pottersville, public funds support a public library. The most selfish, self-serving person Frank Capra could imagine would be considered a political moderate today, when all public services are subject to elimination or privatization. In some jurisdictions, Potter would be too liberal to be elected to Congress, at risk of being "primaried" by someone more stingy than he.

Lagniappe

The day after we watched IAWL on the big screen for the first time, we saw it on stage. The Massasoit (Community College) Theater Company performed a lovely adaptation that allowed me once again to lose myself in this compelling story.




Wednesday, December 06, 2017

From Tragedy to Gratitude

Photo: Boston Discovery Guide
Today is the 100th anniversary of a terrible tragedy in Halifax, Nova Scotia -- a maritime accident leading to an explosion whose destructive power would not be exceeded until the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. It is also the beginning of a century-long (so far) story of redemption and gratitude.

I learned the general outline of this story shortly after moving to the Boston area in 1997, but I learned a lot more from a brief conversation on NPR's Morning Edition today. Journalist Steve Inskeep discusses the accident in the context of U.S.-Canadian relations with John U. Bacon, author of The Great Halifax Explosion.

Spoiler alert: I knew that the people of Halifax continue to send the best Christmas tree they can find to Boston in gratitude for the help that came from our city to theirs. From this conversation, however, I learned just how significant the gesture was in the context of strained relations between the two countries at the time. In our dangerously xenophobic times a century later, it is good to be reminded that most people are of good will.

I mentioned the radio story to a colleague and friend who teaches the geographies of Canada and the United States in my department. She shared a number of resources, including a map that will help listeners better understand the accident and an excerpt from the CBC production Shattered City.

Tuesday, December 05, 2017

Bears Ears Reversal

Photo: Tim Peterson, Grand Canyon Trust
A week after insulting Navajo veterans of World War II -- the code talkers who helped to win the war in the Pacific -- under a portrait of the odious Andrew Jackson, the president of the United States announced the unprecedented removal of National Monument status from over 1,000,000 acres of land in Utah whose protection had been sought by Navajo and other tribes. Fortunately, the United States does still have three branches of government, and it is possible that a Federal court will agree that that the Antiquities Act does not give a president this authority.

Still, as widely reported yesterday, the president is asserting just such authority in Utah, and if successful he may try to do the same in many other states, though not in Montana.

In the NPR report above, Matt Anderson argues that President Obama's naming of the Bears Ears National Monument had itself been overreach, and that reverting to BLM status would keep "the areas open and accessible to locals who depend on this land for their daily lives." The image he hopes to convey is of family farmers grazing animals on highly-regulated rangelands, but it cannot be denied that coal, oil, and natural gas leases would also be made possible if yesterday's decision is upheld.

Without sensing the irony of their own claims, some opponents argue that indigenous opponents of the rollback are located far away, and that local, non-indigenous voices should have priority. The displacement of native people from their land is thus used as an argument against their standing to discuss it.

Later on Monday, All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Ute Indian Shaun Chapoose about Native American responses to the announcement.

The reversal of federal protection is unprecedented -- with the 1,300,000-acre Monument reduced to just 228,000.
Map: State of Utah, by way of Grand Canyon Trust

Lagniappe: It Gets Worse

Immediately after seeing to the removal of 2,000,000 acres (an area bigger than Delaware) from these the National Monuments, Secretary Zinke urged the president to reduce the size of four more protected areas: Nevada's Gold Butte, the Cascade-Siskiyou of Oregon and California, the Pacific Remote Islands, and the Rose Atoll. The last of these is an area of protected marine resources covering an area larger than Massachusetts.
Next on the secretary's agenda: Cascade-Siskiyou.
In addition to unspecified reductions in the size of each of these monuments, the secretary recommends changing the way restrictions are enforced on all national monuments. Even if this attempt to rewrite of the Antiquities Act does not survive court challenges, it will waste countless hours of time -- and millions of dollars -- that environmental organizations and federal employees could be spending on actually protecting the environment.

Without any shame, the secretary declared that his recommendations reflect the will of the people, dismissing 2.8 million public comments that he admitted were mostly counter to his recommendation. By "the people" he meant those people he prefers to listen to, some of which are not actually people at all. He further continues to associate himself with the signer of the 1906 Act, Teddy Roosevelt. Again, without shame.

The same announcement includes expanded protection in Montana itself, where his political ambitions outweigh his general preference for environmental destruction.

UPDATE: Even Worse

It is with some hesitation I add even more bad news to this post, but new information about this decision is unsettling and needs to be shared. If the courts allow the executive order to stand, Bears Ears will be open not only to grazing, but also to the mining of uranium. This has nothing whatsoever to do with public use of the land; it has to do with pleasing political donors. A map of the uranium potential accompanies the story behind the president's decision.
Map: Washington Post
July 2018 further update

It is now clear that the documents used to justify the shrinking of Bears Ears National Monument were selectively censored to hide known benefits of the protection the area had been receiving. Someone should be going to jail for this, but will more likely be going to the bank.

Monday, November 27, 2017

Codex Quetzalecatzin

The Library of Congress has recently acquired the Mapa de Ecatepec-Huitziltepec, a manuscript that was prepared in 1593 and is one of the few original documents surviving from 16th-Century Mesoamerica. It was apparently created by indigenous Nahuatl cartographers but reflects the rapid transition of a society under Conquest.
LOC screenshot of the Codex. Follow link above for the full story,
and the link below for a more detailed view.


An image of the map is directly viewable (with panning and zooming) on the Library of Congress web site. The entry includes important metadata, including some modern landmarks to orient the viewer. I have included them in the map below to give readers a sense of the area covered by this treasure.

My favorite librarian and I spent the summer of 1989 in the region covered by this map, and encountered evidence -- four centuries later -- of the imposed fusion of cultures that it manifests.

ESRI: Envisioning the Embattled Borderlands

PLEASE CLICK MAP for a BETTER VIEW
The map (above) that ESRI geographer Krista Schlyer chose for the top of her photo-map essay response to the so-called border wall is indicative of the care she and the rest of the ESRI team have taken with this entire exhibit. As a geographer who lived in this map for seven years (1990-1994 in Tucson and 1994-1997 in Pharr), I notice a few important things that this map captures nicely.

First, the borderlands are identified by the border, but not strictly defined by it. As Oscar Martinez argues in Border People, it is a zone that extends approximately 100 miles in each direction from the line that gives the region its identity. In every sense except strict legalities, this region is neither the United States nor Mexico. It is a third entity that is both divided and united by a line that meanders through its center. In addition to Border People, I recommend Tom Miller's On the Border as an introduction to the place; I had the privilege of knowing both writers during our Tucson years.

Second, the United States of America and the United States of Mexico are both federal republics comprising a number of states (50 and 31, respectively, plus a federal district in each). For people living in the border region, connections between neighboring states are important. Residents of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas become familiar with Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas.

The cultural and environmental landscape of the border is not well understood by pundits and demagogues who make their living from caricatures of it. The misguided policies that result threaten real damage and will deliver no benefits.

ESRI's Krysta Schlyer has made an important contribution with this well-researched borderlands geography project.



The embedded version of this project condensed -- see the full Embattled Border story map here.

More about borders and The Border from this Environmental Geography blog

The threats posed to the people and environments of the border by outside demagoguery have certainly increased under the current administration, but in many ways are a continuation of a militarization of the border that was under way when I was living in Arizona. Although my own writing on the topic has become more focused in 2017, my earlier writing could also be instructive. I think that my "human sieve" metaphor is especially important, and that the wall is part of a broader effort by politicians who prefer to choose their voters, rather than to allow the opposite to transpire.

Each of these posts includes links and images to the work of many journalists, artists, and geographers.

Take Our Jobs, Please (June 2010)
The Border: A Human Sieve (June 2010)
Murder City (November 2010)
Where Are the Humans? (November 2011)
No se olviden Mexico (June 2012)
Precious Progress (November 2012)
Economic Baggage (April 2014)
Why Walls Won't Work (November 2014)
Not One Human (August 2015)
Hiring Humans (February 2016)
Borders: What's Up With That (August 2016)
Border IRL (November 2016) -- includes a map of all of my border crossings
Bridges and Habilitation (July 2017)
Through the Wall (October 2017) 

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Secretary NIMBY

The most important qualification for most Cabinet-level appointments in the current administration has been hostility toward the mission of the department or agency to be led, and to the implementation of policies that the Congress has assigned.

In most respects, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has fit this mold. As the most anti-stewardship steward of public lands since James Watt, he has been good company for secretaries of State, Education, Environmental Protection who have a similar antipathy toward the programs with which they have been intrusted by an administration that values only chaos and a Senate that does not value its advisory duties.

This post, however, is not about Secretary Zinke's failures to protect Bears Ears, or whether he shares the libertarian fringe's fear of "massive federal land grabs." Rather, it is this counter-intuitive story about Sec. Zinke's support of a new National Monument that would provide added protection to federal lands in his home state of Montana.

Reporter Nate Hegyi sought further information on the various ways in which Zinke supports land protection in his home state, but could get a comment from the secretary or his spokesman. In the current administration, it seems, a cabinet secretary must be very careful to avoid seeming to support the work he or she was hired to undermine. If only we could get him interested in taking a similar position on the 96 percent of the United States that is not in Montana!

The story is an example of the well-known NIMBY phenomenon -- support for noxious facilities or damaging practices in the abstract evaporates when a proposal is close to home: "Not In My BackYard" is the hypocrite's refrain.

Despite the dubious personal ethics revealed by this story, it does provide a glimmer of hope for those who care about environmental protection. Although he will not yet say so, Secretary Zinke seems to understand that scorched-earth environmental policies -- if applied on Native American or other public lands inside Montana -- would reduce his chances of being elected governor of the Big Sky state in the future. Profiles in Courage this is not, but it does suggest that at some level, people in the West do still want land and water and sky protected.

Update: June 4

Daniel Wenk: Pushed aside
According to a June 1 Washington Post report, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park -- considered by many to be the crown jewel of the system -- is retiring early. Daniel Wenk is highly respected by those across the political spectrum for his professionalism and his commitment to wildlife and public lands.

He has served the National Park Service for 43 years, so his retirement at age 66 is not necessarily surprising, but according to journalist Darryl Fears, the timing of his retirement has to do with a punitive reassignment to Washington, D.C.

As an individual, of course, Superintendent Wenk will be alright. He is presumably retiring with full benefits. But he is just one of 37 senior officials in the Department of Interior that the new secretary has rushed to reassign or remove. This of course belies the "drain the swamp" rhetoric that brought the current administration into Washington.

Cuba: Citizen Diplomacy

Sometimes I learn about U.S. music because of my interest in the music of Latin America. I knew nothing of the Black Eyed Peas, for example, until they recorded with Brazilian bossa nova great Sergio Mendes. Thus my "discovery" of Major Lazer comes with a mild sense of déjà vu -- I learned of the group when journalist Michel Martin (whose work I did know) interviewed a fellow known as Diplo about the group's 2016 concert in Havana.


The occasion of the interview was not the concert itself -- it was almost two years ago that 450,000 people turned out for the show on the streets of Havana -- but the rather the release of Give Me Future. I have not yet seen this making-of film, but it reminds me of Buena Vista Social Club, another making-of feature that has deeply shaped my thinking about Cuba and the U.S.-Cuba relationship.
Major Lazer -- apparently a big deal
The project unfolded during a period of slowly increasing freedom for U.S. citizens visiting Cuba, but the film is being released as the two governments move closer to a Cold War footing.

Diplo and his fellow artists, of course, have performed an essential service to the people of both countries. As the United States government radically reduces its commitment to formal diplomacy world-wide, the informal diplomacy of people-to-people contact becomes even more important.

Michel Martin's reporting mentions one fascinating aspect of that contact -- the exchange of paquetes, or "packages" that serve as digests of internet content in a country with very limited connectivity but boundless curiosity. As suggested by the photo that accompanied Carrie Kahn's 2015 reporting, an elaborate, hand-to-hand network is used to distribute content on USB and other physical media.
Visiting a bookshop was an essential part of my favorite librarian's experience in Cuba.
Until Cubans are have more freedom to travel to the United States, informal diplomacy is limited to the movement of U.S. citizens to Cuba. The freedom of U.S. citizens to travel in Cuba -- and only in Cuba -- is restricted by the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, as it has been irregularly applied since the Kennedy Administration. My favorite librarian describes this context and her own experience as a citizen-diplomat in Travels with Tom: Trading with the Enemy, about her 2013 visit to Havana.
The most poignant moment in my 2003 visit was the realization that at least some Cubans believed that U.S. citizens were afraid to visit their country. We learned this from a delightful woman who was old enough to have remembered the heyday of U.S. tourism. Her eyes glistened as she imagined us returning in numbers "como antes" -- like before.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Rey de Maíz

Recent discussions about trade have included an odd discussion of whether it was Mexico or the United States got the better of the other in the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (which also, of course, includes Canada). My main concerns with NAFTA -- and with the even more comprehensive World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement -- had to do with the likelihood that they would weaken labor and environmental protections.

The increase in trade -- and the vulnerability of workers to distant competitors -- was already underway before NAFTA went into effect, and it is difficult to know how much the agreement contributed to the downward spiral in the compensation and protection of workers. But that spiral does continue, and the corn farmers of Mexico continue to be among those most adversely affected.

This short report by journalists Todd Zwillich and Franc Contreras puts the opposition of these farmers in the century-old context of the conflict that led to the modern Mexican state.

To understand how the trade in corn became so lopsided, I recommend the pithy documentary King Corn, which shows what two Boston-area guys learned from trying to grow a single acre of corn in Iowa. (Spoiler alert: nobody grows a single acre of corn any more.)

As the trailer suggests, the filmmakers were initially most interested in the insidious penetration of corn into the diet and the deleterious effect of simplified carbohydrates on public health. In the process of pursuing that story, however, they also learned how large-scale corn growers came to dominate the political sphere.

Another film that is essential for understanding the inadequate representation of small-scale farmers at trade negotiations is Black Gold. Its focus is on coffee, but several important scenes explain the trade milieu that works to the disadvantage of small farmers across the globe. I have written more extensively about both films (which are available in various formats) in Nuts Have a Geography, Too (2014) and Cups and Summits (2012). Those posts are a few years old now, and the films a few years older than that, but the basic arrangements have not changed.

Geographic Lens on New Bedford

I'm hoping for two kinds of students in my New Bedford course next summer: those who know the city, and those who don't. In other words, everyone is welcome (despite the 400-level course number).

This combination works well in my classes about other places, whether they be Brockton or Latin America. Students who know a place directly bring something extra to the class, but they also gain something from applying a geographic lens to a place they have known in other ways.

I hope that the geographic lens is exemplified by the informal photo essay I just completed, based on a walk I took in the city one morning at the end of the summer.
Acushnet Avenue -- A Avenida -- is a great place for geographers.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Spotlight on Courage

Just last month, we had the great privilege of attending a forum on information integrity led by journalist Sasha Pfeiffer, a print reporter who is also very present on public-radio airwaves in the Boston area. Upon finally viewing the film Spotlight for the first time this week, I learned that she is an even more formidable journalist than I had realized.

The diligent work of her entire team, including upper management at the Globe, is a reminder of the importance of professional journalists in the protection of democracy. Reporters take great risks and great care in finding facts.
Among many cogent insights in the film is attorney Mitchell Garabedian's assertion that "if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one." The film makes clear that one of the biggest barriers to exposing the criminal conspiracy surrounding pedophilia was Boston's winged-tipped tribalism. Self-reinforcing networks of elite business, education, and religious institutions were (and to an extent still are) expected to protect each other. A key turning point in the film comes when a new Globe executive agrees to meet the archbishop, but makes it clear that he will do so as a journalist, not a member of the city's elite.

Lagniappe: Alabama

I started to write this post a few days ago, and finish it just as I read about another group that is standing up to misplaced loyalties that are couched in religious terms. In this case, it is southern ministers who are speaking out against the depravity and bigotry of the disgraced judge and senate candidate Roy Moore. He is playing on Alabama's church-supper tribalism to recast his political agenda as a religious cause, and some actually consider his alleged actions to be appropriate. Thankfully, a group of 70 Alabama pastors has refused to have their faith misused in this way.

Taking an even bolder stand, Southern Baptist leader Dr. Russell Moore (no relation), has addressed a "nominal, culturally 'Christian'" brand of religion, writing:
“It is predatory, soul-twisting, covers over violence and racism and molestation. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings life and joy and rest and peace.”
It is refreshing to someone inside a faith tradition take on so directly the damage done by misplaced loyalties based in commonalities of religious or political affiliation.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Malbeclipse 2019

LONG OVERDUE Update:


We did take this journey -- maps, photos, wines, and more are on the family blog in
Malbeclipse Part 1: Chile and Malbelclipse Part 2: Argentina. And even more photos at Malbeclipse 2019 on Flickr.


The opening episode of Modern Family Season 9 is about a vacation organized around watching a total eclipse of the sun, presumably on August 21, 2017. And yet! ... I failed to realize what was going on when various characters began to channel their inner Bonnie Tyler in honor of the greatest comeback of an MTV icon in some while. (The very strange video above has had over 342 million views.)

All of which is by way of saying that we have been making some big plans for the next total eclipse of the sun. Not the next eclipse to reach totality in the U.S., as did the one we missed in 2017 (jury duty kept us close to home): the next total eclipse on the planet. It will happen on July 2, 2019, and we will be there! The path of totality will mostly be over water, but the continental portion will traverse South America farther south than any place I have been.
Map: timeanddate.com
It coincides with the birthday of our geographer friend Jeff.  Actually, we have at least three geographer friends named Jeff. This is the one who joined us on a previous South American adventure, and who has said he might want to join us for this one. He and his partner were easy to convince because of something that will be apparent to oenophiles viewing this map: the eclipse will be visible from some of the most interesting wine-growing regions on the planet: the very high and dry growing regions of Chile and Argentina.

As with Jeff's husband, one of those wines is originally from France. In the Cahors region where it was developed, Malbec is a mid-level wine at best, sometimes even described as "animal" and suitable only for blending. It was introduced over two centuries ago to the high altitudes of Mendoza, Argentina, where it produces full-bodied wines of notable complexity. It is so successful there, in fact, that the vintners of Cahors now look to Mendoza wines for instruction. The success of these wines has been so widely discussed in the industry that we are able to find a dozen different Malbec wines from that single town. And we frequently do.
Map: timeanddate.com
When we learned that our favorite wine-growing region would be just outside the zone of totality, we started making the plans mentioned above. With 96 percent coverage in Mendoza itself, it would be easy to find a good viewing spot and explore the vineyards of Mendoza in the same trip.

Just as these ideas were coming together, I met a young biochemist who visited our campus as part of a fellowship program sponsored by the U.S. State Department. She suggested that I consider the Elqui Valley in Chile. It is a beautiful highland valley at the southern edge of the Atacama Desert, which is the driest desert on earth. She shared a video that invites exploration of the region's dramatic topography, architecture, vineyards, and astronomy facilities.

It turns out that the Elqui Valley is one of the highest-elevation wine-growing regions in the world and receives more sunlight than any of the wine regions of Europe, allowing for the development of complex Syrahs and other reds. The cool nights require close attention but also provide special opportunities to the vintners of Elqui. The Wine Searcher web site provides fascinating details about the geographic factors affecting vineyards in both Elqui and Mendoza.

Moreover, the remarkably clear skies of the Elqui Valley make it ideal for stargazing and professional astronomy, so that viewing the eclipse there may have some real advantages. It turns out that it will be in the center of the path of totality, so Malbec is beginning to look like a second choice.
Map: timeanddate.com
Not to worry, though! If we do decide to view the eclipse in Chile, we will not neglect our favorite wines on the other side of the Andes -- a stunning drive and/or a short flight away.


Lagniappe: Botanicals

A friend who is a world-class gardener saw this post and referred me to a friend of hers, another botanical expert who writes beautifully about his recent visit to the southern Atacama in Puya Vida, on his urbane horticulture blog. He even found a plant called the Chilean Wine Palm. His post also includes many photos of beautiful, flowering plants because he was fortunate enough to be traveling with someone who knew when and where to go, following a rare rain event.
Jubaea chilensis, photo by urbane horticulture
We can certainly look for these botanical treasures when we go, though we are very unlikely to find so many (if any) in flower. We can, however, find out more about all of the plant communities of Chile at the exquisite Parque Quilapilún, which is between Santiago and the Elqui Valley.


Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Monochrome Photo Challenge

I was recently tagged in a popular challenge in Facebook that began:

"Seven-day black-and-white picture challenge! Seven days, no people and no captions! Cheers to day 1/7!"

Loving photography and having plenty of photos to choose from, I took up the challenge, though instead of tagging individuals, I decided to "challenge whomever is inspired." I am not sure whether anyone was.

After posting a couple of photographs -- using an easy Macbook trick to make them monochrome -- friends asked questions about where they were taken. I decided not to caption any of them until my week was complete. I did hint that each day's challenge was met by a photo (or two) taken in a different country.

To avoid spoilers under the original posts, I have decided to post all of the captions here. And at the suggestion of a geography alumna, I am entering approximate coordinates, rather than place names.


Wednesday (1 of 7): Science! One of the world's great telescopes. (2016)
18°21' N; 66°45' W


Thursday (2 of 7): Working waterfront. (2015)
 41°38' N;  70°55' W

Friday (3 of 7):  A community in a Spanish-speaking country, where Spanish is the second language. If you eat quinoa, people in these houses may have grown it for you. Bonus: there might be a cat lounging on one of these walls! (2014)
13°25' S; 72°12' W

Saturday (4 of 7): "The periphery of the periphery of the periphery" is a phrase first uttered by my good friend Dr. Nenevê, about his own home, which was not quite as peripheral as this one, shown in 1996 (taken with an entire city to my back). When I returned in 2000, this was a bustling neighborhood. (1996)
8°48' S;  63°53 W

Sunday (5 of 7 -- 2 photos): This UNESCO World Heritage Site includes a stark reminder of a terrible history and a charming home of stone, thatch, and cactus. (2006)

14°55' N; 23°36' W

Monday (6 of 7): A lovely stone gazebo in the Shangri La of coffee estates. (2017)
 13°00' N; 85°54' W

Tuesday (7 of 7): Welcome meal at our partner church featured a very large caldron of soup! And our hosts spend their summers "making hay while the sun shines." (2004)
46°18' N;  24°25' E

Monday, November 13, 2017

Racing to the Quake

Thirty-two years and six hours after Mexico City was shaken by its most devastating earthquake, the city was rocked again, and this just two weeks after a strong quake shook the southern state of Chiapas.
Sept 7 & 19 earthquakes in Chiapas and Mexico City.
Photos: BBC

Immediately after the September 19, 2017 earthquake, hundreds of its citizens ran towards its many collapsed buildings.

The September 20, 2017 edition of The Takeaway begins with a detailed interview with a former Mexican diplomat, who explains the lessons residents of Mexico City have learned, and compares the experience of the capital with that of rural Chiapas, which was struck by a quake earlier this season. No longer available on WNYC, this segment is on iTunes.

A few days later, journalist Maya Kroth described the response in detail, especially the work of Los Topos (The Moles), the volunteers known for their extraordinary rescue efforts. Her interview with Todd Zwelick is followed by a conversation with Janise Rodgers, CEO of GeoHazards International, who discusses the vulnerability of schools throughout Latin America.
It is useful to consider the context of Mexico City, built as it is in a former lake bed. It is more than 7,000 miles above sea level, but it is at the bottom of a volcanic valley, built on unconsolidated sediment that has flowed from surrounding peaks. To get a sense of the scope of the affected area, begin in the map of the city center below, and gradually zoom out to the mountains.

It is vulnerable to the movements along the Middle America Trench, one of the world's most active tectonic convergence zones. Both the September 7 and September 19 earthquakes originated along this deep boundary, though the distance between them suggests no direct causal connection.
Map: BBC
The U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program provides real-time and follow-up information about earthquakes throughout the world. Its report on the September 19 earthquake reveals that it was an intraplate event, meaning that it happened within the Cocos plate, rather than at a plate boundary. Nonetheless, the event was very close to the boundary, 48.0 km below sea level and near a sharp bend in the plates.
Source: USGS, Ayulta event summary page
The USGS report on the Tres Picos Magnitude 8.2 September 7 event along the Chiapas coast does not include a comparable cross section, but it does report a similar depth and intraplate location. (Note: USGS gives a September 8 date, because all of its instruments follow Greenwich Mean Time.)

These thorough analyses by scientists based in the United States is possible because its network of seismic stations allows for detailed measurements of earthquake activity, regardless of its location on the planet. Similar efforts are devoted to the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, but the nature

Saturday, November 11, 2017

From Chains to Supply Chains

Thank the Farmers
I love coffee. Most people who know me know this about me.

I have a lot of fun with coffee and the many ways it intersects with geography and popular culture. I am, in fact, enjoying my umpteenth cup of fine coffee of the day, even as I write this.

But as most people who know me realize, my love of coffee is exceeded by my love of the people who produce it and the lands from which the best coffee is grown. I end almost every coffee story with the hashtag #thankthefarmers for that reason.

It is good to remember that however much fun we can have with coffee and however much we can appreciate the social and environmental benefits of coffee that is grown carefully and traded fairly, coffee can also be a very serious matter indeed.

A reminder come from a March 2016 Guardian article that has been sitting on my desktop since someone shared it with me a couple of months ago. For all this time, I have not know quite what to do with Nestlé admits slave labour risk on Brazil coffee plantations, but I knew I could not let it go until I found a way to share it and to connect it with my other work on coffee.

As I look at the title carefully, I notice two small things. Where The Guardian uses "slave labour risk" a U.S.-based paper would use "slave-labor risk." Spelling and punctuation aside, the use of the word "risk" is itself interesting. From the standpoint of a major corporation, the possibility that slavery was involved in its operations is a risk to be managed like any other, such as weather or the fluctuation of currency markets.

The article mentions two of the very biggest such corporations in the $77-billion coffee market, which were known at the time it was published as Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts. The latter is now known as JAB, which includes those companies as well as Keurig (a little Boston-based company whose convenient brewer was purchased by the erstwhile Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and eventually swallowed Green Mountain and much of the industry). Together they sell about 40 percent of all of the coffee that is sold on the planet. For food companies operating at this scale, the food and the lands and people from which the product comes are such abstractions that even fundamental questions such as slavery and freedom become mere columns in a spreadsheet.

If slavery -- or any other inconvenient truth -- turns out to be contributing to the bottom line, the equivalent of a politician's plausible deniability provides a convenient fig leaf to cover the original sin of greed. In coffee, that fig leaf is in the form of a supply chain that is deliberately blurry in appearance. Someone growing $5,000 worth of coffee in a year cannot bring it to the gates of Nestlé or JAB -- there are in fact no such gates. The small farmer sells to middlemen (always men, and known in Latin America as coyotes) who consolidate purchases for the convenience of large processors ; it turns out that even a large plantation can benefit from selling coffee through brokers who can hide their practices.
Federal auditor investigating claims of human-rights abuses on a coffee farm in Brazil.
Photo: Lilo Clareto/DanWatch via The Guardian
When price is the main competitive factor, the pressure to force prices down will stop at nothing, not even the use of bonded labor. When citizens -- sometimes thought of only as consumers -- push back, the race to the bottom involves deceit, even self-deceit. Kate Hodal's excellent reporting on this complicated matter could be read by some as Nestlé and JAB being victimized by bad actors in a complicated network of suppliers. Stories like this -- which have parallels in the U.S. chicken industry and throughout food systems globally -- can also be read as evidence that more vigilance and accountability is necessary.

Moreover, it is a reminder that education about coffee in particular and food in general should continue to begin and end with considerations of human rights.

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