Coffee Care Slides

The quality of a cup of coffee depends on what has happened to the coffee from the moment a seed was selected and planted until that coffee was poured. A lot of my writing, learning, and teaching is about those first 40 or so steps, but the final ten steps or so also matter: we can show respect for the work of farmers by taking good care of the coffee they have provided. We can also enjoy a tastier cup, free of added cream and sugar, if we pay attention to freshness, roast, grind, brewing, and yes, even pouring.

My Coffee Care page points to some expert resources on the subject of coffee preparation; I offer about 20 slides (with annotations below) for some of what I have learned about getting the best cup I can from the coffees that come my way.

NOTE: I chose not to delete the first slide in this set -- my effort to grow coffee at home in 2012. It showed me just how difficult coffee cultivation really is. My farm did not last long.

 

N 43° 59' 38.927" W 71° 23' 45.27''

I share this spoken-word performance for no reason other than its title, which refers to a location on the Sabbaday Brook near the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire. Once source suggests that this is where the songwriter nearly drowned as a child, but that source also indicates it is in Vermont, so I need to do a little more research.

This YouTube version blurs the original album cover for the non-naturist viewer.

I know of only one other song named for coordinates.  N 42° 6' 3.001" W 71° 55' 3.295" is from the same album -- Goodness -- by the band known as The Hotelier.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

We spend about 10x as much on the military as we do on diplomacy and aid. Fine, weapons are expensive. (That is where the money goes, not to soldiers or veterans).

But increasing the big one and slashing the small one is Washington-only mathematics. It will leave us more in debt AND more vulnerable. And that is not just a wooly-headed professor talking: 121 retired generals and admirals have said the same thing. 

Have a listen:

Cut aid diplomacy, and people will die. In many places. In various ways. Refugees will be greater in number and greater in desperation; embassies and military personnel will be less aware of potential threats. Communicable diseases will spread more easily. Moreover, many positive experiences and relationships will be lost, and our standing in the world will be diminished.
All to save small amounts of money while spending continues unchecked in other areas.

Bad Salamander

The Mass Moments list to which I subscribe recently reminded us of an ignoble anniversary -- the creation north of Boston of the gerrymander -- a legislative district crafted by Elbridge Gerry (pronounced "Gary") and shaped like a salamander. Very early in the history of the United States -- at the first opportunity, actually -- a politician figured out how to select his voters, while giving the appearance that the opposite was taking place.

How can people not go to jail for this kind of fraud?

Back in 2010, I wrote in some detail about the sordid geography of gerrymandering -- including some examples of shameless disenfranchisement. Article One: Enumeration refers to the fact that the framers of the Constitution tried to avoid exactly this problem, putting the geographic exercise known as Census at the very beginning of the document.

Right after the anniversary, I learned of a special summer course on redistricting offered by Tufts University in Boston. The course is intended mainly for mathematicians -- the word "geometry" is used instead of geography -- but it does acknowledge the role of Geographic Information Systems in creating districts.

The technology can be put to honest or dishonest uses; the key is distancing incumbents from the process, as former California Gov. Schwarzenegger makes clear in his comparison of Congress to herpes. Another practical explanation of the problem is found in series of hypothetical voting districts published by the Washington Post in 2015.

Seeing the limits of gerrymandering, some politicians are getting desperate -- fabricating voter fraud in order to justify any regulation that they think would give them an edge in choosing their voters. Congress also continues to deny full representation to more than 600,000 citizens in the District of Columbia. The concept of one person, one vote continues to be elusive.

PERU Geography of Coffee & Climate Change

BSU Travel Course

NOTE (March 9, 2018): We offered this course in July 2017, but did not have sufficient enrollment to run it. We hope to offer it in the future and would very much welcome in-service teachers!

Join BSU geographers Dr. Rob Hellström and Dr. James Hayes-Bohanan for the experience of a lifetime this summer. And earn 3 credits in the process.

Two geographers are offering this version of the department's popular Geography of Coffee travel course in South America for the first time. Since 2006, the course has been offered in Nicaragua almost every January, and more than 100 participants have found it to be a life-changing experience, many of them returning on their own for weeks or even years at a time.

Bringing the course to Peru allows us to visit a coffee-growing area whose harvest season coincides with our northern-hemisphere summer break. Climate change has become an important part of all serous discussions of coffee; this course allows us to visit important climate-change research stations and coffee farms in the same journey.

This travel course begins with a drive from Lima to research stations in the Andes Mountains at elevations of 13,000 feet, where Dr. Hellström and his students and colleagues are studying the retreat of important glaciers. Our travel to the study site will include exploration of the contemporary cultural landscape and archeology of this part of the Andes, in part to give participants time to adjust to the very high altitude.

From there, we will return to Lima and then travel by air to the upper reaches of the Amazon Basin in the northern part of Peru. There we will spend several days visiting the Oro Verde Cooperative -- a network of farmers who produce organic coffee and cacao for export to Deans Beans in Orange, Massachusetts. We will learn all of the steps that are required to grow, harvest, and produce high-quality coffee and chocolate. We will also learn how working cooperatively allows farmers to contribute directly to the economic and social development of their communities.

Coffee (left) and cacao in the Oro Verde community.

This course will include instruction from the two professors and from local experts throughout the journey. Logistical support is being provided by an outfitter with whom  Dr. Hellström  has worked many times in previous travel. Translation from Spanish and Quechua will by provided throughout, but any competency in these languages will be put to good use.

Details of the program, dates, cost, and itinerary are on the Peru Program brochure (pdf)..

Learn more about Dr.  's climate research from BSU Weather - Peru. Learn more about Dr. Hayes-Bohanan's coffee teaching from www.DOCTOR.coffee. For questions about the content of the course, contact us at rhellstrom@bridgew.edu or jhayesboh@bridgew.edu. For questions about registration, payment, or financial aid, please contact the Study Abroad office at bridgew.edu/studyabroad or studyabroad@bridgew.edu or 508-531-6183.

This course is available to all. Financial aid may be available to BSU students with FAFSA on file. Aid application deadline is March 3, 2017.

Wheel of Geography

I have long appreciated this graphic by the late, great Dr. Harm de Blij, who was perhaps the most prolific writer of geography texts of all time, and a friend of our geography department in Bridgewater. (For more, see our department's remembrance page and a link to all de Blij references on this blog for more about this remarkable geographer.)

Seen more broadly, geography is at the intersection between two areas of learning that are considered areas of critical need in education: STEM education and Global Education.

At the intersection of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) and
Global Education

Geography in 3-4-5

It is fair to ask a bit more of geography. The fact that it seems to overlap with everything does not tell us what it is. The lack of clear limits suggests it is not about anything at all, as a geologist colleague once told me. For him, most disciplines have a clear subject, such as rocks. In reality, even geology is not defined by the rocks themselves, but to a set of questions, theories and practices related to rocks. Climbing rocks and making granite countertops, for example, are not geology, nor is throwing rocks at passersby.

Geography can be understood, as a discipline concerned with three questions, four traditions, and five themes. To wit:

3 Questions. Geography asks -- of just about anything -- Where is it? Why is it there? So what? We notice locations, patterns, and spatial relationships. Then we try to describe them, explain them, and apply them to problem-solving.

4 Traditions. Since the late 19th century, much of the work of academic geographers has fallen into several areas, identified in a famous speech to geography educators by William Pattison in 1960, available here with his own 1990 words of reflection. A few generations of geographers have found it helpful to place our own work in one or more of his broad traditions: spatial, area studies, man-land (now known as human-environment), and earth science.

5 Themes. When we teach geography, we try to include several of five themes that tend to define geographic thinking: Location, Place (it is not the same as location), Human/Environmental Interaction (there's Pattison again), Movement, and Regions. Read this NCGE Five Themes introduction to see what geographers mean when we use these terms.

Bouns: 18 Standards. If you have gotten this far and still want more details about geography is, please have a look at the National Geography Frameworks -- 18 ways to demonstrate geographic competence. The 18 standards are identified online, and a published version details benchmarks at three different grade levels (4, 8, and 12). The guidance document is published by National Geographic, based on its collaboration with three other major organizations -- the National Council for Geography Education, the American Association of Geographers, and the American Geographical Society. Together they inform our advice to curriculum committees and educational programs throughout the United States.

Advocacy. Geographers consider all of this pretty important for understanding the "real world" and our place within it. I have been working with colleagues in the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance and our allies in the Massachusetts Legislature to bring geography awareness to a wide audience and to return geographic education to a prominent place in the K12 curriculum. This advocacy work is considered so relevant to the Frameworks that a photo (taken by a BSU geography alumna) of a globe we brought to the State House is included at the beginning of both its print and online versions.

STEM to STEAM

We had our first outing to Cape Cod in quite some while early in the fall, and it was quite nice. We took the pooch with us, since it was cool enough to leave her in the car when needed. But we also took her on a couple short walks, including one around Falmouth center. We took a path that loops behind this school, and we were glad we did.
The public art celebrating science and engineering is a perfect example of what some call STEM to STEAM, and what I just call good teaching.

The sense of place -- as we geographers call it -- is expressed in some interesting ways, reflecting the
 area's nautical heritage.


Teaching Gardens
 
I meant to write more at the time, but the photos convey the sense of place well enough. Here is a map for those who might want to visit or put this in context.

Golf and Hotels

Trump resort under development in Bali, Indonesia. The largest population of Muslims in the world lives in Indonesia, and of course most of them are not affiliated with terrorism. They are more likely to be victims than perpetrators -- just like Christians in the U.S. But some Islamist terrorism does originate in the country, leading one to wonder how it has escaped the president's travel ban. Image source: DJ Trump.

Here are some of the countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world (Muslim populations shown). As of today, some are welcome in the nation formerly known as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

The distinction between the naughty and nice lists is not related to terrorism -- the 9/11 attacks were brought to us by people on the WELCOME LIST, and no attacks on U.S. soil have originated in the NOT WELCOME countries for at least 40 years. (According to Cato Institute.) So what distinguishes the two lists? Golf and hotels. If you are going to be a terrorist, be sure you are from a country with Trump realty connections. NOT WELCOME Iran 74,819,000 Iraq 31,108,000 Libya 6,325,000 Somalia 9,231,000 Sudan 39,027,950 Syria 20,895,000 Yemen 24,023,000 WELCOME Saudi Arabia 25,493,000 UAE 3,577,000 Egypt 73,800,000 Azerbaijan 8,795,000 Turkey 74,660,000 Indonesia 204,847,000 For more details, see Sprawling Business Empire in the NY Daily News.

Velvet Empire

When did the U.S. become an empire?  We have actual colonies by other names, post-colonial relationships with many countries, and the largest military network in the history of the planet, but we will not use the words "colony" or "empire" to describe them. Why is this?

In a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, author and Boston Globe journalist Stephen Kinzer explains the roots of empire in our 1898 war with Spain -- where Teddy Roosevelt (right) famously gained military experience with the Rough Riders.

In just over a half hour, he offers the most cogent and balanced explanation I have heard of the cognitive dissonance between our democratic ideals and our imperial realities.

Click map to enlarge. Map and details from Emerson Kent

First Recontact

Spoiler alert: This review reveals the main finding of the new documentary First Contact.
Watch the film first if you prefer a slow reveal.

While I was traveling in Nicaragua, my favorite librarian found a documentary that she thought would interest me. We had to tamp down a bit of skepticism because the title First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon (see also: Netflix) does suggest wildness tropes that we have encountered in the 1960 sci-fi piece Lost World, in a problematic NatGeo documentary on the region, and in many narratives described in the book Olhares, which I co-authored with colleagues who study and/or live in the Amazon.

Since I wrote my dissertation in the Amazon and have been back twice -- once with my family -- we set our misgivings aside and watched this short (49m) documentary. It turns out that it takes place in Acre -- just west of my research area in Rondonia -- and neighboring parts of Peru. At first, it seemed like it was just going to play with the usual tropes of exaticism and danger (there is, after all, some actual danger to document).

Eventually, however, this story of initial contact with isolated people poses a plausible hypothesis that I had not encountered before. The entire area had been involved in the extraction of rubber over a century ago, and much of the labor used in that trade had been forced labor. The tribes that have emerged in recent years might not have been isolated since the neolithic period, as is often supposed. Instead, this film suggests, they may have been in hiding for a century or two, avoiding enslavement. Their emergence at this time -- including attacks on remote riparian villages -- could be the result of two factors. First, the oral history of long-ago slave raids may have faded in the minds of the young people of the Txapanawa. Second, illegal incursions of loggers or miners into the Alto Purús National Park may be displacing them from the refuge that had protected them since the early days of the rubber trade.

Map source: World Wildlife Fund