Arctic Waters Warmer Than in 2,000 Years
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/arctic-waters-warmer-than-in-2000-years/
Water flowing from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean is warmer today than at any time in the past 2,000 years, a new study shows.
How Bad Weather Built The ‘World’s Biggest Markets’
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/29/132838902/how-bad-weather-built-the-worlds-biggest-markets
You can blame a lot of things on the weather. Even the futures market.
Emily Lambert, author of The Futures: The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World’s Biggest Markets, tells Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that it was Chicago’s cold winters that triggered the beginning of commodities trading.
Sundance Film Festival
Times are still tough, but the Sundance Film Festival shows that American independent cinema remains a movement defined by stubborn true belief and survival.
Word On The Street: Photos Of People With Words
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/01/26/13 3238408/wots
“I came across an old building … that had the singleword TIME bolted to it in large letters. … As I looked up, an elderly woman gazed out a window near TIME, but she quickly closed the curtain when, I thought, she saw me across the street with my camera. I was struck by the power of the scene I had just witnessed, and frustrated at not having been able to record it on film.”
Upcoming class: The Art of Snow-Viewing with Mike Friedman & Jerry Roberts
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Topsy-Turvy Weather Tied to Weaker Arctic ‘Fence’
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/science/earth/25cold.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=global-home
While people in Atlanta learn to shovel snow, the weather 2,000 miles to the north has been freakishly warm the past two winters. Throughout northeastern Canada and Greenland, temperatures in December ran as much as 15 or 20 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Bays and lakes have been slow to freeze; ice fishing, hunting and trade routes have been disrupted.
The immediate cause of the topsy-turvy weather is clear enough. A pattern of atmospheric circulation that tends to keep frigid air penned in the Arctic has weakened during the past two winters, allowing big tongues of cold air to descend far to the south, while masses of warmer air have moved north.
Bolivia artisans make Barbie-like ‘cholita’ dolls
http://www.denverpost.com/watercooler/ci_17162086
Even the traditional art creating munecas (spirit/burial dolls) of the Aymara Indian culture has been corrupted. JR
‘American Rising’: When Slaves Attacked New Orleans
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/16/132839717/american-rising-when-slaves-took-on-new-orleans
Two hundred years ago this month, the elite in New Orleans were making their usual preparations for Mardi Gras. Plantation owners were planning all-night parties, and the women of the house were looking forward to elaborate masquerades and balls.
John Cohen’s Passionate Pursuit, From Kentucky To Peru
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/23/133139708/john-cohens-passionate-pursuit-from-kentucky-to-peru
For more than half a century, John Cohen has been taking photographs, making films, recording rural musicians and creating his own music. He’s a co-founder of The New Lost City Ramblers, a string band that set the standard for authenticity in the 1950s’ “folk boom,” and at the age of 78, Cohen is still at it.
Cohen lived in a downtown New York City apartment, next door to photographer Robert Frank. When Frank shot the iconic beat film, Pull My Daisy, Cohen took the still photographs. When young Bob Dylan came to Greenwich Village, Cohen took photos of him, too, on the roof of the building.
Could Climate Change Have Led To The Fall Of Rome?
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/22/133143758/could-climate-change-have-led-to-the-fall-of-rome
Rome may have fallen hundreds of years ago, but much of the civilization the Romans built still dots the landscape today. One team of scientists recently unearthed a different kind of Roman artifact that may hold a strange clue to the empire’s downfall.
For Many Species, No Escape as Temperature Rises
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/science/earth/22kenya.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
KINANGOP, Kenya — Simon Joakim Kiiru remembers a time not long ago when familiar birdsongs filled the air here and life was correlated with bird sightings. His lush, well-tended homestead is in the highlands next to the Aberdare National Park, one of the premier birding destinations in the world.
When the hornbill arrived, Mr. Kiiru recalled, the rains were near, meaning that it was time to plant. When a buzzard showed a man his chest, it meant a visitor was imminent. When an owl called at night, it foretold a death.
“There used to be myths because these are our giants,” said Mr. Kiiru, 58. “But so many today are gone.”
The Creative Art Of Growing Old-”people get ready.”
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/21/133117175/lastingness-the-creative-art-of-growing-old
In 1928, when poet William Butler Yeats was in his 60s, he wrote “Sailing to Byzantium,” in which he laments, An aged man is but a paltry thing / A tattered coat upon a stick. Despite his harsh characterization of old age, Yeats himself continued to write late into his life.
An Unlikely Pair Pictures Havana
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/01/22/133120984/havana
Nestor Marti, 38, is a photojournalist in Cuba’s bustling capital city. Chip Cooper, 60, is known for artistic, composed shots of the Alabama countryside. Both of them typically work alone, but for the past two years they’ve had the rare opportunity to work as a team, walking the narrow streets and wide plazas of Old Havana.
standing in September
garden,
watching December snow
“Alone Together”: An MIT Professor’s New Book Urges Us to Unplug
http://www.fastcompany.com/1716844/alone-together-an-mit-professors-new-book-urges-us-to-unplug
I didn’t realize MIT hired Luddites.
Well, I’m no Luddite. I think this book is not the book of a Luddite. This is the book of someone deeply appreciative of technology, who took her time to see how our use of this technology unfolded, and who thinks like with any technology, it’s had some effects, good and bad.
Credit Billy Roos
Blue Valentine – A movie about “when love runs out” JR
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/12/28/blue_valentine
An intimate, gorgeous and wrenching portrait of a working-class marriage in what may be a state of terminal decay, “Blue Valentine” is not only the breakthrough American film at Cannes, but one of the best films here, period. It stars two hot young indie-oriented actors in Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, who are extraordinary as Dean and Cindy, a couple who live in rural eastern Pennsylvania with their 5-year-old daughter. “Blue Valentine” shines a spotlight on aspects of American life rarely seen in the movies
Calif. Plants Put A Wrinkle In Climate Change Plans
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/21/133092677/calif-plants-put-a-wrinkle-in-climate-change-plans
As the globe warms up, many plants and animals are moving uphill to keep their cool. Conservationists are anticipating much more of this as they make plans to help natural systems adapt to a warming planet. But a new study in Science has found that plants in northern California are bucking this uphill trend in preference for wetter, lower areas.
Gregg Allman Low Country Blues
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/low-country-blues-20110114
Gregg Allman’s blues-wolf growl and soul-church charge on the Hammond B-3 organ are so identified with — and perfect for — the electric improvising brawn of the Allman Brothers Band that it is a shock to hear Allman’s voice and instrumental stamp in any other setting. But Low Country Blues is a tailor-made stretch, to an earthy turmoil that feels like homecoming: a trip with the spirits that shaped his band’s sound and mission — B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Skip James, Otis Rush — with all of the healing that implies.
ANNALS OF PSYCHOLOGYSOCIAL ANIMAL-David Brooks
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/17/110117fa_fact_brooks Referred to in Tina Brown’s NPR interview “Must Reads” posted below.
After the boom and bust, the mania and the meltdown, the Composure Class rose once again. Its members didn’t make their money through hedge-fund wizardry or by some big financial score. Theirs was a statelier ascent. They got good grades in school, established solid social connections, joined fine companies, medical practices, and law firms. Wealth settled down upon them gradually, like a gentle snow
Tina Brown’s Must-Reads: On Choice And Control
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/19/133017914/tina-browns-must-reads-on-choice-and-control
Tina Brown, editor of the Daily Beast andNewsweek, checks in again for the occasional recommended-reading feature Morning Editionlikes to call Word of Mouth.
This time, she brings with her a book and two articles about people faced with change, a constrained set of choices and the limits of control — from President Obama to the highest of private-sector achievers to, finally, a first responder cracking under the weight of his job.
Harvard Psychedelic Club: 1956 Footage of Housewife’s Acid Trip
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-lattin/harvard-psychedelic-club-1950s_b_809392.html
Here’s some rare footage of an experimental LSD session that I came across doing research for my next book, a group biography of British writer Aldous Huxley, philosopher Gerald Heard, and Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s from a television program, circa 1956, about mental health issues.
Cuba Issues Thousands Of Self-Employment Licenses
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/18/133020988/cuba-issues-thousands-of-self-employment-licenses
Communist authorities in Cuba have issued more than 75,000 new self-employment licenses to help offset the layoffs of half a million government workers in the coming months.
Cubans are delivering pizzas, or setting up snack bars and restaurants in their homes, and even hiring employees. It may not be a recipe for economic growth, but at least it’s creating some optimism during an otherwise worrisome time for Cuban workers.
Three Books For Your Motorcycle Road Trip
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/18/132681050/three-books-for-your-motorcycle-road-trip
I had no more excuses. Sitting in my driveway was an old motorcycle that still ran well but was beginning to rust away. For years, I’d dreamed of taking my Motorcycle Diaries trip, which definitely included the part about exploring South America, having some steamy love affairs, maybe even starting my own Che Guevara-inspired revolution.
Jerry Roberts
