Fertile Fields

This being a decent blog, I can’t repeat what I said when I saw them, that day with Harry, but it was something like, “what the fuh…?”

Harry was driving; we were on the highway to Ponce, the island’s second largest city. And right there, where Santa Isabel should be, was this:

Yup, 44 windmills in a plain between two mountains. Quite a cite / sight it was, and a bit difficult to overlook.

“They’re completely worthless,” said Harry. “They’re not producing any energy, really. It was another stupid plan of your governor….”

It was a joke—OK, maybe the slightest of jabs. Harry favors independence, but fears gravely that I am a statehooder.

“I’m not surprised,” I said, “that it’s not producing any energy. I tried for years to get Wal-Mart to install windmills, and the sustainability guy told me there’s nowhere on the island with enough wind.”

Actually, if memory serves, the only place with enough wind was alongside of the expressway we were driving on. Cars moving at 65 miles per hour create a lot of air movement.

We had been talking, Harry and I, of the wonderful developments in Puerto Rico. The statue of Christopher Colombus, a monstrosity bigger than the Statue of Liberty, had been shipped off to Arecibo, a town west of San Juan, where it was to be erected. It had been offered to several cities in the US, but curiously, nobody wanted it. Could it be because it looked like this?

“Well, not every statue has to be beautiful,” I said to Harry. And he agreed: there has to be a place for diversity of aesthetics in our society. And went on to tell me that the windmill parts had been stored in his neighborhood, and that each blade was exactly one city block long. He even showed me the block.

“There are two over at Bacardi,” I said, “and one sitting on the municipal dump.”

Right, so Harry had to tell me the story on that.

The governor, wanting to promote this excellent scheme, had erected the windmill on the dump, and they had all watched breathlessly for the majestic white—symbolic for clean and renewable—blades to spin. They were as still as corpses.

Well, that was a problem, but not for long, and not for our governor. What did he do? Rigged it up with electricity, and we now have, as Harry explained it, an enormous fan slowly twirling in public view. See? Instead of producing any energy, it is in fact consuming it….

This made perfect sense, in a tropical sort of way; it was a precise example of a previous, also statehood, governor’s campaign motto: “¿Problema? ¡Resuelto!”

(Problem? Fixed!)

Well, it was a thing to know about, so I looked it up, after I got home. And found that a company, Pattern Energy, had invested 215 million bucks into this project, and were intending to sell the power company 95 MW, enough to power 33 thousand homes.

Yes, and this would be a savings of $13,000 per hour for the company, and thus for us!

Well, the news came out, a week ago. The windmills have been stopped, for the time being. And why? It seems that the turbines have an unfortunate habit—the blades are flying off. So, shut down until further notice.

Fear not, Readers, that we will be sitting in the dark, reduced to rubbing sticks to light the fires to heat our food. For the new director of the energy company—for we have a new governor, so everybody has to change, even the president of the University of Puerto Rico—has just stated what Marc and Harry knew that day in September.

There’s no wind.

The project, in fact, generates all of 3% of the energy on the island. And the turbines are working at only 20% of capacity, not the 40%-50% that is expected. So Pattern Energy, “one of North America’s leading independent wind and transmission companies,” according to their website, has just stuck in $215,000,000 to Puerto Rico, and is getting back…

…what?

“Did García Márquez really say that about Puerto Rico?” I asked Harry. He knew immediately the remark; it’s part of Puerto Rican folklore. When asked why he didn’t write about Puerto Rico, García Márquez said something like, “they didn’t believe me when I wrote about Macondo, so they really wouldn’t believe me if I wrote about Puerto Rico….”

“Absolutely,” returned Harry. 

Good to know. What would I write about, if I woke up and found everything normal?

Monsanto Marches On

Is there anything this company does that doesn’t piss me off?

Look, I worked for Wal-Mart for seven years, and I still shop at Wal-Mart, even after they laid me off. And yes, they get it wrong sometimes; yes, they do colossally stupid things like tell Joe Biden they’re too “busy” to run up to Washington to talk about gun violence. Then everybody jumps on them and they get a guy out there to do the PR stuff—in short to mop up.

And they could be paranoid. The people from DACO, our local consumer protection department, were in the stores at 4AM every Black Friday, watching us—note that pronoun—like a cat hovering over a fishbowl. So why didn’t they check the local toy stores, my students would complain. “Get over it,” I would say, “it’s the price we pay for being number one.”

I’m trying to tell you—I’m not intrinsically against big business. But I’m finding it hard not to be completely annoyed by Monsanto.

This perhaps won’t make anybody in the corporate office in Creve Coeur, Missouri, wince. But they are, I’m sure, wincing at the news that nine years after testing genetically altered wheat, that same wheat turned up unexpectedly in a farmer’s field in Oregon.

Back up for people just coming in on the story. Monsanto was set up in 1901 by a guy named John Francis Queeny—stop that sniggering out there—and named after his wife’s maiden name. Queeny’s father-in-law, in fact, was Puerto Rican, a wealthy sugar producer in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Queeny’s expertise was in pharmaceuticals, and the company’s first product was saccharine.

Over the years, the company produced mainly chemicals. Then it got into herbicides, and struck it rich with a product called Roundup. Introduced in the ‘70s, it was touted as being completely safe and wonderfully effective at killing anything green.

Monsanto then churned its way into the world of genetically modified seeds. And came up with a brilliant idea—they could make a seed that was resistant to Roundup—their very own product—and sell it to farmers. Then, the farmers would plant the crop, spray the hell out of the field with Roundup, which would kill everything but the Roundup-resistant crop. Think napalm, or maybe Agent Orange.

There were predictable glitches, of course, and those damn fussy Europeans got it into their heads that they didn’t want genetically modified food. And what’s wrong with Canada, normally a quiet, well-behaved country? They don’t want the stuff either. Fine, you say, let ‘em. They can eat whatever they want.

Well, there is a problem—we sell half of our wheat, the world’s largest crop, overseas. And if our trading partners don’t want genetically modified wheat, and especially if they don’t trust us not to be mixing genetically modified wheat into the regular wheat—well, we’re screwed.

And yes, Monsanto was doing testing on genetically modified wheat between 1998 and 2005.

You know what’s coming. A farmer in Oregon was preparing a field that had been lying fallow for the upcoming planting. There were a few stray wheat plants, so he nuked them with Roundup. No luck, try again. And again. So sometime in early May of this year he yanked the plants, which looked identical to regular wheat, and sent them to Oregon State. And yes, they were the genetically modified wheat plants that Monsanto had been testing…

…in 2005.

That’s eight years ago. More, here is the list of states in which the testing took place:

Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. 

Seventeen states, over 100 field tests, and all this approved by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Nor is this the first time. Monsanto, according to one report, in the past 13 years has sued 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses, almost always settling out of court (the few farmers that can afford to go to trial are always defeated).

Oh, and what’s the size of the problem? According to the same source, thinkprogress.org:

Organic and conventional seeds are fast becoming extinct — 93 percent of soybeans, 88 percent of cotton, and 86 percent of corn in the US are grown from Monsanto’s patented seeds. A recent study discovered that at least half of the organic seeds in the US are contaminated with some genetically modified material.

So that tofu you’ve been eating virtuously—no Big Mac for you—is likely made with genetically modified soy seed. Is it a problem? Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know, but the Europeans, the Canadians have logically decided—why find out? Why be the guinea pigs in Monsanto’s experiment?

All right, let’s turn onto a different, though parallel, street. Remember that stuff, Roundup, that farmers have been dumping on crops since the 70’s? It turns out—it may be making us fat.

According to a peer-reviewed paper published in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) journal Entropy, even small amounts of Roundup can build up over time—one of the researchers compares it to arsenic. There are no effects at first, but then you get sick.

How? Apparently, Roundup contains antibiotic properties, which attack the gastrointestinal microbes that—thanks, guys—digest our food. So that leads to an overgrowth of the pathological bacteria, which in turn leads to absorption problems. So we eat and eat—we don’t feel full.

As well, Roundup interferes with the production of the amino acid tryptophan, which is needed to make the neurotransmitter serotonin, which regulates mood and also—get ready—appetite. So I just ate a tuna fish sandwich—am I OK? Have I just gotten a little zap of Roundup? Here’s the author of the study on the subject:

 “If you are eating the typical Western non-organic diet that includes anything made from corn, soy, canola, wheat, sugar (both cane and sugar beet), cottonseed oil, sunflower, carrots, okra, potatoes, lentils, beans, and peas, or meat, then you’re almost certainly consuming glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup),” notes Samsel.

Still want to defend Monsanto? Consider the list of products made by this wonderful company:

1.     Saccharine

2.     PCBs

3.     Polystyrene

4.     Plutonium for the A bomb

5.     DDT

6.     Dioxin

7.     Agent Orange

8.     Petroleum based fertilizer

9.     Roundup

10.  Aspartame

11.  Bovine Growth Hormone

12.  Genetically modified organisms

Sure is quiet around here….

America's Guantanamo

I really, really want to tell you about the Rijksmuseum’s website, which has to be the most totally cool museum website around. Where else can you get a tab for “immoral women” and then see a collection of scandalous ladies—all right, women—from eight centuries of Western Art? Oh, and you can download these immoral women—quite a feat—and the resolution is high quality. No more blurry images. And best of all, the good Dutch have decided to give all away for free. So that means that if you want a tattoo of the night watchmen on your chest—and I’m very much considering it—you can go right ahead.

I also really, really want to tell about Amanda Palmer, who is following a parallel track with the Rijksmuseum. She has a band—a mixture of cabaret and something-or-other-else—and she has decided to give her music away for free. It seems her CD with a major label sold “only” 25,000 copies and that wasn’t good enough. So she cut loose from the label, and gave her music away. Why? Well, a fan approached her after the show, gave her ten bucks, and told her sheepishly that he had burned a copy of her CD from a friend’s CD. And he felt bad. So then Amanda decided to give her music away, but ask for donations. And guess what? It’s working!

In addition, I really, really want to tell you about a seriously unlucky or untalented guy working on ripping up the street in front of my apartment. What he is supposed to be doing is making six inch holes in the pavement. What he has just done is perforated a water main—for the second time in three days. Yes, last Friday there was a geyser of water spewing ten feet upward in the air; Puerto Ricans were merrily saluting him, tourists were snapping photos. Today, more ingeniously, he has covered the geyser with a plywood plank, and is using the jackhammer contraption on his tractor to hold it down.

As interesting as all this is—and you should definitely check out the Rijksmuseum website—I cannot, as a responsible blogger, neglect my duties. So here it is—a pop quiz of only one question….

1.     The country that has held a political prisoner for the longest period of time is

a.     China

b.     Nigeria

c.     Cuba

d.     The United States of America

And the answer is…

The USA. Yes, our country—OK, my country—jailed Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican Vietnam veteran, 32 years ago for something called seditious conspiracy. And today, 54 minutes ago, the mayoress of San Juan got into a replica of the cell in which López Rivera currently resides. In this, she is joined by several other mayors, writers, entertainers, and noteworthy folk.

So what did López Rivera do to warrant 32 years in the can? After all, the average murder sentence is a bit over 10 years—so was he a multiple killer?

No. His crime was to be associated with FALN—the Puerto Rican nationalist group which yes, did over 100 bombings. However, López Rivera never was charged with any bombings, but was instead brought in on seditious conspiracy, armed robbery, and moving stolen vehicles across state lines.

He wasn’t alone—there were at least 14 Puerto Rican political prisoners who had received, in one case, 90 years in jail. That prompted Bill Clinton, in 1999, to offer commutation with parole to all of them. Twelve said yes, López Rivera and another said no. López Rivera’s sister explained that he felt that exchanging prison for parole was simply to move the prison outside.

OK—you can argue: he had his chance, he didn’t take Clinton’s offer, why feel sorry for him?

You can also say that it is totally unreasonable—no, let’s not mince words. It is outrageous and a heinous violation of human rights to be holding this guy in jail for 32 years for nothing more than armed robbery, moving stolen vehicles and—essentially—bad think.

Oh, and the sentence—how long will it last? Well, his next parole review will be in January of 2026, at which point López Rivera will be 83—not an age routinely associated with violent behavior.

Nor is it only the length of time that López Rivera has served—it’s also the fact that for twelve years of that time, he was in total isolation. The prison has also refused to let him speak to the press since 1999, and they have refused as well to allow him to attend the funerals of his father, mother, and sister. They even refused to let him purchase more telephone time so that he could be in contact with his family during the illnesses preceding these deaths.

Everything on this island is political. But today, members of all three parties are getting into cages built on town squares in protest against this outrageous jailing.

Well, you may be wondering, how long is his sentence? 70 years.

He’ll be 107 years old.

Our Glorious Gobe

It’s not a jackhammer; it’s actually a tractor with a super-sized jackhammer attached. And it’s right outside my apartment, making enough noise that I cannot hear loud music played at full volume on my iPod.

The purpose? The jackhammer is drilling 6-inch diameter holes in the pavement of the street. After the street has been completely pockmarked, another tractor will come, scoop up the asphalt, and dump it into a truck. Then, the street will be remade in brick.

Why? Well, parts of San Juan have the famous iridescent blue adoquines or cobblestones. Here—have a look….

Very beautiful, very slippery when wet. So the mayor, or rather ex-mayor, decided to make all the streets in Old San Juan adoquined.

The problem? The real adoquines got their lustrous shiny blue because of slag put in the ballast of ships transporting goods to the island. Now, however, there is either no slag, or there are no ships—I’ve no idea which. And anyway, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, which defends greatly the patrimony of Old San Juan, would never allow anything new which looked old. Anything new has to look new—see? Otherwise a new thing could be mistaken for an old thing and that would be very, very bad.

The solution, therefore, is to pave the street with a dullish, blue-gray brick—which very quickly becomes stained with whatever fluids cars leak—and that means removing the asphalt and preparing the ground to receive the bricks.

And does anyone need the streets to be brick, you ask?

Of course not. The city doesn’t have a library, much less a zoo. There are very few parks, and those that exist tend to be vacant and disheveled. That means that the only thing a parent with a child can do in San Juan is

1.     go to the movies

2.     go to the mall

The point of this all, then, is not to beautify a city already very beautiful but to spend some federal funds, employ some people, and do something visible in a visible place.

Oh, and speaking of money—everybody wants to know: what happened to the billion dollars that were earmarked for the special communities fund, set up by the redoubtable Sila Calderón? Yes, she was our very first lady governor—evil tongues dubbed her “the governess”—and she was a tigress in championing her special communities.

Yes, these derelict communities of (usually) squatters needed all the help they could get—the roads were unpaved, water and electricity spotty, no recreation fields or basketball courts or baseball diamonds. So Sila stepped into the picture, or rather into one particularly down-at-the-heels community, Barrio Obrero, or the Workers Neighborhood. And speaking of heels, there Sila was, wearing her trademark canary yellow dress with Armani shoes to match, tittering on a plank of plywood stretched over a sea of mud; her eyes narrow with terror, her mouth clenched in a smile. Once in the house, she demonstrated the presence of water in the new kitchen sink by washing dishes—something she had never done before, since her father sold virtually all the ice cream on the island for decades; the lady is loaded. But dishes she did, as a large and very black woman—presumably the missis of the house—stood by and watched in puzzlement.

Well, I was once asked what exactly Sila built with that billion dollars, and wanting to be truthful, I responded—signs. Yes, signs that got put up next to the basketball court with no baskets or the community center with the broken out windows, and which remained there for four years, resting in glorious silence as residents of the special community strolled past with their midday beers.

So—where did the money go? Well, Sila harbors dark thoughts about her successor, a man from her own party who would go on to be hauled into Federal court for various shades of fraud. Oh, and then there was the next governor, of the opposite party—so he’s a likely suspect as well. So now the new governor—of Sila’s political ilk and so to be trusted—is gonna investigate, since the money is gone and the neighborhoods continue special, instead of ordinary.

But here’s the great part. Is La Gobe, as disrespectful tongues dubbed her, content to sit back and let the current governor conduct the investigation? Not she! She’s gonna start her own investigation—to be absolutely sure that there’s no trickery, no chicanery, no playing footsy with the truth.

Well, well—she’s a powerhouse, our Sila. And no, it’s not true that her disappearance for a month after winning the election—time lesser individuals spend thinking about their cabinet choices—was spent recovering from a facelift.

Some people naturally have their eyebrows tickling their ears….

Sort of looks Chinese, doesn’t she? And no, she doesn’t go to the same hairdresser as Ronald MacDonald….

Music, for a while

I forced myself to watch the first clip below, because if 5.2 million Americans are living it daily, shouldn’t I be able to take 13 minutes?

Yes.

30% of the veterans will have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, with symptoms that include persistent memories, nightmares, aggression, irritability, and inability to feel affectionate with others. Oh, but that’s just the emotional side. On the physical side, there are the night sweats, the gastrointestinal complaints, the chest pain, and so on.

There’s also the little problem of sleep—PTSD people frequently have sleep apnea and insomnia. Then we have to consider the social problems—the isolation of the victims, the effect on families and spouses, as well as children.

The disorder lasts six months—for some. For others, death is the only cure.

And it’s no little problem—14 million Americans have seen active combat. Here’s what the Rand Corporation has to say about the scope of the problem.

A release from the Rand Corporation reported that 300,000 US military personnel deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression.

Another reports that one in six soldiers who’ve served in Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom suffer from PTSD or service-related stress. Regardless, the numbers are overwhelming.

Unlike past wars, where there were front lines and safe areas, the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq never know when or where the horrors of war will come to them. The level of mental and emotional stress is unprecedented, as is the shock of military and civilian attacks. Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll from these wars will be disproportionately high compared to physical injuries.

Other evidence points to the fact that the multiple tours of combat duty, unique to Iraq and Afghanistan, dramatically increase the percentage of soldiers coming home with PTSD or other psychological damage.

So how much is this going to cost us? Well, according to two economists, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, the total cost will be between 4 to 6 trillion dollars. Oh, and the costs will peak in 30 or 40 years time.

The economists also point out that it isn’t just treating the mind—patients suffering from PTSD use medical services 71% to 170% more than non-PTSD vets. Why? All that stress leads to physical illness. Here’s what Bilmes has to say….

This was the experience with Vietnam veterans diagnosed with PTSD. And recent studies show that PTSD sufferers are at a higher risk for heart disease, RA, bronchitis, asthma, liver, and peripheral arterial disease. They are 200% more likely to be diagnosed with a disease within five years from returning from deployment.

Well, I got into this whole question when I came across an article using music therapy on PTSD victims. Would it work?

There’s some evidence that it might. In fact, Walter Reed hired a music therapist and created a program late last year. And music has often been cited as a healing force; doctors noticed that hospitalized soldiers improved faster when exposed to music.

But according to Oliver Sacks, it’s really only been in the last five years that had come to understand neurologically what music does. He claims—and who am I to take on Dr. Sacks—that music occupies more space in the brain than language does. And as you can see in the clip of Gabrielle Giffords and her music therapist, while Giffords cannot talk, she can sing. That’s because the part of the brain that processes music was unaffected. The amazing thing, though, is that the music is essentially teaching speech back to Giffords, and in doing so, creating a new language center in the right side of the brain, not the left, as it normally is.

So will it help the shattered veterans, as they live their hellish lives? Well, I can only tell you this—I googled “music” and “amygdala” together and came up with the words of this blogger, citing a study by Stefan Koelsch:

The amygdala, which processes emotions thought to be essential for survival, is a limbic structure. Studies have demonstrated that the amygdala responds a certain way to strong music-evoked emotions (chills). Even when chills aren't experienced, different specific changes in amygdala activity (and activity of associated structures) are observed in response to joyful versus dissonant music. Other studies have shown that certain limbic and paralimbic structures exhibit increased activity in response to videos shown with music, as compared to videos presented alone. Video/music studies have shown different neural responses depending on whether the music played was joyful or fearful.

These limbic/paralimbic structure studies provide support for Koelsch's assertion that music-evoked emotions are just as real as everyday ones, since they activate the same structures.

If that’s true, that’s amazing.

“Music for a while, shall all thy cares beguile,” begins a famous song by Henry Purcell. Wouldn’t it be interesting if it weren’t only for a while, but permanently?

The Silence of Ainola

OK—today’s problem. What was going on with Jean Sibelius?

He was born in 1865, he died in1957, he was definitely one of the major composers of the late 19^th century and early 20^th century. And his last major composition? That would be in 1926.

So why did he stop? Granted, he was in his sixties, but that’s hardly old age. Worse, instead of merely stopping, he actively destroyed his own work. Here’s his wife on the subject:

 "In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé at Ainola. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the Karelia Suite were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood."[11]

Well, here he is in 1939—he doesn’t look too sad here.

Born in Finland, Sibelius’s father was a Swedish-speaking doctor, and Finnish was always a second language for Sibelius.  After he graduated from high school, he initially studied law, but soon switched to music. And he must have been a fair violinist—he performed the last two movements of the Mendelssohn concerto in public. And he certainly could write for the instrument, as you can hear in the performance below of his violin concerto of 1905.

Not bad, hunh? Chang definitely earned whatever her fee was that night.

In addition to the concerto, Sibelius wrote 7 symphonies, of which the second and the fifth are probably the best known. Here’s the finale of the seventh symphony, which you may be singing for the rest of the week.

Right—then there are the songs, some of which were written for Marian Anderson, the preeminent singer of her day. And below, she sings one of the most famous, Im Feld ein Mädchen singt.

Right—two warnings. The first is that the recording quality is, by our standards, poor. Anderson sounds far away, the vibrato is too wide for modern tastes, but for me at least, all that adds to the essential spooky feeling of the song.

Which you will understand—here’s an English translation of the German.

In the field a maiden sings...

Perhaps her lover is dead;

Perhaps her happiness is ended,

For her song is a sad one.

The sunset fades,

The woods become silent,

But ever, from far away,

The sorrowing song still sounds.

The last note dies.

I would like to go to her.

We would console one another,

So sadly does she sing.

The sunset fades;

The woods become silent.

A great lover of nature, Sibelius lived in the country most of his life, and was known as the Silence of Ainola, his country home. It wasn’t true that he was a recluse; he received visitors but did not leave his home. And Wikipedia shares one of the anecdotes frequently told:

[He] was returning from his customary morning walk. Exhilarated, he told his wife Aino that he had seen a flock of cranes approaching. "There they come, the birds of my youth," he exclaimed. Suddenly, one of the birds broke away from the formation and circled once above Ainola. It then rejoined the flock to continue its journey. Two days afterwards Sibelius died of a brain hemorrhage, at age 91 (on 20 September 1957), in Ainola, where he is buried in the garden. Another well-known Finnish composer, Heino Kaski, died that same day. Aino lived there for the next twelve years until she died on 8 June 1969; she is buried with her husband.

Critical opinion has varied over the years, as tastes and fads in music have changed. Tim Page of the Washington Post may have said it best.

There are two things to be said straightaway about Sibelius. First, he is terribly uneven (much of his chamber music, a lot of his songs and most of his piano music might have been churned out by a second-rate salon composer from the 19th century on an off afternoon). Second, at his very best, he is often weird.

Ouch….