Light Travels Faster than the Days before Christmas

I don't know if observations like this led to Einstein's quantum theory or his theory of relativity, but I do know that all the observations he made before he bothered to begin talking led to his later work.
At a presentation by James Costa, when he was discussing his new book, Darwin's Backyard; How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory, which includes DIY experiments kids could do, a member of the audience asked him if he thought experiments came before theory or vice versa. Acknowledging, it was a bit like the chicken and the egg, he said he thought observation and curiosity probably came first.

This got me thinking about what has happened in the Middle East since the Arab Spring in 2011. On the nightly news, I well remember seeing a smiling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton surrounded by smiling Egyptian faces in Tahrir Square then. Just as vividly, I remember Mrs. Clinton responding, during her presidential campaign of 2016, to a Congressional committee blaming her for U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens' death in Benghazi, Libya. Curious about what changes took place between 2011 and 2016, I looked for answers in Steven A. Cook's book, False Dawn.

Members of the administration of George W. Bush initially saw the Arab uprisings in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia as confirmation of the wisdom of 2003's invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Historical observation could have predicted the Middle East had not been waiting for a foreign intervention and occupation to bring democracy to the region. Even so, once protesters overthrew the "stable" authoritarian regimes U.S. policy traditionally supported, U.S. administrations continued to believe they should be involved in the democratization of the Middle East. If for no other reason, Washington continued to provide economic, political, diplomatic, and military support to countries allied with its U.S. interests there.

The trouble with trying to bring democracy to the Middle East is, as observation shows, the region has no Magna Carta tradition nor a political-philosophical underpinning of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. What it does have is a legacy of pan-Arabism expansion, the Muslim religion, authoritarian systems supported by fear, and tribal fragmentation. Instead of democracy reaching the Middle East, maybe  observation could have told the world to expect terrorists and social media to push an Arab-Muslim agenda West?

Given the actual situation in the Middle East, how could a New Year's Resolution to use curiosity and new observations come up with ways to satisfy the peaceful desires of people, not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world? In what ways could travel, technologies, new roles of women as entrepreneurs and politicians, education, natural and man-made disasters, and medical advances foster peaceful changes?

The Palm Oil Dilemma for Consumers

Before consumers buy products they are going to eat or drink, they are beginning to turn them around to check for the added sugars, genetically engineered ingredients, and high fructose corm syrup they want to avoid. The palm oil they find listed in snack foods, as well as in ice cream and other products, also is an ingredient in detergents and beauty products. Africans cook with palm oil, and a woman from Nigeria told me it could control high blood pressure. This widespread use results in a constant pressure to expand palm oil plantations and the following unintended consequences.

• Deforestation of rain forests means fewer carbon emissions can be absorbed to limit climate change.
• Deforestation destroys the tropical forest habitats of endangered species, such as orangutans, rhinos, tigers, and elephants in Sumatra, Indonesia. Plus, roads built into forests enable illegal logging and exporters to reach the rare birds that become part of the underground trade in exotic creatures. 
• Deforestation in parts of Indonesia helped cause floods, according to the World Bank.
• Fires used to clear Indonesian oil palm plantations in 2015 caused the smoke that resulted in respiratory problems in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
• Although corporations make commitments not to use palm oil from suppliers accused of illegal deforestation and from uncertified mills, they often only honor these commitments when an NGO or other groups uncovers a violation or local law enforcement acts.
• Labor is exploited; living and working conditions on plantations are bad. Migrant laborers from Bangladesh, for example, who work on the palm oil plantations in Malaysia often owe third party company recruiters debts they cannot pay. They find they are like prisoners working seven days a week after being forced to surrender their passports.
• Needed food production decreases when farmers switch to growing oil palm. Their debts rise as they purchase seed and fertilizer from the palm oil companies they supply.
• Expansion of palm oil plantations which encroach on village farm land and grazing pastures leads to conflict. 

Ravenous demand for palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, the countries that produce 80% of the world's supply, has not gone unnoticed in Brazil, where research shows almost half of the country's land area is suitable for growing oil palm. At the moment, most of Brazil's palm oil comes from the Amazon state of Para, where plantations employ about 20,000. As in Indonesia and Malaysia, an increase in palm oil production raises fears of illegal deforestation and endangering the biodiverse ecosystem. Rising land prices already have led to land ownership conflicts and even murder.

Relying on Indonesia's environmental laws, eco-warriors now identify illegal palm oil plantations on protected National Park land listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Spotters tell owners of illegal plantations to return the land to authorities or face prosecution. They then cut down each oil palm. In about five years, replanted seedlings begin to help forests recover unless sun burns out young plants or elephants trample them. Altogether, it can take 20 to 200 years for forests to reach their original growth.

Other palm oil players also are determined to combat the effect of deforestation on climate change and to protect endangered animals, birds, and plants. Besides groups, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) that uses an oil palm symbol to identify "Certified Sustainable Palm Oil," the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, and Friends of the Earth, banks that finance palm oil plantation owners and investors in palm oil companies have begun to show greater concern about backing firms engaged in deforestation. When the Noble Group, owner of palm oil's Noble Plantations, prepared to issue a bond to finance clearing pristine rain forest in Papua, Indonesia, the HSBC bank involved in the bond issue asked RSPO to investigate charges that development on Noble's concession was about to violate RSPO standards. As a result, Noble's spokesperson announced work on Papua's plantations was on hold while sustainable analysis was pending. Other banks also have begun to require independent verification that palm oil borrowers comply with no deforestation, no peat, and no exploitation policies.

In the United States, the Ceres sustainability organization issued an "Engage the Chain" report to alert investors to the environmental and social threats posed by companies that rely on palm oil and other commodity suppliers.

Negatives associated with palm oil create a search for alternatives. But when the Ecover cleaning company produced a new laundry liquid using oil from genetically modified algae, customers refused to buy it. In the UAE, experiments show a species of alga that grows in fresh and salt water naturally produces the fatty palmitic acid found in palm oil. The University of Bath is experimenting with a yeast that has properties similar to palm oil that can grow in municipal, supermarket, or agricultural waste rather than on land. To date, however, substitutes, including rapeseed and coconut oil, cannot compete with less expensive palm oil that sells from $500 to $1,200 a ton, unless customers begin to recognize the non-price benefits of avoiding palm oil.

When consumers turn around a product and spot palm oil as an ingredient, what might they do?

(Also see the earlier post, "Long Supply Lines Foster Abuses").

What Can We Learn from Terrorists?

I remember seeing an article that I thought sounded ridiculous until I read it The headline was something like "What We Can Learn from People Who Live in a Dump." It turned out these people found in the dump what they needed for shelter and cooking and the scrap they sold to earn an income. Their livelihood was recycling writ large. It was just like the train loads of scrap iron that become new steel or the discarded rock piles reprocessed to ferret out every bit of copper. In the same way countries with no lithium mines will have to learn to make new batteries out of lithium extracted from used items.

     So, what wisdom can we extract from terrorists? They think about God far more than those who say, "I don't believe in God," and those who blithely assume God created each and every full blown plant, animal, and human.

     In his book, The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe recounts an exchange between Charles Darwin and a group of naive students who wanted to know how evolution "got under way and how exactly, physically, it started up -- from what?" One student was not satisfied with Darwin's answer that evolution probably started with "four or five cells floating in a warm pool somewhere." He asked where the cells came from and who put the cells in the pool. In 1871, Darwin said he didn't know and in 2017, since no one has created even one cell out of nothing and the greatest scientist has discovered what exists rather than created anything, the obvious answer is God.

     In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson expressed the self-evident truth that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." The First Amendment of the Constitution went on to guarantee certain rights, including that Congress could not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Through texts, traditions, the words of learned scholars, and the well-formed consciences of individuals, many religious beliefs related to the existence of God have developed. Is He or She? Is God one person, three, or hundreds? Was Jesus God? Did he rise from the dead or was he a hologram, spirit, or frog-like being stimulated by electricity? Are we here to accumulate wealth or to serve the poor, pray, and adore God? Is God vengeful or merciful? Is there life of the body or soul or both after death?

     Where Muslim extremists go off the rails is when they use Allah to justify killing infidels who  hold different religious beliefs. Similarly, pro-life zealots who use their religion to justify killing doctors who perform abortions are also misguided.

      In summary, we can learn two main ideas from terrorists: 1) God is too big a subject to dismiss without study, and 2) religious beliefs do not justify killing those with different religious beliefs.

(See the earlier post, "This We Believe," to learn some of the beliefs of the world's major religions.)

   

What to Look For at the Olympics in February: Fashion

Any woman who has tried to buy a new winter coat this season knows the selection is limited to one style, a black sack. Fashion designers have an opportunity to gain inspiration from the wide variety of coats athletes from 90 countries will be wearing when they enter South Korea's stadium for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. Most talked about on what the USA athletes wore were their fringed leather gloves right out of the ol' West.

The running outfit of Shalane Flanagan, the U.S. woman who won the New York City Marathon on November 5, 2017, should be as much of an inspiration to fashion designers as her winning time was to track athletes. Her red and black top was coupled with an unattached red sleeve on her right arm and an unattached black one on her left. Not the usual attire for a distance runner.

And speaking of athletes inspiring fashion, look for female Muslims sporting NIKE's new Pro Hijab when they take to the field at the Summer Olympics in 2020.

Holiday Helpings of Gifts

Last year I wrote how my grandfather believed in aspirational, rather than age-appropriate, gifts in the post, "Aspirational Holiday Gifts." I told how he gave me a fountain pen and pencil set when I was five. This year I came across a children's book that falls into the same aspirational gift category perfectly. Big Words for little geniuses by Susan and James Patterson represents each letter of the alphabet with a sophisticated word, its definition, and a delightful illustration. There are words, such as:
     D is for dulcifluous
     E is for empyreal
     L is for logophiler
I wish the words were in foreign languages and the book were Big Words for little international geniuses, but that could be the Pattersons next book. In any case, the current book, like Eloise or Click, Clack, Moo, is one of those books that adults find as much fun to read as kids do.

     Another aspirational book, A History of the World in 500 Walks, also can appeal to and inspire kids and adults. With photos, trail maps, travel tips, and historical details, Sarah Baxter guides readers on adventures around the world. I can hear walks in this book read one at a time per day by a teacher or as a bedtime story.

     The Bas Bleu catalog (BASBLEU.COM or 800-433-1155) has a Scratch-Off World Map on a 32" x 23" poster that could be used separately or as a companion to A History of the World in 500 Walks. Parents and teachers could let children scratch off the foil covering the country where the walk they heard about took place. The poster also includes country facts and travel tips. There are many creative ways to use this map to help children find the countries where Olympic games take place, where they or their grandparents were born, where rivers/mountains are located.

     For children 8 and older, MindWare (1-800-274-6123 or custserv@mndware.com) offers a connect-the-dots Around the World activity book (Item FZ-54004) with pictures of places such as St Basil's in Russia, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, and the Eiffel Tower. The book is considered Extreme Dot to Dot, because each picture has 1,400 or more dots, and pictures are printed on artist-quality paper children can color after they finish connecting the dots. If you add a set of fine tip markers to the gift, you might find, as I have, that it will give children something to do after all the presents are unwrapped.

     Finally, for those who mark off the days until Christmas on Advent calendars, there is nothing better than the $7.99 one offered by Serrv (serrv.org or 888-294-9660). Children find little chocolate hearts behind each day in the Nativity story, and this year purchases will help fund locally-made bamboo bicycles to help children in Ghana, Africa, ride to school.

Terrorism Alerts

New York City's Police Commissioner, James O'Neill, didn't just tell us, if we see something, say something, he told us what to look for. He said to put down our cell phones and look for something out of place. An automotive vehicle driving down a bike path certainly was something out of place in New York City on October 31, 2017. Years ago, an NYC vendor said something and successfully alerted the police to prevent a disaster, when he saw wires and smoke coming out of a van in Times Square.

     Looking back on other tragic events, we remember later seeing unattended backpacks at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA, and at the Boston Marathon in 2013. Also there was the unusual young white man attending a Bible service in an African-American church and the high school boys who wore long black coats. In department stores, security looks for potential shoplifters carrying large shopping bags and wearing big winter coats, especially in summer. When a security guard at the Watergate complex saw a piece of tape over a lock, he found the burglars who led to President Nixon's resignation. Then, there are unusual purchases of too much fertilizer and too many boxes of ammunition. And there is unusual behavior: a "Do Not Disturb" sign on a hotel door for three days, an unusual amount of activity on a web site, or pilots in training who don't seem to care about learning how to land a plane.

     When Nobel Prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman, was asked to investigate the cause of the Challenger space shuttle's explosion, he saw a photo of a small smoke puff coming out of one side of the craft. His advice that anything not supposed to happen according to a project's design should signal trouble is applicable in other circumstances, as well. A police officer shooting anyone holding up his or her hands should not happen. Neither should the sound of a gun being fired in a convenience store be heard. Current police practice requires going to anywhere a gun shot is heard, because any sound of a gun shot in a neighborhood is out of place, as is a woman's scream and screeching tires.

     Finally, keep the telephone number of your local police department handy. When you see or hear something, the next step is to say something to prevent more violence.