February's International Film Festival

One of the most pleasant ways to learn about a country is to go to a movie made in or about somewhere you don't live. When Oscar nominations for short and feature films are announced, it's time to start looking for theatres that show them, because many of these potential Academy Award winners have an international connection.

     This year, in the animated shorts category, South Africa presents Revolting Rhymes based on Ronald Dahl's dark spin on fairy tales. One French short, Negative Space, shows a sad relationship between father and son can exist in any culture, and, in another French short, two amphibians explore a deserted mansion. These shorts are shown together with two U.S. films: the Pixar short, Lou, that ran before Cars and Kobe Bryant's retirement letter, Dear Basketball.

     Since the live action shorts nominated for Oscars often portray news events, they can be a pleasant way to see both uplifting and unpleasant aspects of a country. Watu Wote (All of Us) shows how Muslims risked their lives to protect the Christians riding on a bus with them, when Islamic terrorists attacked in Kenya. The British short, The Silent Child, introduces the social worker who taught a deaf 4-year-old girl the sign language that enabled her to come out of the shadows and be included in family conversations. Two U.S. entries cover a school shooting in Atlanta titled DeKalb Elementary and My Nephew Emmett based on the 1955 racist murder of Emmett Till. Australian humor is on display in The Eleven O'Clock, a short about an appointment between a psychiatrist and patient that try to treat each other.

     Families already may have seen the animated feature, Coco, which has a Mexican theme depicting how a death in the family shouldn't end memories of a relative. Loving Vincent probably won't have wide distribution, but if young people have a chance to see this Polish-British feature, it might be their only time to see a movie where each frame about Vincent Van Gogh is made by an oil painting. Since Angelina Jolie produced The Breadwinner, this animated feature likely has wider distribution. It shows how an 11-year-old girl disguised herself as a boy to grow up with more opportunities under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

     Although too advanced to be appropriate or understood by young people, the live action foreign language films nominated for Academy Awards provide adults with points of view from Chile (A Fantastic Woman), Lebanon (The Insult), Russia (Loveless), Hungary (On Body and Soul), and Sweden (The Square).

     Oscar winners will be announced on Sunday, March 4, 2018.

     

   

Dump the Dump

You can feel superior to those who throw plastic bottles into the ocean, flip lithium batteries into the trash, and buy new shoes instead of having a cobbler replace worn heels. But a close look at recycling finds even this "solution" has problems awaiting solutions.

     Making it easier for soda consumers to recycle plastic bottles or providing batteries with electronic tags to help pull them out of the ordinary disposal process still sends these bottles and batteries to a waste plant. The problem of disposing of the heavy lithium-ion batteries that wear out in the growing fleet of electric cars is a major matter of concern to these auto makers as well.  Waste plants, such as the Integrated Waste Management Facility at Bukit Nanas in Malaysia, boast about converting waste to electricity, but they downplay the cancer and other toxic disease emissions these plants produce. And what about the average annual rate of 300 fires at waste and recycling plants in the United Kingdom?

     In a recycling industry where price to cost margins are small, there is little incentive to monitor air quality frequently, purchase sprinklers and other expensive fire prevention equipment, keep from stacking recycled materials too high and too close together, provide employees with protective gear, or penalize and shut down illegal waste sites.

     "Repair rather than replace" has a nice ring to it, but when it is less expensive to buy new shoes or a small appliance than to have old ones repaired or even find someone who can do the job, those options aren't considered.

     Knee jerk solutions aren't always solutions. Substituting degradable paper bags and packaging for plastic that requires fossil fuel to produce and years to disappear can deplete forests. Reducing the amount of gasoline cars use by adding 10% ethanol from corn requires more electricity and might mean some people go hungry.

     When I was having a chair reupholstered, I also asked the man I called to do the repairs how much it would cost to recover a sofa chewed by the cat. He told me, "$600." I said something like, "I've seen new sofas advertised for less." He asked how old my sofa was, and I guessed about 60 years. He told me I wouldn't find anything like its interior materials and construction on the market today and that he's recovered furniture for people who go to yard sales looking for old furniture they can buy cheap, because they know the insides of these old pieces are worth the cost of upholstering them.

     Every time we are walking to the trash to throw something out, maybe we should slow down and ask ourselves: what could I do with this, who could use this, why did I buy this in the first place?

   

Music and Art Join Laughter as Best Medicine

Realize it or not, when members of the audience receive shaker eggs to participate in making music at Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, they're receiving a dose of health-giving medicine.

     According to a two-year study based on interviews and case studies, activities, such as percussion music making and conducting, drawing, painting, and writing poetry help keep people well, relieve symptoms, improve sleep, and aid recovery from depression to chronic pain to strokes.

     An article in The Guardian by Mark Brown (July 19, 2017) said British ministers reacted to the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing by noting the per patient cost savings from a decrease in medical consultations and hospital admissions credited to the arts.

     Artist Grayson Perry said, "Making and consuming art lifts our spirits and keeps us sane."

Meet the Farmer Behind the Produce Label

A label on your banana tells its country of origin, but the UK's Fairtrade Foundation (fairtrade.org) site tells you about the farmers who grow and harvest your bananas, what benefits they receive, and where you can buy Fairtrade certified bananas.

The Fairtrade site also provides the background of other produce: cocoa, coffee, cotton, flowers, sugar, and tea. Something to read while enjoying your banana.

Iceland Gives China the Cold Shoulder

Unlike Russia and the United States, China has no military or commercial presence in the Arctic. To date, Beijing's attempts to remedy the situation have failed. China's hope for a foothold in a European NATO member were dashed, when the Iceland sheep farm Huang Nubo, a former official in the Chinese Communist Party's Propaganda Department, tried to buy was sold to British shale gas fracking billionaire, Jim Ratcliffe, in December, 2016.

(If a student has a globe, this would be a good opportunity to see where a sheep farm in northeastern Iceland would be in relation to the Arctic Circle and to see which other countries are in or near Arctic waters.)

Trading on his relationship with Hjorleifur Sveinbjornsson, his former roommate at Peking University, Huang first visited Iceland in 2010 to establish a China-Iceland Culture Fund to finance meetings of poets. Sveinbjornsson has said Huang was "not an idiot" and did not think Huang's offer to buy the sheep farm for $7 million in 2011 was a front for other than the stated eco-resort purpose.

In 2012 , the state-owned China Development Bank put up $100 million to back Huang's plan to build a luxury hotel and golf course in Grimsstadir, Iceland. In the 100 square mile sheep farm, where snow falls from September to May, Huang claimed that what he called his 100-room, high end, environmentally friendly resort was designed for wealthy Chinese tourists looking for clean air, peace, and quiet.

Since Huang's Zhongkun Group chose a location near oil reserves where China bid for a drilling license on Iceland's northeast coast and also planned to upgrade a landing strip to handle 10 aircraft, a suspicious interior minister rejected a request to exempt Huang from Iceland't laws restricting foreign land ownership. Huang countered with a proposal for a long-term lease arrangement which also was not approved.

 Ratcliffe will own two thirds of the Grimsstadir property; the Icelandic government and other minority investors will own the rest. Ratcliffe says his interest in Iceland is conservation, particularly for protecting area rivers that are important breeding grounds for Atlantic salmon. The Strengur angling club that leases rivers in Grimsstadir expressed pleasure having Ratcliffe as a partner they know as an avid salmon angler who has fished the area for years.

Beijing has made multiple approaches to Iceland. From its vantage point in the South China Sea, China is used to presiding over 30% of the world's ocean-going trade. Looking ahead to the prospect of climate change permitting more traffic through warming Arctic waters, China has expressed an interest in using Iceland as a shipping hub. China's embassy building in Reykjavik is the city's largest. The two countries negotiated a Free Trade Area accord. And, in an attempt to become an observer, China sent its Snow Dragon icebreaker for a stop at Iceland during an Arctic Council meeting of eight nations (Russia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States).

As opposed to China, Russia's oil and gas drilling prospects in the Arctic could improve. Rex Tillerson, currently Exxon Mobil's CEO and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Secretary of State, has close ties with Russia.

Exotic Farming

If Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, and Bashar al-Assad suddenly planted vegetable gardens in the front yards of their residences, that would be exotic farming. When she was the US First Lady, Mrs. Obama did encourage young people to eat nutritional vegetables by planting a vegetable garden in the White House's backyard, and she invited students from Wisconsin and other States to help harvest the crops.

     Looking around the world you can find other examples of exotic farming. Until late in 2018, Pakistan kept eight buffaloes to provide milk for its prime minister. To grow alfalfa for nearly one million cows, Almarai, the largest dairy producer in oil-rich, water-poor Saudi Arabia, paid $31.8 million for 1,790 acres of land in California. Unfortunately, growing alfalfa there diverted water from the Colorado River that was needed by drought prone California.  Transporting heavy, bulky animal feed thousands of miles also required burning fossil fuel that emits the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

     Other examples of exotic farming offer better options. A London warehouse has become an aquaponic vertical farm that grows salad greens and herbs and produces fish. On the roof of a former factory in The Hague, Urban Farmers, a Swiss aquaponics system does the same. Berlin's Infarm modular, indoor hydroponic systems grow herbs, radishes, and greens right in Metro Cash & Carry supermarkets.

     Look up aquaponics and hydroponics on the internet. These exotic new urban agricultural projects can be near consumers in shops, restaurants, schools, and hospitals. They can provide job opportunities for those trained to find balconies and roof tops with micro climates that have sun and little wind, to decide what crops to plant, to monitor quality, and to find customers.

   

Front-Runners for UN Secretary-General

Considerations for choosing a new UN Secretary-General before Ban Ki-Moon's term ends this year:

• Eastern Europe has never been represented in this position
• A woman has never been the UN's Secretary-General
• All permanent UN members (US, UK, France, Russia, and China) have to agree on the nominee
• He/she has to have the support of his/her country

Front-runners:

• Irina Bokova from Bulgaria
• Vuk Jeremic from Serbia
• Danilo Turk from Slovenia
• Vesna Pusic from Croatia

Others who have shown interest:

• Helen Clark from New Zealand
• Natalia Gherman from Moldova
• Antonio Guterres from Portugal: Chosen by Security Council members Oct. 6, 2016 
• Srgjan Kerim from Macedonia
• Igo Luksic from Montenegro

Recess Differs Around the World

As seen by photographer, James Mollison, in his new book, Playground, how students play, learn, and live is very different around the world.

     In Tokyo, Japan, children in clean shirts and shorts play in a gym with plenty of space under a roof that opens and closes. At school in Hull, UK, young men in uniforms of white shirts with navy sweaters and pants fool around in a brick courtyard. Recess in Africa is quite different. Hundreds of students in drab uniforms stand around in the dirt in front of their ramshackle school in Nairobi, Kenya. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, students in blue shirts and dark shorts share their recess with pigs in a stream.

     Sitting at outdoor ping pong and chess tables, students in Tel Aviv, Israel, wear military uniforms, while the dress code on the students standing around outdoors in a cement lot in Bethlehem, West Bank, is blue shirts and dark pants.

     Outdoors in Karvag, Averoy, Norway, active students in sweaters spend their recesses climbing trees in a wooded lot. Some African children also like to climb trees in their free time.

China's Corruption Crackdown, New Bank Backing, and Release of PR Activists

In case there was any doubt about China's determination to stamp out corruption, the April 2015 arrest of Zhou Yongkang, former head of the domestic secret police and the most senior member of the Chinese Communist Party to face corruption charges, should dispel that notion. Assets from Zhou's family members and associates totaling $14.5 billion were seized, and 300 of his relatives and allies have been  taken into custody or questioned. Zhou, and earlier Bo Xilai, were believed to have been investigated by the special investigation team composed of cross-agency law enforcement officials that can only be authorized by Beijing's senior leadership to investigate high ranking Communist Party members.

     In the book, The Little Red Guard, mentioned in the earlier blog post, "See the World," model workers of older Chinese generations felt betrayed by a new corrupt system that rewarded friends and relatives of Communist Party officials with promotions and raises. Although President Xi Jinping was said to be worried that the extent of corruption revealed at a trial of Zhou would undermine public faith in China's Communist Party and alienate other high level party members who fear their own corruption charges, Zhou was sentenced to life in prison in June, 2015. China also has added Wang Tianpu, president of Sinopec, China's state-owned Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, to its list of corruption suspects. In October, 2015, Sam Pa, who heads the Queensway group in Hong Kong and who has ties to China's intelligence service, was detained in Beijing. Queensway is an active deal maker in Africa and North Korea. In March, 2016, HSBC froze $87 million of Sam Pa's assets.

     Following the explosion of the Rui Hai International Logistics's chemical warehouse that killed over 100 and damaged 17,000 homes in Tianjin, ten Chinese officials were detained on suspicion of safety violations. Two Rui Hai executives admitted using political connections to get waivers that allowed the warehouse to be build closer to a residential area than allowed by law, and the warehouse had been cited for safety violations in the past.

     China's corruption crackdown already has put politician and powerful Chongqing party boss, Bo Xilai, in prison for life and given his wife, Gu Kailai, a suspended death sentence for poisoning British businessman, Neil Heywood, who may have been murdered for wanting too big a cut for helping get the family funds of Bo and Gu out of China. On July 28, 2015, when Man Mingan, the Chinese prosecutor in Gu's murder trial, was found hanged in his Anhui province apartment, police launched an investigation into the circumstances. In another strange development, China uncovered a fake anti-corruption unit that had its own interrogation room.

     The anti-corruption campaign has caused China's big rollers to flee Macau's casinos for Cambodia, where, as described in the earlier post, "Let's Visit China," they hope to do their gambling under the radar of investigators. Consequently, Macau's investors, who have seen their revenue drop, have decided to follow the Las Vegas model and give the island a more family-friendly image by adding a $2.3 billion theme park to a new casino.

     Meanwhile, a new Chinese-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which has won the approval of the World Bank, has been founded. The bank's president, Jin Liqun, was among the world's 100 Most Influential People selected by TIME magazine in 2016.  AIIB attracted 57 prospective founding members, including Singapore, India, Thailand, and even the UK (but not Japan, Australia, South Korea and the US, the more developed countries that control the rival Asian Development Bank.) Hoping the UK can cash in on billions of trade deals with China, British Prime Minister Cameron gave Chinese President Xi the royal treatment, including a ride in a horse-driven carriage, when he visited the UK in October, 2015. Although President Obama cautioned the UK about developing close ties with China and initially opposed Britain's participation in the AIIB, he eventually suggested the bank may have a positive impact on emerging markets. By 2017, the AIIB had 80 member nations including Britain ad Australia. The Asian Development Bank now works with AIIB to fund energy, transport, and infrastructure projects.

     The July, 2015 purchase of the former Milan headquarters of Italian bank, UniCredit, by the Chinese Fosun group headed by Guo Guangchang was just the latest in a series of recent Chinese investments in Italy, including Italian banks and companies, such as tire maker Pirelli and luxury goods manufacturer, Caruso.

     After being held for a month, China released five women's rights advocates who have a flair for gaining public attention. They were arrested in March when they prepared to distribute posters and stickers protesting domestic violence. Earlier, they had gained attention for the same cause by parading through the streets in bloody wedding gowns. The women who were charged with creating a disturbance could still be sentenced up to three years in prison, if they fail to report their movements to police and to make themselves available for questioning at any time.

Robots for Good

Where can techies around the world go to collaborate with other techies? One creative space is Wevolver.com, the web platform where co-founder, Richard Hulskes, offers open-source hardware technology and a way for people with project ideas to collaborate and build physical, tangible products at home. Pascal Jaussi, an engineer and Swiss Air Force military pilot, had a similar idea to make space accessible. His Swiss Space Systems in Payerne, canton Vaud, assembles existing components and uses proven technologies from the United States, Russia, Europe, and Asia to create sub-orbital reusable aircraft that can put commercial satellites into orbit.

      The forces that have come together in Hulskes' "Robots for Good" project illustrate just how powerful technological collaboration can be.

One project provides an example. By combining:

• an Ultimaker 3D printer
• the head and torso of the humanoid InMoov 3D printable robot
• the free, downloadable blueprint and materials for an Open Wheels segway
• Samsung's head-mounted, virtual display oculus rift
• software
• children working with Ultimaker personnel at MakerMovement spaces in London
• seriously ill children at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital

some hospitalized children are about to self-direct a virtual experience at the London Zoo.

     One team in London is using the 3D printer to assemble an InMoov robot and Open Wheels segway that can move. Another in the U.S. is working on software. Kids will drive the robot with a remote control. And, wearing an oculus rift, they will be able to move the robot's head by moving their heads and to see through the robot's eyes.

     Remote controlled drones also are being designed to fly over wildfires to relay information about  sources of water in ponds and wells and escape routes to firefighters on the ground. According to National Geographic Kids (May, 2015), roboticist Thomas Bewley at the University of California at San Diego is already developing a drone like this. Only a little larger than a postage stamp, his drone requires less energy than it takes to power a lightbulb.

(Also see related ideas in earlier blog posts, "Play, Computer Connections, and Pets Come to the Aid of Sick Kids," "I Made This Myself," "Transform Spaces into Creative Places," and "Robot Revolution.")


   

 

See the World in Oscar-Nominated Films

In 2016, Oscars continued to honor a variety of countries at the Academy Awards ceremony on February 28. I'll just name the countries of those I remember who were involved in honored films: Mexico, Chile, Hungary, Israel, Italy, the UK, and Pakistan.

     Before the Academy Awards presentations on February 22, 2015, movie theatres began to show the Live Action and Animated Shorts nominated for Oscars. Last year these shorts gave kids a chance to see life in foreign countries.

     "Butter Lamp" showed the reactions of Tibetan nomads as they had their pictures taken, not by selfies, but by a professional photographer who provided various backdrops showing sites in China.

     "Boogaloo and Graham" captured the reactions of a mother and two boys in Northern Ireland who took care of the chicks their father gave them during the Troubles.

     In "Parvaneh" (a Persian name meaning "Butterfly"), when an Afghan girl seeking asylum in Switzerland enlisted the aid of a local girl, Emely, to help her send money to her family, she encountered lots of red tape and learned girls in different countries with very different lifestyles can be friends.

     A live action short, "My Father's Truck," that didn't quite make the cut to receive an Oscar nomination, showed how family members can live very different lives. When a girl in Vietnam skipped school one day, she found out her life as a school girl was a lot easier than what her father did transporting passengers in his truck. The Chinese father in "Carry On," a film also on a short list of possible Oscar-nominated movies, sacrificed his life to save his family during the Japanese invasion in World War II.

     Some films might show how kids in other countries experience the same things as they do.

     One child's parents can be very different from another child's, as a Norwegian 7-year-old-girl and her sisters learn when they request a bicycle from their hippie parents in "Me and My Moulton," an animated short nominated for an Oscar.

     "Baghdad Messi," a live action short considered for an Oscar, showed how kids in Iraq, even those with only one leg, love soccer as much as kids in other countries.

     "Summer Vacation," an Israeli short considered for an Oscar, may remind kids that every family vacation to a beautiful beach doesn't always go as planned.

     And "Symphony No. 42," an animated short from Hungary that was considered for an Oscar, even notices the similarities between the activities that humans and animals perform. Music in this film includes bird and jungle sounds from Sri Lanka.

     Considering the full-length, Oscar-nominated, foreign language films from Poland (Ida), Russia (Leviathan), Estonia (Tangerines), Mauritania (Timbuktu), and Argentina (Wild Tales), making and viewing movies are popular activities all over the world.



   

Super International Jokes

On Super Bowl (U.S. football) Sunday, I'm reminded of the joke about the announcer who gave the ball scores but failed to tell what teams were involved in the 14-3, 21-10, 59-0 wins.

     Kids might like the following jokes attributed to countries around the world:

What do Japanese parents tell their children? You're allergic to bees. Only get A's on tests.

What does the Loch Ness monster eat? Fish and ships.

In Dublin an Irishman asks Paddy the quickest way to Cork.
 Paddy says, "Are you on foot or in a car?"
The Irishman says, "In a car."
Paddy responds, "That's the quickest way."

Why do Argentinians look up to the sky every time there is a lightning flash?
They think God is taking their picture.

What is the fastest country in the world? Russia.

And from THE OATMEAL website:
Who is a penguin's favorite relative:
His/her Aunt Arctica.

(Hope no one is offended by these jokes.)

What's On the Big Screen?

Not just a jumbo tron at sporting events or a way to purchase plane tickets. New uses are being found for digital billboards and interactive touchscreens.

      Advertisers can provide health information, such as pollen counts for allergy sufferers. Missing children can be featured and found. Art can be displayed. Digital screens can raise awareness and provide early detection of childhood diseases. Newspapers have found a new media to publish weather reports, news, and travel information for visitors in real time or on a prescribed schedule.

     Some of the UK companies engaged in these new endeavors are:

• Outdoor Media Centre
• Art Everywhere initiative
• JCDeaux
• KBH On-Train Media
• Media Co Outdoor
• Manchester Evening News

Resolve to Help Kids Observe Their World

While I was picking up pine needles in the kitchen this morning, I knew our cat had brought them there on her feet from our Christmas tree in the living room. Observing this phenomena I thought how this kind of observation would illustrate, not just tell, kids how animals and birds around the world help spread seeds and bees provide the necessary function of pollinating the world's crops. (See the earlier blog post, "The Bees and the Birds.")

    Next time we go to an art museum, I mused, I should help kids observe why the light and subject matter in Italian paintings is different from that in British and Japanese ones.

     Watching a nature program on TV and taking a walk present opportunities to ask if Mexican children know what eagles are and if Chinese children have ever seen squirrels. (See the earlier blog post, "Talk with the Animals.")

     While I was waiting to pick up my granddaughter at school, I noticed how it was possible to see different wind currents by watching the way furnace smoke coming out of the school at roof level some times moved forcefully, but, at the same time, about twelve feet lower in front of the school, flags were moving very little. (See the earlier blog post, "Climate Control.")

     Seems there's a great many reasons to LOOK forward to 2015.

Recycled Fashion Firsts

Protagonists in  Gone With the Wind, Sound of Music, and Enchanted all knew how to conserve the world's resources by converting draperies into dresses. Ecouterre.com has identified seven of 2014's top designers who have done something similar to these heroines. Their creative ideas are:

• Pleather, leather-looking jewelry and clothes made from inner tubes
• Jewelry made from the fence that imprisoned Nelson Mandela in South Africa
• Jewelry made from Detroit's peeling graffiti
• Leather waste woven into laptop and tablet sleeves
• Denim woven into seats for camper chairs
• Pine needles from discarded Christmas trees made into French designer lingerie
• Rubbish from the United Kingdom made into sneakers. 

All items are on display and described at the ecouterre.com website.

     Just as leather and denim were cut into strips and woven into new products, cut old ties from thrift shops or dad's closet into strips and weave them into squares, sew two together, leave one side open to stuff, sew up that side, and make a pillow. Or make a cat toy by filling a smaller pillow with crunchy wax  paper or aluminum foil. Look around the house to see if you can find a moth damaged sweater you can unravel to make a ball of yarn that an adult can show you how to knit into a dog sweater or a skirt for a Barbie doll.

     See earlier blog posts, "Good Works Multiply Fast" and "I Made This Myself" for other recycling ideas that will conserve the world's resources.

Hong Kong Update

 In January, 2016, protesters again took to Hong Kong's streets, when booksellers and publishers of books that often feature sex stories of Communist Party leaders disappeared. Under the Basic Law that has governed Hong Kong ever since the UK returned the island to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed freedoms of speech not granted on the Chinese mainland. The Basic Law governing Hong Kong as one of China's special administrative regions also barred Chinese legal authorities from exercising jurisdiction over Hong Kong's courts, a power that Chinese political pressure seems slowly to be undermining.

     Ten weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations ended in Hong Kong on December 11, 2014, when police cleared the streets and arrested activists in what came to be called the Umbrella Movement. Initially, young activist leaders, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, were sentenced to community service. On August 17, 2017, an appeals court changed what was considered too light a sentence to up to eight-month prison terms that also bars them from running for office for five years. They were released on bail in October, 2017.
 
      As this 2005 photo shows, democracy protests in Hong Kong are not new, but there's been a
shift from violent confrontations with the police. Proponents of non-violent civil disobedience began calling for a new strategy to maintain the democratic measures they expected in 1997.

     Under the terms of the UK's accord with China, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong was to be elected by universal suffrage. John Tsang was the popular choice for Chief Executive in Hong Kong's April, 2017 election, but the electoral college chose Carrie Lam in order to accommodate China, which had announced it would select acceptable candidates to run in the 2017 election.

     During the peaceful 2014 protest demonstration, Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen was among the Occupy Central non-violence supporters who tried to turn themselves into Hong Kong's Central Police Station on December 3, 2014. They were neither charged nor arrested for an illegal protest. The police told them their protest was illegal and asked them to fill out forms providing personal information. The police did not want the Central Station to attract more protesters who wanted to be arrested and, therefore, to become another center for occupation.

      Given heavy censorship and spin on the news, Beijing controls how Hong Kong's protests are portrayed as illegal and influenced by foreigners. It has been said that the mainland Chinese are not sympathetic with Hong Kong protests, because they feel people in Hong Kong already enjoy more freedoms than they do. (For additional information about current affairs in China and Hong Kong, see the earlier blog post, "Let's Visit China.")

International Fashion Designers Find Consumer Niches

On "Project Runway" (Lifetime channel at 9 pm ET Thursdays), this season's televised competition is showcasing the influence of international designers. Sandhya channeled her heritage from India to turn a dip-dyed flowered print into an original summer frock that won the show's first challenge and puzzled her U.S. competitors.

What designers such as Sandhya are doing is satisfying consumers who search for fashions and accessories that express their individuality. They may be motivated to wear T-shirts that support a cause as Vivienne Westwood's "Save the Arctic" one does (See the earlier post, "North Pole Flag."). Or they look for the environmentally, sustainable clothes mentioned in the earlier posts, "The World of Fashion" and "Fashion Forward." Mumbai-based fashion designer, Rahul Mishra, for example, espouses "slow fashion." His garments draw on the craftsmanship of India's embroidery experts and weavers to involve many talented village hands in the process of making his clothes. Why? He sees fashion as an opportunity for participation, not just consumption.

 Some fashion consumers also want to be the first to go upscale to provide employment to those manufacturing luxury brands "Made in Africa." One designer who caters to this upscale consumer is Hanneli Rupert, daughter of Johann Rupert, chairman of the Richemont group that includes Cartier, Van Cleef, and other luxury goods. In 2009, she first introduced her Okapi brand, named for the "zebra giraffe" from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At her Okapi website (okapi.com) and at her Merchants on Long store in Cape Town, South Africa, Ms. Rupert sells bags, card cases, and other African-sourced leather goods. This fall the Okapi brand also will be available online at the luxury fashion Net-a-Porter website (net-a-porter.com).

The New York Times (July 31, 2014, page E5) observed that consumers looking for hard-to-find, unusual products are willing to pay top dollar to artisans with incredible fashion, furniture, and textile skills whether they live in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Peru, or Kenya. This season's "Project Runway" contestants are on the brink of exciting careers.

The Lure of Shale Oil Independence

With oil trading at over $70 a barrel, demand up, and questions about supply from Iran and elsewhere, interest in fracking has rebounded in September, 2018. Soft oil and gas prices in 2015 and 2016 had dampened enthusiasm for investments in shale oil. BHP Billiton, the Australian-based metals and energy company, took a $4.9 billion write-off in January, 2016, on its shale oil investment in the United States. In the short and medium term, BHP saw shale too expensive to compete with traditional oil and gas production.  BHP expected its shale investments to be profitable in the long run, however. As soon as crude edged toward $70 a barrel in early August, 2018, BHP sold its US shale holdings to BP for $10.5 billion.

     What if there is a shale oil deposit under your home? Fracking, which blasts oil and natural gas out of shale rock, has caused countries to ignore serious consequences. (See the earlier post, "North Pole Flag.")

      President Obama favored energy renewables over fracking. At the moment, wind and solar technologies need fossil fuel backups for windless, cloudy days and nighttime, but Bill Gates, who just announced his intention to invest a billion dollars in clean energy, said government investment in innovations research will lead to even more private investment in technologies that will overcome the need for fuels that contribute to greenhouse gases.

     While ignoring private property rights is just one of the problems associated with fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, protesters in England drew attention to the need to consider this fracking drawback by erecting a satiric sign outside the country home of British Prime Minister, David Cameron, this month. The sign apologized for the inconvenience caused by setting up fracking operations under his home without permission.

     With its economy dependent on income from oil and natural gas, Russia is said to be funding anti-fracking groups. While this may or may not be true, there are legitimate reasons for concern about the fracking process. To  release trapped oil and natural gas, at high pressure, companies pump fluid composed of 99% water and sand and 1% chemicals into dense rock formations thousands of feet below ground. Companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell, which has a contract with China's Sinopec Corp. to exploit shale gas deposits in the Sechuan Basin and Ordos, try to reassure people that the wells they drill are far below drinking water supplies and that they isolate water supplies from fracking fluids by inserting concrete and steel barriers into their wells. Considering the shortage of clean water in eight of the 20 countries with the largest shale gas resources, it does not seem wise to base the safety of water supplies on company assurances.

     Although Algeria, for example, is believed to have the world's third or fourth largest recoverable shale gas reserves, protesters are more concerned about potential damage to the delicate aquifer system that furnishes water for people, animals, and crops not only in Algeria, but also in Libya and Tunisia. Fear that Halliburton's $70 billion hydraulic fracking project would pollute ground water and disturb the environment set off a violent protest in Ain Salah, a rural Algerian town in the Sahara Desert. Early in 2015, demonstrations spread to at least three other towns and Algiers. Deep well drilling to increase the amount of water needed for fracking can have an impact on local water sources and a cumulative effect that causes water levels to drop in lakes farther away. Flowback of the water and chemicals used in fracking plus the radioactive materials picked up deep in the earth is stored in plastic-lined open pits at drilling sites. While some of this toxic stew is trucked away and treated to remove toxins, the rest is released into streams and rivers that pollute drinkable water.

    Since companies are not required to disclose what chemicals they are using, there is no way to test the effect they have underground. I am reminded of the birds on an island in the North Pacific Ocean who are dying because of eating debris from humans over 1,250 miles away. Although bottle caps, cigarette lighters, and razor blades thrown into the ocean disappear, they can do plenty of harm.

     The sand drilling companies blast into shale helps hold cracks open to let oil and natural gas flow to the wellhead. Mining this sand brings noise, truck and rail traffic, and fine silica dust pollution to the population in areas where often there are no nonmetallic mining laws to regulate the hours, trucking routes, and other aspects of sand mining operations. People living near (a half mile away or closer) a sand mine have developed asthma and needed to use an inhaler. They cannot open their windows and have to install air filtration systems in their homes. Since signing a contract with a sand mining company can make a landowner wealthy, individuals have an incentive to ignore the disappearing hills, lung damage, and other consequences that can come with sand mining. Product manufacturers and commodity producers, however, that are having shipping delay problems because they are competing for rail capacity with frac sand are beginning to complain.

    Also, sand mines can use between 420,000 and two million gallons of water a day. To remove impurities from the sand, the chemical, polyacrylamide, which has traces of a known carcinogen, can enter surface and ground water at a mine site from wastewater ponds.

     The Food and Water Watch organization, which began sponsoring a Global Frackdown three years ago, opposes UN efforts to include fracking in its Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. The many problems associated with fracking do not justify including the process in the same category as renewable wind and solar energy sources. The organization, Americans Against Fracking, which pulls together groups working to ban fracking helped New York ban the process after a two-year investigation concluded that fracking could not be done safely. A bill now pending in the U.S. Congress would ban fracking on public lands, where it already has begun in Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest, and Virginia has agreed to allow it in the George Washington National Forest.

     Finally, there is concern about the possibility that fracking can cause earthquakes, such as the small ones geologists discovered in Ohio in April, 2014. Clearly, there is a need for tough permit requirements, when a fault already exists near drilling operations.

     As more and more people around the world rely on industrial jobs and demand heat, air conditioning, and cars, care for the environment will come up against pressure to find new sources of oil and natural gas. What projects will students develop to help adults see the unseen effects of dangerous extraction methods?

Travel the World with Summer Reading

When school's out, most children no longer have to spend their summers working on a farm. There is plenty of time to read on rainy days, in the shade of a tree, and during the hour wait before swimming after lunch. To do some reading that has a global dimension, with or without the help of adults, kids can dive into the following books.

• Among the 31 stories in The White Sail, youngsters who are learning to read will find Viking and sea adventures.
• By reading The Curse of Captain LaFook,  children in middle school can return to the time when the Caribbean teamed with pirates, buried treasure, and a curse.
• The Open Ocean by Francesco Pittau takes kids under the sea for a guessing game and education about marine life.
• With Madeline, young girls can visit Paris in Madeline and the Old House in Paris.
• In We All Went on Safari by Laurie Krebs, animals in Tanzania's Serengeti Plain help children 5 to 8 years old count to ten and learn some Swahili. Youngsters who read this book also will learn about Tanzania and the Masai people who live there.
• Like We All Went on Safari, The Rumor has wonderful illustrations that will appeal to younger children. Storytellers in the Sahyadri Mountains of India's Western Ghats repeat tall tales like the one Anushka Ravishankar tells in The Rumor.
• In Kids in Kabul: Living Bravely Through a Never-Ending War, Reborah Ellis introduces kids in grades 5 through 12 to young women who want to be educated in Afghanistan. An older woman tells how she once brought an electric bill, instead of her doctor's prescription, to a pharmacy, because she never learned to read.
• Kids in Afghanistan go from a carefree childhood to tragedy in The Kite Runner, which also is a movie.
• Crossing the Wire introduces young people to immigration concerns when 15-year-old Victor Flores attempts to flee Mexico in an effort to support his family by finding a job in the United States.
• On a bright summer day, older children may be ready to deal with some of the world's upheavals by reading The Diary of Anne Frank or Red Scarf Girl, Ji Li Jiang's account of growing up during China's Cultural Revolution.
• Students can travel the world in Lonely Planet's Not for Parents Travel Book, a collection of short descriptions of places in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Lonely Planet also publishes separate Not for Parents books on London, Paris, Rome, China, Australia, and Great Britain.
• Reading can lead to action with the help of A Kids' Guide to Climate Change and Global Warming. Besides presenting facts about climate change, this book suggests service projects kids can do to improve the world's environment.
• With the help of illustrations by Anne Wilson, Dawn Casey couples stories from around the world with related activities in The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales. Besides becoming familiar with stories told in places such as Australia, Nigeria, and Wales, children will come away from this book knowing how to grow tomatoes and how to make a pine cone bird feeder, corn husk doll, and other items.
• Every year there is a new World Almanac for Kids that provides page after page of interesting facts about animals, movies, sports, science, and other fascinating subjects. 

This is just the beginning of a summer reading list. Your local library has lots of other suggestions.
At scholastic.com/summer, Scholastic invites teachers and parents to help kids log in their number of summer reading minutes in order to win digital prizes. If a school sets a record for the most reading minutes in the world, its name will be published in the 2014 Scholastic Book of World Records.

Build a Global Icon

It's one thing to collect pictures of the world's best known buildings and landmarks (See earlier blog post, "Picture the World"), but learning how they were made is something else. In a non-fiction book for children, Patrick Dillon tells The Story of Buildings From the Pyramids to the Sydney Opera House and Beyond, while Stephen Biesty's illustrations show the step-by-step details.

     Now, children also can build famous landmarks. Using 3-D world monument puzzles from National Geographic (shopng.org), children can build the Eiffel Tower in Paris, London's Big Ben clock, and Russia's St. Basil's Cathedral. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (store.metmuseum.org) and many book stores sell LEGO architecture sets, such as the ones that build London's Big Ben and the Imperial Hotel in Japan. British model builder, Warren Elsmore, who has used Denmark's LEGOs to create London's red double decker buses, the Paris Louvre and Eiffel Tower, and other famous icons, shares his creative process with words and pictures in the book, Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO. In the virtual world, Minecraft builders can create the Taj Mahal and other landmarks using the Swedish video game.

     Parents and other adults who probably will need to help construct these icons won't mind the fun of sharing the experience with youngsters. Working on these forms also provides an opportunity to talk about other countries and travel. While the puzzle pieces and LEGO bricks may be too little to keep around children who still put everything in their mouths, it might be worth buying the puzzles and book now to have them on hand when children are older.

     Finally, when The Lego Movie failed to receive an Academy Award nomination in the Best Animated Feature category in 2015, one of the film's directors used LEGOs to create its own Oscar statue.