"Politics in Art"

Seen @ Common Dreams

"The great poet Denise Levertov.... believed the poet should be engaged with the world.

She was a regular presence for years at anti-war demonstrations, both against Vietnam and the first Gulf War (she died in 1997), and has been was involved in other political causes.

For her, the poet should avoid what she called the "dangers of self-indulgent sentimentalism," or confessions for confessions' sake.

"I feel that if a person is just coldly, cynically unconcerned, that his or her art will suffer from this," she said... "But I also think that many people are concerned with the fate of their fellow beings but are just constitutionally not capable of giving their time and energy to activism. I think it would be wrong to judge them; people's own consciences should judge them, not another person."

...politics is part of this equation, that even Dante and Shakespeare were writing from a political point of view.

...The impact that all of these poets have as artists grows from the intertwining of the seemingly mundane motion of daily life and the larger currents of history and politics that color and corrupt it.

"For that's how it's always been —" Mr. Shabtai writes in "Rosh Hashanah," "the murderers murder, / the intellectuals make it palatable, / and the poet sings.".

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I'm attracted to art - visual, poetry, music - that is connected to politics. That doesn't mean that everything an artist does will be a political statement - or obviously so.



Picasso said:

'No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. its an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.'

Paintings like Picasso's Guernica say an lot with no words. Even though it was about a particular atrocity - it becomes universal. Such things keep happening. Picasso seems to access underlying emotions about it - that aren't often expressed ordinarily.

At the same time - people can be "talking" about politics in their art without it being obvious. Politics is an underlying part of my current work - the emotions and energy that I put into it - are partly as result of what is going on in the world. I used to paint landscapes - from life. With the Iraq war - probably because of the ability to be more aware of things because of the internet - I didn't feel like doing that. It didn't feel right to be painting the beautiful things of this world - with it being such a mess. Even though I actually spend a lot of time thinking about what is going on on this planet - as is obvious from this blog.

Simplicity can be a political statement - as opposed to art that glorifies luxury (or war).

I was looking at some Chinese paintings online.

I love things like Li Bo in stroll which is considered an "Important Cultural Property". The simplicity. The art of saying much with a few lines.

What if nobody saw the worth in that. If the "art historians" only praised gaudy work. It would have been lost to history and we would never know of it.

Sort of like - in the 70s - people started calling the art the women have traditionally done "art". Quilts and such. The value that people place on things has political implications as well. Such things are made for the home - "made to decorate apartments" - not made with museums in mind.

Western (patriarchal) values seem to be such that art should be about war and/or religion - or that such art is should be valued higher. I think that there are many reasons and uses for art. I think different things have value and purpose for different reasons. And it's not always obvious what poems are about.

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A couple of Poems:

"Everything That Acts Is Actual"

From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me

into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over
new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?

The flawed moon
acts on the truth, and makes
an autumn of tentative
silences.
You lived, but somewhere else,
your presence touched others, ring upon ring,
and changed. Did you think
I would not change?

The black moon
turns away, its work done. A tenderness,
unspoken autumn.
We are faithful
only to the imagination. What the
imagination
seizes
as beauty must be truth. What holds you
to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.

- Denise Levertov

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"Who But is Pleased to Watch the Moon on High"

WHO but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e'er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space
Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.

- Wordsworth

Remembering Dissonance

I was at a funeral today - and talking with people got me thinking about what people remember. The stories of family and friends. Like the canoe that tipped over because we leaned away from the spider's web. The hammer that fell out of the tree-house onto the brother's head. The reasons that people went separate ways - like away from the Amway salesman who held a grudge.

If nothing ever goes wrong - there's not much to talk about. The practical joke stories are fun to remember and/or hear about. Like the mannequin on top of the station wagon that the driver didn't know was there.

It's nice to know people a long time and share memories. Sometimes it can seem that what holds people together is not just everything going well all the time. It's what you do when it doesn't. And being there to remember it later.

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Part 2:

Earlier in the day - I wandered into an antique store full of stuff from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Lots of strange memories there as well. The garish patterns. Colors like chartreuse, Vermilion, and deep purple. Sequins and shiny things. Plastics and fake leopard skins.

There was a "Suzy Homemaker" brand toy stove. I've heard about "Suzy Homemaker" - I don't recall the brand. I had an "Easy Bake Oven" myself.




Mixed up with the "modern" sleek look were lots of remnants of Colonial Revival as well as the "cowboy" look. And a few velvet headboards.

Some of the "modern" look seemed to be inspired by simplicity and basic organic shapes - "boomerangs" - for instance. But when you get all of that stuff together - there is a lot of dissonance.

Report From Yellowknife

Once-icy Arctic now Great 'Wet' North




YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T. - Normally, when Jimmie Qaapik looks out his window in Canada's northernmost community at this time of year, he sees a bay choked with sea ice.

This year, he shields his eyes from the sunlight reflecting off the water, which is open as far as he can see from Grise Fiord, a hamlet of 170 on the southern tip of Ellesmere Island, just 1,500 kilometres from the North Pole.

"Usually the ice doesn't go until about the middle or towards the end of August, and it was ice-free in July," he said. "We had a cruise ship come in yesterday. That's never happened this early, ever...."

"When you look at the Arctic, it was the warmest winter on record," said David Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada.

"I mean, you had rain in Iqaluit in February -- they've never had that before. And they were anywhere from four to seven degrees warmer than normal. There was no winter in the North....

The trend was felt across the country, which averaged 2.9 C above normal this January to July -- a new record. But it was most pronounced in the Arctic, where mainland temperatures in the first seven months of 2006 soared 3.5 C above a 30-year average -- the highest ever for that time of year.

As a result, satellite images show less Arctic sea ice in July than ever. Normally, the Arctic is covered in 10.1 million square kilometres of sea ice in July. This year, it was down to 8.7 million square kilometres -- a loss of an area larger than Peru.

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Yellowknife is known for their Auroras. They have an Aurora Festival in February.

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Other Aurora links:

Nordlys

Aurora Web Cam

POE Satellite report

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International Clowns

Today must be the day of the clown. I read the paper - and see this photo of Lars Lottrup's leg sticking out of a giant balloon. I love that image. I don't why - but it really appeals to me. It's like people being reduced to a large sphere - the person as a planet - or something.

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Apparently there is an International Clown Festival in Copenhagen

Annual clown festival with artistes from all over the world, notably Italy, Armenia, Belgium, Spain and UK.

08-10 / 2006 - 08-20 / 2006 - Daily shows and parades – from refined to slapstick comedy - great fun for children and adults alike.

I can't imagine anything better right now. (The problem would be in getting there - Trading lipstick for security.)

An article about the festival on Yahoo suggests that nobody is laughing - people have been taught to fear clowns, etc. We partly have Stephen King to thank for that. But unfortunately some clowns who think that they are being funny for kids - just aren't.

"Some clowns still use acts from 100 years ago, but some clowns today have simplified the concept, hardly dressing up," said Schumann, 61. "The main point is creating a character who is funny."

While there is something timeless about clowns - it's good to see some modern clown looks. And another good thing is - that the languge of clowns is universal. For instance: Clowns without Borders.

These clowns go to Afghanistan, Moldavia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Palestine, Namibia, Haïti and many other places in need of laughter. How cool it that?
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And then I scanned the New York Times and saw this theater review - For those near New York City:

"God Speaks, and a Clown Answers, in 'Creation: A Clown Show!'"



Two things could but shouldn’t hold adults back from seeing “Creation: A Clown Show!,” which opened last night at Theater Five. While the events take place during the seven days in which the Bible says God created the world, there is nothing narrowly religious about it. Evolutionists who welcome metaphor will be amused....

Mr. Rooney plays a little boy named Timmy who stumbles into a situation in which he has to act out the Creation as instructed by the booming offstage voice of God. It’s tough. How do you divide the light from the darkness? And what the heck is a firmament?

...But his childlike post-Creation persona is all his own, especially when he puts his message in perspective with a poignant final visual. However it got here, he demonstrates, life on earth was a swell idea. It would be the crime of all crimes to destroy it.

“Creation: A Clown Show!” continues through Sept. 10 at Theater Five, 311 West 43rd Street, Clinton, (212) 868-4444.

Cosmic Jellyfish

I love this! photo/image from GALEX/Chandra/Hubble/Spitzer

A cosmic jellyfish appears to pulse with light in this multi-wavelength image of the Cartwheel galaxy, compiled from images taken by four space telescopes.

The galaxy probably came by its distinctive shape when a small galaxy – possibly one of the objects at bottom-left of the image – collided with it head-on 100 million years ago. The crash set off ripples in the large galaxy's gas that led to concentric rings of star birth.

"It's like dropping a stone into a pond, only in this case, the pond is the galaxy and the wave is the compression of gas," explains Phil Appleton of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, US. "Each wave represents a burst of star formation – the youngest stars are found in the outer ring."

Astronomers dated this star formation by studying the wavelengths of light emitted by each region of the galaxy. This image represents those wavelengths by colour, with purple representing X-rays measured by the Chandra Space Telescope, blue representing ultraviolet light measured by the GALEX spacecraft, green representing visible light observed with the Hubble Space Telescope, and red denoting infrared light recorded by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Lamont, Lieberman and the DLC

Photo of a washed up Portuguese man-of-war (by naotoj @ flickr).

It's difficult to not be cynical about politics and politicians - but this loss by Lieberman and win by Lamont is a hopeful thing.

Lieberman blames the bloggers - ie. - "It Wasn't About the War". As if people who share information and ideas by using the internet are any less citizens than anyone else. It's like he's saying - how dare anyone get their information somewhere besides the Corporate Media - whose games he plays.

And then - the way that Lieberman has been such a Bush supporter and now Rove and the Republicans want to support him in his run as an "Independent Democrat". Sounds sort of like a "DLC Democrat" (wink, wink). Leiberman was the leader of the DLC - the Democratic Leadership Council - prior to the 2000 election - when Bayh took over.

This rant that is posted on the DLC site (no author is named) -"The Return of Liberal Fundamentalism" (written June 2, 2006) - shows hows opposed they are to traditional Democratic values. The writer rails about the "purge" of Lieberman saying that the grassroots, bloggers, and traditional Democrats represent "a conformist tendency to stifle dissent among Democrats and require adherence to litmus tests devised by interest groups and ideological advocates.... and intimidate or even purge those who do not meet a narrow definition of what makes a "real Democrat...."

We deplore this purge effort because Joe Lieberman is an outstanding and respected U.S. Senator. He is a man of utmost integrity who speaks and governs by his values and principles, even when they lead him against the popular tide..."

It sounds like the writer does NOT share the values of traditional democrats (such as this). The reference to fundamentalists sounds like a vague comparison to terrorists. Certainly not what someone who shared those liberal values would say.

What I hear in this and other things that the DLC represents - is that the DLC is a third party (that has co-opted the Democratic name for their own purposes) - they even call it the "third way". This party represents big money and corporate interests much like the Republicans. And the DLC has no interest in the will of the people and does expect to have to represent them. The majority of Americans oppose the Iraq Occupation, for instance.

Anyway - good for Lamont - and I'm glad that Connecticut wasn't using electronic voting machines (or Diebold).

Counting Butterflies

People from all over have become more aware of the monarchs and their journey from Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico to points north - since 1975 when the stories came out about their wintering habitats. I've seen them hanging around on the shoreline of Bear Island in Lake Michigan and along the shore of Lac des Deux-Montagnes - part of the St. Lawrence Lowlands near Montreal - among other places.

Canada has 3 butterfly sanctuaries in Southern Ontario - at Point Pelee, Long Point and Prince Edward Point parks. Though, of course, the butterflies go where they feel like going.

From the CBC :

Butterfly counters in central Connecticut, Martha's Vineyard and upstate New York were all reporting larger sightings of monarchs this year than last, though still down by historical levels. (Bog coppers and painted ladies didn't appear to be doing so well, on the other hand.)

...At the moment, there are by most estimates tens of millions of monarchs flapping north or south, depending on the time of year. They've shown a remarkable ability to bounce back after vast numbers — sometimes as much as 90 per cent — have been wiped out by natural disaster.

But biologists note that the western monarchs are down to only a few million or so butterflies because of widespread farming changes that drastically reduced their main food supply.

I've gotten to noticing that in late August the monarchs travel through Indiana. I have also noticed that they like the Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia)- when I've managed to grow them. I think the flowers preferred the sandier soil where I used to live.

Milkweed is what is required for the monarchs to lay their eggs on and for the larva to feed on. (For other plants to grow for various kinds of butterflies - see this chart). One generation lasts 7-8 months - the one that flies from their summer homes to their winter homes and the first leg back up north. Then there are a succession of 4-5 week generations - that are dependant on finding milkweed.

It's an amazing thing that just 30 years ago - the world found out about the monarch butterflies winter home in Mexico - where they group together in trees. The local people knew about them, of course. It seems that at the same time the world found out about the monarch's home, the people there found out about the rest of the world.

A 1986 Presidential Decree by the Mexican government created the Monarch Butterfly Special Biosphere Reserve covering 62 square miles....In November 2000, the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve was expanded from 62 to 217 square miles. The declaration of the new Reserve was accompanied by a financial plan that provides economic support to communities for lost income from logging, as well as for their conservation endeavors.

There has been a multimillion dollar campaign to protect the Monarch's wintering habitat. One of the problems has been "organized crime in the form of armed, illegal logging gangs".

People from Mexican, U.S. and Canadian governments met in May and created a plan - The Trilateral Monarch Butterfly Sister Protected Area Network - to designate 13 protected areas on the monarchs migration route and to share data and such.

Monarch researcher and ecologist Dr. Lincoln Brower said said, "I think it will make a good symbolic statement."

But Brower said the agreement will do little to preserve the butterflies unless stronger action is also taken to stop logging in Mexico and to change farming practices in the United States that are destroying the plants the butterflies rely on.

See also monarchwatch.org

Mediterranean on Jellyfish Alert

That is the actual headline.

Some Spanish beaches have been closed, but Sicily and North Africa are also reported to be badly affected.

Researchers say at least 30,000 people have been stung since summer began.

Marine biologists blame hot dry weather for bringing jellyfish closer to the shore, and say overfishing may be increasing jellyfish numbers.

A recent survey by the Oceana environmental group found concentrations of jellyfish of more than 10 per square metre in some areas off the Spanish coast.

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People in the UK are posting thier jellyfish experiences here.

That article mentions that the jellyfish are good for the leatherback turtles.

"We are more of a threat to jellyfish and other marine life than they are to us," said Mr Richardson."

"We have had 300 reports of hundreds of thousands of jellyfish... "We're really interested in where they occur and an idea of numbers - in ones or twos, or washing up in their millions."

"Bees and Flowers Disappearing Together"

Article at mongaby.com

The diversity of bees and of the flowers they pollinate, has declined significantly in Britain and the Netherlands over the last 25 years...

To test for more general declines, an international team of researchers from three UK universities (Leeds, Reading and York) and from the Netherlands and Germany compiled biodiversity records for 100s of sites, and found that bee diversity fell in almost 80% of them. Many bee species are declining or have become extinct in the UK...

In Britain, where bee diversity has fallen and hoverflies have at best held steady, there have been declines in 70% of the wildflowers that require insects for pollination. However, wind-pollinated or self-pollinating plants have held constant or increased.

The research may not yet prove a global decline in pollination, but in two countries at least there is strong evidence that both wild pollinators and the wildflowers that they visit are in serious trouble.

More - International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Pollinators

Also - The EU-funded ALARM-project on biodiversity

Article on Pollinator Decline at Wikipedia.

The US has had a problem with a lack of honeybees due to varroa mites. (But there are other reasons as well such as pesticide misuse and loss of habitat and forage).

During the winter of 1995-96, beekeepers reported die-offs ranging from 40 percent in Delaware and 53 percent in Pennsylvania to 80 percent in Maine, Camazine said. Both tracheal mites and varroa mites feed on bee blood, he explained. Tracheal mites infect the breathing tubes of bees, while varroa mites- resembling light brown poppyseeds- camp on their victims' backs, often bringing diseases with them.

In the wild, "only 10 percent of all feral honeybee colonies remain within the northeastern United States," said Caron, who works in UD's 50-year-old apiary or bee farm, "so much biodiversity has been lost."


And then there is the decline of songbirds....

Cool UK Ocean Site

The Marine Conservation Society

There is information on actions to take. Jellyfish to survey (a UK project), etc.

Photographer - Josh Pederson

One place that they link to is climatecare.org "helping you to help the climate". (Another UK site). They have a system of "offsets" where people can purchase "offsets" to counteract their CO2 emissions. The "offsets" fund sustainable energy projects.

It's an interesting thing. A lot of people in the US haven't accepted the idea that people should even consider their CO2 that they add to the climate - let alone think about ways to "offset" that.

I think that countries that have not had as much Exxon Mobile and government interferance are way ahead of us in their thinking and acting on this.

July - 2006 - 2nd Hottest on Record in US

July 2006 Broke U.S. Heat Records

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, August 7, 2006 (ENS) - The continental United States sweltered through the second hottest July on record because of a blistering heat wave from California to Washington, DC, according to the the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville.

The hottest July on record occurred in 1936, during the Dust Bowl years, and the third hottest was 1934.

The July 2006 heat wave broke more than 2,300 daily temperature records for the month and eclipsed more than 50 records for the highest temperatures in any July, the data shows.

The first seven months of 2006 was the warmest January-July of any year the United States since records began in 1895, NOAA climate data indicates.

NOAA scientists said that no single episode of extreme heat can be blamed exclusively on human-induced global warming, but instead heat waves will become more likely and progressively more intense over the course of decades

The scorching temperatures, combined with a shortage of rainfall, expanded moderate-to-extreme drought conditions in areas already hard hit.

The average July 2006 temperature for the continental United States was 77.2 degrees F (25.1 C). More than 90 records for the highest night-time temperatures for July were broken.

The average January - July 2006 temperature was 55.3 degrees F (12.9 C), which beat the previous record set in 1934.

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Nearly the entire country was hotter than normal. Esp. the Northwest - California and Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas. The Texas and Florida coasts and a few other isolated spots were the exceptions. NOAA maps.

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Meanwhile - as part of the disinformation campaign - an anti-Al Gore/Global Warming video that came out on YouTube in an attempt to influence people on the blogosphere - while made to look amateurish - was really made by DCI - the same GOP PR firm that Exxon Mobile uses. Exxon Mobile has been getting a reputation as the primary funder of global warming disinformation.

According to EXXPOSE EXXON - Between 1998 and 2005, ExxonMobil spent $19 million to fund organizations working to undermine efforts to cut global warming pollution.

For more on Exxon funding global warming skepticism see exxonsecrets.org.

Graph of Global Mean Temperatures 1880-2004.

A Universe in Your Basement

..."It's actually safe to create a universe in your basement. It would not displace the universe around it even though it would grow tremendously. It would actually create its own space as it grows and in fact in a very short fraction of a second it would splice itself off completely from our Universe and evolve as an isolated closed universe growing to cosmic proportions without displacing any of the territory that we currently lay claim to." -Alan Guth (from MIT) - From a show on Parallel Universes by the BBC

Alan Guth and Andrei Linde won the The Cosmology Prize of The Peter Gruber Foundation in 2004 for their Chaotic Inflation Theory

Inflationary theory describes the very early stages of the evolution of the universe and its structure. A modification of cosmology's Big Bang theory, it holds that all matter in the universe was created during a period of inflation, as the universe expanded at an incredible rate: It doubled in size each 10 to the minus 37 seconds. (Imagine a pea growing to the size of the Milky Way in less time than the blink of an eye).

From an article: The Big Lab Experiment:

Among the many curious implications of Linde's theory, one stands out for our present purposes: It doesn't take all that much to create a universe. Resources on a cosmic scale are not required. It might even be possible for someone in a not terribly advanced civilization to cook up a new universe in a laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how our universe came into being?

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I don't know about parellel universes. Or eleven dimensions. Who knows how much space they might take up. I already have enough to worry about with the planets that are taking up space in my living room.

And what if the physicist got it wrong and their new universe displaced this one. I guess we would never know.

Political Science

Whether it's the FDA or the EPA or public policy on climate change - the Government and esp. the Bush Administration has been suppressing science in favor of their agenda. Their policies are putting all of us - as well as all of the life on the planet at risk in favor of corporate interests.

Recently from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Evidence of Political Interference

Voices of Scientists at the FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), now in its hundredth year, is responsible for protecting and advancing public health through the regulation of drugs, food, medical devices, cosmetics, and the blood supply—including products that, according to the FDA, account for 25 cents of every American consumer dollar spent. 

In 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) distributed a 38-question survey to 5,918 FDA scientists to examine the state of science at the FDA. The results paint a picture of a troubled agency: hundreds of scientists reported significant interference with the FDA’s scientific work, compromising the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission of protecting public health and safety....

From :
NewsTarget.com

Literally tens of millions of Americans have been harmed by FDA negligence over the last decade, and well over one million have been killed by FDA-approved prescription drugs -- many of which were approved based on fraudulent scientific data the FDA conveniently chose to overlook. Through its abandonment of public safety and scientific integrity, the FDA has now become the single greatest threat to the health and safety of the American people, dwarfing any threat posed by terrorists....

Medical journal reveals that 70 percent of drug decision-making panel members have financial ties to industry.

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There have been reports in the past of the "White House" altering scientists reports on global warming - and that the US withdrew from a "crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions":

The documents show that Washington officials:

· Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

· Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

· Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'

Another section erased by the White House adds: 'Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that ... mankind's activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.'

'Every year, it (local air pollution) causes millions of premature deaths, and suffering to millions more through respiratory disease,' reads another statement removed by Washington.
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Agency Abuses: The Environment

• Mountaintop Removal Mining: Administration officials intentionally disregard extensive scientific study on mountaintop removal in Appalacia  

• Climate Change: Administration officials undermined science behind climate change by suppressing reports and publicly misrepresenting scientific consensus

• Mercury Emissions: White House suppressed information about the impact of mercury on public health

• Multiple Air Pollutants: The Environmental Protection Agency withheld an analysis showing the benefits of a bipartisan alternative to President Bush's Clear Skies Act

• The Endangered Species Act: Administration officials are manipulating the scientific underpinnings of the policy making process

• Forest Management: A "review team" primarily composed of non-scientists overruled a science-based plan for managing old-growth forest habitat and reducing fire risk

"The dead zone is coming"

More bad news...

"A "dead zone" of low-oxygen water that has been killing fish and crabs along the Washington and Oregon coast could be coming to B.C., scientists say.

This is the fifth year in a row that dead marine life has been washing up on beaches owing to a dead zone, which may be more evidence of global warming."

...Last week, members of Washington state's Quinault Indian Nation discovered large numbers of dead rockfish, flatfish and greenling, said Liam Antrim, a resource-protection specialist with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

"Crab have been reported, whole crab -- not just the shells -- off the beaches in the southern half of the Washington coast"...

More of the story (Aug.7)...

Scientists studying the 70-mile-long zone of oxygen-depleted water, along the Continental Shelf between Florence (Oregon) and Lincoln City, conclude that it is being caused by explosive blooms of tiny plants known as phytoplankton, which die and sink to the bottom, then are eaten by bacteria which use up the oxygen in the water.

The recurring phytoplankton blooms are triggered by northerly wind, which generates a process known as upwelling in which nutrient-rich water is brought to the surface from lower depths....

Scientists first noticed a dead zone off Newport in 2002. That one was traced back to a rare influx of cold water rich in nutrients and low in oxygen that had migrated from the Arctic, said Jack Barth, professor of oceanography at Oregon State and with Lubchenco a principal investigator for the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans.

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It sounds like these might be at least partly a result of melting glaciers in the Arctic region.

The Edinburgh Fringe

"Religion top theme as Fringe turns 60"

The Edinburgh Fringe, the world's largest and most irreverent arts festival, celebrated its 60th birthday on Sunday with religion the big theme being tackled this year by playwrights and comedians.

Fringe performers revel in controversy and 2006 should be no exception with "We Don't Know Shi'ite" about British ignorance of Islam and "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years."

"It is the most amazing barometer of world politics...."

Fringe director Paul Gudgin, overseeing 17,000 performers at the three-week festival of anarchy, said "I find it endlessly fascinating how a thread like this emerges.

See also:

The Scotsman's Edinburgh Festival blog


Art, religion, politics, anarchy, etc. Sounds like fun.