Mysteries (cont.)

Around the world there are stories of mysterious monsters said to live in remote forests and mountains. In the Northwestern United States (California, Oregon, Washington) and Western Canada (British Columbia) there have been stories and sightings of an apelike beast since the early 1800s. The Indians called the beast Sasquatch (the hairy giant of the woods).  In 1958 a forest worker in Humbolt County, California, named Jerry Crew made plaster casts of footprints of what he called “Bigfoot”. 

 

Then in 1967 two men looking for Bigfoot in Northern California shot a short film of what they say was a Sasquatch. No bodies or other physical evidence of Bigfoot have ever been found and there are few if any other photos that I know of.

So the film is really the only thing we can examine. Now what’s interesting about the film is that it seems to show a female bigfoot of all things. And if it was a fake who would think of making a female fake and not a male one? As well the way the beast walks had been studied by scientists who say this is the correct way that an upright ape would walk if it had evolved enough to walk on two feet rather than four like, say, a mountain gorilla from Central Africa.  

Of course North America has no apes or even monkeys for that matter. There are bears- and big ones too- but Bigfoot has never been described as, or mistaken for, a bear. The Bigfoot in what is known as the Patterson film is either a fake or something very unusual indeed. Many have suggested that the Bigfoot in the film is just someone in costume. But experts have said that it would have to be one huge person in costume and one with a head piece making her taller than the tallest man. As well the appearance of the beast is said to be so real-looking that not even the best Hollywood costume designers could have produced something like this in the late 1960s. The first Planet of the Apes film with Charlton Heston was produced in 1968. But the technological realism seen in films these days just wasn’t attainable back then. Even the original costume designer of that The Planet of the Apes, John Chambers, has denied any involvement in the famous bigfoot home movie.

The Abominable Snowman

On the other side of the world- in a land as distant and exotic as you can imagine- is said to live another apelike creature called The Yeti, or The Abominable Snowman. In the Himalayan mountains of Tibet, the highest mountains in the world, early British explorers and mountains climbers heard stories told by the local people of a Wildman who lived in caves amongst the sacred mountains around them. In 1921 Lt. Col. Charles Howard Bury led the first large scale expedition to survey and climb Mount Everest which had recently been confirmed as the world’s highest mountain. At great distances they claimed tom have seen large creatures walking across the high mountainsides. But when the climbers drew near they found only large unidentifiable footprints in the snow. English newspapers gave the beast the name of “abominable snowman” based on his local name, the Metoh-Kangmi. Other local names included the Dzu-the, Meh-teh and the most common one used today, the Ye-the (yeti).

Like the American Sasquatch there are few if any photographs of the Himalayan Yeti. Plenty of footprints have again been reported and photographed over the years, even by Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay, the first men to climb Mount Everest in 1953. Norgay’s father was one of many locals who claimed to have met a Yeti during a mountain trek. Hillary, on the other hand, has stated many times he does not believe in the Yeti.

Still it is worth noting that quite a number of other respected persons have claimed to have seen the Yeti. The American Sasquatch has been seen by no one of any authority as far as I know. Persons who have seen the Yeti include mountain climbers John Hunt, leader of Hillary and Norgay’s expedition, and the German super-climber Reinhold Messner, the first man to climb all 14 of the world’s highest mountains without the use of bottled oxygen to combat the thin air at high altitude.

The locals believe the Yeti guards their most sacred mountains from invaders. Yet again, why has the body of one never been found? Why no other proof but inconclusive sightings and footprints that could so easily be faked? There are, of course, other elusive creatures living in the remote Himalayan Mountains where few people venture. The legendary snow leopard is one that has seldom been photographed or filmed. And there is also a strange species of high altitude brown bear, coincidentally called the Meti, whose existence was only recently confirmed by scientists and is worshipped by the locals in ways similar the Yeti. This bear is called the Himalayan or Tibetan Blue Bear which might account for the white-colored fur the Yeti is supposed to have. Could this be the basis for the Yeti legend? In a local monastery near Everest it was once possible to see what is claimed to have been a decaying hand and preserved scalp of a Yeti. But the items have since gone missing and who knows what they really were. Some say just remains of the Tibetan Blue Bear. Others say they belong to the Yeti. What do you believe?

Mapinguari

Lastly I want to tell you that in the Amazon where I lived and work during the last 20 years we heard stories of a creature called the Mapinguari. The animal most closely resembling the Mapinguari is the giant land sloth believed to be extinct but which may still live deep in the dark forest of Amazonia, another remote and difficult place to visit and explore. Again no body has been found. No photos have been taken. But the locals claim it exists, and that it attacks and eats people from time to time. And with other creatures in the Amazon such as anaconda, pink river dolphins, fresh water sting rays and 12 foot catfish, it’s quite possible. The Mapinguari might even be just an overly large Amazon anteater.

Remember, unless you can prove it otherwise why shouldn’t legendary creatures like Nessie, the Sasquatch, the Yeti and many others exist. The world is still full of mysterious and exist places to explore such as the Amazon, the Himalayas and our own Northwestern forests. Do you believe? 

Notes

]     ·         Two very good books about cryptozoology (the study of hidden animals) have been written by Roy Mackal, co-founder with Bernard Heuvelmans of the now defunct International Society of Crytozoology. They are The Monsters of Loch Ness (1976) and Searching for Hidden Animals (1980).

      ·        The best contemporary source for material about the Loch Ness Monster is Adrian Shine of The Loch Ness Project (www.lochnessproject.com)

  

Mysteries

What is a mystery?

A mystery is generally something strange or unexplained. It can be something we don’t understand, something simple like where are my shoes in the morning, or where did my sister go, or what happened to the remote for the tv? But I want to talk to you about mysteries that are a lot more interesting than the things around your house or that you see- or don’t see- every day. I want to talk to you about the mysteries of our natural world and the mysteries of history, things like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snowman.  In many cases these mysteries take the form of fantastic animals like sea serpents, unicorns or dragons. They are mysteries because they are things people have heard about, and written about, and in some cases seen but for which we have no absolute proof they exist or do not exist. 

You’ve heard of the Loch Ness Monster (Nessie), Bigfoot (the Sasquatch) and the Abominable Snowman (the Yeti) but no one has ever caught one, have they? And there are none in any zoo that you go and visit, are there? So we are undecided about them. They are unsolved mysteries. Even Science cannot decide 100% one way or another about them. Scientists usually say they don’t exist unless you can prove it. I say they do exist because you can’t prove to me they don’t exist. So these mysteries are what I’ll call natural mysteries or mysteries of the natural world because they are mysteries that exist in nature. And in many cases they are said to exist in places you can visit and explore yourself.

The Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is the most popular natural mystery of all time. Like Coca Cola or Nike or Apple almost everyone on earth has heard of the Loch Ness Monster and has an opinion about it. Lots of people think it’s nothing. And lots of other people believe in it.

The Loch Ness Monster lives in Scotland. My family comes from Scotland though not from Loch Ness. Loch Ness is Scotland’s biggest lake. Loch in the traditional language of Scotland, Gaelic, means lake. Loch Ness or Lake Ness forms part of the Caledonian Canal system which divides the lowlands, or flat farmlands of Scotland’s south from the mountainous highlands of Scotland’s north. In the south most people speak English “English” nowadays. But in the far north you can still find highland communities where the people speak only ancient Gaelic. And the most famous highlander from Scotland is Nessie, which is the user-friendly name for the Loch Ness Monster.

The story of Nessie goes back hundreds of years, and that’s one thing that makes the mystery so special. It has a documented, or written, history. The first story of some strange creature in the loch is told by a Scottish monk, Saint Columba, who in the year 565 (1500 years ago!) is said to have saved a local villager from being eaten by something he called a “water-monster” that came out of the loch. Scotland is a romantic country full of fairy tales, legends, ghost stories and poetry. The most famous legend is about the water-horse (or “kelpie” in Gaelic) which is Nessie. The large creature people said they saw in the loch was described as being like a horse swimming in the water, hence the term water-horse. Near Loch Ness and the town of Inverness you can still see stone carvings of the water kelpie on them. So there must be something to all this, right?

During the following centuries people continued to see mysterious things in the loch. But in the 1930s construction began on a major road around the loch and sightings of something in the loch began to be quite regular. People in the south had heard rumors of something in the loch and began visiting as tourists. And they had cameras in hopes of photographing whatever might be there. The first photographs of a creature in the loch date from this period.

The most famous of these photos is called The Surgeon’s Photograph, and this is the classic image of the Loch Ness Monster that most people know. Doesn’t it look like a waterhorse? But what is it really? The London surgeon who took the photo, Doctor Kenneth Wilson, said he saw a creature in the lake and took several photos. But only when he had his film developed afterwards did he see that he had taken a fantastic photograph of the mysterious beast said to live in the loch. Many people believed that the mystery had finally been solved, and that a fantastic water-horse really did live in the lake.

Sad to say just a few years ago we learned that this photograph in particular was a fake and was part of a hoax set up by the big-game hunter “Duke” Wetherell who had come to the loch to catch the animal one summer and had quickly grown tired of hunting for it. So he built a model of a water-horse and mounted it on a battery-powered toy submarine. Then he took photos of it as it moved through the water and had Doctor Wilson taken the film in for developing. After all who was going to doubt the word of a respected London surgeon after all? Another trick Duke Wetherell set up were footprints of Nessie using an ash-try formed from a hippopotamus foot. This trick was confirmed later when someone saw the ash-try in Duke’s house one day.

Since the 1930s there have been many sightings of Nessies and quite a few more “bad” photographs. None of them really prove or disprove the existence of a creature in the lake. The scientific community, of course, was happy to say it was all a hoax and nothing existed there. But then came the famous Tim Dinsdale film in 1960, the next great development in the story of the Loch Ness Monster.

In 1960 young Tim Dinsdale came to the loch determined to solve the mystery. Now  remember the loch is a big place and impossible to look at all at once. But there are a few hotspots where Nessie has been seen more than at other spots. And as luck would have it the very first summer Dinsdale was at the loch he managed to film an incredible sighting. The film was examined by military experts and they confirmed that it shows an animate object (in other words, an unknown animal) swimming away from and then across from Dinsdale’s camera. For comparison Dinsdale later filmed a small motorboat following the same route as his earlier film and at the same distance. The two films could not be more different. So what did Dinsdale film that summer day in 1960? I think it’s Nessie. The scientists of course think it’s some other boat or something man-made. What do you think?

But what could Nessie be if it is some sort of aquatic animal? The classic interpretation is that he or she is a sea monster, a type of dinosaur like a plesiosaur that did not go extinct like all the other dinosaurs did millions of years ago. Fossils of plesiosaurs have been found on the coast of Great Britain. But as cool as that sounds, could that really be true? I wish it were. But maybe the Loch Ness Monster is something else? Something equally fantastic too. Could it be a giant fish like a sturgeon or an eel? Or it it just a big otter? A swimming deer? Or a hippopotamus that escaped from a traveling zoo?

Dinsdale and others formed a group called the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau and set up camera stations around the loch. For a number of years they watched, and watched, and watched the loch. They took some more bad photos and some even worse little films, but nothing any better than Dinsdale’s original 1960 film was produced. 

Finally in the mid 1970s science finally caught “Saturday Night Nessie Fever”. Two top scientists from Cambridge (MA), Robert Rines and Doc Edgarton, arrived at Loch Ness with the idea that it might be easier to photograph Nessie underwater than above water. After all he or she was an elusive animal, rarely seen, and which obviously spent most of its time underwater. Near famous Urquhart Castle they hung some underwater cameras design by Hines coupled with a strobe light mechanism designed by Edgarton to catch photos of Nessie. Here are the photos they managed to take, known as the Flipper and Gargoyle photos.

The story of Nessie seemed to reach its peak around 1980. The Rines-Edgarton photographs caused a sensation. I myself remember seeing them presented to the public for the first time at a museum in Toronto (Canada) where I grew up. I was amazed. Everyone was. And I became a huge Nessie fan after that. I had visited Scotland many times before and had visited the loch with my parents and grandparents. I never saw Nessie but I still believed something was there, something big and mysterious and wonderful. I even remember filming a an ice-cream dessert called Nessie at a local restaurant and how the film didn’t play when I showed it to my school friends in Toronto later, and how I was chased from the school by those same friends who thought they’d been duped.

But since the 1980s we haven’t heard much about Nessie. There have been a couple of interesting Hollywood movies about the Loch Ness Monster though, and some historical documentaries, but no real scientific developments since then. We all thought the next step would be capturing one of these creatures and turning the loch into a protected reserve for her and her family. Peter Scott, son of the tragic Antarctic explorer, Robert Falcon Scott, started WWF (the World Wildlife Fund), even gave Nessie a scientific name, Nessiteras rhombopteryx (the diamond-finned wonder of Loch Ness…remember the flipper picture) as if she were finally a proven animal species (show painting of plesiosaur). But not much has been seen of Nessie recently, and Robert Rines, before he died, actually wrote that he thought all the Nessies had finally died out and gone extinct. That was why there were never very many to see anyway at any time. They were on the verge of extinction and finally disappeared in the 1980s. Isn’t that sad? But is it true? That’s the mystery that remains, maybe for you to solve. 

In my next blog I’d like to introduce you to some other mysterious creatures…Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, and the Mapinguari from the Amazon Rainforest. Do you believe in these mysteries?

 The Death Zone: When History’s Explorers Went Too Far

"...the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake look after our people."

- Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Antarctica, March 29, 1912

Most of us recognize the names but little else of the great explorers and adventurers of history. Some are buried almost anonymously in Westminster Abbey alongside the kings, queens and statesmen of antiquity. Obscure mountains, plateaus, bays and valleys are named after many others. However only the most studious or obsessed amongst us know more than the briefest of facts about these larger-than-life men (and women), and what they achieved during their lifetimes. Few of us may have read a biography of one or another of them, and only the most colorful have had films made of their adventures.   

But don’t we yearn sometimes to know a little more about the lives of our heroes and why they were such important people in their time? Don’t we wonder too how their days may have ended and how they may have died? Most have seemingly disappeared into the mists of history without a cry. Now and again one is brought back to life momentarily by a father’s bedtime story or a professor’s anecdotal aside. Arguably it is unjust that those who have faced the greatest perils in life have been forgotten without a nod to their victories or a thought as to how they may have died. Most of our heroes- Humboldt and Darwin, for example- died happily and rightfully of old age back in the beds of childhood homes in picturesque county villages and surrounded by loving- if saddened- family members. Clements Markham, the driving force behind the explorations of David Livingstone, Robert Falcon Scott and many other Victorian supermen, died old and in bed but only after his bed-curtains caught fire from a fallen reading lamp. Hardly dramatic stuff befitting a figure of such stature. Still a very select group of explorers met deaths as spectacular and dramatic as the adventurous lives they led. Here then, in chronological order, is my list of the top 15 explorer’s deaths.   

Ferdinand Magellan

·         First circumnavigation of the globe and discoverer of the Strait of Magellan

·         Murdered by Philippine natives in 1521

·        Over the Edge, by Laurence Bergreen (2004)

Henry Hudson

·     Explorer of the Northwest Passage and discoverer of Hudson Bay

·         Abandoned by mutinous crew in the Canadian Arctic in 1611

James Cook

·         Round the world voyage aboard the Resolution and Discovery

·         Murdered by Hawaiian natives in 1779

Mungo Park

·         Scottish explorer of the Niger River and Timbuktu

·         Drowned or murdered by African natives in 1806

·         Water Music, by T. Coraghessan Boyle (1983)

John Franklin

·         British Naval commander in search of the Northwest Passage aboard the Erebus and Terror

·         Disappeared and froze to death in the Arctic in 1847

·         Frozen in Time, by Owen Beattie (2004)

John Speke

·         Discovered Lake Victoria, source of the Nile River

       Shot himself before controversial debate with rival Richard Burton in 1864

·         Mountains of the Moon w/ Patrick Bergin (2002)

David Livingstone

·         Discoverer of Victoria Falls

·         Died of malaria and dysentery in Africa in 1873

·         Into Africa, by Martin Dugard (2004)

Robert Scott

·         2^nd man to reach the geographical South Pole after Amundsen in 1912

·         Froze to death in Antarctica in 1912

·         The Birthday Boys, by Beryl Bainbridge (1995)

Roald Amundsen

·         Discoverer of the Northwest passage, 1^st man to fly over the North Pole and 1^st man to reach the geographic South Pole in 1911

·         Died in plane crash while attempting to rescue a lost Italian airship in the Arctic in 1928

·         The South Pole, by Roald Amundsen (1996 new edition)

George Mallory

·         First climbers to attempt Mount Everest

·         Fell to his death after disappearing with Sandy Irvine on Mount Everest in 1924

·         An Afterclap of Fate, by Charles Lind (2006)

·         Into the Silence, by Wade Davis (2011)

Theodore Koch-Grunberg

·         German Ethnologist and member of the Hamilton Rice Amazon expedition in 1924

·         Died of malaria on the Branco River in 1924

Percy Fawcett

·         Amazon explorer in search of the Lost City of Z

·         Disappeared and probably killed by Amazon Indians in 1925

·         The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (2009)

T.E. Lawrence

·         Known popularly as Lawrence of Arabia, First World War hero & Arab Nationalist

·         Killed in motorcycle accident in 1935

·         Lawrence of Arabia w/ Peter O’Toole (1962)

Amelia Earhart

·         First woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean

·         Disappeared after crash in the Pacific Ocean during Round the World flight in 1937

·         Ameilia w/ Hillary Swank (2011)

Diane Fossey

·         Mountain gorilla researcher

·         Murdered by Rwandan natives in 1985

·         Gorillas in the Mist w/ Sigourney Weaver (1999)

* In italics…notable film or recent book about the explorer

“If you climb a mountain for the first time and die on the descent, is it really a complete first ascent of the mountain? I am rather inclined to think personally that maybe it is quite important, the getting down, and the complete climb of a mountain is reaching the summit and getting safely to the bottom again.”

- Sir Edmund Hillary, first man to summit Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay, May 29, 1953

Yield means what?

In the USA this past week we learnt that the authorities were finally going to begin cracking down on distracted drivers and enforce the law against using cell phones and other hand-held devices while driving. Surely no one can argue the need for tougher measures. Surely no one can argue that they drive just as safely as the rest of us do when they are holding and speaking on a cellphone or, worse, texting someone from a handheld device. But, you know, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where I live there is another driving law that needs to be better understood, obeyed and enforced if necessary. And that is the command to yield before entering a highway or rotary.

It’s a strange little word, I admit. And maybe that has something to do with it. After all I am convinced that a great number of people simply do not understand what the word means. So I’ll be direct. Yield means, slow down, proceed with caution, and give way to traffic if necessary. It shocks me to witness time and time again the misunderstanding or misinterpretation of this simple traffic law principally on the cape’s main highway and at the Bourne, Hyannis and Orleans rotaries (just to name three I know).  It is amazing how often drivers coming onto the highway or rotary do not even glance over at the traffic already speeding along their left side and that they, by law, must take into account and safely merge with. Do I need to define merge as well? Slowing down, having a look and then advancing when safe should the rule, not the exception. It is the law after all.  Stopping altogether should also be required if there is no way to safely enter the highway or rotary. Wait your turn, in other words.

Buy many US drivers don’t seem to understand the word yield. I think they think it means caution and nothing more. But what it most certainly does not mean is that you have the right of way over the traffic already on the highway (or in the rotary) and they must make way for you, slow down for you or, worse, switch to the fast lane to let you in.

I’m sure many have seen the You Tube video of the woman on an American highway forced from her lane by an oncoming car and into the side of a larger, faster car in the other lane. The result of this collision was a crash highlighted by at least 12 rolls of her car as she was bounced off the highway. Miraculously no other car was hit, and the woman driving the struck car was only slightly injured. Her car of course was totaled. And as if to add insult to injury the car that had entered the highway illegally and caused the crash never saw a thing and only disappeared down the road ahead of the carnage behind him.

I know we’re all in a rush these days. It’s Christmas and there is lots for us to do. But I’d like to just take this opportunity and suggest we all just have a little more patience on the road and work with everyone else to keep things safe and insure we all get home for Christmas.  And we could all take a great step towards this if understood just what is meant by the simple word yield. Slow down, proceed with caution, give way to traffic and, if necessary, stop altogether. Is it that difficult to take these precautions and avoid a potentially horrific accident?

Back in the U-S-S-A

(From the Amazon and Brazil) I’ve been back in the US about 3 months now… reading, catching up, talking with folks, and just getting a feel for things “stateside” again. And what impresses me most is how let down folks feel by their government here. No one in Washington seems to be working for the people anymore. People feel abandoned. The Republicans and Democrats apparently work to purposelessly NOT agree on any issue; laws are passed by the collective in-action of our elected officials rather than their pro-action. Unemployment is at an all-time high. The rich are richer because they can’t be taxed. The issues that really matter such as the environment, unemployment and health care are just not being addressed by any of our leaders.

So what happened to President Obama, the president who promised so much and represented so much more to so many people, rich and poor, black and white, old and young? Rather than striking out systematically, one by one, at the negative forces conspiring against us and our world- at home and abroad- he has done little more the last 3 years than walk the fence, cautious not to step on anyone’s toes, and seemingly unwilling (or is he unable?) to take a bold stand on any issue. This pleases no one but his foes and least of all the common people who need his courage more than anything these days. Now, as our politicians enter into the pre-electoral campaign for the elections of 2012, it might do us all some good to re-evaluate our priorities before we vote and re-orient ourselves correctly for the times to come.

            Apart from some very interesting readings about Darwin and Lincoln- described by Adam Goptnik in Angels and Ages as two hugely important creators of modern thought and writing- the most interesting and perhaps most important book I have read this (American) summer has been JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass. This book puts into context everything you ever wondered about the coup d’etat and conspiracy to assassinate one of the nation’s most courageous and promising presidents ever (alongside Lincoln and FDR). Is it ironic or coincidental that each of these leaders should have died tragically as he reached his “finest hour” (to paraphrase the words of another great 20^th century leader, Winston Churchill) and did not live to see the fruits his life’s work would eventually bear?

            Today we struggle yet to realize the dreams of these great men. Lincoln’s insistence upon union through equality was delayed before finding continuation in the efforts of Martin Luther King (yet another great thinker, writer and martyr) and others. Their work remains incomplete. FDR took our nation from the darkness of the depression and out of the hell of WWII, and gave us the wealth and opportunity that continues more or less to define our nation today. Yet what FDR initiated was sorely tested and almost lost during the foreshortened administration of John F. Kennedy. The mighty industrial-military complex which gave us our power after the war was revealed to be a Medussa and threatens to consume us all. President Kennedy saw what this corrupted power was leading us into- an unwinnable nuclear arms race- and he turned from being a “cold-warrior” towards becoming a “peace-maker”, a man with a mission, a crusader for world peace. Yet forces within his own government, especially the CIA, National Security Council, and the military industrial complex around him, were committed to a war against communism (and a nuclear arms race) in order to perpetuate their right winged agenda. Kennedy opposed “the need for war” with “a desire for peace” and for this he was set up and assassinated by those closest to him. E tu LBJ?

            In our generation the War on Communism has been replaced by the War on Terror. Through a form of pathological hubris and insistent isolationism the division between rich and poor, in both east and west, has grown ever wider since the end of the 20th century. The 2001 World Trade Center attacks in New York City represented an explosion of frustration from those less fortunate than ourselves in far-off lands poorer than ours. And rather than seek a peaceful solution by reaching out to those who would be our enemies and try to understand the rage and hatred directed towards us- on other words, rather than be courageous- President George W. Bush chose to take our country to war in two countries (actually continuing one war his father started earlier in Iraq and initiating another in Afghanistan). The last 10 years have seen our nation's budget deficit grow from literally nothing, ZERO (thanks to President Clinton and Newt Gingrich’s bipartisan efforts), to some trillions of dollars today, mostly due to military spending (which, surprise, translates into huge profits for the military-industrial complex but unemployment, high interest rates and collective debt for the rest of us). The pretext for a War on Terror today replicates a situation much like that of Kennedy’s time. Kennedy perceived the underlying evil of it all however and took steps to reverse the situation, steps that sadly led to his murder in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

            To turn the current situation around, to put the War on Terror behind us, and win our back country from the forces of big business and the military mind-set that currently holds us in check, we need to rally more than ever behind our beleaguered and isolated president. We need to win President Obama reelection and give him the courage he needs to face down the forces that threaten us all. At the same time we need to demand more transparency than ever from our government and call upon our elected representatives to never again allow for the conditions which led to the assassination in the 1960s of President Kennedy and other fine courageous leaders. JFK and his brother Robert, then Attorney-General of the United States, stood alone against the insatiable power of the military-industrial complex and were gunned down by those who live from war and profit from it. Our president today must know he is not alone. His foes must also know that he is not alone.

            More than unjustified the continuing War on Terror makes no sense. Our nation is wasting billions and perhaps trillions of dollars on armed conflicts that, like past conflicts against Korea, Cuba, the Soviet Union and Vietnam, cannot be “won” in any traditional or practical sense of the word. John Kennedy and other peacemakers were pushed aside by those in favor of war; however the War on Communism was not won by anyone in the end. The Communist system simply collapsed, more bankrupt and discredited than anything else. In the vacuum that followed a new War on Terror was invented and implemented by American right-wingers so that the same forces that held us in check during the Cold War era might continue to thrive in the New Millennium. We simply cannot allow this.

            If we could dismantle once and for all the industrial-military complex which controls us- in great part by supporting and encouraging President Obama to adopt the profile in courage he displayed when he was elected- the immense financial, technological AND human resources that are currently being wasted on the War on Terror could be put towards employing a generation of Americans in a campaign to save our planet and our species from the worst effects of global climate change. This, without a doubt, is the single greatest threat we all face today. More than anything we are sacrificing the supremely courageous and talented young people of our Armed Forces in an unnecessary, unjustifiable and, inevitably, unwinnable War on Terror when the true fight should be a veritable Green War against our own eminent self-destruction.

In the years to come we must find within each of us a little bit of the courage of a President Lincoln, a Roosevelt or a Kennedy and do what we can to stand up collectively to the truly powerful elements of our society which do not recognize or respect the real needs of our people. After all, who has the right to decide for the people what they need or want? Certainly not the CIA, Armed Forces, National Security Administration or the Pentagon. The power these institutions wield continues because we the people have failed to monitor their actions through the representatives we have voted into power. Through our own apathy and self-centeredness we have sanctioned our government’s practices of secret wars, assassination and covert activities on a global scale without accountability of any sort. It is time we recind the carte blanche capabilities of these secret forces and create a truly transparent form of government of, and for, the people once and for all.

If war is the best we can do then truly we do not deserve the planet we govern over. In the final analysis we need ask ourselves, is the specter of catastrophic global climate change the unavoidable result of some self-destructive nature of our own or is ecological disaster the mother planet, Gaia’s, response to our unchecked aggression and apathy? One perhaps is the result of the other; the planet, organically or not, is simply not able to defend itself anymore from our stupidity. It will consequently choose mass extinction as a means of starting over without us. But the question remains, will we destroy the earth first or will it destroy us first in an act of simple self-defense before that? Heaven help us we if we have already started an arms race of sorts with our own planet. We simply will not win this one either.

Brazil's Energy Offerings: Too Many Choices or Calm Before the Storm?

Until very, very recently Brazil was being heralded as the world's first green super power. Not more than week ago ex Governador of California Arnold Schwarzenegger and ex President of the United States reiterated that hope during an environmental economic summit in Manaus, Brazil, capital of the prosperous northern state of Amazonas.   

However the combined effect of global events during the last few weeks have yet to catch up with the idealistic circus of globetrotting environmentalists and eco-wannabes personified internationally by film director James Cameron and domestically by ex Governador of Amazonas Eduardo Braga. Away from the glare of stage lights and camera flashes Brazil may actually be adopting the same capitalist and "business-as-usual" position of other developing global superpowers (strong economically and weak politically).

To begin with the situation in Libya threatens traditional oil supplies from the strife-ridden Middle East. (How often have we been warned about this eventuality?) And the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in Japan- believe it or not- sounds the death knoll for clean, unlimited and, until Fujiwara, “safe” nuclear energy.

In Brazil the emphasis seems to suddenly be more on deep-sea oil deposits and controversial hydroelectric projects than on anything remotely green anymore. The price of ethanol (from sugar cane in Brazil) is the same as gasoline -and that's 4x what it costs in the USA who import their oil from the distant, volatile Middle Eastern cartels- because Brazil is having to import ethanol (from corn in the USA) to produce enough biodiesel for their own domestic market. In the blink of an eye Brazil’s position as a net exporter of biodiesel and potential leader of a global green revolution can only now be  questioned.

Brazil seems to be reverting back to a "business-as-usual" policy in response to immediate demands and present opportunities. The Latin American powerhouse is, after all, already self-sufficient in oil so the so-called “presal” offshore deposits will likely be snapped up by the USA as a stopgap against continuing and future shortages in the Middle East. Hydroelectric projects in Brazil’s vast interior can only gain added support as the country’s nuclear program undergoes premature revision and probable reconsideration.

In a sense it’s almost too bad Brazil has so many choices. They can’t seem to make up their minds. One thing’s for certain though- there's no internal pressure whatsoever on President Dilma Rouseff to listen to the hype of “where have you guys been” unemployed Hollywood titans or Washington exes. Dilma knows what they're saying “is right” but without the sense of urgency most of the rest of the world is currently experiencing regarding energy supplies she might just never get around to doing what “is right”.