A victory for the anti-mining faction in Crested Butte. Some background here. As I said in the earlier post, I have mixed feelings about this; however, I can't say I'm unhappy about the news.

Masai warriors will run the London Marathon. I cannot tell you how much joy this gives me. (ht)

It's Christopher Smart's birthday! Or it was, yesterday, when I meant to post this. Most people know For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry, which is excellent. I will confess that always closest to my heart is the following couplet:

Of all Spring's blossoms I like best
My sunlit wife, herself sun-dressed.

England's thatching crisis.

It sounds truly aggravating: a combination of perverse agricultural policies combining with drastically over-zealous preservation efforts to kill an ancient tradition.

Via Cronaca.

Almost missed this one: John Derbyshire reviews a collection of nature writing, and gives a very nice tip of the hat to Steve, who is not included:

The [political] Left survives and flourishes because, as well as there being plenty of people whose satisfaction in life is to boss others around, there are even more who are willing to be bossed. Those who are not so willing — persons of a prickly-libertarian temperament — often head out to the wild places, to end up as lovers of the raw creation. There is, too, that aspect of the conservative temperament that abhors sentimentality and wishful thinking, and greets with happy recognition the cycles of death and mayhem that comprise most of the natural world's activity. I am thinking here, in both cases, of the Western writer Stephen J. Bodio, whose 1998 memoir On the Edge of the Wild offers an eloquent hunter's perspective on nature.

The Left undoubtedly has the best of it, though. They certainly have the best of this volume, which contains nothing of Stephen Bodio's at all — nothing at all sympathetic to hunting, except as carried out by American Indians.

The review finishes, unexpectedly, as a positive one. I note with amusement and approval that he prefers unknown writers, "writers I had never heard of, but whom I am glad to have encountered," among whom he numbers Ed Abbey. And though I agree with his assessment of two samples which he rightly mocks as purple prose, I disagree about his Eliot Porter quote:

In the winding canyon dark and light reflections replace one another in slow succession. The gentle wake of the boat breaks these images into undulating spots and patches, each wave for a moment holding a fragment of sky mixed with golden globules of sunlit rock.

I suppose Mr. Porter may be justly accused here of having failed to convey the moment to a distant audience, but the moments here described are a very large part of why I squandered years of time and set myself far behind my peers financially working as a ne'er-do-well river guide. Sunny canyon reflections on shaded water, broken by concentric ripples from my quietly dripping oars: it was worth everything for that alone.

Also worth noting is Mr. Derbyshire's mention of the decline in outdoor recreation:

While reading America's Earth I came upon a report just issued by the Nature Conservancy, telling us that people are spending less time in the Great Outdoors than ever before. Activity in this zone has been declining for twenty years, the researchers tell us. The annual per capita rates of decline have been from one percent to one and a quarter, depending on the type of activity measured — camping, backpacking, fishing, hiking, hunting, or trips to national and state parks and forests.

I hear this a lot, and it's probably true, but it's often hard to believe. It seems to be an instance of Yogi Berra's "No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded." So many places are positively infested with recreationists (as Mr. Derbyshire may recall from his hike to Inspiration Point in Grand Teton, where he missed the Peculiars by only a couple days). Even Nevada is becoming a destination, while REI, EMS and their ilk seemingly continue to flourish. I know people (assholes, I might add) who use Delicate Arch as a Frisbee golf hole. I suppose it's true though. Outdoor activities are now dominated by gearheads and destination vacationists, while locals who use their public land backyards on a regular basis do seem to be on the wane. The economic demographics of outdoor recreation are also unencouraging. My river company, which is actually a non-profit organization ostensibly dedicated to exposing the voting public to wilderness, recently raised prices on trips because people seemed to assume that our low cost reflected low quality. Bookings went up and honest working clientele continue to decline.

Still, though many places are overrun, a great many aren't. They can have Grand Teton and the Maroon Bells. There are areas right next door where I can still be confident of not seeing a soul.

More Tibet

...without (much) commentary from me. It all gets increasingly convulted; judge for yourself.

Here's an interesting perspective from a mountaineer who's been in Lhasa (scroll down to post by Corax towards bottom). The poster is a serious Swedish climber, and his observations are not to be lightly dismissed. To be fair, though, I had not had the impression from the international media that the Tibet protests were peaceful or harmless.

Meanwhile, here's another assessment of the state of Chinese and international media. Here's an account of alleged Chinese cyber attacks on Tibet activists, Uighurs and Falun Gong. And here's a report that China may ban live broadcasts from Tiananmen square during the Olympics.

Today is the birthday of Benito Pablo Juárez García, about whom I'm ashamed to admit I knew nothing. On a whim, I looked him up on Wikipedia, and found him to be, at least on the surface, an admirable fellow.

Juárez was born in the small village of San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, located in the mountain range now known as the "Sierra Juárez." His parents, Marcelino Juárez and Brígida García were peasants who died when he was three years old. He described his parents as "Amerindians of the primitive race of the country." He worked in the corn fields and as a shepherd until the age of 12. On December 17, 1818, he walked to the city of Oaxaca looking to educate himself and find a better life. At the time he was illiterate and could not speak Spanish, only Zapotec.

In the city he had a sister who worked as a cook and there, he took a job as a domestic servant and eagerly made up for his lack of education. A lay Franciscan, Antonio Salanueva, was impressed with young Benito's intelligence and thirst for learning, and arranged for his placement at the city's seminary. He studied there but decided to pursue law rather than the priesthood. He graduated from the seminary in 1827 and went on to gain a degree in law.

Aside from seizing Church properties, he seemed to have been industrious, honorable, and dedicated.

Chas found it first and the Atomic Nerds personalized it, so in the interest of continuing Barbie ethnography, I'll offer some more easily overlooked specimens. Santa Fe has any number of them, of course, but particularly noteably to this blog's readership is

St. John's College [Santa Fe] Barbie: Available in a wide variety of hairstyles and body types, this Barbie's accessories include a bong and hardcover copies of Plato's Republic and the Fagles Iliad. Optional conversion kit to Eastern Orthodoxy available.

Española Barbie, Alternative Model: Includes long flowing robes and turban. Most commonly used with Santa Fe Whole Foods Market playset. Ken includes a dagger and a security business.

Truchas Barbie: Commonly mistaken for Española Barbie, Trucheña Barbie's accessories include an elk rifle, several yard appliances, stray livestock, and a kit to sabotage Santa Fe and Taos Barbies' vehicles when parked at local trailheads.

Steve is hereby challenged to offer up Catron County Barbie. Anyone else? I'd say glaring omissions include Tierra Amarilla, Roswell and Gallup Barbies.

Things I did not know about Alcibiades, part one: he had a lisp.

Probably not the kind you are thinking of, but the kind that, when you bweak into somebody's pawty dwunk and stawt chatting up the guests and pwaising Socwates, make evewyone say, "Awwwww..."

The kind of thing that makes the most beautiful person in existence (and also the quickest thinker, and the best rhetorician, and the greatest general--undefeated for life on whatever side he chose--and the best charioteer and a triple-medalist in the Olympic Games and a seriously impious fellow one way or t'other) just that much cuter.

He reminds me of Zhuge Liang; they were both dicks.

Running post; you have been warned. I ran the Shamrock 8km on Sunday (bad Episcopalian!) in 35:07. Not bad, but not great either. Some thoughts: I can go faster. If I'd known the distance better I could have cut 2 minutes off my time by not starting too slowly. I ran the first mile in 8:41 and the last in 6:17--and had enough left for a really stupid 200 yard burst at the finish. Next time I won't save up like that. Also, running with a big group of people is a blast! There was always someone going my pace, and even when I got boxed in, the course was wide enough that it didn't last long. I'm going to do this sort of thing again.

Tardigrades!

Update for posterity, in case the link should ever die:

I want a bonny tardigrade to serve me for a steed.
I'd harness him with watercress and provend him with mead.
We'd leave the hillock for the plain, forth to the desert wend;
from each bright globule of his brow a dock leaf I'd prepend.
His limbs, gone leathery with thirst, would lose their lustrous sheen,
and then I would rehydrate him with pulls from my canteen.
His feet would clasp the dunes beneath, his snout survey the sky,
while I, upon his back, sought out our caravanserai.
Unendingly we'd course the earth, our fortune never fixed --
the West Wind gee, the East Wind haw, and him and me betwixt.
My Octopod Bucephalus, my ally and my charge!
I'd do it all, were he less small, or I less sodding large.

The Chinese have closed Mt. Everest from the north until after the Olympic torch is carried up. The mountaineering community speculates that the Chi-Coms dread the appearance of a Free Tibet banner in propaganda photos. They have unsuccessfully lobbied the Nepalese government to impose a similar ban on south side expeditions. Interestingly, they have also closed Cho Oyu, which is not particularly close to Everest or the torch route, but was the sight of last year's shooting of Tibetans by the Chinese army. News of the atrocity was broken by a few mountaineers, a Brit, two Romanians and a Slovenian who provided photographic evidence. Most of the parties on the mountain said nothing at the time, no doubt fearing a reprisal just such as this season's ban. Given the narrow window of opportunity for climbing Everest, the need for extensive legwork and acclimatization, this effectively kills most expeditions from the north this year. The guiding companies will take a big hit, and I certainly feel bad for climbers who have already put massive sums towards their ambitions this season. A massive influx of climbers switching their plans to the Nepalese side may also make for a very interesting season.

I will not be watching the games this summer (not much of a boycott, since I don't even have a TV, but what else can I do?), since it is increasingly apparent that they will be mainly a massive PR stunt on behalf of the Chinese government. The only thing I worry I will miss out on is some daring act of protest, but no doubt that will be instantly available on Youtube. I do hope that something occurs to make the country's rulers exceedingly uncomfortable while every news agency on earth is covering them live. As inconvenient as the Everest closure is to mountaineers, we can only hope that it will be one more event to focus the world's attention on the deplorable behavior of the Chinese regime. I hope it makes the news, I hope it thereby brings the Nangpa La murders back on the news just in time for the torch relay. Romanian witness Alex Gavan put it in a nutshell:

”China, a country to host the Olympic Games in 2008, is slaughtering its citizens.”

Update, 3-16: Nepal succumbs. More here and here. I'll comment soon.

Update, 3-17: Also, lots of interest regarding the Lhasa protests/riots from Dave's Gone China, including translations of Chinese Internet chatter on Tibet (more), which provide an interesting window into how mainstream Chinese see the problem. Reactions are a mixed bag.

Alright, final update for now: The Nepalese deny closures, but the situation remains ambiguous. Meanwhile, here's some reporting from Lhasa. Welcome to interacting with China in the 21st Century, folks. The Everest closures of course pale in comparison with the situation in Lhasa, but I still think they deserve coverage inasmuch as they enlighten us to the realities of life in an unfree society. Your life's ambition, a large portion of your savings, your mountain guiding livelihood, even your subsistance as a sherpa or local purveyor can be demolished on a whim of your government, for the slenderest of PR justifications. The Chinese can also put substantial financial pressure on anyone who might see things differently, as with their 121 million Euro loan to Nepal. And yet we rush to make our economics ever more dependent on China's goodwill. The Taiwanese better not be counting on our protection; we have already been bought, we just don't seem to know it yet.

On a lighter note, take a moment to read about Parachute-Gelenkhüü, the Mongolian Icarus, a sort of early 20th Century Mongol folk hero. His highly optimistic flight was fortuitously curtailed by sheep.

Mongolia's airport art has a much better sense of humour than ours.

Hat tip: The Regal Vizsla.

Also in Grand Canyon news, there's a new theory of its formation just out which deems its age much greater than previous estimates. While the structure of its constituent rock strata is pretty simple, explaining the formation of the Canyon itself has long been very contentious. "If you ever want to see geologists screaming at each other," an informed person once told me, "ask them to interpret the Grand Wash Cliffs Formation." We'll see how the new theory holds up long-term.

The brief Grand Canyon experimental "flood" is over.

I find that perhaps my previous comment on the flood was somewhat unclear. A longtime reader and friend writes:

With the caveat that I am a plant ecologist and not a geohydrologist, and am not familiar with the Salmon River, I think the problem with doing flooding experiments with the Salmon is that there is no dam and thus no large amount of water to use to mimic a flooding event with. Sure, someone could (and I hope is) studying the flood cycle of the Salmon River, but for controlled experiment's sake a damned [sic, indeed] river is better.

(Sorry it's taken me a while to reply, but, well, life gets in the way. And I'm not a geohydrologist either, but I've drunk some beers with them on river trips, so I'll try and do my best to answer.)

The problem with doing flooding experiments in the GC is that there is no large amount of water to use to mimic a flooding event, the dam notwithstanding. Releases from Glen Canyon are determined by a bewildering host of factors: agriculture in California; municipal water needs in Phoenix, Vegas and So-Cal; electricity needs in Arizona; our treaty obligations to provide Mexico with 2 million acre-feet yearly; balancing inflow (i.e., snow melt) with diversions in upper basin states while maintaining useful water levels in three major downstream reservoirs and three major and a host of minor upstream reservoirs. Powell Reservoir has been very low for years now, while water demands continue to increase; no water has reached the Gulf of Mexico since 1982. Under these conditions, sedimentation research in the Grand Canyon is very low on the totem pole.

Indeed, the current flood is really just a small bone thrown to conservationists by the Bureau of Reclamation. Other people besides me are unhappy about the experiment. For instance, the Executive Director of the Grand Canyon Trust:

We need high flows to rebuild habitats whenever we get significant sediment inputs from tributary streams, but instead we get rare, “historic” experiments. We need more natural steady flows through most of the remainder of the year to protect spawning and rearing habitat for humpback chub in the Colorado River, but what we get is continued erosion of backwaters and beaches through an almost unbroken regimen of fluctuating flows... if this high flow experiment is part of a package with no more floods for five years and just two months a year of steady flows, then the package will impair the resources in Grand Canyon.

Or the National Parks Conservation Association:

...the experimental plan fails to include follow-up floods, which are critical to ensuring that endangered fish and sandbars are preserved. Instead, it calls for steady releases during September and October over the next five years –essentially locking-in smaller flows from the dam in order to generate additional power – when larger flows might be more beneficial to the park’s ecosystem at other times of the year, particularly in the spring.

This "flood's" 41,500 cubic feet per second for 60 hours is a paltry flood in a drainage the size of the Colorado Basin. And we only get this every four years (the last such experiment was in 2004). I have no doubt that these events do provide a wealth of data for scientists, and are useful due to their closely controlled nature, one data set in four years is a pretty plodding pace of research.

The big thing that's missing in the science here is baseline data for the behavior of sediment in a natural river system of this size. No one thought to look at any of this before the dam went in in 1963. And there is precisely one river system in the same ballpark in the United States unaffected by dams: the Salmon. Lets look at some hydrographs (which I got here). Here is the Main Salmon's high water season (April-July) for the last two years

2006, a fairly average year:

2007, a low year:

(Note that the scales are not the same; 2007's peak was about 38,000 cfs, while 2006's was over 90,000. That's a ton of water, and the Salmon can go way bigger than that!) Observe how the high flows are spread out over a good three months. Low elevations melt first, it peaks when the weather really heats up, and lingering snow melt and groundwater keep feeding it, stretching out the right end of the graph. Note also the multiple small peaks.

Now lets look at the Colorado. Here's last week, encompassing the flood:

And here's the last 12 months of business as usual at Glen Canyon Dam, with the flood spike at the far right:

In the flood graph, obviously, we have a sharp rise, a steady plateau and a sharp fall, enormously different from a natural high-water episode. In the lower graph, note that the daily fluctuations are so extreme that they're represented by three separate lines; GC boaters have to be careful when setting up camp to avoid being flooded or having their boats beached. The many little spikes represent weekday vs. weekend flows: they don't need as much electricity Saturday and Sunday when Phoenix office buildings are closed. Note also the increase to power Phoenix A/C in the summer heat.

Is a four day peak long enough to really stir up the sand and put it where we want it? Does the steep right-hand tail of the flood actually do harm by causing beaches to erode into very steep banks, something I've observed non-scientifically in Idaho (Mark Schmeeckle is probably working on this question as we speak)? What would happen if we three one-day floods instead? Is 41,500 cfs at all adequate, or do we really need something closer to historic highs (estimated to have been something like 70,000 to 300,000 cfs on the Colorado pre-dam; again, the Salmon's the only river with at all comparable bed and gradient that gets anything like these flows)? These are the kind of questions which the Salmon's annual natural flood experiment could help answer, without being dependent on the vagaries of western water politics. No, it's not a controlled experiment, but natural scientists commonly use natural experiments to gather data on phenomena for which a deliberate experiment would be irresponsible or impossible. That's how we've gained almost all of our knowledge about things like debris flows, landslides, avalanches and forest fires, let alone earthquakes, volcanism and astronomy.

Also worthy of note is that baseline data for sediment behavior in a natural river system would not be useful only in the Grand Canyon. Lodore Canyon below Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green and the entire Dolores River in Colorado have very similar management issues. I ran Lodore on an experimental flood in 1999 (which was a blast), but there hasn't been another, and we're not likely to see one any time soon. McPhee Reservoir has rendered the Dolores virtually dead for two decades. The Yampa (the last significant undammed river in the Colorado Basin) is also threatened by headwaters diversions and a dam on the Little Snake which would cut off its major source of sediment. Solid baseline data on sediment behavior would greatly benefit conservation proposals for these rivers.

"But what's the point?", you ask. "If the Bureau is so loathe to release a piddling flood for research purposes, we'll never see a flow regime that even vaguely mimics the natural hydrograph." Good point, and alas, very probably true. But you never know: things change. Water issues are only likely to get worse in the Colorado Basin, and if the Colorado River Compact ever comes up for major renovation, conservationists need to have their ducks in a row, with specific proposals instead of just objections. Also, every dam in the Basin is silting up in a big hurry; whether they like it or not, the Bureau is going to have to come up with some new plans eventually, and it would be nice to know how all the silt in the reservoirs is going to behave. Or the drought might even break (hey, I can dream), the dams might someday be looking to release large volumes (as Glen Canyon Dam was forced to do in 1981 and 1983), in which case scientists should be able to tell them how to do it in an ecologically beneficial manner.

You can never have too much data these days, and the Main Salmon is a great place to get some. And there are any number of grad students looking to research their theses is beautiful surroundings*. Grad students, I'm available, I know the Salmon and I'm a good river cook. Science!!!!

*I talked once with a guy who was writing his thesis on box elder trees in Dinosaur National Monument. "So what got you so interested in box elders?" I asked. "They grow here," said he.

Y'all are reading Skin Horse, right? I wasn't sure it was going to be my bag until the quasi-Italian irradiated silverfish started singing opera....

From the Annals of the Grand Historian:

These, then, were the actions undertaken by the Duke of Qin after his victories. Without any check to his desires, he began to oppress the people, and, at the advice of Li Su, destroying the works of the scholars. At this time a popular song began to circulate amongst the peasantry, which I here record.

O such a bad Duke of Qin
I scarcely know where to begin
For he's a horrible, terrible
Wholly unbearable
Rascally mad Duke of Qin

His taxes are really quite fair--
At least if you get by on air
He drips jade and gold whilst we starve in the cold--
That miserly mad Duke of Qin

The scholars he takes from their books
And gives both their eyes to the rooks
He answers their learning with strangling and burning
That arrogant mad Duke of Qin

We pity the Confucianist
Whose name has appeared on his list
His pleas go unheard, so far down he's interred--
Such a rotten old mad Duke of Qin

With each of his neighbors he's made peace--
By killing them down to the least
Each federate state but a crumb on his plate,
Th'incontinent mad Duke of Qin

His justice is modelled on trust:
He trusts us to die when we must
"For virtue's the fruit of which torture's the root,"
So says the mad Duke of Qin

We'd love to move out of this state
But such simply is not our Fate
For he owns all the land from the sea to the sand
That cantankerous,
Rancorous,
No-hanky-pankorous
Disgustingly mad Duke of Qin!

Images and video of the moon's south polar region:

“We now know the south pole has peaks as high as Mount McKinley and crater floors four times deeper than the Grand Canyon,” said Doug Cooke, a deputy associate administrator at NASA.

Have I mentioned that I'm all for terraforming other worlds? Particularly worlds with abundant rafting and mountaineering potential.

...the philosopher Wang Ji wrote about a journey he claimed to have made to the Land of the Drunk, one of those fantasy places the medieval Chinese loved to invent, and ended up half-believing in. There, he said, citizens "sip the wind and drink the dew, and abstain from the five cereals."

John Derbyshire on Chinese inebriaty.

A most thouroughly laudable python.

Video clip here.

This & That

The book meme with which Steve has tagged me seems a jolly thing, but my case has failed to produce interesting results. My genuine closest book has most of p. 123 taken up with a large picture. What to do? If I simply follow five sentences onto p. 124 I get

The transmitted sound resembled a high-pitched birdlike warble. The Russians called the novel sonar the CHIRP.

Late that first night at sea, after about six hours of steaming westward from Gelendzhik, the Aquanaut approached the place where the ancient Don River might once have flowed on its way to the Ice Age Black Sea lake.

My second nearest book had p.123 blank (chapter break). Choice three, my current read, yields

"The sun, Mr. Barrow?" said the master. "Mr. Snow, clear me those men to the foc's'le. When is the side to be dressed, bo'sun? We do not have all day."

"I suggest that hats should be ordered to be worn," said Tobias, plucking Mr. Clerk's coat to draw his attention."

Oh well, monkeys with typewriters can't produce Bartlett's every day.

The Querencia blog has had food on its mind lately (no surprise, really). In the comments here, Moro Rogers asked about eating well when one is broke, and the topic has continued. I'll try to post some reflections in the future, but I don't have all night and there's nothing like working on an organic farm to make you really think about food, economics, sustainability and affordability. (Our farmer's wife was so harried that she actually on occasion purchased canned Kroger tomatoes while our beautiful heirlooms rotted in the compost.) The affordability issue really became a serious philosophical concern for us, as we watched all our produce leave its fertile valley to be sold at greatly magnified prices in Colorado's mountain Disneylands. And the farmers still don't make money. It's also true that it can be cheaper than you think, though. But getting the good stuff cheap definitely involves barter, making lots of friends, rural networking, really living in an area. I'll stop rambling for now, but here's another good interview with Michael Pollan.

And finally, they're planning another Grand Canyon flood experiment for this year. Wish I could be on the river! The main purpose of these releases is ecological experimentation, particularly as relates to sediment redistribution (rebuilding eroded beaches), its effects on invasive plants and native fish. I have certainly seen beaches grow dramatically less and the weeds wax much worse in my two decades' experience in the canyon; it's worthwhile science. But a lot of this experimentation could be conducted much more easily, and I hereby offer the following to geomorphologists free of charge, with the stipulation that I be hired as their boatman should they secure funding for this project:

Idaho's Main Salmon River would be a much more convenient venue for sedimentation and beach building research than the Grand. The Salmon is comparable in its channel, gradient and volume to the Colorado, and most importantly it is undammed. Instead of planning occasional manmade floods amidst the minefield of agency politics, Colorado water allocation and power generation requirements that beset the Grand, researchers could avail themselves of a natural experiment in Idaho annually. The Salmon commonly has peaks from 40,000 to 120,000 cfs, again comparable to the pre-dam Colorado and boasting high volumes that Reclamation would never agree to. The specific hydrograph (swift vs slow rise and fall, multiple peaks, &c.) also varies greatly, and we commonly observe large variations in the beaches from year to year. It's a superb natural laboratory, and the Canyon folks should take advantage of it. And secure lavish funding for their boatmen.

Another sunset, last night, looking into the West Elk Range:

Please enlarge!

An excellent new reference, and most prodigious time-killer: the Internet Bird Collection. Lots of video of lots and lots of species. Added to the sidebar.

Some photos from a couple weeks back, in our local canyons. Colorado has a pretty decent spread of redrock canyon country, but these areas are thankfully overshadowed by the better publicized Utah canyons, just over that arbitrary state line. Here's an ephemeral snowmelt waterfall on a warm afternoon:

And here's a local resident:

Turns out there are downsides to living in gorgeous Rocky Mountain villages:

Lake County Commissioners have declared a local state of emergency for fear that this winter's above-average snowpack will melt and cause a catastrophic tidal wave.

The water is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a 2.1-mile drainage tunnel that is partially collapsed, creating the pooling of water contaminated with heavy metals.

County officials have been nervously monitoring the rising water pressure inside the mine shafts for about two years. An explosion could inundate Leadville and contaminate the Arkansas River.

Governor Ritter has asked the Feds for help, and apparently someone's doing something. But it's really a very long term problem, as Chas points out:

...the work will have to be done forever. Forever. Until the mountains crumble or someone invents a permanent cure for water trickling down through the rocks, leaching out the cadmium, etc., and then draining through the tunnel conveniently provided in the 1940s, which drains into one fork of the Arkansas.

In related news, there have been plans afoot for a while to mine Molybdenum inside Mount Emmons, near Crested Butte, Colorado. Naturally, lots of people are upset. Kobex corporation argues their side here, but the Leadville situation must be giving their PR department a real headache.

My feelings on the issue are very mixed. My most selfish, not-in-my-backyard reaction is that the Kebler Pass area is extremely beautiful even by Colorado standards, which is saying something. Even if one believes the company's claim that the mine itself will be unobtrusive, the necessary "improvement" of the roads would be doing the area no aesthetic favours. Furthermore, as we are currently seeing, mines definitely cause major problems. The companies love to claim that technology and regulation have come so far that environmental impacts are no longer a concern; but when the potential impacts of the project happen on a geologic timescale, the burden of proof is definitely on the miners.

On the other hand, there is a solid argument that outsourcing all production of the minerals we consume to other countries, countries with weaker environmental and labour standards, is irresponsible and selfish. (Incidentally, if you think your job sucks, spend a few minutes with these photos of sulphur mining in a Javanese volcano.) Furthermore, having attempted to live for the better part of a year in western Colorado in the absence of a trust fund or real estate portfolio, I have a lot more sympathy for the concept of creating jobs. My current town of residence is still a living community largely because of three ugly, carbon-spewing, traffic-generating coal mines five miles to the east. Without this industry, the valley would have either no economy at all (granted, it doesn't have too much now); or else, lacking the deterrent of the mines' unsightliness strategically placed along the road from Aspen, it would be just another leprous Colorado service/tourist economy, real estate through the roof, no use to man or beast but only to trustafarians, "guest workers" and millionaires. Crested Butte is just such a community, and I have few tears to shed over the mine's impact on its property val..., hem, scenic virtues. I personally feel that Crested Butte would be rather improved by some truck traffic and redneck bars, and if the mine happens I hope they route the transportation right through town instead of over Kebler or Ohio passes.

And I do appreciate the glee with which the mine points out that molybdenum is used to make skis and mountain bikes. Mrs. Peculiar suggests that perhaps what Gunnison County needs are some Rossignol and Gary Fisher factories to complement the molybdenum mine. Wouldn't that be a politically incorrect manifestation of localism?

Seriously, these are tough choices, and those who advocate sustainability and distrust globalization face some difficult decisions if we stick to our guns. But let's end on a light note, and recall this classic Monty Python sketch, which really ought to be the Official Comedy Performance of Paonia, western Colorado and the New West.

"Tungsten carbide drills? What the bloody 'ell is tungsten carbide drills?"

Some good Mongoliana to be had: both Ulaana and The Regal Vizsla describe their February visit to Hovsgol and the Tsataan reindeer people. But what I really want to point out is this vodka bottle in the shape of a Kalashnikov. I want one!

Update: Here we go. Or there's this. I'll stick with the Russians myself.

Sunset last Sunday:

It seems to be food night in our corner of the blogosphere: cannibalism here; cows and pigs at Querencia (see comments also); and now the always worthwhile Michael Pollan with an outside perspective. Bon apetite!

Attend the Tale...

Our current hometown has a surprisingly laudable array of musical talent, and we went recently to our pizza-and-beer joint to see one. Though he proved a very skilled guitarist with a definite songwriting talent, I couldn't help reflecting on the phenomenon of young man's music being performed by a man rapidly ceasing to be young. What a burden is the blessing of youthful talent, coupled as it is with an obligation to mature and refine in artistry, particularly when one's genre itself tends to impede maturity and refinement.

These reflection, as it happens, apply almost perfectly to Tim Burton's new film adaptation of Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's Broadway opera of misanthropy, manslaughter and cannibalism. The first thing to understand about Sweeney is that, despite its Broadway provenance and its lurid subject matter, it punches above its weight as a serious work, one good enough to support a variety of interpretations in performance. Many people assert that it qualifies as an opera, meaning I suppose that one can enjoy this shabby little shocker while maintaining full highbrow cred. Sweeney and his accomplice Mrs. Lovett are surprisingly sympathetic and funny as they descend to the nadir of human villity; the work has a decently classical tragic inevitability and is a serious portrayal of cruelty and vengeance; and the music sometimes achieves real power. A good benchmark interpretation with excellent performances by the two leads is this one. The musical has genuine potential for serious filmmaking and a director as peculiar and creative as Burton might have made it soar.

Alas, he doesn't. A lot of Burton's creativity seems to have frozen into mannerism, and in Sweeney he revels far too exclusively in the tale's ghoulish and downright disgusting aspects, as the opening credits' extended shot of CGI blood flow attests. I couldn't help thinking that this is a Sweeney for teenagers, not adults, for an audience eager to snigger at Londoners wolfing down their fellow man, with a heavy dose of weird for weird's sake (attested by the meaningless and distracting skunk streak in Johnny Depp's hair). Worse still, Burton's preoccupation with not flinching from the story's brutality sometimes overwhelms the musical's best moments of black humor.

The movie's puerile tendencies show up most strongly in the casting. When I first saw the cast list, I couldn't believe that Burton chose Pretty-Boy Depp as Sweeney over the marvellously villainous Alan Rickman (who is by far the best reason to watch the Harry Potter movies). Rickman is plenty good as the sadistic Judge Turpin, but the role is just too small for him, and I greatly regret that his potential as Sweeney must be forever consigned to my imagination. And Depp is simply too light for the role, and too young. Logically, he's not really old enough to have a 16-year-old daughter, and dramatically he just isn't equal to the character's sad, bitter, vengeful Weltschmerz. Again, a young man's talent in an old man's art. And not as bad, but again distracting, is the pointlessly over-the-top casting of Sacha Baren Cohen (Borat) as Pirelli; buffo though he be, Pirelli is eventually revealed as yet another sadist, but Cohen remains a buffoon.

More positively, Helena Bonham Carter, whom I usually loathe, was surprisingly decent and sympathetic as Mrs. Lovett. I especially enjoyed her number By the Sea, her sad fantasy of bourgeois oceanside Cockney happiness with a cannibal accomplice at her side. Timothy Spall (another Harry Potter regular, the rat guy) was an excellent choice for Beadle Bamford. And the pacing in the drama's final scenes is excellent, a substantial improvement in clarity over the stage version I've seen, as the ghastly events speed towards their inevitably tragic end. Don't get me wrong; the film was absolutely a diverting way to spend a couple hours.

Perhaps the oddest of Burton's modifications to the musical was his choice to eliminate the choruses that open, close and interject in the drama. Given the director's facility with surrealism, I would have thought that choruses offered plenty of potential for spectacle, as well as some useful control of the film's pacing. I was surprised how much I missed them, especially at the end. Choral strophes and antistrophes can mould an audience's response to tragedy, giving a more meaningful shape to a series of unfortunate events, not to mention giving the audience a tune to whistle on its way out of the theater, and this work turned out to suffer noticeably from their omission. I also find it telling that another of the drama's classically tragic touches (can't be more specific without a spoiler here) was also eliminated. This film version of Sweeney Todd is unfortunately little interested in tragedy, but only in ghoulish spectacle. At the latter, it is a smashing success.

P.S. Yes, I too am now contemplating Odious' finger. But Mrs. P. and I have a duet to learn:

Y'all will get more blogging from me when I get the tip of my finger back.

And continuing the theme of surreal personality cults, good God, look at this: public architecture in Turkmenistan. I'd heard repeatedly of the golden statue of the late leader Turkmenbashi which rotates in a 24-hour cycle always to face the sun, but it's something to see the photos. The Wikipedia article cites some altogether remarkable presidential decrees (remember, this happened within the living memory of today's children):

ballet and opera were banned after Niyazov felt they were "unnecessary ... not a part of Turkmen culture"

In March 2004, 15,000 public health workers were dismissed including nurses, midwives, school health visitors and orderlies and replaced with military conscripts.

In April 2004 the youth of Turkmenistan were encouraged to chew on bones to preserve their teeth rather than be fitted with gold tooth caps

In April 2004 it was ordered that an ice palace be constructed near the capital.

In 2004 all licensed drivers were required to pass a morality test.

In February 2005 all hospitals outside Aşgabat were ordered shut, with the reasoning that the sick should come to the capital for treatment. All rural libraries were ordered closed as well, citing ordinary Turkmen do not read books.

The Turkmen words for bread and the month of April were changed to the name of his late mother, Gurbansoltanedzhe.

In fact, the President-for-Life renamed all the months and days of the week. Turkmenbashi also wrote the Ruhnama, which purports to be a national epic for the Turkmen people. History will judge; I will merely note that T-shirts appear to be available (though what's up with the Romanov eagle?).

Is this how types such as Galba and Otho would have behaved had they come to power in 1991? Was the Turkmenbashi in fact ahead of his time?

To end on a brighter note, Turkmen music is damn good.

Update: Ethnocynologist Steve Bodio reminds me that the Turkmens also have damn good dogs and horses. Well, they're Central Asians, so I take those accomplishments for granted. Always nice to ponder on them, though.

And still more, this time strictly Turkmen.

The closest humans have come to building a Death Star

Are other people as fascinated by North Korea as I am? The place is every bit as interesting and grimly enlightening as any dystopian science fiction. The main difference is that if you really contemplate the matter, it makes you want to hit someone in a way Brave New World does not. In any case, if you share my perverse and depressing fascination, don't miss the worst building in the world.

(Actually, isn't there something in San Francisco rather like it? Near Gough Street, I think, and visible from some distance? That was my first thought upon opening the link.)

And here's video of it. (The soundtrack elicited a perfect Pavlovian response from Mrs. P.: "I want sushi.")

Finally, lest you think that the poor devils are utterly unlike us, behold this footage of North Koreans viewing a group of South Korean pop tarts. Their response is much the same as mine.

Via the (other) Blowhards.

Sigh. I don't have a TV, so watching the candidates on online video was a depressing revelation (radio was bad enough). I wouldn't trust these people to change my oil. I think I really am going to vote for Brad. He was a damn good waiter, and that's no small accomplishment.

Moro Rogers is working on illustrations for C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, here and here. Looking forward to more!

UN peacekeepers are vandalizing rock art sites, reports the London Times. Sigh. At least these idiots were dumb enough (like a river passenger I once had) to sign and date their vandalism. For once, I wish the full wrath of European political correctitude may fall on their heads.

Via Cronaca.

William Wegman (the weimaraner guy) illustrates the current Met Opera season.

Meanwhile, back at Diablo Canyon....

We saw 3:10 to Yuma recently the recent remake, not the original), and I was highly pleased. It really is nice to see a well plotted, well acted (Russell Crowe is great, but I kept thinking, "How did Jack Aubrey become an old west outlaw?"), generally quality western, and looking at some home landscapes in cinematic context was an added treat. For instance, here we have the distinctive profile of Buckman Mesa beside Christian Bale's boot:

And here's Peter Fonda about to flip a stage coach in my old haunt of Diablo Canyon:

I actually wandered out there inadvertantly during filming to take a hike, and saw a flock of trailers and signs pointing toward various chase sequences. Through a remarkable act of willpower, I resisted the urge to climb the back of the mesa and trundle some rocks on the invaders, whoever they might be. In hindsight I regret it; I might have serendipitously contributed to a fine film. As I recall, they did manage to kill a horse with no help from me. What's a western movie without at least one dead horse?

On the other hand, what's with Hollywood's inveterate, unyeilding dyslexia in regard to landscapes? Yes, yes, it doesn't bother most audiences, nor should it really, but just once I'd like to see them get one right. 3:10 to Yuma is set in Arizona, but was obviously filmed entirely within about 30 miles of Santa Fe. Unbelievable as it may seem to the masses, most of New Mexico (particularly Santa Fe) looks nothing like most of Arizona (particularly Bisbee). Just once, just once I'd like to see a western in which landscape nerds like me could turn to our dates with a satisfied snigger and say (for instance), "See, Captain Gunnison's not being shot full of Paiute arrows just anywhere. That really is the Sevier Desert!" "Fremont's men are eating each other in the real La Garitas!" How cool would that be? Seems like we're about due for a new Apache movie, and wouldn't it be wonderful to see one filmed in vast, intricate, utterly bizarre landscapes of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico instead of the done-to-death vistas of Monument Valley and southern Utah?

Sigh. No one likes my ideas. I spent half the afternoon imagining a western with a plot based on Njal's Saga.

Good music quote:

Twentieth-century music is like pedophilia. No matter how persuasively and persistently its champions urge their cause, it will never be accepted by the public at large, who will continue to regard it with incomprehension, outrage and repugnance.

--Kingsley Amis, 1982

Quote found here, which discusses the problem at some length, and blames it largely on excessive taxpayer funding of the arts. We have made similar observations.

Hat tip: Blowhards.

"It's a story from long, long ago," continued the old man. "Once upon a time, there was a wise and able king who eagerly sought out capable people. He ordered that his minister find the smartest person in the entire realm, so as to appoint him the teacher of the prince. One day he could assist the prince when he ruled.

"The minister himself was extremely intelligent. He scoured the land, leaving no stone unturned, until he found the three smartest people. The minister thought of every way he could to test the three. But unexpectedly, he was unable to determine which one was smartest. The minister was embarrassed because the king had instructed him to find the single smartest person in the realm. He had to do something to find out who it was.

"After giving the matter much thought, he came up with a solution. He assembled the three people and asked them to look at five jade disks on a table. Then he said, 'Three of these jade disks are blue and two are green. I am going to blindfold you, after which I will place one disk on top of your head. Then I will remove the blindfolds. You will be able to see the disks on top of the others' heads but not the one on top of your own. You cannot speak nor gesture to one another, and anyone who breaks the rules will be put to death on the spot. The first one to guess the color of the disk on his own head will be deemed the smartest person in the land, and will become the prince's teacher. But if you guess incorrectly, you will be executed at once.'

"So saying, he blindfolded the three smart people and placed one jade disk on top of each one's head. Then he removed the blindfolds. The three people looked at one another for some time, but no one said a word. Finally, one of them got it, guessed the color of the disk on top of his head, and became the prince's teacher. Later he himself became minister and enjoyed wealth and a high position his entire life.

"So what color were the disks on top of the people's heads?"

--The City Trilogy, by Chang Hsi-kuo.

Oh, very well, here's something: the HMS Beagle Project.

In 2009, the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth we will launch a sailing replica of HMS Beagle. An icon of scientific progress, she will circumnavigate the globe in Darwin's wake, crewed by aspiring scientists and researchers. They will carry out original research both at sea and on land, updating Darwin's observations, breaking new scientific ground and relating the adventure of science to enthuse a new generation of young students.

The Project's blog is worth a glance as well, and shall presumably wax ever more interesting.

The aforementioned blog informs us that David Attenborough's next project shall be about Charles Darwin.

Finally and best, (indeed, worthy of near immortalization as the O&P Current Pick) is the Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary blog, daily entries from both Darwin's and Fitzroy's journals, plus illustrations!