Media Ecology/Agency-Creating a new culture of nomads, metaphysical hunters of information

2009-10-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

"From a Media Ecology perspective, it is possible to examine television content as a function of the television medium itself. As a "one to many" medium, American television acts to dictate and reinforce acceptable social norms and behavior. The content of television seems to have fallen by accident into three distinct categories : entertainment, news and advertising. In fact, these broad categories of programming each stake out a different level of social behavior to manage and control."-R. Blechman

2009-04-14T07:37:00.001-07:00

The project is to develop a naturalist viewpoint on culture. "We aim to close the divide between the natural and human sciences, removing psychology from its myths of interiority and enthralment to ego." This is done by modeling the spread of culture on the transmission of infectious diseases

2009-04-14T07:11:00.001-07:00

2009-04-12T12:54:00.001-07:00

"The age in which humans existence is now framed, the age in which human life and technology so massively and intimately interact, can well be styled not only the information age and the age of interpretation, but, perhaps, even more inclusively, the ecological age, in principle an age of total interconnectedness, where everything on the earth, and even the universe, is interconnected with everything else, no only in itself but, ideally, in human understanding and activity." -Walter Ong from an unpublished manuscript

2009-04-08T10:02:00.001-07:00

on darwin

2009-02-12T11:03:00.001-08:00

Link to Charles Darwin Webinar Just Click!

2009-02-12T10:47:00.001-08:00

The very last words in On the Origin of Species are:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

"It's a powerful idea that not only serves scientific progress; it has the power to inform all of our individual existences with clarity and reason instead of obscurity and mysticism. One would think that after so many years, more people would have realized its worth and taken it to heart."

The above quote from the book is probably one of the better known ones... deservedly I should add. But I think my favorite part is from the last page of the introduction.

"No one ought to feel surprise at much remaining as yet unexplained in regard to the origin of species and varieties, if he makes due allowance for our profound ignorance in regard to the mutual relations of all the beings which live around us. Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare? Yet these relations are of the highest importance, for they determine the present welfare, and, as I believe, the future success and modification of every inhabitant of this world."

A possible Neologism

2009-01-26T01:38:00.000-08:00

Biocentrism (from Greek: βίος, bio, "life"; and κέντρον, kentron, "center") is a term that has several meanings but is commonly defined as the belief that all forms of life are equally valuable and humanity is not the center of existence. Biocentric positions generally advocate a focus on the well-being of all life in the consideration of ecological, political, and economic issues. Biocentrism in this sense has been contrasted to anthropocentrism, which is the belief that human beings and human society are, or should be, the central focus of existence.

Biocentrism also refers to the philosophical position that the attributes of living things form the basis of perception, and thereby form the basis of observable reality itself.[1] The biocentric theory proposed by Robert Lanza builds on quantum physics by putting life into the equation.[2] His theory places biology above the other sciences in an attempt to solve one of nature’s biggest puzzles, the theory of everything that other disciplines have been pursuing for the last century. [3]

1 Ecology

Donald Worster has traced today’s biocentric conscience, which is an important part of the recovery of a sense of kinship between man and nature, to the British intelligencia of the Victorian era reacting against the Christian ethic of dominion over nature.[4]

He points out that Charles Darwin was the most important spokesperson for the biocentric attitude in ecological thought and quotes from his Notebooks on Transmutation:

If we choose to let conjecture run wild, then animals, our fellow brethren in pain, diseases, death, suffering and famine - our slaves in the most laborious works, our companions in our amusement

- they may partake of our origin in one common ancestor - we may be all netted together."

2008-12-08T15:03:00.001-08:00

2008-12-08T07:43:00.001-08:00

New Discovery Shows Climate Changed the Fate of Great Empires

2008-12-08T05:40:00.000-08:00

The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.

Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.

Detailed climate record shows that the Eastern Mediterranean became drier between 100 A.D. and 700 A.D., a time when Roman and Byzantine power in the region waned, including steep drops in precipitation around 100 A.D. and 400 A.D. "Whether this is what weakened the Byzantines or not isn't known, but it is an interesting correlation," Valley says. "These things were certainly going on at the time that those historic changes occurred."

R-Rated movie trailer-not for kids-graphic violence

2008-11-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

2008-10-04T15:09:00.001-07:00

2008-10-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

2008-09-15T01:26:00.001-07:00

2008-09-15T01:18:00.001-07:00

humorous but lots of cussing -not for kids

2008-09-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

2008-09-06T12:29:00.001-07:00

2008-09-05T18:16:00.001-07:00

2008-09-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

The concept behind this project was to explore autonomy as a medium. I was interested in a career in media but had no direction. I began to develop a theory that focused on the medium of writing and it's processes (creative, critical and technical) as a potential creative avenue that might lead me to greater independence possibly as a writer for media or writing about media or both simultaneously.

This diagram is not a tetrad but perhaps is in the form of a metaphor-autonomy and it's integral processes (creative, critical, technical)

The transition from analog media to digital-writing is the central issue or metaphor being examined-that words are central metaphors now in motion at lightspeed as in scriptwriting where words are in motion and must be put in order.

Initially I couldn't decide what form the role of my research should take-on writing for example in 1. a critical sense such as a professor would do or 2. technical as a journalist or 3. creative like a scriptwriter or 4. in a particular genre, as forms of specialization or using it as in 5. multimedia in relation to other skills.

I finally settled on a third and final metaphor that of the relationship of scripting to multimedia and began to design some online-multimedia content.

The inclusions of the project centre around a critique of what happens to the two forms of autonomy-personal and media when the writing process goes online and where these three metaphors that are central to this process meet up creatively, technically and critically.

The message of this critique is the task of giving identity to both voice and an audience to these metaphors by learning how to apply imagination to put on words and make some order out of this seeming chaos when these metaphors collide.

2008-09-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

The demand to be permitted to govern ourselves reflects the conviction that we are, in essence, self-governors. In essence, but not always in fact. Sometimes our authority over our actions is nothing but the form of self-government. Sometimes we are not autonomous agents. If, then, the structure of rational agency justifies our conviction that we are capable of governing our own actions, it does not hold the key to the distinction between those cases in which we fail to exercise this capacity and those in which we succeed.

The conviction that there is such a distinction is grounded in the obvious fact that victims of brainwashing, compulsion, addiction, depression, anxiety, and many other conditions are prevented from governing themselves. If their lack of autonomy is not simply a function of the fact that their actions are causally determined by states of affairs over which they have no control, and if it is not equivalent to any fact about the considerations they are disposed to recognize and be moved by, then it would seem to be a more intrinsic feature of their agency.

No particular attitude seems to be essential to autonomous agency, however — except, of course, the attitude of authorization that is essential to all action for a reason. Nor is it necessary that any particular principles of reasoning serve the autonomous agent as guides — except, again, whatever principles must guide the action of even nonautonomous agents. The content of our desire to govern ourselves when we act thus remains obscure to us, even as the legitimacy of this desire is clear.

2008-08-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not — determinism versus indeterminism — and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not — compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, 'hard determinists' argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.
The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality. The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical thought.

2008-08-02T14:44:00.001-07:00

2008-08-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

2008-06-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

2008-06-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

2008-06-23T07:23:00.001-07:00

earth day version

2008-05-31T07:53:00.001-07:00

2008-04-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

Technology, Media, and Culture Critic, Erik Davis, Featured Speaker at PLANETWORK Conference

San Francisco----A high tech group working to accelerate awareness of the global ecological crisis makes final preparations for a conference called PLANETWORK to take place May 12-14, 2000 in the Presidioâs Golden Gate Club.

PLANETWORK, the first conference of its kind worldwide, was founded in 1998 by Erik Davis, Jim Fournier, Elizabeth Thompson and David Ulansey to create a forum for exploring the role that the Internet and information technology can play in creating an ecologically sustainable future.

Davis, a cultural critic, journalist, author of Techgnosis and freelance writer for Wired, Gnosis, 21C, Spin, Mediamatic, Lingua Franca, Magickal Blend, The Nation, Parabola, Green Egg, Details, Rolling Stone, and the Village Voice, is also one of PLANETWORKâs featured speakers.
Educated at Yale University, Davis was recently interviewed by Caroline Casey for her Visionary Activist program on KPFA. Davis understands that technology is a two-edged sword÷that even the first technologies of written speech began by amputating manâs ability to remember in the oral tradition. Writing externalized memory and, therefore, written documents and the tools that make them become extensions of ourselves. At the same time, Davis argues with those who would say that technology is the current manifestation of Îevilâ in the world.

Technology is a trickster, says Davis. "I think it is represented by the god Hermes, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods and the god who was the mediator one god to another and from humans to the gods. But technology is also the Înaturalâ condition of man. We have been cyborgs since our beginnings in that we have always created tools in order to augment ourselves and manipulate our world."

Davis background in Gnostic thinking has led him to a holistic view of our current ecological crisis. Unlike the Neo-luddites who might wish that we could ban computers and all digital technologies, Davis feels we must include a wide range of voices and perspectives in a dialogue to solve the problems before us.

In his Saturday, May 13, PLANETWORK session called ãSnakes and Ladders, Holism and Technology,ä Davis intends to look at the collision course of holism and technology, and how an understanding of technology -- especially media technology -- can help the environmental movement outgrow some of its more naive assumptions about deep ecology. Davis has also lectured internationally on topics relating to cyberculture, contemporary electronic music, and spirituality in the postmodern world.

2008-04-05T05:13:00.001-07:00

2008-02-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

2008-01-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

2007-11-24T20:50:00.000-08:00

2007-11-22T08:52:00.001-08:00

2007-11-22T08:47:00.001-08:00

2007-11-22T08:38:00.001-08:00

The nation state

2007-11-21T14:55:00.001-08:00

The individual

2007-11-21T14:52:00.000-08:00

The corporation

2007-11-21T14:49:00.001-08:00

2007-11-17T04:29:00.001-08:00

2007-10-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

2007-10-27T10:19:00.001-07:00

knocking on heavens door

2007-10-20T09:29:00.001-07:00

2007-09-28T21:58:00.001-07:00

SpaceShipTwo

2007-08-31T18:12:00.001-07:00

Virgin Galactic

2007-08-31T18:03:00.001-07:00

Spherical Metaphor for Full-dome 3D Visualization

2007-08-31T17:20:00.001-07:00

Inside Story - Mandela to head The Elders - 22 Jul 07-Part 1

2007-08-31T17:17:00.001-07:00

Heiner Goebbels - European Graduate School - 2007. 9

2007-08-26T20:40:00.001-07:00

New World Order

2007-08-07T21:26:00.000-07:00

I am still not warming to this whole Gore-global thing. If this is the new world order then Gore needs to decide is he an American politician (he is an elected SU official isn't he?) a global politician or an ecoterrorist or something else. But he can't be all three.-Terry

Now...This

2007-08-07T12:12:00.001-07:00

The 11th Hour

2007-08-07T09:09:00.001-07:00

McLuhan said nature is dead. Despite leo Dicaprio blaming the world-that death actually took place here in the western hemisphere. Maybe Mcluhan thought somehow we have to find out how to ressurrect the planet?-Terry

11th Hour trailer (Leo DiCaprio climate change documentary)

2007-08-07T08:54:00.001-07:00

Global Warning

2007-08-07T08:42:00.001-07:00

Living Landscapes Costa Rica HD

2006-12-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

A High Definition 5.1 surround-sound experience of the magic of Costa Rica's Cloudforest from HDenvironments.com's Living Landscape Series.

High Definition DVD available Spring 2006 from HDenvironments.com. Designed to transform your home theatre into a tropical cloud forest through the magic of High Defintion Video, 5.1 surround sound and inspiring original music. High Definition stock footage available from videosource.com. Monte Verde, Osa Peninsula, birds, butterflies, flowers, monkeys, sloths, beaches. Pura Vida!

2006-12-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

2006-12-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

Personal Autonomy

To be autonomous is to be a law to oneself; autonomous agents are self-governing agents. Most of us want to be autonomous because we want to be accountable for what we do, and because it seems that if we are not the ones calling the shots, then we cannot be accountable. More importantly, perhaps, the value of autonomy is tied to the value of self-integration. We don't want to be alien to, or at war with, ourselves; and it seems that when our intentions are not under our own control, we suffer from self-alienation.

What conditions must be satisfied in order to ensure that we govern ourselves when we act?

Philosophers have offered a wide range of competing answers to this question.

1. Introduction
2. Four More or Less Overlapping Approaches to Personal Autonomy
3. Challenges to Identifying the Minimal Conditions of Personal Autonomy
4. Agents as Causes and the Practical Point of View
5. Conclusion

We are back where we started. The demand to be permitted to govern ourselves reflects the conviction that we are, in essence, self-governors. In essence, but not always in fact. Sometimes our authority over our actions is nothing but the form of self-government. Sometimes we are not autonomous agents. If, then, the structure of rational agency justifies our conviction that we are capable of governing our own actions, it does not hold the key to the distinction between those cases in which we fail to exercise this capacity and those in which we succeed.

2006-12-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

World on Fire

What's wrong with this video?
It cost $150,000, but only $15 to produce. Where did all the money go?

A Message from Sarah McLachlan:

When Sophie Muller and I made World on Fire, our hope was to show how easy it can be to use your wealth to help make immeasurable improvements in peoples lives. Media that Matters is about people making the switch from apathy to action. I’m so happy to have World on Fire be recognised as a motivator of that kind of change.

"We need not a human answer to an earth problem, but an earth answer to an earth problem. The earth will solve its problems, and possibly our own, if we will let the earth function in its own ways. We need only listen to what the earth is telling us."

For this hearing to occur, humanity needs a better story by which to live: "We need a story that will educate us, a story that will heal, guide, and discipline us." In this story we need to imagine ourselves less as "a being on the earth or in the universe than a dimension of the earth and indeed of the universe itself."

2006-12-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

8th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association

Alpharetta on Fire

2006-12-01T08:59:00.000-08:00


A "local addition" to the song World on Fire by Sarah Mclaughlin. This song encourages people to abandon the excess of life in order to help the local Atlanta area.

我们的下一代还会看到这些吗?

2006-12-01T08:57:00.000-08:00

音乐：天使 by Sarah Mclaughlin
影像：北极仙境 BBC Creative Archive
图片：中国环境污染
http://news.shangdu.com/16/2005-05-10/20050510-801514-16.shtml
http://news.sohu.com/20050322/n224797046.shtml
http://news.sohu.com/20040817/n221577831.shtml
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/p/2006-01-09/17108816482.shtml

这不是我认识的家...
请还我家园。

无家的茹作品（2006夏）

2006-09-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

Did Climate Change Trigger Human Evolution?

Researchers say the growth of arid grasslands at the expense of tropical forests may have prompted the first humans to split off from other primates. For instance, a study in the journal Nature in 2004 identified adaptations for running in human fossils more than two million years old. These adaptations may have enabled early humans to chase down prey on the open plains of Africa, researchers said. (See "Humans Were Born to Run, Fossil Study Suggests.")

large Photo

Global Warming: How Hot? How Soon?
Quiz: Test Your Climate IQ
Photos: Climate Change—Pictures of a Warming World

More recent research, published last year in Science, suggested that a period of more sudden, regional climate fluctuation played a key role in human development.

Analysis of soil layers in the Great Rift Valley showed evidence for three unusually wet periods between 2.7 and 1 million years ago.

Fossils of aquatic algae indicated the presence of extinct lakes, some more than 328 feet (100 meters) deep, which quickly formed then disappeared.

Researchers say the lakes are evidence of the type of rapid climate swings that might have driven human evolution, forcing populations to adapt and readapt to cope with fast-changing environmental conditions.

"What are the implication for the current debate over global warming? I feel strongly that there is evidence that everytime there is a major shift or lasting change in human development there is an accompanying climatic or for lack of a better term earth centered event. Starting with the origin of the species a drying up of the forests. Next the ice age may have played a role in the development of neandertals and their big brains which many believe started language.Then a warmer period allowing for agriculture. Then the collapse of the Roman empire after a cooling period puts population pressure on the food supply in Northern Europe known as the little ice age. Followed by a warming period that made agriculture flourish in Northern Europe followed by another cold period that may have spurred world exploration and now Global warming.The social change accompanying global warming is a little different though. Clearly we have changed our orientation towards the future or nature has pushed us in this direction.We don't think about the future anymore and so our values have changed too. This has been caused by population pressures.

The new interdependence of the Global Village

2006-08-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Our speed-up today is not a slow explosion outward from center to margins but an instant implosion and an interfusion of space and functions. Our specialist and fragmented civilization of center-margin structure is suddenly experiencing an instantaneous reassembling of all its mechanized bits into organic whole. This is the new world of the global village.'' - Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man, 1964

By surveying the somewhat new, though burgeoning, literature of religious environmental ethics and theology (ecotheology), we can examine a wide range of theological perspectives and ecological issues. While all valid responses to ecological challenges will be grounded in some religious and philosophical worldview, there must also be dialogue with the natural and social sciences, including, but not limited to, conservation and evolutionary biology, sociology, economics, ecology, physics, anthropology, and political science.

A perfect storm

2006-06-29T06:22:00.000-07:00

Of course, it is one thing to recognize a problem and propose a solution; it is quite another feat to provide the knowledge and impetus necessary for its realization. And, therein lies the most difficult proposal of all: How can we gain access to the archetypal symbols and energies necessary for healing ourselves and the world – especially when it is precisely their nature to remain beyond our conscious control and willfulness?

We can only recognize our needs and remain open to them, just as we only need listen to what the earth is telling us. At this stage of our evolution, with the industrial myth so entrenched in the collective consciousness, can such a task even be understood, let alone embraced? Time will tell.

"A cry in the wilderness"

No one enjoys an apocalyptic scenario more than I do. But Al Gore, former presidential hopefull and representative from a country currently embroiled in a controversial war thinks that the most pressing problem for the American people is the weather.

My father and I sat down and watched the dvd together. He happens to be a geologist and he is definitely not a juried expert. He thinks that people like Mr. Gore need to spend a summer prospecting in Labrador to give them some kind of perspective on how large the planet actually is and what bad weather is truly all about. Politicians have short tem goals massive climatic effects doesn't happen in a decade. I also couldn't help but notice that some of the unjuried experts who disagree with his scenario are geologists and Canadians.

My dad prospecting in Labrador for the Iron Ore Company of Canada circa 1956

"Some like it hot"

But from a dialogical, inter-disciplinary, and dialectical approach, ecological issues will be resolved by moving from the concrete and particular to the more theoretical and universal, and then back again. Thus, the dialogue between science and religion is very critical for thoughtful approaches to our ecological challenges.

Al Gore inventing the internet-The true origins of global warming?

Maybe Mr. Gore is simply claustrophobic with all the doom and gloomers in DC these days and needed a trip to Cannes and the French Riviera. Mr. Gore also thinks we have about ten years until a disaster scenario in which the earth melts down and population decline happens. Honestly Mr. Gore is the sky falling too? Kokylocky? He should change the name of his film to amusing ourselves to death."

"Let the experts decide"-A.Gore

I know these images however satirical they are intended to be, may seem a little mean spirited. But remember the last time we sat around and the so called experts tried to take over? Well the day of the specialist or expert is over.

"Burn Baby Burn"

What I am truly attempting to satirize here is hard science versus soft science. Mr. Gore claims the science debate is over but that may not be altogether true since new science and old science as they are also known are at the heart of the debate.

Environmental Refugees

The political dimensions of an environmental crisis-real or imagined

Even a relatively small rise in sea level would make some densely settled coastal plains uninhabitable and create a significant refugee problem. If the sea level were to rise in excess of 4 meters (13 ft) almost every coastal city in the world would be severely affected, with the potential for major impacts on world-wide trade and economy.

Presently, the IPCC predicts sea level rise of less than 1 meter (3 ft) through 2100, but they also warn that global warming during that time may lead to irreversible changes in the Earth's glacial system and ultimately melt enough ice to raise sea level many meters over the next millennia. It is estimated that around 200 million people could be affected by sea level rise.

The real question and subtext here which Mr. Gore and his followers may be asking us is: Is humankind capable of changing the destiny of both the planet and ourselves? When we cannot even settle disputes among ourselves? These questions should be subjected to much wider debate not limited to obsolete specialists views and speculations. "

"We need not a human answer to an earth problem, but an earth answer to an earth problem. The earth will solve its problems, and possibly our own, if we will let the earth function in its own ways. We need only listen to what the earth is telling us."

For this hearing to occur, humanity needs a better story by which to live: "We need a story that will educate us, a story that will heal, guide, and discipline us." In this story we need to imagine ourselves less as "a being on the earth or in the universe than a dimension of the earth and indeed of the universe itself."

World Refugee Day- and the roots of a metaphor

2006-06-21T00:12:00.000-07:00

"We understand now for the first time the myths of our ancient ancestors. This is because in an electric age we live mythically"-Marshall McLuhan

Moses come down from the mountain

root metaphors”: 1) the metaphor of "ascent," 2) the metaphor of "fecundity," and 3) the metaphor of "migration to a good land."

The Ascent of Humankind

The spiritual and ecological motifs arise out of three root metaphors that form the foundational assumptions and beliefs for the motifs. two of these metaphors - the metaphors of ascent and fecundity - seem to depend on a primary experience in human history- the "experience of the overwhelming mountain.

The third metaphor, of migration to a good land, is not so universal.

Since Ms. Jolie had recently been to Ecuador where apparently there are now as many as 2 million Columbian refugees living there this post made it onto the middle of the world page. Oh yeah and her Mom was Canadian now that is pretty cool too. Thanks for the update, CNN.

What they don't teach you in Geography class about the lines on the maps is the most important thing about borderlines in the world today they are invisible. The lines between individuals and and nation states, the line that divides the north (the core region) where most of the landmass is from the south where most of the people are and the invisible lines between the global reach of increasingly global corporations and the nation state .

The "bounding line":

"The end of linear writing is indeed the end of the book . . . "—Jacques Derrrida

"Nature knits up her kinds in a network, not in a chain; but men can follow only by chains because their language can't handle several things at once."—Albrecht von Haller

Since adding this post about a CNN documentary about refugees with Angelina Jolie I also watched a documentary on the history of the Congo and Belgium's Prince Leopold. He once owned the entire Congo region. That's right owned it not colonized or ruled it, but owned the entire region!

In the documentary they said that Leopold killed nearly ten million Congolese people in the late 1800's and early 1900's in a brutal attempt to extract profit from the area. Including many horrific acts where much the same as Ms. Jolie portrayed people's limbs are hacked off as a form of terror.

In discussing refugees in Africa Ms. Jolie does mention that post-colonial Africa with its desperate conflicts are at least in part an attempt to undue the legacy of colonialism. And I might add all of these portrayals are palpably graphic examples of what that legacy was and how it lives on.

The lineal and spatial logic of refugeeism

And the lines keep getting longer

'all roads lead to Rome"

Well I listened to about an hour of the CNN interview with UN ambassador Angelina Jolie and lets face it she is as charming as she is pretty and also a good choice for a UN goodwill ambassador as she walks the walk and talks the talk. Since we all help make this a possibility let's hope that one day the lines of conflict don't all converge, so we don't all have to get in those lines one day.

"Tuesday is World Refugee Day. Angelina Jolie was interested in discussing the plight of refugees, so we sat down to talk about what she has seen and learned in refugee camps around the world. She had no movie to promote, no product she was pitching. In fact, I have no idea what her next movie is and we did not discuss any upcoming films. There were no ground rules. I was free to ask whatever I wanted.

A lot of celebrities have causes and show up to talk about them when cameras are around, but the truth is that Angelina Jolie knows what she is talking about when the subject is refugees. To use a cliche, she doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk. She has traveled to some 20 countries over the years as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and she says she donates one-third of her income to charitable causes." -Anderson Cooper, CNN

james Joyce's Tenth Thunder: Television

2006-06-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

Thunder 10: Television.

Back to tribal involvement in tribal mood-mud. Last thunder =

turbulent, muddy wake, and murk of non-visual, tactile man.

Lost in the Cosmos

2005-08-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

"Stop the world I want to get off"

"I once read in an article in the New York Times science section about a scientist at Princeton University who believed that human societies long term outcomes could be discerned using a statistical formula developed by the astronomer Copernicus.

Copernicus used a statistical formula to place objects in the sky on a scale of 1 to forty based on their uniqueness. Aas long as one of these heavenly bodies persisted by retaining its uniqueness relative to the others then it had a chance of survival if there was nothing unique about it then for Copernicus it ceased to exist as a unique entity. This apparently had somthing to do with how he was able to say what was a planet, what was an asteroid, a moon and so on.

The Princeton scientist believes that what makes people unique is their ability to extend themselves into outerspace by space colonization. The scientist also believes that we have a small window of possibility in time to get the critical mass politically and economically to start space colonization. If we don't colonize outerspace we will loose our uniqueness as a species and cease to exist in some Copernican like scenario. He goes on to say there are only about two or three sub sequences that lead to a total crash of the human population.Its funny though how these doom and gloom scenarios never seem to emerge and outerspace looks like such a cold cold place."-Terry

Lost in the Cosmos, a novel by the late Walker Percy, is a mock self-help book and social satire on the American value of autonomy published in 1983. Organized into roughly four sections that explore ideas of the self, Percy's thesis is that the social ills which plague society are a result of humanity's epic identity crisis. Percy uses semiotic theories (the theories of signs) to argue that human consciousness of the self is unique from all other 'interactions' in the universe in that it is triadic.

It requires two sets of diadic interactions between that of the sign user, the sign, and the what the sign stands for in order to be complete. As a result, persons are thrust into the predicament of finding a sign that 'places' themselves. The book contains numerous essays, quizzes, and "thought experiments" designed to satirize conventional self-help texts while provoking readers to undertake a thoughtful contemplation of their existential situations and the search for meaning and purpose that could derive from such reflections.

Proof of Life, Man on Fire and Cronicas, Gates of Splendor, The Motorcycle Diaries, Luzuriags-Ratas, Ratones y Rateros, Entre Marx Y Una Mujer Desnuda

2005-07-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

"Each of the films on this lists are compelling stories in their own right. At the Gates of Splendor has now been remade into a feature film entitled The End of the Spear-I suppose we all want to have the ultimate water cooler story to tell. And as exotic as they seem these film are not typical Latin American stories either. But rather tales of transformations that take place in the human heart. I can only tell you from personal experience that Ecuador is a place where many things challenge your way of seeing. Too much so sometimes and you have to look away for awhile. The ultimate conspiracy.

Why this is so is a profound question. And I do not know nor can I express exactly why but these films say a lot about this condition. There are others like the Motorcycle Diaries and Ratones y Rateros and Luzuriagas magic realist masterpiece "Entre Marx y una Mujer Desnuda" that also represent a growing Latin cinema all of which in this list touch on Ecuador. Even 'the diaries" since Che lived in Ecuador in the coastal city of Guayaquil for a decade. One more such story from the soul of that undiscovered continent.

I guess that is part of fate in Latin America-not to be too melodramatic here and I am no expert on the subject but something of the character of Latin American is always a little hidden or submerged. It is our preparation to respond when it reveals itself that shapes our experience of it that is itself the soul of the matter.-Terry

"Proof of life is about identity. During my employment in Ecuador a film was shot entirely on location in Ecuador starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe. It was based on the real life stories of people who worked with companies in Columbia and Ecuador based in part on their acounts in the book "Adventures in the Ransom Trade" During that time the Canadian Ambassador was setting up the Canadian-Ecuadorian Chamber of Commerce of Quito where I met some of the executives of one of the companies whose engineers are portrayed in the fictionalized version in the movie. I lived through the period in which the events in this movies are portrayed. And also relived in an almost surreal way those events when I met Jim a production assistant for the shoot at the Quito airport. He was delivering the film back to Miami. The experiences portrayed in the film are a real fact of life in Latin America. Made so by the fact that knowledge of these events are suppressed by the media.

This theme- namely that corruption and violence are the wicked stepchildren of silence, conspiracy, secrecy and a lack of press freedom was a theme elaborated on later in the visually stunning film "Man on Fire". Denzel Washinton plays a Catcher in the Rye type of character who goes too far. Each of these films have excellent companion multimedia presentations to support the films . To view click on the images. You must wait for trailers for Man on Fire to download themselves after clicking on the green screen then they play themselves. Stick to the smaller ones and it takes a few minutes otherwise they won't run properly. I even used some clips from Proof of Life in my ESL class for a lesson on negotiation. In the middle of the world nothing is for real sometimes."

Cronicas also filmed entirely in Ecuador is a disturbing film with a disturbing message that also has a companion site. This time it is about the opposites about what happens when the media takes its influence too far and starts to play God.

Are things really all that different in the middle of the world?

2005-07-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

Fractal image of water going down the drain

"NASA is run by men with Newtonian goals"-McLuhan

"At the equator water flows the opposite way. Satelites face up instead of at an angle. But is life really different there? Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sequel to 2001 a space odyssey in which he postulates the need to build a space elevator as a away to colonize space in a more economical way than we currently approach outer space with rocket propulsion today.

Clarke says that the materials (high tension carbon fibre ropes are available now and that this would involve relay stations for the elevator that would be anchored at the equator. Of course the debate over the need for space colonization goes on. And as time moves on interest seems to be waning for manned space colonies.

Especially when we have so much poverty right here on earth. Cost benefit analysis probably shows that deep space explorers teach us more about the universe. However some scientists feel that such a venture is exactly what the world needs to give us a common sense of purpose to help us break out of the rich get richer poor get poorer world pyramid of human existence we now live with in our current habitat and environment namely planet earth. Very ambitious indeed. Hmm... maybe life in the middle of the world could be different." Terry

Space Elevator-Anchored on the Equator

Jupiter viewed from the Moon Titan

Media Ecology in the Middle of the World

2005-05-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

"This was is my first successful implementation of html and at least in part one of the primary inspirations for this blog project: A media ecology project related to my travels and work as a communications liason in Ecuador between 1998-2001. (click on the image-not up and runnung yet ) It too like the media and identity project are still in development" -Terry

Galapagos

2005-05-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

One of those life changing experiences. After visiting the Galapagos Island I will never look at the world the same way again. Neither did Charles Darwin. So much has happened that Darwin could not have known about. What would he think today about the world he created. One divided between two world views that of god and man and nature?

Before there was a Darwin and the Galapagos there was Plato and Time

Time, the Moving Image of Eternity.In his dealing with Time, Plato holds one of his great visions:When the father who had made it saw it set in motion and alive, a shrine brought into being for the everlasting gods, he rejoiced and being well pleased he took thought to make it yet more like its pattern.

So as that pattern is the Living Being that is for ever existent, he sought to make this universe also like it, so far as that might be...Now the nature of that Living Being was eternal, and this character it was impossible to confer in full completeness on the generated thing. But he took thought to make, as it were, a moving likeness of eternity; an everlasting likeness moving according to number _ that to which we have given the name Time.For there were no days and nights, months and years, before the heavens came into being, but he planned that they should now come to be at the same time that heavens were framed.

All these are parts of Time, and "was" and "shall be" are forms of time that have come to be. We are wrong to transfer them unthinkingly to eternal being..."was" and "shall be" are properly used of Becoming which proceeds in time for they are motions. But that which is for ever in the same state immovably, cannot be becoming older or younger by lapse of time;...the moving things of sense have come into being as forms of time, which images eternity and revolves according to number.- Timaeus 37c-38a.

Time is created, not part of Being but of Becoming. Or rather, Becoming and Time are alike imaged. Time images the eternal, in which there is no past or future.In one sense this is very modern. Time is not absolute but secondary and derived. In another sense this is not relativity however, as space in Plato is not here involved with Time. However, if I were allowed to carry his thought on I would say:

1. Space is the receptacle of Becoming. (Plato) 2. Becoming is in Time. (Plato)

3. Hence space is in a sense also the receptacle of Time

Health activism- Dr Allan Counter

2005-05-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

Dr Allen Counter

"When I was living in Ecuador Dr. Counter made visits to study mercury contamination among the children and adults in our mining community of Nambija. There he is in the photo on the left on the road leading into Nambija. I joined Dr. Counter and his associate for dinner at the Hotel Libertador one evening. I believe he is a true humanitarian and I wish him well wherever he goes.

To see for yourselves what a world class name dropper I truly am follow the link below his photo to read about an extremely distinguished career that should serve as a role model to us all. Be sure to click on his CV link too."-Terry

"The center of the world"

2005-04-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

"Far from being only a quaint tourist destination Ecuador has a history of scientific expeditions and cultural missions.While California and your local toystore may be the place to look to identify trends like outsourcing or robotics, Ecuador has always been a place to find things that are far more important, permanent and sometimes very fragile or fleeting."-Terry

1930's Pan Am Poster

Humboldt and the Origins of Romantic Biology

Darwin is destined for life as a country parson. But before settling into such a quiet life, he yearns to have an adventure in the tropics. He reads and rereads Alexander von Humboldt's inspiring account of his expeditions through the rain forest.

"All the while I am writing now my head is running about the Tropics: in the morning I go and gaze at Palm trees in the hot-house and come home and read Humboldt: my enthusiasm is so great that I cannot hardly sit still on my chair ... I never will be easy till I see the peak of Teneriffe and the great Dragon tree; sandy, dazzling plains, and gloomy silent forest are alternately uppermost in my mind ... I have written myself into a Tropical glow."

Humboldt's Personal Narrative is more than just an exciting travelogue. It touches on some of the most important scientific questions of the time, and hints that the answers can be found through an exploration of nature.

COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe
Volume One of Kosmos at the Gutenberg Project

The first two volumes of the Kosmos were published, and in the main composed, between the years 1845 and 1847. The idea of a work which should convey not only a graphic description, but an imaginative conception of the physical world which should support generalization by details, and dignify details by generalization, had floated before his mind for upwards of half a century. It first took definite shape in a set of lectures delivered by him before the university of Berlin in the winter of 1827-1828.

These lectures formed, as his latest biographer expresses it, "the cartoon for the great fresco of the Kosmos." The scope of this remarkable work may be briefly described as the representation of the unity amid the complexity of nature. In it the large and vague ideals of the 18th are sought to be combined with the exact scientific requirements of the 19th century. And, in spite of inevitable shortcomings, the attempt was in an eminent degree successful.

A certain heaviness of style, too, and laborious picturesqueness of treatment make it more imposing than attractive to the general reader. But its supreme and abiding value consists in its faithful reflection of the mind of a great man. No higher eulogium can be passed on Alexander von Humboldt than that, in attempting, and not unworthily attempting, to portray the universe,

Frank Edwin Church-Cotopaxi

Cotopaxi soars almost 20,000 feet above sea level. Through the teachings of the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, whose extensive South American explorations and publications awakened the outside world to the wonders of the American tropics, its status as the highest active volcano on earth was well known to the audience gathered at Goupil's Gallery.

"The form of Cotopaxi is the most beautiful and regular of the colossal summits of the high Andes," Humboldt had written, but it "is also the most dreadful volcano of the kingdom of Quito and it's explosions the most frequent and disastrous"

Humboldt's description of its exotic beauty and latent powers of destruction proved fascinating to Church, who drew and painted it frequently. Church's interest in the subject was so closely linked with the great explorer's name that upon the exhibition of Cotopaxi in 1863, it was announced that he had vindicated "his claim to be considered as the artistic Humboldt of the new world."

Chimborazo: Ecuadors highest peak

Read more about Frank Edwin Church here.

Joseph Conrad

Nostromo Online

Conrad's foresight and his ability to pluck the human adventure from complex historical circumstances were such that his greatest novel, Nostromo -- though nearly one hundred years old -- says as much about today's Latin America as any of the finest recent accounts of that region's turbulent political life. Insistently dramatic in its storytelling, spectacular in its recreation of the subtropical landscape, this picture of an insurrectionary society and the opportunities it provides for moral corruption gleams on every page with its author's dry, undeceived, impeccable intelligence.

Charles Marie de la Condamine:
Explorer, Mathematician, and Scientist

Charles Marie de la Condamine and the French Geodesic Mission to Measure the Equator(Jan. 28, 1701-Feb. 4, 1774),

Condamine was a French mathematician, physicist, explorer, and geographer. La Condamine was sent to Ecuador in 1735 to measure the Earth at the equator. He also scientifically explored and mapped the Amazon region as he rafted to the mouth of the Amazon. Earlier in his life, La Condamine took exploratory trips to Algiers, Alexandria, Palestine, Cyprus, and Constantinople. At the time, there was a debate as to whether the Earth was wider around the equator or around the poles. The King of France and the French Royal Academy of Sciences sent two expeditions to determine the answer; one was sent to Lapland (this expedition included the Swedish physicist Anders Celsius) and another to Ecuador.

La Condamine was in the Ecuadorian group, which included Louis Godin and the mathematician Pierre Bouguer. The Ecuadorian expedition left France in May 1735. They landed in Colombia and traveled overland to Panama, then sailed to Ecuador. La Condamine traveled through rainforests with Pedro Vincente Maldonado, a local governor and scientist-mathematician. They sailed up the Esmeraldas River and then climbed up the Andes Mountains. They arrived in Quito, Ecuador, on June 4, 1736.

They finished their measurements by 1739, measuring the length of an arc of one degree at the equator, but they got word that the Lapland expedition had already finished their work and had proven that the Earth is flattened at the poles. La Condamine remained in South America for four more years, doing scientific work and mapping some of the Andes and much of the Amazon River. He returned to France by climbing the Andes Mountains and rafting down the Amazon River. He arrived in Paris in 1745, 10 years after he left France.

"Some people think Darwin discovered the theory of evolution. The Frenchman Lamarque did. What Darwin discovered was the mechanism of evolution-Natural selection. Of equal importance was the effect of this discovery or series of discoveries on civilization. It placed all scientific inquiry on an equal footing with nature more or less permanently. The rest of the world is still catching up.

During my own visit to the Galapagos Islands I noticed the same thing as Darwin. the tameness of the animals. Below is an excerpt from Darwin's diaries that discussed the significance of this discovery. Animals learn fear of man. Instinctually. In the world that Darwin came from, religion with it's unique worldview described fear as the opposite of faith itself. Faith and light oppose fear and leads to informed action. Religion then is a kind of sense instead of a force like nature. This is what Darwin and his colleagues missed or set into opposite motion that our senses and instincts are formed in opposition to one another." TM

The Voyage of the Beagle journal(click on image)

"I will conclude my description of the natural history of these islands, by giving an account of the extreme tameness of the birds. This disposition is common to all the terrestrial species; namely, to the mocking-thrushes, the finches, wrens, tyrant- flycatchers, the dove, and carrion-buzzard. All of them are often approached sufficiently near to be killed with a switch, and sometimes, as I myself tried, with a cap or hat.

"A gun is here almost superfluous;"

for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One day, whilst lying down, a mocking-thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of a tortoise, which I held in my hand, and began very quietly to sip the water; it allowed me to lift it from the ground whilst seated on the vessel: I often tried, and very nearly succeeded, in catching these birds by their legs.

Formerly the birds appear to have been even tamer than at present. Cowley (in the year 1684) says that the "Turtledoves were so tame, that they would often alight on our hats and arms, so as that we could take them alive, they not fearing man, until such time as some of our company did fire at them, whereby they were rendered more shy." Charles darwin-Voyage of the Beagle

Francisco Orellana and the Search for El Dorado

The legend of El Dorado, The Golden King or The Gilded Man, was born in Quito at the very beginning of 1541. Spaniards were returning from Venezuela and Colombia with wild tales of a land richer than either Mexico or Peru. This, they said, was a land of gold that was ruled by a Golden King. The historian Gonzalo Fern·ndez de Oviedo traveled to Quito and he questioned those who been on these expeditions:

"I made an inquiry of those Spaniards who had been there, why this prince, chief or king, was called Dorado. They tell me that what they have learned from the Indians is that the great lord or prince goes about continually covered in gold dust as fine as ground salt. He feels that it would be less beautiful to wear any other ornament.

It would be crude and common to put on armour plates or hammered or stamped gold, for other rich lords wear these when they wish. But to powder oneself with gold is something exotic and unusually novel, and more costly, for he washes away at night what he puts on each morning, so that it is discarded and lost, and he does this every day of the year."The prince, the men told Oviedo, was very great and fabulously rich:"

Every morning he anoints himself with a kind of resin or gum to which the gold dust easily adheres, until his entire body is covered, from the soles of his feet to his head.

So his looks are as resplendent as a gold object worked by the hands of a great artist." In fact, the tale appeared to be based on an actual ceremony of the Chibcha people of Colombia. Each year the Chibcha would anoint a new king, covering him with gold dust and then cleansing him in the waters of a sacred lake, Guatavita, (Gwa-ta-vee-ta). Though the ritual was no longer practiced by the time of the Spaniards' arrival, the story had been passed on by the Indians and had blossomed into the myth of El Dorado which would captivate men for several centuries to come.

Blowing Gold Dust on an Indian Chieftain After His Body Had Been Anointed With Balsam
Credit: Theodor de Bry, British Library

The legend of El Dorado continued to inspire artists, poets and authors for centuries after the initial expeditions to the golden kingdom. British poet George Chapman wrote his epic poem "De Guiana" in 1596, glorifying Sir Walter Raleigh's journey. Over 150 years later, Voltaire sends his protagonist to a utopian El Dorado, the best of all possible worlds, in his satirical work "Candide." And, following centuries of European obsession with the fabulous land of gold, Edgar Allen Poe darkly portrayed the futility of such mania in his poem, "Eldorado." "De Guiana" Guiana, whose rich feet are mines of gold,

Whose forehead knocks against the roof of stars, Stands on her tiptoes at fair England looking, Kissing her hand, bowing her mighty breast, And every sign of submission making,To be her sister and the daughter, both,Of our most sacred maid, whose barrenessIs the true fruit of virtue, that may get,Bear and bring forth anew in all perfection,What heretofore savage corruption heldIn barbarous chaos.

Poem excerpt: George Chapman, "De Guiana," 1596 "Eldorado"

Gaily bedight, A gallant knight,In sunshine and in shadow,Had journeyed long, Singing a song,In search of Eldorado. But he grew old - This knight so bold - And o'er his heart a shadow Fell, as he found No spot of groundThat looked like Eldorado. And, as his strengthFailed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow - "Shadow," said he, "Where can it be - This land of Eldorado?" "Over the Mountains Of the Moon Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, - "If you seek for Eldorado!"

Poem: Edgar Allan Poe, "Eldorado," Flag of Our Union (Boston), April 21, 1849 "Candide" Chapter 18 - What They Saw in the Country of El Dorado .

While supper was preparing, orders were given to show them the city, where they saw public structures that reared their lofty heads to the clouds; the marketplaces decorated with a thousand columns; fountains of spring water, besides others of rose water, and of liquors drawn from the sugarcane, incessantly flowing in the great squares, which were paved with a kind of precious stones that emitted an odor like that of cloves and cinnamon. Candide asked to see the High Court of justice, the Parliament; but was answered that they had none in that country, being utter strangers to lawsuits. He then inquired if they had any prisons; they replied none.

But what gave him at once the greatest surprise and pleasure was the Palace of Sciences, where he saw a gallery two thousand feet long, filled with the various apparatus in mathematics and natural philosophy. After having spent the whole afternoon in seeing only about the thousandth part of the city, they were brought back to the King's palace. Candide sat down at the table with His Majesty, his valet Cacambo, and several ladies of the court. Never was entertainment more elegant, nor could any one possibly show more wit than His Majesty displayed while they were at supper. Cacambo explained all the King's bons mots to Candide, and, although they were translated, they still appeared to be bons mots.

Of all the things that surprised Candide, this was not the least."All we shall ask of Your Majesty," said Cacambo, "is only a few sheep laden with provisions, pebbles, and the clay of your country." The King smiled at the request and said, "I cannot imagine what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay; but take away as much of it as you will, and much good may it do you." He immediately gave orders to his engineers to make a machine to hoist these two extraordinary men out of the kingdom. Three thousand good machinists went to work and finished it in about fifteen days, and it did not cost more than twenty millions sterling of that country's money.

Candide and Cacambo were placed on this machine, and they took with them two large red sheep, bridled and saddled, to ride upon, when they got on the other side of the mountains; twenty others to serve as sumpters for carrying provisions; thirty laden with presents of whatever was most curious in the country, and fifty with gold, diamonds, and other precious stones. The King, at parting with our two adventurers, embraced them with the greatest cordiality. Text excerpt: "Candide," Voltaire, 1752

Natives mining gold inside a mountain. Credit: Theodor de Bry, British Library

Travelling though the Andes

2005-04-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

Independence Square in Old Quito

"Find out more about world heritage sites here"TM

A UNESCO World Heritage Site

"This is a travel article originally written for the Matrix travel site" TM

It was my good fortune, and privledge to live and work in Ecuador for a period of about three and one-half years between 1998 and 2001. These were hard times for the country. Leadership was crumbling and longstanding structural economic problems were once again coming to a boil.The Ecuadorian people are a stoic lot.

There are also many myths and contradictions there. They also have a positive outlook on the future that I find refreshing. Perhaps it is the good fortune of having one of the most naturally beautiful locations on earth that inspires them. The soil is very fertile due to volcanic ash and anything grows there.

It seems very difficult to imagine anyone going hungry since there is food displayed everywhere. But some do go hungry. Poverty continues to be a problem there as in the rest of the world. Seeing children begging in big cities bothers even long time residents who say it has not always been that way.

The climate seems ideal but it is also damp and many have told me about arthritic complaints. There is a great deal to see in a small space. Almost too much. If you are the type who likes a lot of variety Ecuador is ideal. At first everything seems new and interesting there like a fantasy world. If you do not believe me look at old Quito from a hill at night at the pink and pale blue houses lit up like a Christmas tree. This is a fantasy world! There is a sense of adventure everywhere you go as if you might be the first outsider to ever see or go to a certain place.

Of course this isn't true except in rare cases in remote mountain areas or jungle recesses. Ecuador will give you a perspective on life that is hard to get elsewhere. The fusion of art that is part aboriginal culture and part European is still apparent everywhere. It is like going back in time for a little while.

A lot of what Ecuador is ie a way of life is also passing thorugh the rear view mirror disappearing into the cities and the global village. As I supppose are many cultures around the world. So even if you are not the first to visit a volcano or walk through the street of a particular village you may quite possibly be one of the last to see it the way it has been for many hundreds of years or more.

So I recommend when traveling there to do your best to go as far off the beaten track as possible. Please be charitable to people when possible even if you are hardened by living in some industrial city in The North. It will make you feel much better about yourself. The people are often as curious about you as you are about them.

If language is a problem take a few Spanish lessons outside the capital where they are less expensive. It will help you to appreciate the culture more. Ecuador left me with many memories some good, some bad. But some lasting lessons about life and how precious what we have is and how we can all make a difference have stayed with me. So enjoy and don't forget to bring a camera.

Loja Days and Loja Nights

"This is the City of Loja where I lived for nearly four years." TM

Photos of the City and Surroundings

The Cuxibamba Valley

Videos of the Region of Loja

"The People of nearby Saraguro (The Sacred Valley) are the last descendants of Athualpa, the Incan Emperor of the Northern Kingdom of Ecuador. They wear black in perpetual mourning for the Incan Emperor and the Empire.

"Vilcabamba: (The Place of Refuge), Ecuador's fountain of youth.

The Valley of Long Life:Does Vilcabamba hold the secret to immortality?" TM

Don Alberto of Vilcabamba

When the medical world began studying longevity seriously in the 1960s, scientists flocked to Abhazia, Georgia, the Hunza, and Vilcabamba, Ecuador, sites renowned for the long life spans of their residents. In 1978, Dr. Richard Mazess published a study claiming that in Vilcabamba everyope was exaggerating their true ages. Since proper birth records did not exist, he based his premise on a genealgical survey of families in Vilcabamba, combined with baptism records that are for all purposes illegible.

Whether his conclusions are correct or not, they were accepted as fact.Mazess, who is a specialist on osteoporosis, had come here to study the remarkable lack of the disease in Vilcabamba. His studies were never really finished, since he became totally absorbed with the exaggeration thesis. He stated that only one centenarian in a population base this size was out of the ordinary. Two 100 year old residents here would be more than a miracle and deserve ampie study, At that time, 15 people in the valley claimed to be over a hundred. Mazess said they were all liars. He listed ten people he considered to be between 85 and 95, and who claimed to be centenarians. Of that list, two people are still alive.

Since the list was made in 1978, it would seem that Dr. Mazess has an obligation to do more research around Vilcabamba. However, he is now "retired" and still too busy to follow up his original report. In fact, hardly anyone in the scientific world is interested in the theme of natural longevity any more. The fad has passed and laboratory advances have made field work superfluous.

Dr. Alex Leaf, who came here with National Geographic, now quotes Richard Mazess as the authority on the old liars from Vilcabamba, and spends all his time researching fish oils. Perhaps fish oils are the salvation of humanity, and certainly it is more convenient than a trip to southem Ecuador. But there is still a whole lot to leam here in Vilcabamba that will never be discovered in a lab.

In 1982, Dr. Morton Walker arrived in Vilcabamba to investigate the cell mineralization of the local residents and its relationship with genetÌcs and the natural environment. Though Dr. Walker was not in Vilcabamba for very long, he managed to pinpoint numerous very interesting facts that establish the direction of future research here.

For a long time there had been some controversy over whether the supposed longevity in Vilcabamba was due to genetic factors. Since this area has been renowned in Ecuador and Peru for many generations as a sacred place where old people abound, some scientists were sure that it must be a gene that was responsible.Morton Walker took hair samples from the nape of numerous residents of various ages. These samples were carbonized and analysis was performed in a California lab.

The results showed exactly why the folks of Vilcabamba have healthy, long lives. When examining the data on children, one finds the kind of random mineralization that is common everywhere and is mostly due to genetic variation. By the time that they are young adults, there are many similarities in their cell mineralization.

Once the people of Vilcabamba are 50 years old, their body minerals are virtually identical, and accumulative toxic metals are at very low levels. Dr. Walker also had samples of the river water and various foods analyzed to see how their mineral ratios related to the cell minerals in the populace. These were even more revealing. The ratio of minerals common in all the old people was the same as the mineral ratio ofthe local water.

Foods that were irrigated with river water also had the same basic ratio. So, what's going on at the cellular level in Vilcabamba?Dr. Walker was already studying tbe relatively new field of mineral chelation at that time. It was not difficult for him and the lab technician, Gary Gordon, to connect Vilcabamba and natural chelation. Mr. Gordon stated that the people of Vilcabamba are getting a sophisticated chelation treatment from their environment for free. Dr. Walker claims that the ratio of calcium, magnesium and manganese in the water is virtually perfect, preventing calcium from leaving the bones once it is absorbed.

This obviously is the reason that Vilcabambans, who consume less than half the calcium that most Europeans do, never suffer from osteoporosis. This is what Richard Mazess missed while worrying about exactly how old everyone really was. Besides preventing osteoporosis, this ratio of minerals keeps calcium out of the blood where it will inevitably mix with nasty cholesterol and clog up the artenes and veins. All this loose calcium floating around in most older people's blood is stiffening up everything in their bodies that should be supple.

And of course, everything that should be hard and durable begins to crumble. In Vilcabamba, old people can still heal a broken bone, and they don't suffer from any diseases that have to do with calcium metabolism.In Vilcabamba, old people can still heal a broken bone, and they don't suffer from any diseases that have to do with calcium metabolism. What is it about the food and water of this place that makes it special? Fifteen kilometers above Vilcabamba is the continental divide and the highest local peaks. Up there it is almost constantly precipitating in one way or another. All water, including rain water, has some mineralization.

Only water distilled in a lab is pure. So, when our rain, drizzle or sleet fall on these mountains it is already carrying some dissolved solids. The ground on the very high ridges of the Andes is covered with thick grass-like plants that grow and die; but since they can't really rot at the temperature up there, they just continue to grow one on top of the other. What this creates is a deep vegetable sponge that filters and mineralizes the water as it passes through. The Andes in this area were covered by glaciers during the last ice-age.

These glaciers carved out shallow basins in the rock at about 3,000 meters of elevation. Now, they are lakes and their water have virtually the same mineralization as the river water in the valley below. The kinds of rocks that make up the lower terrains of the Andes are not particularly reactive to H20. So, all the minerals in Vilcabamba water, and the most important ones in the irrigated food chain are coming from a vegetable source.

These grasses of the Andean tundra and the forests that grow in wind-protected clefts are feeding on glacier-ground rock particles of an ancient age. Fortunately for Vilcabamba, far below, there are no dikes of precious metals lacing the upper watershed. Otherwise gold miners would have long ago contaminated the high creeks with mercury and other toxic by-products found all over the Andes. In fact, gold is found almost every place else around, besides the Vilcabamba watershed. Also, these highlands are too rough and rocky for agricultural purposes.

Therefore nobody's been fertilizing or fumigating up there. No one even lives up that high, since pasture animals cannot survive on this rough grass. Its minerals are balanced, but it has almost no protein. This tundra, cloud-forest area is useless, besides producing the most therapeutic water on the earth's surface. Some folks in the USA are already copying the mineralization of Vilcabamba in the lab. They sell the anti-oxidizing trace minerals of Vilcabamba and of course the bone preserving ratio of macroelements. Naturally, their products are far too expensive for even the richest people in Vilcabamba.

"There is a long history of biogeography, dating back to Linnaeus (1700's, Swedish) and Darwin and Wallace (1800's, British), when people started exploring the world and noting how species were distributed.Two eminent ecologists, the late Robert MacArthur of Princeton University and E. 0. Wilson of Harvard, developed a theory of "island biogeography" There have been several major developments since the early 1950's that have elicited new interest in biogeography. The one that stands out is the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift, which was only widely accepted in the late 1960's, although it was proposed as early as the 1850's." TM

Podocarpus Gateway to the Amazon

BIOGEOGRAPHY and the Amazon

"My last trip through the Andes was to Cuzco and Machu Pichu -An entire city designed as a place of refuge from an alien invading culture- Europeans.

Unfortunately I arrived in Lima on the heals of a half a million strong demonstration against Fujimori in Lima that tragically turned violent injuring tens of thousands and killing six."

Weak Democracy in Ecuador- Taking it to the Streets

2005-04-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

First hand reports form Ecuador tell me that this was a non event in ecuador but itsn't the opposite equally true ? Isn't it the only game in town? Theatre of the absurd. Photographs from the demonstrations in Quito; the Ecuadorian capital that led to Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez's inevitable ouster." Terry

Waging Peace-Building a model of Transparency one brick at a time

Be sure to click here and visit the Carter centre and see the video that shows just what a visionary Jimmy Carter actually is.

Most people in the world agree on what a great guy Jimmy Carter actually is. My uncle who is a lawyer in Canada actually got to meet Carter in the White House when Carter was President of the United States and he autographed an autobiograophy he had written with the following quote- "Don't complain don't explain just get even"-Jimmy Carter.

I suppose there is a story behind this I should tell. It is the story of one of the most wanted men in American at that time. Robert Vesco who perpretrated the largest fraud in US history and was running from the law. He had set up his corporation in the maritimes in the city of Saint John a sleepy economic backwater away from public scrutiny and used my uncles law firm to do it.

Carter supeonaed my uncle in the investigation to the White House. Vesco has since been apprehended. And my uncle says he has escrow over his accounts but he is owed money so if he ever moved a dime of the billions he defrauded from investors he would get first crack at it to pay his legal fees. That is one of the peculiarities of being a lawyer I guess some times you defend some pretty questionable people as long as they pay you that is.

My uncle said it was quite a defense he got to go to Geneva on the Concorde and at times Vesco would show up in Fredericton in a plane to meet him on the runway with the engines still running in case the Mounties showed up. My uncle said he was never sure where he would wind up when they met.

Jimmy Carters 2002 Nobel Peace Prize

President Gustavo Noboa invited The Carter Center to work with his government to combat corruption in Ecuador and to develop partnerships between the political and social sectors. Ecuador is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in Latin America, according to Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, and partisanship has slowed development.

The Center's Americas Program and Conflict Resolution Program began a project in spring 2000 to identify the issues dividing the country and bring national leaders together to discuss them. The issues were modernization of the state, fiscal decentralization via an autonomy law, and continuing corruption in the government and private sector. In late 2000, the Center worked with the political elites and experts to seek common ground on these issues.

Transparency International Secretariat

One thing about development in the third world that fascinated me in my years in Ecuador is how our mentality is tied to petroleum base culture. What do I mean by this you may be asking. Well Ecuador has been transforming itself as a result of the discovery and development of its oil and gas reserves.

To put this in perspective the entire proven and probable reserves of petroleum based products in Ecuador is equal to the daily consumption of the USA in one day. Thats right folks all the gas burnt in the US in one calendar day 24 hrs.

But when you go to the capital Quito. You can clearly see the section of the city that is shopping malls franchises like MacDonalds and cinemas playing Star Wars and inside the grocery store are consumption based goods things literally flown in from the USA at American prices. And it's all because of oil. A consumable highly distributable commodity.But changin the way we do things happens one person at a time.

Even we are mostly made of carbon and that carbon comes from billion year old dead stars. Supposedly petroleum comes from old fossils also millions if not billions of years old. They say there is about a thousand year supply left in the earth of fossil fuel but we may have to stop using it well before it runs out because of global warming. Sometimes I look at the ruins of Machu Pichu and think about the civilization that ran out of sacred time that was its very engine. Our civilization replaced those civilizations that sprang up independently with a monolithic one by destroying nature to buy back time. Might we meet a similar fate, might it be when we cease to rely on carbon based products?