July 2, 2009
Soil in the City
By FRED A. BERNSTEIN
JAYNE MICHAELS, an interior designer who lives on East 57th Street in Manhattan, throws open her windows every chance she gets. “I need light and air in my life,” said Ms. Michaels, who favors gauzy fabrics in pale colors.
But breezes carry dirt, especially in New York, so once every six months Ms. Michaels pays about $400 to have her sofas, chairs, chaises and rugs shampooed.
It’s another price of living in New York: call it the dirt tax.
The dirt tax appears in cleaning costs, replacement costs and even the inability of New York homeowners to consider certain finishes and fabrics because they’re just not practical.
Not in a city where schmutz — the preferred New York term for the black gritty material — accumulates on every surface.
White rugs and sofas can become filthy anywhere. But experts (who include anyone who has ever dusted, vacuumed or swabbed in the five boroughs) say New York City’s dirt level is highly unusual.
And it inspires some unusual responses.
Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, a prominent interior designer, and his partner, Steven Wine, a lighting designer, undress each time they enter their apartment on West 23rd Street, where almost everything is white. Then they put on “inside clothes” — usually shorts and T-shirts.
“You have no idea how much dirt you carry on your street clothes in New York,” said Mr. Noriega-Ortiz. When laying out the duplex apartment, he put the washer-dryer right by the front door.
He added, in an e-mail message: “Since we are not about to impose the remove-your-clothes-and-change rule on our guests, we tend to not entertain strangers that often. Our interior world stays much cleaner that way.”
Although none of his clients have followed his example (so far as he knows), many of them do ask guests to leave shoes at the door. Increasingly, he said, clients ask him to design foyers with benches for removing footwear, as a way of keeping their apartments clean.
Ms. Michaels said she advises clients who want light-colored fabrics to accept the inevitable: limited life span and extra expense. “I’m a prisoner to it,” she said of the cleaning regimen, which is performed by Delmont Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning Specialists in New York.
But in one concession to New York’s air, she had her drapes made of “wash and wear” polyester. In a different city, she said, she might have chosen linen. But not in New York. The last time she rinsed out the polyester drapes in her bathtub, she said, the water turned black.
The culprit is soot, said Richard Kassel, an air pollution expert with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
In one study cited by Mr. Kassel, soot in one stretch of Midtown Manhattan was found to contain 52 percent diesel exhaust, mostly from trucks, buses and construction vehicles. The other 48 percent was a mix of everything from ground-up car tires to sea salt, he said.
Even in New York, the amount of soot varies from block to block. Susan Moolman, a publicist who moved to Manhattan in 2007, said that the dirt was much worse at her previous apartment, near the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, than at her current place on the Upper West Side.
Whether New York is a soot champion or just a contender is hard to know. Particle pollution is actually worse in cities like Bakersfield, Calif., and Pittsburgh, according to studies cited by the American Lung Association in its latest “State of the Air” report. But the particles measured are microscopic — “small enough to lodge deep in the lungs,” the report says. What New Yorkers think of as soot consists in part of much larger “chunks” that are not easily quantified, said Michael Seilback of the association. New York’s population density, traffic patterns and road conditions all contribute to the mix of dirt in the air.
In the early 20th century New York had more soot than it does today. Back then, engines were dirtier, apartment buildings had incinerators and factories abounded. “Housekeepers Have Difficulty in Keeping Homes Clean Owing to Greasy Deposits — Laundry Bills Higher,” said a 1922 New York Times headline.
But the construction boom of recent years may have worsened the soot problem for some residents. “I had one client, across the street from a construction site, who couldn’t open her windows for six months,” said Howard Sklar, owner of Durotone, a carpet- and fabric-cleaning firm based in Mamaroneck, N.Y.
The dirt tax is progressive, in that it seems to have a disproportionate impact on the rich. And that’s because only the rich insist on things like white silk rugs.
“The higher the discretionary income, the more likely they are to go for fragile goods,” said Mark Nelson, who designs and sells carpets through interior designers. His products, which frequently cost more than $50 a square foot (yes, foot), are often cream or ivory colored.
One way to keep interiors clean, many designers say, is to avoid opening windows.
That’s easy when the windows aren’t made to open, as is the case in some apartment buildings in Manhattan. But windows that don’t open pose a problem of their own: occupants have no way to wash the glass, and the building may not do it frequently enough.
In sleek modern towers, “you think you’re going to be floating above the city,” said Marc Kushner, an architect with the Manhattan firm HollwichKushner. “But in reality, you’re really looking out through grime.”
Mr. Kushner and his business partner, Matthias Hollwich, designed an apartment for a client on the Upper East Side with an entire wall of moldings, which was their way of reconciling the client’s desire for period detailing with their own contemporary sensibility. Since the building’s windows don’t open, Mr. Kushner said, he wasn’t worried about dirt collecting on the moldings.
But he is working on another apartment in a building where the windows do open. “The interior designer is from L.A.,” he said. “She suggested that we raise the bathroom vanities 12 inches, so they look like they’re floating. The first thing we thought, being from New York, is that there’s going to be so much dirt under there.”
For the living room, the designer has picked off-white upholstery, he said. “We’ve warned her about that, especially close to the windows.”
But even sealed windows don’t solve the soot problem entirely. Mr. Nelson and others said that gases created by basement heating systems often rise through buildings’ interiors.
Because the gases tend to follow load-bearing walls, which are continuous, they concentrate around the edges of rooms, he said.
The gases leave oily deposits as they pass through carpets, which are really room-size filters.
And when dirt hits those deposits, it sticks. One result can be a dark line around the perimeter of the room, known as filtration soiling.
Mr. Nelson remembered one particularly egregious case.
The setting was an apartment on Park Avenue in the 70s. A “very nice” couple had bought hand-tufted wool carpet that was installed wall to wall in their bedroom. “It was a light beige,” he said.
Soon, they noticed a dark line forming around the edges of their carpet. Mr. Nelson called Mr. Sklar, who is a certified carpet inspector. (“If you buy a new carpet and you think there’s something wrong with it, the industry dictates that a certified inspector come out to look at it,” Mr. Sklar said.) He discovered a case of filtration soiling — or as he sometimes calls it, “ring around the collar.”
Mr. Sklar told Mr. Nelson, who told the couple that “it wasn’t a carpet problem, it was a New York City problem,” Mr. Nelson said. “That’s not what they wanted to hear.”
But “if you buy white carpet, what do you expect?” Mr. Nelson added, momentarily forgetting his role as an enabler of the impractical carpet habit. “You buy a pair of linen slacks — you know they’re going to wrinkle. It’s the nature of the beast.”
When people ask him, he recommends choosing darker colors, especially for stairs. And he suggests creating a buffer zone to allow dirt to dissipate before shoes reach the carpet.
People in buildings with carpeted lobbies or foyers tend to have cleaner carpets inside their apartments, he explained. “The big question is, what carpeted surface will your feet be on before they get to your apartment?”
For those who simply have to have light-colored carpet, there is a way to prevent filtration soiling. “It’s a procedure that is done prophylactically,” Mr. Nelson said, before the carpet is installed. “It’s referred to as ‘soot seal.’ ”
“Basically, you take roofing paper, and you caulk and seal it into the perimeter of the room,” he said. “Then you do your normal install, with tack strips and padding.”
The roofing paper, he explained, prevents the gases from concentrating around the edge of the room. The process, he said, generally costs about $500 a room. But it’s worth it, he said, for people spending $20,000 or more to carpet a single room.
Mr. Sklar, who lives in Westchester, said that even after all he has seen, he understands the appeal of white carpet.
“White carpet makes a small apartment look bigger,” he said. “My son was living in an oversized closet. When my wife decorated, she did everything in whites and beiges, and all of a sudden it at least looked like a room.”
As for upholstery, Mr. Noriega-Ortiz still endorses white, because it can be bleached. “Bleach this and it’s white again,” he said, pointing to a snow-white chaise in his apartment. “What are you going to do when there’s a stain on your red sofa?”
Vicente Wolf, the well-known interior designer, lives in a white-on-white loft on West 39th Street. After describing dirt as “a price we pay for living in New York,” he said, “If it bothers you that much, take off your glasses.”
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Hunting for Treasure in Paris’s Marchés aux Puces
July 1, 2009, 7:27 am
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/?8dpc
A teddy bear missing an eye. An Air France handbag. Empty tins of Soviet-era caviar. Tripods and traffic lights. A lava lamp. Fur coats and cheap suits. A bad painting of ships under full sail. Piles of antique leather camera cases. And nowhere to maneuver.
This was the flea market along and around the Rue de Bretagne on an afternoon in late May: crammed with bric-a-brac; shoppers swerving, stopping, accelerating and trying not to step on the toes of the people dining at the outdoor cafes; and me, the Frugal Traveler, hunting not just for a bargain but for something truly special — without, at first, much luck.
Ed Alcock for The New York Times The flea market at St.-Ouen.
The marchés aux puces, or flea markets, of Paris are legendary. In fact, the name itself originated at the biggest and most famous, St.-Ouen, just outside the city’s ring road at Porte de Clignancourt, where back in the 1880s (according to ParisPuces.com, a Web site run by the Association des Puces de Paris St. Ouen) an “unknown bargain hunter” looked down from nearby fortifications, observed junk dealers selling scrap metal, rags and old furniture, and exclaimed, “My word, but it’s a market of fleas!”
Apocryphal? Perhaps, but whatever the origin of the term, les puces, as they’re now known, are synonymous with treasure hunting. In the 120 years since St.-Ouen coalesced, other markets have sprung up in every corner of the city, and in many different forms. During my Frugal Traveler trip to Paris, I hoped to explore a few, find some prized items and — fingers crossed — successfully bargain for something I loved.
The Rue de Bretagne, in the northern part of the Marais, was, though chaotic, a good starting point. Technically, this was not a marché aux puces but a vide-grenier — an attic-emptying. Vide-greniers are the least formal markets, popping up in a location for as little as a day. (See www.vide-greniers.org for a schedule of vide-greniers throughout France.) Just about anybody can sell their knickknacks there — and that’s both their appeal and their challenge.
I waded through the foot traffic, unsure of how and where to stop, or what price was right for a particular object. One stand was selling a metal sign, written in Hindi, warning, “Danger! High voltage!” What is such a sign worth? How can anyone be an expert in Hindi signs — not to mention old LPs and amateur paintings and midcentury desks and gooseneck lamps — and stay sane amid the frenzy?
About to lose it, I spotted a rack of children’s clothes, and in short order had bought for my daughter a hand-knit, machine-washable, rainbow-striped cardigan with pearlescent buttons. It cost 10 euros, or $14.43 at $1.43 to the euro — a bargain even I understood.
Matt Gross for The New York Times Picture frames for sale at Vanves.
After the vide-grenier, I was ready for a proper flea, but not yet St.-Ouen. Following the advice of a family friend who’s lived in Paris for years, I started with the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves, on the south side of Paris. Vanves, open weekends, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., the friend wrote by e-mail, wasn’t as high-quality as St.-Ouen, but had better prices. A friend of a friend, she added, allegedly “bought a genuine Kees van Dongen painting there … for just about nothing.”
On a grim Saturday morning threatening rain, I rode the Métro to the southern edge of the city and began looking for my own van Dongen. Vanves was set up in a much more orderly manner than the vide-grenier — a single path, lined by vendors with folding tables, that arced around a soccer pitch. There were several “we’ve got it all” stalls, but many were specialists. I saw vintage Art Deco paper and solid metal tools once used by artisans whose professions no longer exist. An antiquarian book dealer sold first editions of Émile Zola (160 euros and up) and “Et On Tuera Tous les Affreux” (“And We’ll Kill All the Ugly Ones”), by the cult novelist Boris Vian. The novel cost 80 euros so I passed on it, though I’ve since seen it online for as much as $350.
Just before the rain came down hard, I found La Libre Caverne des Illustrateurs, a stall that sold drawings and paintings by little-known, often unnamed artists. A 1949 pencil sketch of Sengho, a village in what was then French colonial Guinea, caught my eye — the sharp details, the simplicity of the scene, the lack of sentimentality. I also liked a watercolor of a fisherman, done in the 1930s by André Galland, an illustrator whose posters sell for $100 to $2,100, according to Dustin Stein at Galerie Mistinguett, in Great Neck, N.Y., which specializes in vintage posters.
Individually, they were 15 euros, but when I asked the vendor, Mikaël Kervennic (33-6-1116-6057), for a discount, he let me have the two for 25 euros in all.
Matt Gross for The New York Times A photograph at St.-Ouen.
With one successful bargaining attempt under my belt, it was time to brave St.-Ouen, open Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. On the way up north to Porte de Clignancourt, I imagined a snake pit of buyers and sellers and traders and dealers fighting over dug-from-the-basement Rembrandts and pre-Revolutionary cutlery sets.
But St.-Ouen was orderly. Occupying several blocks, it was divided into separate, warrenlike markets specializing in different products. Well, sort of. Skimming ParisPuces.com, I couldn’t figure out how, say, the Dauphine market, which sold Renaissance period dressers and industrial art, was unlike the Biron, where you could find “luxury goods and gilt objects.” And so I just began at the first market I came to, the Vernaison, where the Puces de St.-Ouen opened as an organized institution in 1920.
Unlike the vide-grenier and Vanves, the Marché de Vernaison was easy to navigate. The vendors weren’t using folding tables — they operated out of open-faced storefronts, leaving plenty of room to wander in and out, or just walk on by. And the objects they were selling were indeed of higher quality — and, as my friend had warned, more expensive.
Matt Gross for The New York Times Leather club chairs.
A pair of leather club chairs, broken-in but sturdy, cost 2,200 euros. Two painted metal dragons, made in the early 20th century and meant to adorn walls, cost 750 euros as a set. The fuel tank from a Mustang fighter was 12,500 euros. A selection of striking 18th- and 19th-century Japanese lithographs seemed almost reasonable at 50 to 300 euros. The initial price was often not the only problem: A set of six painted wooden chairs, for example, cost 650 euros, but their vendor explained it would cost that much again to send them to my home in New York.
At the showroom of Pierre Héteau (Alley 1, Stand 37; 33-6-1050-6566), I found my first deal. Among shelf upon shelf of copper pots — the kind of gorgeously made cookware you’d never actually use, with delicate engravings and patterns on every shiny surface — I found a tire-bouchon, or corkscrew, its handle made of twisty old wood, for just 3 euros. As I paid for it, Mr. Héteau, a hefty, steel-haired man with a thick mustache and a blue apron, explained that he’d sold over 500 pieces of this beautiful cookware to David Bouley and indeed was about to send Mr. Bouley the huge copper alembic, used for making Calvados, that occupied much of the floor space.
Did the alcohol distiller, which cost 8,000 euros, still work?
“Percé, hélas,” he sighed. It had a hole.
A few doors down from Mr. Héteau’s shop was a stand filled with homey, prewar relics (Alley 1, Stand 29; 33-6-0349-6546). As tinkly old jazz played on a stereo, I sifted through piles of vintage fabrics, eventually settling on a 1930s white tablecloth with a red embroidered geometric pattern — very Deco, but 88 euros. I was determined to get it for less, so the salesman and I began negotiations. First, we discovered that three of the six matching napkins were missing, so that brought the price down to 80 euros. Then I countered: Surely he could do better?
Seventy-five, he said.
If he could do 75, then why not 70?
He called his boss, Florence Nugue. I waited. He put the phone down. He nodded. Victory!
But, I instantly wondered, should I have bargained harder? Possibly, but at least I’d saved 18 euros. And now I have this very nice tablecloth, on which my daughter, wearing her new sweater, can spill wine from a bottle that I’ve opened with my new corkscrew. Vivent les puces!
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/?8dpc
A teddy bear missing an eye. An Air France handbag. Empty tins of Soviet-era caviar. Tripods and traffic lights. A lava lamp. Fur coats and cheap suits. A bad painting of ships under full sail. Piles of antique leather camera cases. And nowhere to maneuver.
This was the flea market along and around the Rue de Bretagne on an afternoon in late May: crammed with bric-a-brac; shoppers swerving, stopping, accelerating and trying not to step on the toes of the people dining at the outdoor cafes; and me, the Frugal Traveler, hunting not just for a bargain but for something truly special — without, at first, much luck.
Ed Alcock for The New York Times The flea market at St.-Ouen.
The marchés aux puces, or flea markets, of Paris are legendary. In fact, the name itself originated at the biggest and most famous, St.-Ouen, just outside the city’s ring road at Porte de Clignancourt, where back in the 1880s (according to ParisPuces.com, a Web site run by the Association des Puces de Paris St. Ouen) an “unknown bargain hunter” looked down from nearby fortifications, observed junk dealers selling scrap metal, rags and old furniture, and exclaimed, “My word, but it’s a market of fleas!”
Apocryphal? Perhaps, but whatever the origin of the term, les puces, as they’re now known, are synonymous with treasure hunting. In the 120 years since St.-Ouen coalesced, other markets have sprung up in every corner of the city, and in many different forms. During my Frugal Traveler trip to Paris, I hoped to explore a few, find some prized items and — fingers crossed — successfully bargain for something I loved.
The Rue de Bretagne, in the northern part of the Marais, was, though chaotic, a good starting point. Technically, this was not a marché aux puces but a vide-grenier — an attic-emptying. Vide-greniers are the least formal markets, popping up in a location for as little as a day. (See www.vide-greniers.org for a schedule of vide-greniers throughout France.) Just about anybody can sell their knickknacks there — and that’s both their appeal and their challenge.
I waded through the foot traffic, unsure of how and where to stop, or what price was right for a particular object. One stand was selling a metal sign, written in Hindi, warning, “Danger! High voltage!” What is such a sign worth? How can anyone be an expert in Hindi signs — not to mention old LPs and amateur paintings and midcentury desks and gooseneck lamps — and stay sane amid the frenzy?
About to lose it, I spotted a rack of children’s clothes, and in short order had bought for my daughter a hand-knit, machine-washable, rainbow-striped cardigan with pearlescent buttons. It cost 10 euros, or $14.43 at $1.43 to the euro — a bargain even I understood.
Matt Gross for The New York Times Picture frames for sale at Vanves.
After the vide-grenier, I was ready for a proper flea, but not yet St.-Ouen. Following the advice of a family friend who’s lived in Paris for years, I started with the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves, on the south side of Paris. Vanves, open weekends, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., the friend wrote by e-mail, wasn’t as high-quality as St.-Ouen, but had better prices. A friend of a friend, she added, allegedly “bought a genuine Kees van Dongen painting there … for just about nothing.”
On a grim Saturday morning threatening rain, I rode the Métro to the southern edge of the city and began looking for my own van Dongen. Vanves was set up in a much more orderly manner than the vide-grenier — a single path, lined by vendors with folding tables, that arced around a soccer pitch. There were several “we’ve got it all” stalls, but many were specialists. I saw vintage Art Deco paper and solid metal tools once used by artisans whose professions no longer exist. An antiquarian book dealer sold first editions of Émile Zola (160 euros and up) and “Et On Tuera Tous les Affreux” (“And We’ll Kill All the Ugly Ones”), by the cult novelist Boris Vian. The novel cost 80 euros so I passed on it, though I’ve since seen it online for as much as $350.
Just before the rain came down hard, I found La Libre Caverne des Illustrateurs, a stall that sold drawings and paintings by little-known, often unnamed artists. A 1949 pencil sketch of Sengho, a village in what was then French colonial Guinea, caught my eye — the sharp details, the simplicity of the scene, the lack of sentimentality. I also liked a watercolor of a fisherman, done in the 1930s by André Galland, an illustrator whose posters sell for $100 to $2,100, according to Dustin Stein at Galerie Mistinguett, in Great Neck, N.Y., which specializes in vintage posters.
Individually, they were 15 euros, but when I asked the vendor, Mikaël Kervennic (33-6-1116-6057), for a discount, he let me have the two for 25 euros in all.
Matt Gross for The New York Times A photograph at St.-Ouen.
With one successful bargaining attempt under my belt, it was time to brave St.-Ouen, open Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. On the way up north to Porte de Clignancourt, I imagined a snake pit of buyers and sellers and traders and dealers fighting over dug-from-the-basement Rembrandts and pre-Revolutionary cutlery sets.
But St.-Ouen was orderly. Occupying several blocks, it was divided into separate, warrenlike markets specializing in different products. Well, sort of. Skimming ParisPuces.com, I couldn’t figure out how, say, the Dauphine market, which sold Renaissance period dressers and industrial art, was unlike the Biron, where you could find “luxury goods and gilt objects.” And so I just began at the first market I came to, the Vernaison, where the Puces de St.-Ouen opened as an organized institution in 1920.
Unlike the vide-grenier and Vanves, the Marché de Vernaison was easy to navigate. The vendors weren’t using folding tables — they operated out of open-faced storefronts, leaving plenty of room to wander in and out, or just walk on by. And the objects they were selling were indeed of higher quality — and, as my friend had warned, more expensive.
Matt Gross for The New York Times Leather club chairs.
A pair of leather club chairs, broken-in but sturdy, cost 2,200 euros. Two painted metal dragons, made in the early 20th century and meant to adorn walls, cost 750 euros as a set. The fuel tank from a Mustang fighter was 12,500 euros. A selection of striking 18th- and 19th-century Japanese lithographs seemed almost reasonable at 50 to 300 euros. The initial price was often not the only problem: A set of six painted wooden chairs, for example, cost 650 euros, but their vendor explained it would cost that much again to send them to my home in New York.
At the showroom of Pierre Héteau (Alley 1, Stand 37; 33-6-1050-6566), I found my first deal. Among shelf upon shelf of copper pots — the kind of gorgeously made cookware you’d never actually use, with delicate engravings and patterns on every shiny surface — I found a tire-bouchon, or corkscrew, its handle made of twisty old wood, for just 3 euros. As I paid for it, Mr. Héteau, a hefty, steel-haired man with a thick mustache and a blue apron, explained that he’d sold over 500 pieces of this beautiful cookware to David Bouley and indeed was about to send Mr. Bouley the huge copper alembic, used for making Calvados, that occupied much of the floor space.
Did the alcohol distiller, which cost 8,000 euros, still work?
“Percé, hélas,” he sighed. It had a hole.
A few doors down from Mr. Héteau’s shop was a stand filled with homey, prewar relics (Alley 1, Stand 29; 33-6-0349-6546). As tinkly old jazz played on a stereo, I sifted through piles of vintage fabrics, eventually settling on a 1930s white tablecloth with a red embroidered geometric pattern — very Deco, but 88 euros. I was determined to get it for less, so the salesman and I began negotiations. First, we discovered that three of the six matching napkins were missing, so that brought the price down to 80 euros. Then I countered: Surely he could do better?
Seventy-five, he said.
If he could do 75, then why not 70?
He called his boss, Florence Nugue. I waited. He put the phone down. He nodded. Victory!
But, I instantly wondered, should I have bargained harder? Possibly, but at least I’d saved 18 euros. And now I have this very nice tablecloth, on which my daughter, wearing her new sweater, can spill wine from a bottle that I’ve opened with my new corkscrew. Vivent les puces!
What Is a Master’s Degree Worth?
This is a good look at the cost of higher education. I'm currently a graduate student, and I am already $70,000+, with 2 more years to go, and and perhaps longer if I receive my PhD. Is it really worth the cost, or are we simply following in the footsteps of tradition?
June 30, 2009, 7:30 pm
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/
By The Editors
Room for Debate recently published two forums on the burdens of student loans, and heard from a lot of former students, parents, professors and others who shared personal horror stories, blunt advice and critical observations about higher education.
A number of economists and education researchers say that the student debt problem, while real, has been overblown by the press and loan-forgiveness advocates, and that most students do not graduate with too much debt.
Resources
Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?
A Lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely
Is a College Degree Worthless?
The Great College Hoax
But the debate presents difficult questions for young people, who face the most difficult economy since the Great Depression. Many have decided to go to graduate school, to wait out the storm. Several commenters on our forums even said they had no choice but to seek a master’s degree (and incur more debt), arguing that a B.A. today is the equivalent of having a high school diploma 20 years ago and more employers require a higher degree.
How do students know if a graduate education is worth it or not? What degrees are worth getting, and which are not? How does a student weigh the risks and benefits gain a higher education degree?
Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University professor
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former university president
Liz Pulliam Weston, personal finance columnist
Richard Vedder, Ohio University economist
The Education Bubble
Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia University, is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming “Field Notes From Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living.”
The next bubble to burst will be the education bubble. Make no mistake about it, education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble. What people outside the education bubble don’t realize and people inside won’t admit is that many colleges and universities are in the same position that major banks and financial institutions are: their assets (endowments down 30-40 percent this year) are plummeting, their liabilities (debts) are growing, most of their costs are fixed and rising, and their income (return on investments, support from government and private donations, etc.) is falling.
Colleges are on the prowl for new sources of income. And one place they invariably turn is to new customers, i.e., students.
This is hardly a prescription for financial success. Faced with this situation, colleges and universities are on the prowl for new sources of income. And one place they invariably turn is to new customers, i.e., students.
During times of financial stress, people become vulnerable and understandably seek to improve their situation in any way they can. For many, more education seems to be the solution. When the economy goes down, applications to graduate programs go up.
As a lifelong educator, I believe more education is always a good thing, but buyers must beware. The debt crisis is not limited to governments and universities but extends to students and their families. Far too many students come out of college with substantial debts that plague them for years.
And now the economy makes matters worse. Only 19 percent of the class of 2009 had jobs at graduation. Furthermore, many recent graduates who are young professionals and had been working for a few years have been fired. They find themselves surfing the web looking for jobs, all while worrying about health benefits and repaying their student loans.
This situation has many young people asking whether it makes sense to go back to school to pick up a master’s degree. There is no easy answer to this question and every case is different. When facing this decision, it is important to consider exactly what you need and how the degree will help you.
Some graduate degree programs can be very helpful for certain careers but many are not. And, remember, what is most interesting is not always most practical. Be sure you consider your motives and goals carefully. Do not simply assume that another degree after your name is going to open doors.
I have had too many students over the years who have gotten masters and even doctorates find themselves in debt big time, unemployed and forced to start all over in their mid-30s. If you do find a program that will enhance your prospects for a job and better life, then before your enroll, you need to figure out how you are going to pay for it and, if you must borrow more money, whether you can really afford to take on additional debt. You are going to have to do this by yourself because you cannot rely on people with vested interests in increasing enrollments to give you reliable advice.
One of the dirty secrets of many research universities is that they treat master’s students as cash cows that fund other activities. To make matters worse, with many faculty members uninterested in teaching, students cannot assume they will get what they are paying for.
Bottom line — and much of this is about the bottom line — consider your needs carefully, research your options thoroughly, don’t believe everything you read or hear and invest your time and money prudently.
The Value of an M.A.
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is president emeritus and professor of public services at the George Washington University. He is also chairman of the Higher Education Practice at Korn Ferry International.
The M.A. degree is neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat. I had a classmate at Columbia who remained on after receiving his B.A. degree to earn an M.A. degree on a fellowship while waiting for his fiancé to graduate from Barnard. Another classmate who started a Ph.D. program was informed after a year that he had no real promise but if he went away quietly they would give him a booby-prize: the M.A. He became an M.D.
In the marketplace, an M.A. degree adds to one’s personal narrative. It makes one more interesting.
Does earning an M.A. (distinguishable from an M.B.A. or other professional degree) make any sense from a cost-benefit point of view? It does allow one to upgrade one’s alma mater. If you originally matriculated at a college you are vaguely uneasy about, taking an M.A. at a more elite institution allows you to kick down and kiss up, henceforth letting you tell people you “went to school” in New Haven. And it does, of course, ornament a resume indicating academic sitzfleisch — the ability to keep your behind in a chair in a diligent manner. A “B” undergraduate can become an “A” graduate student.
The M.A. permits someone who has a generic B.A. degree in a field she didn’t much care about to change direction, to add a line to her curriculum vitae that says she has a documented competency. M.A.’s also allow their owners to check the right box on corporate personnel forms and similar documents used by the armed services, N.G.O.’s, schools and public agencies that like their civil servants credentialed.
Earning an M.A. degree can be fun; it can provide knowledge; and can stretch the imagination. A cynic might conclude that the M.A. degree is the stepchild of the university community, is increasingly a commodity offered by universities in order to earn tuition dollars devoted to the Ph.D. programs. But in the marketplace, it adds to one’s personal narrative. It makes one more interesting.
Degree inflation increasingly obliges more degrees to compensate for the devaluation of earlier degrees. Jobs that once were filled by high school graduates and later by college graduates today often require a master’s degree. This is largely optical, but one deals with the world he or she lives in. Still, just as the double and triple undergraduate major is a form of gilding the lily, a form of product enhancement, meant to seduce the hiring partner or the human resources director, the growing interest in the M.A. reveals the inadequacy of the baccalaureate.
In a bad job market does it make sense for students to seek a safe harbor and earn a master’s degree? Absolutely: if they can afford it; if the debt from their previous academic work is not too great; if someone else is paying; if they seek to reinvent themselves. If, if …
Universities are, after all, wonderful magical places, and learning something new is the greatest of pleasures. My friend married his fiancé, never used his M.A. degree in any professional way but had the satisfaction and joy of having read a great deal of French literature at somebody else’s expense. What is so bad about that?
Degrees That Don’t Pay Off
Liz Pulliam Weston is the author of “Easy Money,” “Your Credit Score” and “Deal with Your Debt.” She is a personal finance columnist for MSN Money.
Graduate school has traditionally been a great place to wait out recessions while honing your skills for a better job. But sometimes, the payoff doesn’t justify the cost.
When I analyzed economic costs and benefits of various degrees several years ago for an MSN column, “Is your degree worth $1 million or worthless?”, it was clear that certain degrees were winners:
–People with associates’ degrees tended to earn a lot more than those whose educations stopped at high school.
–Bachelor’s degrees, particularly those earned at lower-cost public universities, also tended to be worth the investment.
–Professional degrees in law or medicine were costly to get but clearly offered a big enough payoff.
Not such a slam dunk: Master’s degrees.
In some fields, such as business or engineering, a graduate degree typically boosted income by more than enough to justify the cost. In others — the liberal arts and social sciences, in particular — master’s degrees didn’t appear to produce much if any earnings advantage. The Census Bureau has updated the data I used a few times since then, and the results are similar: certain graduate degrees just don’t seem to pay off.
Advanced education has many other, non-economic benefits, of course. But if you’re borrowing to pay for your schooling — as 60 percent of graduate students do, accumulating an average $37,000 in student loan debt, according to the 2003-2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study — you want to make sure you can pay those student loan bills when they come due.
Otherwise, you could quite literally spend the rest of your life scraping to pay off your debt. Student loans typically can’t be erased in bankruptcy court, and student lenders have extraordinary powers to pursue borrowers, up to and including taking a portion of their Social Security retirement checks.
I hear from too many readers who have six-figure student loan debts and $40,000 incomes. They can’t save for retirement or buy a home; some can’t even pay the minimums they owe on their debt.
Those in the worst shape are often the ones who took on private student loans, which have fewer consumer protections than federal student loans and which come with higher, variable rates. The prevalence of so many strapped borrowers is why I recommend students borrow no more for their educations, in total, than they expect to make the first year out of school.
This rule of thumb won’t work for everyone — heaven knows, you may be the rare literature M.A. who writes a best-selling novel and pays off her debt with one check — but it’s a good starting point for anyone considering strapping herself to more education bills.
Not All Degrees Are Equal
Richard Vedder is director of the Center of College Affordability and Productivity and teaches economics at Ohio University.
Given the poor labor market, should new college graduates go on and get a master’s degree? For many students, this is not a bad option. Census Bureau data show us that typically young adults with master’s degrees earn about $8,000 more a year (roughly, 15 percent) than those just having a bachelor’s diploma. The lifetime earnings gains for the second degree should reach into the low six digits. For many, the rate of return on the added college investment therefore should be reasonably high — and it beats unemployment or working in a low-skilled, low-wage retail trade job.
Universities should survey former students for five years after graduation, and give that information to prospective students.
That said, however, that is not true for everyone. Not all degrees are equal — a master’s in anthropology or art probably has less incremental earning power than a M.B.A. or advanced engineering degree. If graduate enrollments soar as more decide to stay in school, the newly minted master’s graduates may find the job market not all that much better in a couple of years than at the present, and end up taking a relatively low paid job — and facing much larger student loan debts than otherwise.
Moreover, the cost of getting a master’s degree varies a lot, depending on the school attended, the availability of financial aid, the length of the master’s program (ranging typically from one to two years), not to mention the “opportunity cost” in terms of employment income lost while in school. Some master’s programs will cost a student only perhaps $10,000, while others (e.g., an expensive two-year M.B.A. program) might run over $100,000.
The decision whether to pursue further education is complicated by the fact that colleges know little about the vocational success of their own students. Ask a typical university, “How much does your average graduate make in their first job, or two years after graduation?” Usually they will not know.
Universities should survey graduates on a fairly frequent basis for at least five years after graduation, gaining helpful information to give to prospective students that allows them to roughly calculate what they might reasonably expect to gain as a return on their college investment. If a private Web site, payscale.com, can gather that sort of information for many schools, why cannot the schools themselves?
Comments:
1. June 30, 2009
7:40 pm
Link
The new breed of M.S. degree, a Professional Science Masters shows promise of being the MBA of Science. A concept developed by the Sloan Foundation, these are multidisciplinary programs with interactions with industry built in. They bring the promise of new employees being ready to step into a position without taking 3 to 6 months to be trained. For more information go to http://www.sciencemasters.com. for more information.
— Diana
2. June 30, 2009
7:42 pm
Link
My MSW allowed me to practice independently and does offer me somewhat better pay than a BSW or BA working in the social work field. It also allowed me to move overseas as a “skilled migrant” when a BA degree would have not provided me that opportunity. As they said above it all depends on the field. Whatever happened to pursuing knowledge and personal development without worryig about money?
— Ambrose
3. June 30, 2009
7:49 pm
Link
I think that learning another language and spending time in another culture is much more educational and enriching and inclusive and expansive than traditional Post Graduate work.
By immersion in another language and culture new possibilities open up that were not otherwise available. An international perspective is very empowering in these tremulous times, and lends itself to a peaceful debate rather than violent conflict.
It’s a lot cheaper, it is custom, and the results are life-long. Win, win, win, win. Consider the alternative…
— Jim Box
4. June 30, 2009
7:55 pm
Link
I just finished my M.A. in the humanities, and am unable to find work teaching at a community college (which is what I had planned to do with this degree). Luckily I had a full fellowship, so I don’t have any loans to pay, but I’m back to where I was before I went to graduate school: jobless, broke, and wondering why I didn’t study business administration.
— Serapli
5. June 30, 2009
7:57 pm
Link
The pundits seem to agree that an MBA or a master’s degree in engineering is worth the investment in terms of increased earnings, while a humanities MA probably is not (though some allow as how it may offer inestimable, albeit intangible, benefits).
They seem to omit a large number of degree programs from their analyses. Elementary and secondary school teachers often must do postgraduate work in order to make their teaching certificates permanent, and get a bit more pay once they have done so. Social workers and counselors become eligible for licensure only if they earn master’s degrees. Increasingly, the master’s degree is the accepted credential for physical and occupational therapists as well. These and other degrees qualify people for membership in what are sometimes called the minor professions (as opposed to law and medicine). Are they not worth pursuing? Or are they just off the radar for this particular collection of humanities and business types?
— Stephen
6. June 30, 2009
9:41 pm
Link
I couldn’t believe some of the anecdotes I have heard from students. Since student loans have become so widely available, there has been no limit to the imagination of universities in making up new degree programs. This has been a cynical exploitation of naive young people. I can’t believe there are so many master’s programs in public policy or international relations. I read a report of a college student coming out of a kentucky university with a master’s in international relations. A no name public school has no business misleading students and essentially defrauding them for personal gain. This student came out of her master’s program with 80,000 dollars total in educational debt and of course can’t get a job. The problem with these watered down master’s degrees, that require no more than a good college term paper as a master’s thesis, is that they devalue the degree and lead to denigration of all degree holders in soft subjects. All these master’s programs and new academic departments have sprung up in response to student loans being given to anyone with a pulse. Universities should be ashamed of themselves. Most in academia know that it is unethical to allow students to deceive themselves as to future job prospects with worthless master’s degrees from no name programs. However, when their jobs depend on maintaining a certain quota of students for a particular program of study, even previously ethical academic types have compromised their ethics in their chase to be recipients of all that loan money.
— billy bob
7. June 30, 2009
9:46 pm
Link
The only reason that a hospital based recreation “therapist” is now a four year college degree instead of an apprentice program or one year community college program, is because universities have realized they can stretch out these one and two year certification programs into four year degrees and get four years of student loan money instead of just one. This is just one of many examples where short study certificate based programs have mushroomed into four year degrees as a cynical attempt to increase revenue. After all, if the student loan money is flowing so freely why not turn a one year program into a four year degree? These universities should really be ashamed at what they have done.
— billy bob
8. June 30, 2009
10:18 pm
Link
The Master of Arts degree was intended to prepare scholars for the PHD. It involved an in depth study of the field, and more importantly, the pertinent issues in that field(e.i. what needs to be done) and to acquire knowledge and skills in how to viable research. As such,it is not a terminal degree—it’s academic limbo.
— Martin Camarata, Prof. Emeritus
9. June 30, 2009
10:23 pm
Link
In my experience an M.A. does not improve the career chances in most professions of the liberal arts. The qualifying degree is the Ph.D. Unless you love the field, do not even think of it. You must like knowledge for its own sake, may end up working for very little money, and still must be convinced that you are doing the right thing.
I agree with Professor Taylor’s assessment of the current state of higher education and have written more about it here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2008/12/financial-crisis-higher-education.html
— Peter Melzer
10. June 30, 2009
10:52 pm
Link
I hold an ASIE, a BS Technology-Business, and an MBA.
They are worth nothing.
The real value to me has nearly always been the knowlege that came along with the process of getting the degrees. Adding fuel to this position, over the years I’ve often come in contact with degree-holders, and with people having years of experience, who apparently learned nothing from formal education nor from experience.
I’m not a particularly brilliant sort, but I have always quietly enjoyed having a broader view of a more understandable world. Knowlege also brings on the even surer knowlege that I don’t know much at all. In fact, because of my education and experience, I am now sure that I know next to nothing, and that’s a humbling thought.
Rick
— Rick Chumsae
11. June 30, 2009
11:41 pm
Link
One way to look at the expense and work that goes into a graduate degree is that it is an investment in yourself. Taylor is correct that the most interesting degrees are not always the most practical. However, I would warn anyone considering a challenging program that you will need to be very interested in what you are studying to complete a master’s degree. My job is normally performed by people with a master’s degree. This expectation is partly because of degree inflation, which, like grade inflation at undergraduate institutions, is real. Six weeks ago, I graduated from Georgetown’s Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program. The non-economic value of my degree is amazing. For financial reasons, I worked half-time during my studies to avoid the opportunity cost of not working altogether. I agree with Vedder’s claim that not all degrees are created equal, that’s why I chose MSFS. I suppose I’m betting society will value what Trachtenberg would call my “documented competency” in international affairs.
— David Higgins
12. June 30, 2009
11:51 pm
Link
A Master’s Degree is probably a much lesser education than it once was, and the whole program to some extent has become commoditized, which contradicts the very principle of advanced learning. My observation doing an MS program back in the 80’s was that fully 60 per cent of the working adult attendees were purely and solely present to get a ticket-punch on their resume. There was no curiousity about anything except whether items would be on the exam or would earn credit.
In addition, those courses that did touch on business theories all seemed to be absolutely certain that there was no purpose for business except to make money, solely and entirely. This fixation was passed around like an exalted truth, rather than a toxic misestimation. There is no question about the necessity of making money of course, but whether it is sufficient is highly debatable.
It is not surprising that the meaning and weight of the sheepskin has declined under these conditions.
— AHJ
13. July 1, 2009
12:06 am
Link
Most students currently enrolled in university should not be there. They have no interest in higher education and seek only a ticket to a higher-paying job. They belong in vocational school, which unfortunately means that universities are turning into glorified job-training facilities.
And that, really, is what afflicts contemporary colleges and universities. They are obsessed not with educating their students but with preparing them for the job market. They have abdicated their vital role as centers of scholarship and conduits of civilization so that they can perform the same functions as vocational schools.
If the value of a university degree is measured only in the additional income it will generate for the holder, then it’s a waste of time. Undergraduate degrees are losing their status because they indicate nothing for certain about the degree-holders, not even basic skills in reading and mathematics — and certainly not knowledge of history, literature, languages, economics, science, or philosophy. Thus, students race fruitlessly to obtain more and more graduate degrees, which in their turn will be devalued.
If universities are to recover, they must abandon vocational training and rediscover their mission of real education. If some students don’t like that or can’t do the work, then they should attend schools more appropriate to their interests.
— N.S. Palmer
14. July 1, 2009
12:09 am
Link
We are saddling our kids with huge, insurmountable student loans for watered-down degrees at diploma mills. And then people wonder why we’re losing the race to the Chinas, Indians, Brazils, Russias, Canadas.
— Bleak Future
15. July 1, 2009
12:11 am
Link
Mr. Taylor stated: “The next bubble to burst will be the education bubble. Make no mistake about it, education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble.”
And Mr. Taylor, higher education as provided by the private not-for-profits is a really big business of really rich universities that basically are getting a free ride on the taxpayers federally, state and locally. Why should these big businesses, and as you noted, these are businesses, not charities, be treated as though they are charities. Some of their administrators and professors make million dollar plus salaries and perks. Unlike other businesses, they also get tax free endowments of hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is time these elitist freeloaders pay their fair share of taxes like every other business in the US.
I also think the US should place restrictions on teaching foreign students advanced graduate studies in sensitive fields that can provide military and industrial advantages to our military adversaries and countries that compete with us in the global economy and which take jobs away from Americans. These fields include physics, chemistry and materials sciences, mathematics, engineering, medical research, computer and software design, etc. The US trained a number of the Japanese before WWII who later developed Japanese offensive weapons that were used to attack Pearl Harbor. We also taught the Japanese business management techniques that were later used against us to destroy many of our major industries or sharply reduce US company market share in the US.
— LetsBfairUSA
16. July 1, 2009
12:17 am
Link
Is the investment worth the return? Depends on the individual. Someone with an MA in TOEFL can become Dean at a community college, or make enough money tax free abroad to pay a student loan in a year. The commentaries above seem “market-based” and limited
“Not a Slam Dunk: Master’s Degrees.” Funny.
— John McDonald
17. July 1, 2009
12:24 am
Link
Interesting to me that several of the contributors mentioned “degree inflation.” If our society’s current push for everyone to go to college only results in the goal posts being moved, then the whole thing feels like a kind of scam. I think we need to take the skilled trades more seriously as options for intelligent people - emphasize their connection to science and math knowledge, and once again make these respectable paths that can be taken with pride.
Using bachelors degrees for gate-keeping into some entry level white collar jobs is unnecessary when the cost of getting the degree is so high, and, honestly, the skills needed for these jobs should be attainable by high school grads.
I say it’s time to take back the high school diploma and make it mean something again. We need to stop pressuring everyone to fork over all of their money to colleges and universities unquestioningly! The honesty of the professors above is truly refreshing!!!
— SE
18. July 1, 2009
12:26 am
Link
I do have to wonder at this comment by Trachtenberg when he says “Does earning an M.A. (distinguishable from an M.B.A. or other professional degree) ”
An MBA is NOT a professional degree. The degrees classed as graduate professional degrees are soley JDs and MDs and VMDs. And an MBA from a no-name cow-college isn’t worth the cost of the books in the labor market.
Now as to the topic at hand, some fields do require a Masters. Social Work comes to mind as a field that requires a Masters even for ebtry level jobs. Ditto psychology. Teaching even in the elementary through secondary level requires a Masters to advance.
The problem is whether the MA (or MS) is worth the cost. taking the $8000 a year cited above as the income difference, that would work out to be a net of about $5600 a year. If a 2 year MA costs $70,000, it will take close to 13 years to pay it off not including interest.
Entry in to other fields needs a masters in order to narrow the specialization and be marketable. For example, urban planning is such an area.
On the other hand an MFA (fine arts) is a time and money pit.
Soeaking as some who holds a MA in addition to a professional doctorate, a master’s program should be approached with caution. The costs are so high these days. (And if Vedder thinks that a student can do an MA for only $10,000, I guess he assumes the student will not eat and will live in a tent or under a bridge!) If the future earnings are not substantially enhanced by having the MA, it is probably not worth it.
Once again the prospective student needs to contact the placement office and ask the following:
(1) How many graduates from the Master’s prorgam obtain a job in the field
(2) How long does it take for them to find a job
(3) How much do they make starting out
(4) How do the initial earnings of the master’s grads compare with the intial earnings of the departments BA grads who work in that field
On the other hand, if one has money to burn, education is never wasted.
— AnnA
19. July 1, 2009
12:27 am
Link
As noted in a few of the articles, this question applies only to liberal arts and the like. For engineering, you want and need an M.S. or Ph.D.
— michael
20. July 1, 2009
12:28 am
Link
Earning my MA was among the most fruitful and most rewarding experiences I’ve had, even more so than working on the PhD. Certainly it is a stepping stone of sorts, a way to make sure you would like to pursue something to a higher level (or not). The MA is a chance to delve seriously into a topic or to realize you can’t wait to finish with it and do something else. As with anything, an MA can be as rewarding and fulfilling as one makes it. I personally wouldn’t trade my MA experience—the people I have met and worked with, and the lasting friendships—for anything (including the few grand it cost!). Money spent on education is an investment in one’s life that lasts forever and can’t ever be lost in the mysterious workings of the “market” or stolen in a Ponzi scheme. Besides, most MA programs offer scholarships and teaching assistantships that cover most if not all the costs.
— Joseph Powell
21. July 1, 2009
12:30 am
Link
Too bad most of the remarks about the “worth” of a master’s degree are about the dollar value. I feel they miss the truth, at least the truth of my life with my master’s. I’ve had mine for almost 40 years, and its worth to me has been the enhanced intellectual and cultural advantages it has conferred. My B.A. was spent among students mostly interested in football, beer, sex, and for the academic side–credentialing. My M.A. introduced me to peers fascinated by advanced study, in love with learning, thoughtful, articulate, cultured, and polite. As a result, the “worth” of my M.A. has been the enhanced, engaged quality of my life.
— Boomerscoutofamerica
22. July 1, 2009
12:33 am
Link
As a student completing my M.A. in American Studies, this debate is one that is often on my mind. I am looking to graduation this fall and applying for jobs, but I find that most organizations are much more interested in my internship experiences than my academic background.
But in the end, I value my graduate studies despite their lack of financial or possibly even professional benefits. I attended a prestigious, private university for my undergraduate degree, but my graduate work at my state university is what has ultimately cemented and deepened all of my previous learning. Not everyone has the luxury of completing a degree that doesn’t necessarily lead to more money, but I’m grateful for it.
— Perry, Kansas City
23. July 1, 2009
12:40 am
Link
Quoting Mr. Vedder:”That said, however, that is not true for everyone. Not all degrees are equal — a master’s in anthropology or art probably has less incremental earning
There may be some truth to this statement, but I have to disagree that a M.F.A. in art is the same as an MA in the humanities. MFA is a terminal degree and can open doors teaching at the university level.
All these “experts” also failed to note that an advanced degree plays an important role if graduates want to work abroad. Many countries have a point system when awarding visas and education is a significant category. In this global economy, it’s not uncommon that many people now face the prospect of working over seas.
I agree that taking on tons of more debt is probably not the best approach to furthering your education but with a little effort and research you can find options or funding opportunities to help invest in your future.
I think it is also important that students have a little perspective before they just “jump” into a masters program. Often we see students just roll from a Bachelor’s into a graduate program with little or no real world experience. Just a year or two out in the world does wonders in the focus and desire it takes to pursue a higher degree. Too many students wander into a masters program with little or no direction not to mention the energy or appreciation needed to finish.
Jobs may come and go, but an education is something that will always be part of you. If a student spends wisely and takes full advantage of the time, a degree no matter what discipline will always pay off. Our society needs to reinvest in education and allow more students the opportunity to pursue higher degrees with programs, grants and sponsorships to make it happen. Having a population that is too educated is a problem I think we would rather have than the opposite.
— david donar
24. July 1, 2009
12:41 am
Link
Lest we forget - and in this bottom-line oriented society it is difficult to forget - education is not all about fiscal payback. As a recipient of 3 degrees (AB, PhD, JD) I found that each separate level gave me more appreciation of the world in general, more ability to enjoy whatever I could make of the ratrace of existence, a better appreciation of the whole complexity of life. At 75 I am still striving to learn more, not facts but things about life and how to understand them.
— joconnor
25. July 1, 2009
12:49 am
MAs for liberal arts degrees, I agree, are worthless in all but a few cases. Anyone that wants to actually specialise in their area of practice requires a MA or even PhD in order to even think about getting their foot in the door. Myself included. I work as a humaniatrian aid worker. Although there are those who have joined the field without even a bachelors degree, where I started out (London), you cannot even access internships without at least a MA. Maybe the pay does not match what you have spent on your education, nor does the experience (I found my undergraduate degree, completed in Montreal, more diverse and challenging - the MA was more of a social networking tool). However, in fields such as development or humanitarian relief… it’s a necessary evil and i don’t think that is going to change.
— JB
June 30, 2009, 7:30 pm
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/
By The Editors
Room for Debate recently published two forums on the burdens of student loans, and heard from a lot of former students, parents, professors and others who shared personal horror stories, blunt advice and critical observations about higher education.
A number of economists and education researchers say that the student debt problem, while real, has been overblown by the press and loan-forgiveness advocates, and that most students do not graduate with too much debt.
Resources
Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?
A Lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely
Is a College Degree Worthless?
The Great College Hoax
But the debate presents difficult questions for young people, who face the most difficult economy since the Great Depression. Many have decided to go to graduate school, to wait out the storm. Several commenters on our forums even said they had no choice but to seek a master’s degree (and incur more debt), arguing that a B.A. today is the equivalent of having a high school diploma 20 years ago and more employers require a higher degree.
How do students know if a graduate education is worth it or not? What degrees are worth getting, and which are not? How does a student weigh the risks and benefits gain a higher education degree?
Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University professor
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former university president
Liz Pulliam Weston, personal finance columnist
Richard Vedder, Ohio University economist
The Education Bubble
Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia University, is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming “Field Notes From Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living.”
The next bubble to burst will be the education bubble. Make no mistake about it, education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble. What people outside the education bubble don’t realize and people inside won’t admit is that many colleges and universities are in the same position that major banks and financial institutions are: their assets (endowments down 30-40 percent this year) are plummeting, their liabilities (debts) are growing, most of their costs are fixed and rising, and their income (return on investments, support from government and private donations, etc.) is falling.
Colleges are on the prowl for new sources of income. And one place they invariably turn is to new customers, i.e., students.
This is hardly a prescription for financial success. Faced with this situation, colleges and universities are on the prowl for new sources of income. And one place they invariably turn is to new customers, i.e., students.
During times of financial stress, people become vulnerable and understandably seek to improve their situation in any way they can. For many, more education seems to be the solution. When the economy goes down, applications to graduate programs go up.
As a lifelong educator, I believe more education is always a good thing, but buyers must beware. The debt crisis is not limited to governments and universities but extends to students and their families. Far too many students come out of college with substantial debts that plague them for years.
And now the economy makes matters worse. Only 19 percent of the class of 2009 had jobs at graduation. Furthermore, many recent graduates who are young professionals and had been working for a few years have been fired. They find themselves surfing the web looking for jobs, all while worrying about health benefits and repaying their student loans.
This situation has many young people asking whether it makes sense to go back to school to pick up a master’s degree. There is no easy answer to this question and every case is different. When facing this decision, it is important to consider exactly what you need and how the degree will help you.
Some graduate degree programs can be very helpful for certain careers but many are not. And, remember, what is most interesting is not always most practical. Be sure you consider your motives and goals carefully. Do not simply assume that another degree after your name is going to open doors.
I have had too many students over the years who have gotten masters and even doctorates find themselves in debt big time, unemployed and forced to start all over in their mid-30s. If you do find a program that will enhance your prospects for a job and better life, then before your enroll, you need to figure out how you are going to pay for it and, if you must borrow more money, whether you can really afford to take on additional debt. You are going to have to do this by yourself because you cannot rely on people with vested interests in increasing enrollments to give you reliable advice.
One of the dirty secrets of many research universities is that they treat master’s students as cash cows that fund other activities. To make matters worse, with many faculty members uninterested in teaching, students cannot assume they will get what they are paying for.
Bottom line — and much of this is about the bottom line — consider your needs carefully, research your options thoroughly, don’t believe everything you read or hear and invest your time and money prudently.
The Value of an M.A.
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is president emeritus and professor of public services at the George Washington University. He is also chairman of the Higher Education Practice at Korn Ferry International.
The M.A. degree is neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat. I had a classmate at Columbia who remained on after receiving his B.A. degree to earn an M.A. degree on a fellowship while waiting for his fiancé to graduate from Barnard. Another classmate who started a Ph.D. program was informed after a year that he had no real promise but if he went away quietly they would give him a booby-prize: the M.A. He became an M.D.
In the marketplace, an M.A. degree adds to one’s personal narrative. It makes one more interesting.
Does earning an M.A. (distinguishable from an M.B.A. or other professional degree) make any sense from a cost-benefit point of view? It does allow one to upgrade one’s alma mater. If you originally matriculated at a college you are vaguely uneasy about, taking an M.A. at a more elite institution allows you to kick down and kiss up, henceforth letting you tell people you “went to school” in New Haven. And it does, of course, ornament a resume indicating academic sitzfleisch — the ability to keep your behind in a chair in a diligent manner. A “B” undergraduate can become an “A” graduate student.
The M.A. permits someone who has a generic B.A. degree in a field she didn’t much care about to change direction, to add a line to her curriculum vitae that says she has a documented competency. M.A.’s also allow their owners to check the right box on corporate personnel forms and similar documents used by the armed services, N.G.O.’s, schools and public agencies that like their civil servants credentialed.
Earning an M.A. degree can be fun; it can provide knowledge; and can stretch the imagination. A cynic might conclude that the M.A. degree is the stepchild of the university community, is increasingly a commodity offered by universities in order to earn tuition dollars devoted to the Ph.D. programs. But in the marketplace, it adds to one’s personal narrative. It makes one more interesting.
Degree inflation increasingly obliges more degrees to compensate for the devaluation of earlier degrees. Jobs that once were filled by high school graduates and later by college graduates today often require a master’s degree. This is largely optical, but one deals with the world he or she lives in. Still, just as the double and triple undergraduate major is a form of gilding the lily, a form of product enhancement, meant to seduce the hiring partner or the human resources director, the growing interest in the M.A. reveals the inadequacy of the baccalaureate.
In a bad job market does it make sense for students to seek a safe harbor and earn a master’s degree? Absolutely: if they can afford it; if the debt from their previous academic work is not too great; if someone else is paying; if they seek to reinvent themselves. If, if …
Universities are, after all, wonderful magical places, and learning something new is the greatest of pleasures. My friend married his fiancé, never used his M.A. degree in any professional way but had the satisfaction and joy of having read a great deal of French literature at somebody else’s expense. What is so bad about that?
Degrees That Don’t Pay Off
Liz Pulliam Weston is the author of “Easy Money,” “Your Credit Score” and “Deal with Your Debt.” She is a personal finance columnist for MSN Money.
Graduate school has traditionally been a great place to wait out recessions while honing your skills for a better job. But sometimes, the payoff doesn’t justify the cost.
When I analyzed economic costs and benefits of various degrees several years ago for an MSN column, “Is your degree worth $1 million or worthless?”, it was clear that certain degrees were winners:
–People with associates’ degrees tended to earn a lot more than those whose educations stopped at high school.
–Bachelor’s degrees, particularly those earned at lower-cost public universities, also tended to be worth the investment.
–Professional degrees in law or medicine were costly to get but clearly offered a big enough payoff.
Not such a slam dunk: Master’s degrees.
In some fields, such as business or engineering, a graduate degree typically boosted income by more than enough to justify the cost. In others — the liberal arts and social sciences, in particular — master’s degrees didn’t appear to produce much if any earnings advantage. The Census Bureau has updated the data I used a few times since then, and the results are similar: certain graduate degrees just don’t seem to pay off.
Advanced education has many other, non-economic benefits, of course. But if you’re borrowing to pay for your schooling — as 60 percent of graduate students do, accumulating an average $37,000 in student loan debt, according to the 2003-2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study — you want to make sure you can pay those student loan bills when they come due.
Otherwise, you could quite literally spend the rest of your life scraping to pay off your debt. Student loans typically can’t be erased in bankruptcy court, and student lenders have extraordinary powers to pursue borrowers, up to and including taking a portion of their Social Security retirement checks.
I hear from too many readers who have six-figure student loan debts and $40,000 incomes. They can’t save for retirement or buy a home; some can’t even pay the minimums they owe on their debt.
Those in the worst shape are often the ones who took on private student loans, which have fewer consumer protections than federal student loans and which come with higher, variable rates. The prevalence of so many strapped borrowers is why I recommend students borrow no more for their educations, in total, than they expect to make the first year out of school.
This rule of thumb won’t work for everyone — heaven knows, you may be the rare literature M.A. who writes a best-selling novel and pays off her debt with one check — but it’s a good starting point for anyone considering strapping herself to more education bills.
Not All Degrees Are Equal
Richard Vedder is director of the Center of College Affordability and Productivity and teaches economics at Ohio University.
Given the poor labor market, should new college graduates go on and get a master’s degree? For many students, this is not a bad option. Census Bureau data show us that typically young adults with master’s degrees earn about $8,000 more a year (roughly, 15 percent) than those just having a bachelor’s diploma. The lifetime earnings gains for the second degree should reach into the low six digits. For many, the rate of return on the added college investment therefore should be reasonably high — and it beats unemployment or working in a low-skilled, low-wage retail trade job.
Universities should survey former students for five years after graduation, and give that information to prospective students.
That said, however, that is not true for everyone. Not all degrees are equal — a master’s in anthropology or art probably has less incremental earning power than a M.B.A. or advanced engineering degree. If graduate enrollments soar as more decide to stay in school, the newly minted master’s graduates may find the job market not all that much better in a couple of years than at the present, and end up taking a relatively low paid job — and facing much larger student loan debts than otherwise.
Moreover, the cost of getting a master’s degree varies a lot, depending on the school attended, the availability of financial aid, the length of the master’s program (ranging typically from one to two years), not to mention the “opportunity cost” in terms of employment income lost while in school. Some master’s programs will cost a student only perhaps $10,000, while others (e.g., an expensive two-year M.B.A. program) might run over $100,000.
The decision whether to pursue further education is complicated by the fact that colleges know little about the vocational success of their own students. Ask a typical university, “How much does your average graduate make in their first job, or two years after graduation?” Usually they will not know.
Universities should survey graduates on a fairly frequent basis for at least five years after graduation, gaining helpful information to give to prospective students that allows them to roughly calculate what they might reasonably expect to gain as a return on their college investment. If a private Web site, payscale.com, can gather that sort of information for many schools, why cannot the schools themselves?
Comments:
1. June 30, 2009
7:40 pm
Link
The new breed of M.S. degree, a Professional Science Masters shows promise of being the MBA of Science. A concept developed by the Sloan Foundation, these are multidisciplinary programs with interactions with industry built in. They bring the promise of new employees being ready to step into a position without taking 3 to 6 months to be trained. For more information go to http://www.sciencemasters.com. for more information.
— Diana
2. June 30, 2009
7:42 pm
Link
My MSW allowed me to practice independently and does offer me somewhat better pay than a BSW or BA working in the social work field. It also allowed me to move overseas as a “skilled migrant” when a BA degree would have not provided me that opportunity. As they said above it all depends on the field. Whatever happened to pursuing knowledge and personal development without worryig about money?
— Ambrose
3. June 30, 2009
7:49 pm
Link
I think that learning another language and spending time in another culture is much more educational and enriching and inclusive and expansive than traditional Post Graduate work.
By immersion in another language and culture new possibilities open up that were not otherwise available. An international perspective is very empowering in these tremulous times, and lends itself to a peaceful debate rather than violent conflict.
It’s a lot cheaper, it is custom, and the results are life-long. Win, win, win, win. Consider the alternative…
— Jim Box
4. June 30, 2009
7:55 pm
Link
I just finished my M.A. in the humanities, and am unable to find work teaching at a community college (which is what I had planned to do with this degree). Luckily I had a full fellowship, so I don’t have any loans to pay, but I’m back to where I was before I went to graduate school: jobless, broke, and wondering why I didn’t study business administration.
— Serapli
5. June 30, 2009
7:57 pm
Link
The pundits seem to agree that an MBA or a master’s degree in engineering is worth the investment in terms of increased earnings, while a humanities MA probably is not (though some allow as how it may offer inestimable, albeit intangible, benefits).
They seem to omit a large number of degree programs from their analyses. Elementary and secondary school teachers often must do postgraduate work in order to make their teaching certificates permanent, and get a bit more pay once they have done so. Social workers and counselors become eligible for licensure only if they earn master’s degrees. Increasingly, the master’s degree is the accepted credential for physical and occupational therapists as well. These and other degrees qualify people for membership in what are sometimes called the minor professions (as opposed to law and medicine). Are they not worth pursuing? Or are they just off the radar for this particular collection of humanities and business types?
— Stephen
6. June 30, 2009
9:41 pm
Link
I couldn’t believe some of the anecdotes I have heard from students. Since student loans have become so widely available, there has been no limit to the imagination of universities in making up new degree programs. This has been a cynical exploitation of naive young people. I can’t believe there are so many master’s programs in public policy or international relations. I read a report of a college student coming out of a kentucky university with a master’s in international relations. A no name public school has no business misleading students and essentially defrauding them for personal gain. This student came out of her master’s program with 80,000 dollars total in educational debt and of course can’t get a job. The problem with these watered down master’s degrees, that require no more than a good college term paper as a master’s thesis, is that they devalue the degree and lead to denigration of all degree holders in soft subjects. All these master’s programs and new academic departments have sprung up in response to student loans being given to anyone with a pulse. Universities should be ashamed of themselves. Most in academia know that it is unethical to allow students to deceive themselves as to future job prospects with worthless master’s degrees from no name programs. However, when their jobs depend on maintaining a certain quota of students for a particular program of study, even previously ethical academic types have compromised their ethics in their chase to be recipients of all that loan money.
— billy bob
7. June 30, 2009
9:46 pm
Link
The only reason that a hospital based recreation “therapist” is now a four year college degree instead of an apprentice program or one year community college program, is because universities have realized they can stretch out these one and two year certification programs into four year degrees and get four years of student loan money instead of just one. This is just one of many examples where short study certificate based programs have mushroomed into four year degrees as a cynical attempt to increase revenue. After all, if the student loan money is flowing so freely why not turn a one year program into a four year degree? These universities should really be ashamed at what they have done.
— billy bob
8. June 30, 2009
10:18 pm
Link
The Master of Arts degree was intended to prepare scholars for the PHD. It involved an in depth study of the field, and more importantly, the pertinent issues in that field(e.i. what needs to be done) and to acquire knowledge and skills in how to viable research. As such,it is not a terminal degree—it’s academic limbo.
— Martin Camarata, Prof. Emeritus
9. June 30, 2009
10:23 pm
Link
In my experience an M.A. does not improve the career chances in most professions of the liberal arts. The qualifying degree is the Ph.D. Unless you love the field, do not even think of it. You must like knowledge for its own sake, may end up working for very little money, and still must be convinced that you are doing the right thing.
I agree with Professor Taylor’s assessment of the current state of higher education and have written more about it here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2008/12/financial-crisis-higher-education.html
— Peter Melzer
10. June 30, 2009
10:52 pm
Link
I hold an ASIE, a BS Technology-Business, and an MBA.
They are worth nothing.
The real value to me has nearly always been the knowlege that came along with the process of getting the degrees. Adding fuel to this position, over the years I’ve often come in contact with degree-holders, and with people having years of experience, who apparently learned nothing from formal education nor from experience.
I’m not a particularly brilliant sort, but I have always quietly enjoyed having a broader view of a more understandable world. Knowlege also brings on the even surer knowlege that I don’t know much at all. In fact, because of my education and experience, I am now sure that I know next to nothing, and that’s a humbling thought.
Rick
— Rick Chumsae
11. June 30, 2009
11:41 pm
Link
One way to look at the expense and work that goes into a graduate degree is that it is an investment in yourself. Taylor is correct that the most interesting degrees are not always the most practical. However, I would warn anyone considering a challenging program that you will need to be very interested in what you are studying to complete a master’s degree. My job is normally performed by people with a master’s degree. This expectation is partly because of degree inflation, which, like grade inflation at undergraduate institutions, is real. Six weeks ago, I graduated from Georgetown’s Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program. The non-economic value of my degree is amazing. For financial reasons, I worked half-time during my studies to avoid the opportunity cost of not working altogether. I agree with Vedder’s claim that not all degrees are created equal, that’s why I chose MSFS. I suppose I’m betting society will value what Trachtenberg would call my “documented competency” in international affairs.
— David Higgins
12. June 30, 2009
11:51 pm
Link
A Master’s Degree is probably a much lesser education than it once was, and the whole program to some extent has become commoditized, which contradicts the very principle of advanced learning. My observation doing an MS program back in the 80’s was that fully 60 per cent of the working adult attendees were purely and solely present to get a ticket-punch on their resume. There was no curiousity about anything except whether items would be on the exam or would earn credit.
In addition, those courses that did touch on business theories all seemed to be absolutely certain that there was no purpose for business except to make money, solely and entirely. This fixation was passed around like an exalted truth, rather than a toxic misestimation. There is no question about the necessity of making money of course, but whether it is sufficient is highly debatable.
It is not surprising that the meaning and weight of the sheepskin has declined under these conditions.
— AHJ
13. July 1, 2009
12:06 am
Link
Most students currently enrolled in university should not be there. They have no interest in higher education and seek only a ticket to a higher-paying job. They belong in vocational school, which unfortunately means that universities are turning into glorified job-training facilities.
And that, really, is what afflicts contemporary colleges and universities. They are obsessed not with educating their students but with preparing them for the job market. They have abdicated their vital role as centers of scholarship and conduits of civilization so that they can perform the same functions as vocational schools.
If the value of a university degree is measured only in the additional income it will generate for the holder, then it’s a waste of time. Undergraduate degrees are losing their status because they indicate nothing for certain about the degree-holders, not even basic skills in reading and mathematics — and certainly not knowledge of history, literature, languages, economics, science, or philosophy. Thus, students race fruitlessly to obtain more and more graduate degrees, which in their turn will be devalued.
If universities are to recover, they must abandon vocational training and rediscover their mission of real education. If some students don’t like that or can’t do the work, then they should attend schools more appropriate to their interests.
— N.S. Palmer
14. July 1, 2009
12:09 am
Link
We are saddling our kids with huge, insurmountable student loans for watered-down degrees at diploma mills. And then people wonder why we’re losing the race to the Chinas, Indians, Brazils, Russias, Canadas.
— Bleak Future
15. July 1, 2009
12:11 am
Link
Mr. Taylor stated: “The next bubble to burst will be the education bubble. Make no mistake about it, education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble.”
And Mr. Taylor, higher education as provided by the private not-for-profits is a really big business of really rich universities that basically are getting a free ride on the taxpayers federally, state and locally. Why should these big businesses, and as you noted, these are businesses, not charities, be treated as though they are charities. Some of their administrators and professors make million dollar plus salaries and perks. Unlike other businesses, they also get tax free endowments of hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is time these elitist freeloaders pay their fair share of taxes like every other business in the US.
I also think the US should place restrictions on teaching foreign students advanced graduate studies in sensitive fields that can provide military and industrial advantages to our military adversaries and countries that compete with us in the global economy and which take jobs away from Americans. These fields include physics, chemistry and materials sciences, mathematics, engineering, medical research, computer and software design, etc. The US trained a number of the Japanese before WWII who later developed Japanese offensive weapons that were used to attack Pearl Harbor. We also taught the Japanese business management techniques that were later used against us to destroy many of our major industries or sharply reduce US company market share in the US.
— LetsBfairUSA
16. July 1, 2009
12:17 am
Link
Is the investment worth the return? Depends on the individual. Someone with an MA in TOEFL can become Dean at a community college, or make enough money tax free abroad to pay a student loan in a year. The commentaries above seem “market-based” and limited
“Not a Slam Dunk: Master’s Degrees.” Funny.
— John McDonald
17. July 1, 2009
12:24 am
Link
Interesting to me that several of the contributors mentioned “degree inflation.” If our society’s current push for everyone to go to college only results in the goal posts being moved, then the whole thing feels like a kind of scam. I think we need to take the skilled trades more seriously as options for intelligent people - emphasize their connection to science and math knowledge, and once again make these respectable paths that can be taken with pride.
Using bachelors degrees for gate-keeping into some entry level white collar jobs is unnecessary when the cost of getting the degree is so high, and, honestly, the skills needed for these jobs should be attainable by high school grads.
I say it’s time to take back the high school diploma and make it mean something again. We need to stop pressuring everyone to fork over all of their money to colleges and universities unquestioningly! The honesty of the professors above is truly refreshing!!!
— SE
18. July 1, 2009
12:26 am
Link
I do have to wonder at this comment by Trachtenberg when he says “Does earning an M.A. (distinguishable from an M.B.A. or other professional degree) ”
An MBA is NOT a professional degree. The degrees classed as graduate professional degrees are soley JDs and MDs and VMDs. And an MBA from a no-name cow-college isn’t worth the cost of the books in the labor market.
Now as to the topic at hand, some fields do require a Masters. Social Work comes to mind as a field that requires a Masters even for ebtry level jobs. Ditto psychology. Teaching even in the elementary through secondary level requires a Masters to advance.
The problem is whether the MA (or MS) is worth the cost. taking the $8000 a year cited above as the income difference, that would work out to be a net of about $5600 a year. If a 2 year MA costs $70,000, it will take close to 13 years to pay it off not including interest.
Entry in to other fields needs a masters in order to narrow the specialization and be marketable. For example, urban planning is such an area.
On the other hand an MFA (fine arts) is a time and money pit.
Soeaking as some who holds a MA in addition to a professional doctorate, a master’s program should be approached with caution. The costs are so high these days. (And if Vedder thinks that a student can do an MA for only $10,000, I guess he assumes the student will not eat and will live in a tent or under a bridge!) If the future earnings are not substantially enhanced by having the MA, it is probably not worth it.
Once again the prospective student needs to contact the placement office and ask the following:
(1) How many graduates from the Master’s prorgam obtain a job in the field
(2) How long does it take for them to find a job
(3) How much do they make starting out
(4) How do the initial earnings of the master’s grads compare with the intial earnings of the departments BA grads who work in that field
On the other hand, if one has money to burn, education is never wasted.
— AnnA
19. July 1, 2009
12:27 am
Link
As noted in a few of the articles, this question applies only to liberal arts and the like. For engineering, you want and need an M.S. or Ph.D.
— michael
20. July 1, 2009
12:28 am
Link
Earning my MA was among the most fruitful and most rewarding experiences I’ve had, even more so than working on the PhD. Certainly it is a stepping stone of sorts, a way to make sure you would like to pursue something to a higher level (or not). The MA is a chance to delve seriously into a topic or to realize you can’t wait to finish with it and do something else. As with anything, an MA can be as rewarding and fulfilling as one makes it. I personally wouldn’t trade my MA experience—the people I have met and worked with, and the lasting friendships—for anything (including the few grand it cost!). Money spent on education is an investment in one’s life that lasts forever and can’t ever be lost in the mysterious workings of the “market” or stolen in a Ponzi scheme. Besides, most MA programs offer scholarships and teaching assistantships that cover most if not all the costs.
— Joseph Powell
21. July 1, 2009
12:30 am
Link
Too bad most of the remarks about the “worth” of a master’s degree are about the dollar value. I feel they miss the truth, at least the truth of my life with my master’s. I’ve had mine for almost 40 years, and its worth to me has been the enhanced intellectual and cultural advantages it has conferred. My B.A. was spent among students mostly interested in football, beer, sex, and for the academic side–credentialing. My M.A. introduced me to peers fascinated by advanced study, in love with learning, thoughtful, articulate, cultured, and polite. As a result, the “worth” of my M.A. has been the enhanced, engaged quality of my life.
— Boomerscoutofamerica
22. July 1, 2009
12:33 am
Link
As a student completing my M.A. in American Studies, this debate is one that is often on my mind. I am looking to graduation this fall and applying for jobs, but I find that most organizations are much more interested in my internship experiences than my academic background.
But in the end, I value my graduate studies despite their lack of financial or possibly even professional benefits. I attended a prestigious, private university for my undergraduate degree, but my graduate work at my state university is what has ultimately cemented and deepened all of my previous learning. Not everyone has the luxury of completing a degree that doesn’t necessarily lead to more money, but I’m grateful for it.
— Perry, Kansas City
23. July 1, 2009
12:40 am
Link
Quoting Mr. Vedder:”That said, however, that is not true for everyone. Not all degrees are equal — a master’s in anthropology or art probably has less incremental earning
There may be some truth to this statement, but I have to disagree that a M.F.A. in art is the same as an MA in the humanities. MFA is a terminal degree and can open doors teaching at the university level.
All these “experts” also failed to note that an advanced degree plays an important role if graduates want to work abroad. Many countries have a point system when awarding visas and education is a significant category. In this global economy, it’s not uncommon that many people now face the prospect of working over seas.
I agree that taking on tons of more debt is probably not the best approach to furthering your education but with a little effort and research you can find options or funding opportunities to help invest in your future.
I think it is also important that students have a little perspective before they just “jump” into a masters program. Often we see students just roll from a Bachelor’s into a graduate program with little or no real world experience. Just a year or two out in the world does wonders in the focus and desire it takes to pursue a higher degree. Too many students wander into a masters program with little or no direction not to mention the energy or appreciation needed to finish.
Jobs may come and go, but an education is something that will always be part of you. If a student spends wisely and takes full advantage of the time, a degree no matter what discipline will always pay off. Our society needs to reinvest in education and allow more students the opportunity to pursue higher degrees with programs, grants and sponsorships to make it happen. Having a population that is too educated is a problem I think we would rather have than the opposite.
— david donar
24. July 1, 2009
12:41 am
Link
Lest we forget - and in this bottom-line oriented society it is difficult to forget - education is not all about fiscal payback. As a recipient of 3 degrees (AB, PhD, JD) I found that each separate level gave me more appreciation of the world in general, more ability to enjoy whatever I could make of the ratrace of existence, a better appreciation of the whole complexity of life. At 75 I am still striving to learn more, not facts but things about life and how to understand them.
— joconnor
25. July 1, 2009
12:49 am
MAs for liberal arts degrees, I agree, are worthless in all but a few cases. Anyone that wants to actually specialise in their area of practice requires a MA or even PhD in order to even think about getting their foot in the door. Myself included. I work as a humaniatrian aid worker. Although there are those who have joined the field without even a bachelors degree, where I started out (London), you cannot even access internships without at least a MA. Maybe the pay does not match what you have spent on your education, nor does the experience (I found my undergraduate degree, completed in Montreal, more diverse and challenging - the MA was more of a social networking tool). However, in fields such as development or humanitarian relief… it’s a necessary evil and i don’t think that is going to change.
— JB
Friday, June 19, 2009
Time for a Break?
Need a little break from the computer? Dharma Craft online has created a little interactive Zen Garden. Sure it's geared towards getting you to buy their products, BUT its fun none the less!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Breaking News: White House Confirms Global Warming Crisis
It's all over the news: According to a report released today by the Obama administration, global warming is "unequivocal and human-induced." And while we certainly applaud the return of science to the White House, listening to the science is only half of the solution. He has to act on it.
Solving global warming is going to take serious leadership from President Obama. It's up to us to demand it.
Tell President Obama to act on the science and take the lead on global warming today.
What the science says we need to do is keep global temperature increases as far below two degrees as possible, achieve emissions reductions of at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, eliminate offsets that undermine reductions and to provide substantial international funding necessary to stop emissions from deforestation. Bottom line.
Today's report is a clarion call that the President and Congress must do much more, and more quickly, to respond to the climate crisis. Time is running out. Take a minute to add your name to the list of people demanding that President Obama follow his own science and be a leader.
Solving global warming is going to take serious leadership from President Obama. It's up to us to demand it.
Tell President Obama to act on the science and take the lead on global warming today.
What the science says we need to do is keep global temperature increases as far below two degrees as possible, achieve emissions reductions of at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, eliminate offsets that undermine reductions and to provide substantial international funding necessary to stop emissions from deforestation. Bottom line.
Today's report is a clarion call that the President and Congress must do much more, and more quickly, to respond to the climate crisis. Time is running out. Take a minute to add your name to the list of people demanding that President Obama follow his own science and be a leader.
Global Warming is Here - Will Congress Act?
Global warming is already having an impact on our wildlife and communities -- and without urgent action, things will get worse, according to a White House report issued this week.
Fortunately, Congress is poised to take an important first step in addressing climate change -- lending a much-needed hand to polar bears and other wildlife that are already feeling the heat.
Write your Representative today and urge support for the American Clean Energy & Security Act sponsored by Reps. Waxman and Markey (H.R. 2454).
Global warming is one of the greatest and most urgent threats facing our wildlife. According to the new White House report “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” our wildlife is already affected.
Polar bears and ring seals are rapidly losing sea ice habitat. Increased fires, insect pests, disease and invasive weeds are already affecting 33 million acres of our forests. Our deserts are becoming hotter and drier.
And without urgent action, things will get even worse.
In the coming days, the House of Representatives will vote on the American Clean Energy & Security Act -- the first comprehensive bill to address global warming to come before a House vote. This important legislation will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our world AND take vital steps to protect our wildlife and wild places that are already threatened by climate change.
Urge your Representative to support the American Clean Energy & Security Act -- vital legislation to address global warming and protect our wildlife and wild places.
A vote on this historic bill could come as early as next week. Please take action today and urge your Representative to support for this important bill.
Fortunately, Congress is poised to take an important first step in addressing climate change -- lending a much-needed hand to polar bears and other wildlife that are already feeling the heat.
Write your Representative today and urge support for the American Clean Energy & Security Act sponsored by Reps. Waxman and Markey (H.R. 2454).
Global warming is one of the greatest and most urgent threats facing our wildlife. According to the new White House report “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” our wildlife is already affected.
Polar bears and ring seals are rapidly losing sea ice habitat. Increased fires, insect pests, disease and invasive weeds are already affecting 33 million acres of our forests. Our deserts are becoming hotter and drier.
And without urgent action, things will get even worse.
In the coming days, the House of Representatives will vote on the American Clean Energy & Security Act -- the first comprehensive bill to address global warming to come before a House vote. This important legislation will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our world AND take vital steps to protect our wildlife and wild places that are already threatened by climate change.
Urge your Representative to support the American Clean Energy & Security Act -- vital legislation to address global warming and protect our wildlife and wild places.
A vote on this historic bill could come as early as next week. Please take action today and urge your Representative to support for this important bill.
The 2009 Seal Slaughter Has Ended!
The 2009 Canadian seal slaughter has officially ended, and we're happy to tell you that this year, about three-fourths of the seals who were scheduled to be bludgeoned or shot to death during the annual war on seals were spared. More than 300,000 of these gentle creatures were scheduled to die during the blood bath on the ice, but more than 200,000 seals did not suffer the cruel fate that Canada had intended for them. They did not have to feel the pain of having their skull bashed in or feel what it's like to have a hook stuck through their eye, cheek, or mouth—just so that their fur could be stolen for "fashion."
This dramatic decline in the number of seals who were killed during the slaughter is largely because the price of seal fur has fallen over the years as the disgust over the slaughter increases. The European Union and the U.S. have banned seal products, and world leaders have spoken out against the massacre. Demonstrations from London to Hamburg and Los Angeles to Toronto have made the headlines, and kind people like you all over the world have sent a strong, united message that the seal bloodbath must end.
We will be fighting on for these defenseless babies until the Canadian government backs down and bans the slaughter, and we need your help.
We've just launched an awesome new site, OlympicShame2010.com, which is a spoof of the Vancouver Olympic site, to increase global pressure on the Canadian government to end the bloody seal slaughter once and for all. Be sure to check out our Canadian maple syrup boycott (read more here) as well as photos of demonstrations from around the world, a video, and lots of ways to help end the slaughter. Seriously, you'll love the site!
Keep fighting with us, and let's win this battle for the mothers and babies on the ice!
This dramatic decline in the number of seals who were killed during the slaughter is largely because the price of seal fur has fallen over the years as the disgust over the slaughter increases. The European Union and the U.S. have banned seal products, and world leaders have spoken out against the massacre. Demonstrations from London to Hamburg and Los Angeles to Toronto have made the headlines, and kind people like you all over the world have sent a strong, united message that the seal bloodbath must end.
We will be fighting on for these defenseless babies until the Canadian government backs down and bans the slaughter, and we need your help.
We've just launched an awesome new site, OlympicShame2010.com, which is a spoof of the Vancouver Olympic site, to increase global pressure on the Canadian government to end the bloody seal slaughter once and for all. Be sure to check out our Canadian maple syrup boycott (read more here) as well as photos of demonstrations from around the world, a video, and lots of ways to help end the slaughter. Seriously, you'll love the site!
Keep fighting with us, and let's win this battle for the mothers and babies on the ice!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A Plea for Tolerance in Tight Shorts. Or Not.
I have mixed feelings over the latest movie from Sacha Bron Cohen, admittedly he is hilarious, but sometimes (oft times) it crosses the line of funny and becomes offensive. Part of me cheers him on, as I hold my sides laughing, for addressing taboo topics that should be brought into the light of day and discussed, so they lose their touchy status. Then there is another part of me that is simply disgusted by the things that come out of his mouth. All in all, I kinda think that is the reaction he is looking for. I for one think about his comedy and what it means, but who's to say everyone does that?
June 14, 2009
By BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/movies/14barn.html?_r=1&8dpc
SACHA BARON COHEN recently approached Elton John through a representative. Could he use “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” Mr. John’s hit song from “The Lion King,” for a pivotal scene in his forthcoming movie?
“Brüno,” an R-rated comedy set for wide release by Universal Pictures on July 10, stars Mr. Baron Cohen as a flamboyantly gay fashion journalist from Austria. The filmmakers wanted to play the song during a scene in which the title character, participating in a cage-fighting match, pulls down his opponent’s pants and kisses him on the mouth, prompting a horrified crowd to throw garbage at him.
The answer was no. Mr. John, along with the Walt Disney Company, which owns the copyright to the song but seeks his approval in such matters, learned of the scene’s particulars and blanched, according to one of Mr. John’s advisers. But then Mr. John reversed himself — kind of. He didn’t want to be associated with the provocative scene, but he ultimately agreed to perform part of another song that functions as a coda to the film.
So it goes for “Brüno,” a movie that, in mercilessly exploiting the discomfort created when straight men are ambushed by aggressive gayness, happens to (surprise!) expose homophobia. Gay groups are reacting with deeply mixed emotions, heightened by the recent triumphs (Iowa) and losses (California) in efforts to legalize gay marriage. Is the film then vulgar, inappropriate and harmful? Or bold, timely and necessary? All of the above?
Ultimately the tension surrounding “Brüno” boils down to the worry that certain viewers won’t understand that the joke is on them and will leave the multiplex with their homophobia validated.
“Some people in our community may like this movie, but many are not going to be O.K. with it,” said Rashad Robinson, senior director of media programs for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Sacha Baron Cohen’s well-meaning attempt at satire is problematic in many places and outright offensive in others.”
Holding the opposite view are people like Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out magazine, who said he plans to put Mr. Baron Cohen on the August cover. “The movie does something hugely important, which is showing that people’s attitudes can turn on a dime when they realize you’re gay,” Mr. Hickland said. “The multiplex crowd wouldn’t normally sit down for a two-hour lecture on homophobia, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I’m excited about that.”
“Brüno” is not a lecture, at least not overtly. Like “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” the 2006 smash that starred Mr. Baron Cohen as an anti-Semitic Kazakh journalist, “Brüno” is first and foremost a raunchy comedy featuring a not-so-bright guy who embraces sexism, racism and stereotypes as he happily goes about his business. Borat and Brüno are both familiar to fans of “Da Ali G Show,” Mr. Baron Cohen’s satirical talk show, which first ran in Britain in 2000 and began appearing on HBO in 2003.
Yet “Brüno” is also intended as a statement about what it is like to be a member of a minority in America in 2009. Mr. Baron Cohen’s malaprop-loaded antics are fictional, but the hate they can elicit from the people he encounters is ostensibly real. (The same was true of “Borat,” which some human rights groups also greeted with hostility; Abraham H. Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League said at the time that audiences “may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke.”)
Bloggers have given “Brüno” an unofficial subtitle: “Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.”
Universal won’t discuss the filmmaking process, but the studio insists that the vast majority of the people who appear with Mr. Baron Cohen had no idea they were being filmed for a Hollywood movie. Ads for “Brüno” trumpet, “real people, real situations.”
That was at least true of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the former Republican presidential candidate. In a scene filmed in early 2008, Mr. Paul sits for an interview with the Baron Cohen character. (Mr. Paul has said he was told the topic would be Austrian economics.) When lighting trouble delays the interview, Mr. Baron Cohen strips to his underwear. Mr. Paul storms out muttering, “This guy is a queer.”
In a subsequent radio interview Mr. Paul said: “I don’t like the idea that he lies his way into an interview. To me it’s a real shame that people are going to reward him with millions and millions of dollars for being so crass.”
Judging from the way certain subjects in “Borat” reacted after that film was released, Universal’s lawyers will be busy. At least six lawsuits were filed against the comic and 20th Century Fox, the “Borat” distributor. So far no plaintiffs have won, but some cases are on appeal. (Universal, which won a bidding war with 20th Century Fox for the distribution rights to “Brüno,” paying $42.5 million, seems happy to take the risk. “Borat” cost $18 million and brought in $262 million worldwide.)
“Brüno” was served with its first lawsuit on May 22. According to a complaint filed by a California woman, Mr. Baron Cohen — as Brüno — infiltrated a charity bingo tournament and offended the elderly audience with vulgarities while calling a game. The plaintiff, Richelle Olson, contends that she was severely injured when she tried to grab the microphone away from him. In a statement Universal called the lawsuit “completely baseless,” noting that full footage of the encounter shows that Ms. Olson was never touched.
As roles go, there is no ambiguity about Brüno: he is a limp-wristed, sex-crazed queen. Universal’s promotional materials show him dressed in hot pants, leopard bikini underwear and riding nude on a unicorn.
The character has evolved in appearance since the television show. This Brüno has plucked eyebrows and longish hair with blonde highlights. He wears mauve lipstick. Mr. Baron Cohen also appears to have shed several pounds of arm, leg and torso hair through waxing or electrolysis.
In one scene Brüno appears on a talk show holding a baby who is wearing a T-shirt reading “Gayby.” The sequence flashes back to Brüno having sex in a hot tub while the baby sits nearby. (A person who worked on the movie noted that the flashback consists of still images that were photoshopped – no baby was actually present – and that the sex is only strongly implied.) He then boasts to the outraged talk-show audience that the baby is a man magnet (only he uses unprintable language).
In another scene Brüno, intent on becoming straight, goes to a martial arts instructor to learn how to protect himself from gay people. “If they get close to you, hit them,” the teacher says. How can you spot a gay man? “Obvious is a person being extremely nice” is the answer. Gays can be tricky, the instructor warns: “Some of them don’t even dress no different than myself or you.”
The movie also touches on the reckless pursuit of fame. For instance, under the pretext of conducting a “glamorous baby” photo shoot, Brüno interviews real moms and dads, many holding their babies on their laps. He asks one mother “is your baby comfortable with bees, wasps and hornets?” She answers, “George is comfortable with everything.” Dead or dying animals? “Yes.”
“Can Olivia lose 10 pounds in the next week?” Brüno asks another mother, who doesn’t bat an eyelash: “Yeah, I’d have to do whatever I could,” she says.
Mr. Baron Cohen declined to be interviewed for this article, as did Larry Charles, who directed the film (as well as “Borat”). Universal also declined to make a production executive available for an interview, providing the following statement instead:
“ ‘Brüno’ uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia. By placing himself in radical and risky situations, Sacha Baron Cohen forces both the people Brüno meets and the audience itself to challenge their own stereotypes, preconceptions and discomforts.
“While any work that dares to address relevant cultural sensitivities might be misinterpreted by some or offend others, we believe the overwhelming majority of the audience will understand and appreciate the film’s inarguably positive intentions.”
The studio has twice shown unfinished versions of “Brüno” to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and said that test audiences have come away with a clear understanding of the film’s positive social message. Universal also said that it screened 20 minutes of unedited footage at a Texas film festival this year, and that blog coverage was overwhelmingly upbeat.
Marketing “Brüno” poses unusual challenges for Universal, as some multiplex chains will only run trailers to R-rated films before other R-rated movies. And a stunt at the MTV Movie Awards on June 1 may have damaged the movie’s credibility, film marketers say.
During the show Mr. Baron Cohen, dressed as Brüno, dangled above the audience from wires wearing a jock strap and giant white wings. He landed face down in the lap of the rapper Eminem, who stormed out of the theater. The problem: Eminem admitted to being in on the stunt — and thus faking his reaction — which may lead audiences to doubt the studio’s assertion that actors were not used in the film.
Meanwhile the debate among gay rights advocates goes on.
“We strongly feel that Sacha Baron Cohen and Universal Pictures have a responsibility to remind the viewing public right there in the theater that this is intended to expose homophobia,” said Brad Luna, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign.
Cathy Renna, who left the Gay and Lesbian Alliance after 14 years to start her own similarly focused consulting firm, said she thinks gay audiences will greet the film warmly. “Of all minority groups I think gay people are the most likely to be able to laugh at themselves,” she said. “If nothing else, let’s hope this prompts a lot of conversation.”
Will the stereotypes Mr. Baron Cohen explores offer support to opponents of gay marriage?
“I don’t think that any conservative group is going to use ‘Brüno’ to make a point about how awful gay people are,” said Frank Voci, the founder of White Knot, a nonprofit group focused on gay rights. “If they try to go there, we can easily turn around and point out how horribly these people reacted to him being gay.”
Universal would be happy if more people just took the position of Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of “Milk” and has been an outspoken opponent of California’s recent ban on gay marriage.
Asked for his thoughts on “Brüno,” Mr. Black responded by e-mail, “Sadly, I haven’t seen the film yet!”
June 14, 2009
By BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/movies/14barn.html?_r=1&8dpc
SACHA BARON COHEN recently approached Elton John through a representative. Could he use “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” Mr. John’s hit song from “The Lion King,” for a pivotal scene in his forthcoming movie?
“Brüno,” an R-rated comedy set for wide release by Universal Pictures on July 10, stars Mr. Baron Cohen as a flamboyantly gay fashion journalist from Austria. The filmmakers wanted to play the song during a scene in which the title character, participating in a cage-fighting match, pulls down his opponent’s pants and kisses him on the mouth, prompting a horrified crowd to throw garbage at him.
The answer was no. Mr. John, along with the Walt Disney Company, which owns the copyright to the song but seeks his approval in such matters, learned of the scene’s particulars and blanched, according to one of Mr. John’s advisers. But then Mr. John reversed himself — kind of. He didn’t want to be associated with the provocative scene, but he ultimately agreed to perform part of another song that functions as a coda to the film.
So it goes for “Brüno,” a movie that, in mercilessly exploiting the discomfort created when straight men are ambushed by aggressive gayness, happens to (surprise!) expose homophobia. Gay groups are reacting with deeply mixed emotions, heightened by the recent triumphs (Iowa) and losses (California) in efforts to legalize gay marriage. Is the film then vulgar, inappropriate and harmful? Or bold, timely and necessary? All of the above?
Ultimately the tension surrounding “Brüno” boils down to the worry that certain viewers won’t understand that the joke is on them and will leave the multiplex with their homophobia validated.
“Some people in our community may like this movie, but many are not going to be O.K. with it,” said Rashad Robinson, senior director of media programs for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Sacha Baron Cohen’s well-meaning attempt at satire is problematic in many places and outright offensive in others.”
Holding the opposite view are people like Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out magazine, who said he plans to put Mr. Baron Cohen on the August cover. “The movie does something hugely important, which is showing that people’s attitudes can turn on a dime when they realize you’re gay,” Mr. Hickland said. “The multiplex crowd wouldn’t normally sit down for a two-hour lecture on homophobia, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I’m excited about that.”
“Brüno” is not a lecture, at least not overtly. Like “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” the 2006 smash that starred Mr. Baron Cohen as an anti-Semitic Kazakh journalist, “Brüno” is first and foremost a raunchy comedy featuring a not-so-bright guy who embraces sexism, racism and stereotypes as he happily goes about his business. Borat and Brüno are both familiar to fans of “Da Ali G Show,” Mr. Baron Cohen’s satirical talk show, which first ran in Britain in 2000 and began appearing on HBO in 2003.
Yet “Brüno” is also intended as a statement about what it is like to be a member of a minority in America in 2009. Mr. Baron Cohen’s malaprop-loaded antics are fictional, but the hate they can elicit from the people he encounters is ostensibly real. (The same was true of “Borat,” which some human rights groups also greeted with hostility; Abraham H. Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League said at the time that audiences “may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke.”)
Bloggers have given “Brüno” an unofficial subtitle: “Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.”
Universal won’t discuss the filmmaking process, but the studio insists that the vast majority of the people who appear with Mr. Baron Cohen had no idea they were being filmed for a Hollywood movie. Ads for “Brüno” trumpet, “real people, real situations.”
That was at least true of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the former Republican presidential candidate. In a scene filmed in early 2008, Mr. Paul sits for an interview with the Baron Cohen character. (Mr. Paul has said he was told the topic would be Austrian economics.) When lighting trouble delays the interview, Mr. Baron Cohen strips to his underwear. Mr. Paul storms out muttering, “This guy is a queer.”
In a subsequent radio interview Mr. Paul said: “I don’t like the idea that he lies his way into an interview. To me it’s a real shame that people are going to reward him with millions and millions of dollars for being so crass.”
Judging from the way certain subjects in “Borat” reacted after that film was released, Universal’s lawyers will be busy. At least six lawsuits were filed against the comic and 20th Century Fox, the “Borat” distributor. So far no plaintiffs have won, but some cases are on appeal. (Universal, which won a bidding war with 20th Century Fox for the distribution rights to “Brüno,” paying $42.5 million, seems happy to take the risk. “Borat” cost $18 million and brought in $262 million worldwide.)
“Brüno” was served with its first lawsuit on May 22. According to a complaint filed by a California woman, Mr. Baron Cohen — as Brüno — infiltrated a charity bingo tournament and offended the elderly audience with vulgarities while calling a game. The plaintiff, Richelle Olson, contends that she was severely injured when she tried to grab the microphone away from him. In a statement Universal called the lawsuit “completely baseless,” noting that full footage of the encounter shows that Ms. Olson was never touched.
As roles go, there is no ambiguity about Brüno: he is a limp-wristed, sex-crazed queen. Universal’s promotional materials show him dressed in hot pants, leopard bikini underwear and riding nude on a unicorn.
The character has evolved in appearance since the television show. This Brüno has plucked eyebrows and longish hair with blonde highlights. He wears mauve lipstick. Mr. Baron Cohen also appears to have shed several pounds of arm, leg and torso hair through waxing or electrolysis.
In one scene Brüno appears on a talk show holding a baby who is wearing a T-shirt reading “Gayby.” The sequence flashes back to Brüno having sex in a hot tub while the baby sits nearby. (A person who worked on the movie noted that the flashback consists of still images that were photoshopped – no baby was actually present – and that the sex is only strongly implied.) He then boasts to the outraged talk-show audience that the baby is a man magnet (only he uses unprintable language).
In another scene Brüno, intent on becoming straight, goes to a martial arts instructor to learn how to protect himself from gay people. “If they get close to you, hit them,” the teacher says. How can you spot a gay man? “Obvious is a person being extremely nice” is the answer. Gays can be tricky, the instructor warns: “Some of them don’t even dress no different than myself or you.”
The movie also touches on the reckless pursuit of fame. For instance, under the pretext of conducting a “glamorous baby” photo shoot, Brüno interviews real moms and dads, many holding their babies on their laps. He asks one mother “is your baby comfortable with bees, wasps and hornets?” She answers, “George is comfortable with everything.” Dead or dying animals? “Yes.”
“Can Olivia lose 10 pounds in the next week?” Brüno asks another mother, who doesn’t bat an eyelash: “Yeah, I’d have to do whatever I could,” she says.
Mr. Baron Cohen declined to be interviewed for this article, as did Larry Charles, who directed the film (as well as “Borat”). Universal also declined to make a production executive available for an interview, providing the following statement instead:
“ ‘Brüno’ uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia. By placing himself in radical and risky situations, Sacha Baron Cohen forces both the people Brüno meets and the audience itself to challenge their own stereotypes, preconceptions and discomforts.
“While any work that dares to address relevant cultural sensitivities might be misinterpreted by some or offend others, we believe the overwhelming majority of the audience will understand and appreciate the film’s inarguably positive intentions.”
The studio has twice shown unfinished versions of “Brüno” to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and said that test audiences have come away with a clear understanding of the film’s positive social message. Universal also said that it screened 20 minutes of unedited footage at a Texas film festival this year, and that blog coverage was overwhelmingly upbeat.
Marketing “Brüno” poses unusual challenges for Universal, as some multiplex chains will only run trailers to R-rated films before other R-rated movies. And a stunt at the MTV Movie Awards on June 1 may have damaged the movie’s credibility, film marketers say.
During the show Mr. Baron Cohen, dressed as Brüno, dangled above the audience from wires wearing a jock strap and giant white wings. He landed face down in the lap of the rapper Eminem, who stormed out of the theater. The problem: Eminem admitted to being in on the stunt — and thus faking his reaction — which may lead audiences to doubt the studio’s assertion that actors were not used in the film.
Meanwhile the debate among gay rights advocates goes on.
“We strongly feel that Sacha Baron Cohen and Universal Pictures have a responsibility to remind the viewing public right there in the theater that this is intended to expose homophobia,” said Brad Luna, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign.
Cathy Renna, who left the Gay and Lesbian Alliance after 14 years to start her own similarly focused consulting firm, said she thinks gay audiences will greet the film warmly. “Of all minority groups I think gay people are the most likely to be able to laugh at themselves,” she said. “If nothing else, let’s hope this prompts a lot of conversation.”
Will the stereotypes Mr. Baron Cohen explores offer support to opponents of gay marriage?
“I don’t think that any conservative group is going to use ‘Brüno’ to make a point about how awful gay people are,” said Frank Voci, the founder of White Knot, a nonprofit group focused on gay rights. “If they try to go there, we can easily turn around and point out how horribly these people reacted to him being gay.”
Universal would be happy if more people just took the position of Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of “Milk” and has been an outspoken opponent of California’s recent ban on gay marriage.
Asked for his thoughts on “Brüno,” Mr. Black responded by e-mail, “Sadly, I haven’t seen the film yet!”
Thursday, June 11, 2009
A New CD That Has No Music, but Lots of Pictures
June 11, 2009
By BEN SISARIO
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/arts/music/11danger.html?_r=1
From the start, there was something mysterious about Danger Mouse’s latest project, “Dark Night of the Soul.”
Word of it first came at the South by Southwest music festival in March, on a poster that simply listed the name Danger Mouse — the record producer and member of the R&B duo Gnarls Barkley — along with the singer-songwriter Sparklehorse and, among others, the director David Lynch. A YouTube video in Mr. Lynch’s unmistakable style stirred interest but added no details.
It was classic teaser marketing. And yet when “Dark Night of the Soul” was finally unveiled a few weeks ago, it still left fans puzzled. The project, it turned out, is a large-format book-and-CD package that Danger Mouse was releasing by himself, with 50 photographs by Mr. Lynch intended as accompaniment to the album’s 13 songs. But the CD is blank and recordable, and a sticker on the shrink wrap explains cryptically: “For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.”
Bloggers and journalists speculated widely about why Danger Mouse, whose real name is Brian Burton, had withdrawn the music from the book. A statement on the project’s Web site (dnots.com) blamed “an ongoing dispute with EMI.”
In response, EMI issued a statement that offered no greater clarity but hinted at a negotiation: “Danger Mouse is a brilliant, talented artist for whom we have enormous respect. We continue to make every effort to resolve this situation and we are talking to Brian directly. Meanwhile, we need to reserve our rights.”
In most cases this turn of events would signify defeat: an artist battles a record label, and his music vanishes down the memory hole. But in the peculiar way that Danger Mouse has built his career, “Dark Night of the Soul” seemed to be an oblique victory, in which failure at official business can generate notoriety and, ultimately, lead to success in other endeavors.
For fans the sticker’s winking reference to illegal downloading — “Dark Night of the Soul,” like most albums in the age of leaks, is widely if unofficially available free online — was amusingly familiar. Five years ago Danger Mouse released “The Grey Album,” a mash-up that used unauthorized Beatles and Jay-Z samples and became a bootleg Internet phenomenon. The once-obscure Danger Mouse was instantly catapulted to fame, getting high-profile gigs producing Gorillaz and others; Gnarls Barkley, his group with the singer Cee-Lo Green, scored a No. 1 hit around the world with “Crazy.”
“From ‘The Grey Album’ on, he has proven himself a master of improvisation,” said Jeff Chang, author of the hip-hop history “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.” “He’s really interesting tactically, in terms of trying to figure out how to position himself and still come out ahead.”
In a telephone interview Danger Mouse said that he and Sparklehorse (whose name is Mark Linkous) had worked on “Dark Night of the Soul” for two years, with a plan to maximize creative input from everyone involved: they gave instrumental tracks to singers they liked — among them Iggy Pop, Suzanne Vega and Julian Casablancas of the Strokes — and asked them to add vocal parts however they saw fit.
“We’d say, ‘We thought you might be great on this song,’ but didn’t tell them anything else,” Danger Mouse said. “ ‘Just listen to the music, and see if you have any ideas — some lyrics, or some vocal melodies.’ We trusted each person without having to guide them very much.”
Neither EMI nor Danger Mouse would comment on the legal matter. But according to several people with knowledge of the situation, who would not speak publicly because the contractual matters are confidential, Danger Mouse’s situation is most likely related to a long-term recording contract he signed early in his career with Lex Records, a British independent that later entered into a joint venture deal with EMI.
As part of that arrangement, EMI apparently ended up with global rights to certain subsequent recordings by Danger Mouse. But not all: Gnarls Barkley is signed to Downtown Records, with distribution by Atlantic. (Further complicating things, Tom Brown, the founder of Lex, said of Danger Mouse, “Ultimately he is signed to Lex Records.” But he would not elaborate.)
Lately EMI and Danger Mouse have been engaged in contentious renegotiation talks, these people say, although no new agreement has been reached, and Danger Mouse has pulled the music from “Dark Night of the Soul” because he feared he would be in breach of contract with EMI if he released the music through any other outlet.
Danger Mouse said he financed “Dark Night of the Soul” himself: he paid for all recording sessions, Mr. Lynch’s two-day photo shoot and the costs of printing the book. All artists involved worked without payment, he added.
“Dark Night of the Soul,” with the blank CD, is available for $50 in a limited edition of 5,000 copies, and the music can be streamed at NPR.org. Mr. Lynch’s photographs are on view at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles through July 11.
When asked, Danger Mouse entertained the idea that “The Grey Album” and “Dark Night of the Soul” were made more intriguing by the unorthodox way they were released. But he added that neither involved any intentional strategy to orchestrate controversy.
“I definitely knew that it was illegal,” he said of “The Grey Album,” “but I never thought it would be big enough for anybody to really care.”
In an interview Mr. Lynch chuckled at the absurdity of releasing a CD with no music. He had been invited to contribute visuals to the project, he said, but was so taken by the concept that he ended up singing two songs. One, the title track, summarizes the album’s haunted theme with a noirish piano part and a scratchy vocal that sounds like a lonely late-night radio transmission.
“The same way that visuals can come out, lyrics can come out,” Mr. Lynch said. “You’d listen to the music, and then here comes the mood, and here come the lyrics, and away you go. It’s like the Surrealists’ kind of thing, where you trick yourself into coming up with something.”
For his part, Danger Mouse said he was disappointed with the legal and financial complications of “Dark Night of the Soul.” But he said he was pleased that what was always meant to be a small, arty project has been able to reach audiences unaltered, however strange the delivery method. And given the controversy around the project, which burnishes Danger Mouse’s image as a subversive, it seems likely that the book will sell out eventually and earn back his investment.
“I’m just trying to break even with this, if that is possible,” he said.
“There wasn’t anything on the creative side that had to be compromised in order for this to come out,” he added. “So on the one hand, the whole thing is kind of bittersweet, but at least on the creative side it’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
By BEN SISARIO
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/arts/music/11danger.html?_r=1
From the start, there was something mysterious about Danger Mouse’s latest project, “Dark Night of the Soul.”
Word of it first came at the South by Southwest music festival in March, on a poster that simply listed the name Danger Mouse — the record producer and member of the R&B duo Gnarls Barkley — along with the singer-songwriter Sparklehorse and, among others, the director David Lynch. A YouTube video in Mr. Lynch’s unmistakable style stirred interest but added no details.
It was classic teaser marketing. And yet when “Dark Night of the Soul” was finally unveiled a few weeks ago, it still left fans puzzled. The project, it turned out, is a large-format book-and-CD package that Danger Mouse was releasing by himself, with 50 photographs by Mr. Lynch intended as accompaniment to the album’s 13 songs. But the CD is blank and recordable, and a sticker on the shrink wrap explains cryptically: “For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.”
Bloggers and journalists speculated widely about why Danger Mouse, whose real name is Brian Burton, had withdrawn the music from the book. A statement on the project’s Web site (dnots.com) blamed “an ongoing dispute with EMI.”
In response, EMI issued a statement that offered no greater clarity but hinted at a negotiation: “Danger Mouse is a brilliant, talented artist for whom we have enormous respect. We continue to make every effort to resolve this situation and we are talking to Brian directly. Meanwhile, we need to reserve our rights.”
In most cases this turn of events would signify defeat: an artist battles a record label, and his music vanishes down the memory hole. But in the peculiar way that Danger Mouse has built his career, “Dark Night of the Soul” seemed to be an oblique victory, in which failure at official business can generate notoriety and, ultimately, lead to success in other endeavors.
For fans the sticker’s winking reference to illegal downloading — “Dark Night of the Soul,” like most albums in the age of leaks, is widely if unofficially available free online — was amusingly familiar. Five years ago Danger Mouse released “The Grey Album,” a mash-up that used unauthorized Beatles and Jay-Z samples and became a bootleg Internet phenomenon. The once-obscure Danger Mouse was instantly catapulted to fame, getting high-profile gigs producing Gorillaz and others; Gnarls Barkley, his group with the singer Cee-Lo Green, scored a No. 1 hit around the world with “Crazy.”
“From ‘The Grey Album’ on, he has proven himself a master of improvisation,” said Jeff Chang, author of the hip-hop history “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.” “He’s really interesting tactically, in terms of trying to figure out how to position himself and still come out ahead.”
In a telephone interview Danger Mouse said that he and Sparklehorse (whose name is Mark Linkous) had worked on “Dark Night of the Soul” for two years, with a plan to maximize creative input from everyone involved: they gave instrumental tracks to singers they liked — among them Iggy Pop, Suzanne Vega and Julian Casablancas of the Strokes — and asked them to add vocal parts however they saw fit.
“We’d say, ‘We thought you might be great on this song,’ but didn’t tell them anything else,” Danger Mouse said. “ ‘Just listen to the music, and see if you have any ideas — some lyrics, or some vocal melodies.’ We trusted each person without having to guide them very much.”
Neither EMI nor Danger Mouse would comment on the legal matter. But according to several people with knowledge of the situation, who would not speak publicly because the contractual matters are confidential, Danger Mouse’s situation is most likely related to a long-term recording contract he signed early in his career with Lex Records, a British independent that later entered into a joint venture deal with EMI.
As part of that arrangement, EMI apparently ended up with global rights to certain subsequent recordings by Danger Mouse. But not all: Gnarls Barkley is signed to Downtown Records, with distribution by Atlantic. (Further complicating things, Tom Brown, the founder of Lex, said of Danger Mouse, “Ultimately he is signed to Lex Records.” But he would not elaborate.)
Lately EMI and Danger Mouse have been engaged in contentious renegotiation talks, these people say, although no new agreement has been reached, and Danger Mouse has pulled the music from “Dark Night of the Soul” because he feared he would be in breach of contract with EMI if he released the music through any other outlet.
Danger Mouse said he financed “Dark Night of the Soul” himself: he paid for all recording sessions, Mr. Lynch’s two-day photo shoot and the costs of printing the book. All artists involved worked without payment, he added.
“Dark Night of the Soul,” with the blank CD, is available for $50 in a limited edition of 5,000 copies, and the music can be streamed at NPR.org. Mr. Lynch’s photographs are on view at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles through July 11.
When asked, Danger Mouse entertained the idea that “The Grey Album” and “Dark Night of the Soul” were made more intriguing by the unorthodox way they were released. But he added that neither involved any intentional strategy to orchestrate controversy.
“I definitely knew that it was illegal,” he said of “The Grey Album,” “but I never thought it would be big enough for anybody to really care.”
In an interview Mr. Lynch chuckled at the absurdity of releasing a CD with no music. He had been invited to contribute visuals to the project, he said, but was so taken by the concept that he ended up singing two songs. One, the title track, summarizes the album’s haunted theme with a noirish piano part and a scratchy vocal that sounds like a lonely late-night radio transmission.
“The same way that visuals can come out, lyrics can come out,” Mr. Lynch said. “You’d listen to the music, and then here comes the mood, and here come the lyrics, and away you go. It’s like the Surrealists’ kind of thing, where you trick yourself into coming up with something.”
For his part, Danger Mouse said he was disappointed with the legal and financial complications of “Dark Night of the Soul.” But he said he was pleased that what was always meant to be a small, arty project has been able to reach audiences unaltered, however strange the delivery method. And given the controversy around the project, which burnishes Danger Mouse’s image as a subversive, it seems likely that the book will sell out eventually and earn back his investment.
“I’m just trying to break even with this, if that is possible,” he said.
“There wasn’t anything on the creative side that had to be compromised in order for this to come out,” he added. “So on the one hand, the whole thing is kind of bittersweet, but at least on the creative side it’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
What's It Gonna Take to Win?
Over the next four months, I’ll be sharing with you what our team of leading scientists discovers about the devastating effects that global warming is having on glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice in the Arctic. Our job is to bring the world face-to-face with the reality of global warming.
But, as we have seen in Congress with the current weak global warming bill, we need to work together to encourage our leaders to break from the powerful forces of the fossil fuels industry. That’s where you come in — to bring reality and science home, we need your help.
It’s going to take every single one of us getting involved and taking action to rescue the climate. Greenpeace will continue standing by the science and demanding that our leaders do what’s necessary to stop global warming. Stand with us today and get involved with our grassroots campaign in your community.
Get involved with our global warming campaign in your community today!
The Greenpeace Activist Network is designed for people like you who want to get involved to help stop global warming but don't live anywhere near one of our field organizers. Just let us know you're interested by filling out this form and we'll follow up with you personally.
It’s going to take all of us to make this happen — whether you’re on a ship in the Arctic or volunteering in your community. Our leaders will only listen to us when we make them listen.
But, as we have seen in Congress with the current weak global warming bill, we need to work together to encourage our leaders to break from the powerful forces of the fossil fuels industry. That’s where you come in — to bring reality and science home, we need your help.
It’s going to take every single one of us getting involved and taking action to rescue the climate. Greenpeace will continue standing by the science and demanding that our leaders do what’s necessary to stop global warming. Stand with us today and get involved with our grassroots campaign in your community.
Get involved with our global warming campaign in your community today!
The Greenpeace Activist Network is designed for people like you who want to get involved to help stop global warming but don't live anywhere near one of our field organizers. Just let us know you're interested by filling out this form and we'll follow up with you personally.
It’s going to take all of us to make this happen — whether you’re on a ship in the Arctic or volunteering in your community. Our leaders will only listen to us when we make them listen.
Cookie Recipes from GOOP!
Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is Tate’s recipe – the best, simplest chocolate chip cookie recipe – but the only difference is that I bake mine for eight minutes instead of twelve. Those extra four minutes yield Tate’s signature, crispy texture but I like them slightly chewy in the middle.
YIELD: about 40 cookies
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) lightly salted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (Nestlé really can’t be beat)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. In another large bowl, mix the butter with a wooden spoon to lighten it a bit and then mix in the sugars. Add the water, vanilla and eggs to the butter mixture. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined and then fold in the chocolate chips. Using two soup spoons, drop the cookies 2" apart onto two nonstick or greased cookie sheets. Bake for eight minutes, rotating the sheets after four minutes. Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool, and repeat the process with the rest of the batter.
Katie Lee Joel’s Dark Chocolate Chunk and Dried Cherry Cookies
The summer before last, a mutual friend brought the lovely Katie Lee Joel and her husband William over for dinner. Much to my delight, she brought a fresh batch of these cookies with her. I adore the contrast of the dark chocolate and the cherries – heaven.
P.S. We added pecans to our second batch for a pecan lover in the house and it worked very well.
YIELD: about 4 dozen cookies
2 1/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
8 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (be sure to use a high-quality chocolate with more than 60% cacao)
1 cup dried cherries (about 6 ounces), coarsely chopped
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together into a bowl.
In the bowl of an electric mixer (or in a bowl using a handmixer), beat the butter with the sugars until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla. On low speed, add the flour mixture. With a wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate, cherries and pecans (if you’re using them).
Scoop by the heaping tablespoonful onto two nonstick or greased cookie sheets. Bake until golden and chewy, about 12 minutes, rotating the sheets after six minutes. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool and repeat the process with the remaining dough.
For more information about Katie Lee Joel, check out her website http://www.katieleejoel.com.
Evi’s Vanillekipferl
In London I live around the corner from a woman called Evi. Evi is an avid cook of Viennese food, a Stevie Wonder fanatic and a Holocaust survivor. She once made us a batch of these delicious cookies and I went through them in one day. She is sharing her very old, very secret recipe with us, and it is an honor!
Evi says:
“On the 12th of September in 1683, after years of occupation, the Turkish Army was defeated by the Austrians and retreated from Vienna and Austria. To celebrate this event, the Austrians created the ‘Vanillekipferl,’ shaped in the form of the Turkish flag. The rest is history and here’s my secret recipe. There are quite a few recipes for Vanillekipferl on the web but this is THE REAL McCOY!! If you eat more than twelve kipferl in one go, avoid checking your weight for twenty-four hours....”
YIELD: about 10 dozen very small cookies
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour*
pinch of salt
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
*If you can’t find self-rising flour, simply measure out one cup unbleached, all-purpose flour and remove two teaspoonsful. Add a half teaspoon salt and one-and-a-half teaspoons baking powder.
Mix the superfine sugar, almonds, butter, flour and salt together in a bowl with a wooden spoon or your hands. Let the dough chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
Roll the dough into half-inch thick ropes and cut into quarter-inch thick slices. Shape each slice into a small crescent and place on ungreased cookie sheets. You can space them quite close together as they don’t expand that much. Let the cookies rest for half an hour.
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350ºF. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes (until they’re barely browned), rotating the trays after six minutes. Move the cookies to a wire rack and let cool for ten minutes before sifting the confectioners’ sugar over them. Allow the cookies to cool completely before eating (if you can).
Chef Kate's Blondies
This recipe has to be the least healthy ever to be included in GOOP. Butter and sugar GALORE, but you know, you only live once. I didn’t even really know how good a blondie could be until I tried this one. These yield tons of squares so they are ideal for a bake sale. The ingredients are pretty decadent, so out of curiosity we did a calorie count: 160 calories a piece, if you cut them into 60 squares. Not too shabby.
YIELD: 60 squares
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated cane sugar
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Using an electric mixer (counter-top or hand-held), cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three parts, combining well after each addition. Using a wooden spoon, fold in the coconut, peanut butter chips and marshmallows (it’s an arm workout).
Using a rubber spatula, spread the batter evenly in a nonstick or parchment-lined standard cookie sheet (12" x 18") with a 1" rim. Bake for 15 minutes, cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil and bake for an additional 12 minutes. Let cool completely and then cut into 60 squares; they will be soft and chewy on the inside.
For more information about Chef Kate, check out her website: www.chefkatealiveandcooking.com.
Interested in GOOP? Check it out at goop.com!
This is Tate’s recipe – the best, simplest chocolate chip cookie recipe – but the only difference is that I bake mine for eight minutes instead of twelve. Those extra four minutes yield Tate’s signature, crispy texture but I like them slightly chewy in the middle.
YIELD: about 40 cookies
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) lightly salted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (Nestlé really can’t be beat)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. In another large bowl, mix the butter with a wooden spoon to lighten it a bit and then mix in the sugars. Add the water, vanilla and eggs to the butter mixture. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined and then fold in the chocolate chips. Using two soup spoons, drop the cookies 2" apart onto two nonstick or greased cookie sheets. Bake for eight minutes, rotating the sheets after four minutes. Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool, and repeat the process with the rest of the batter.
Katie Lee Joel’s Dark Chocolate Chunk and Dried Cherry Cookies
The summer before last, a mutual friend brought the lovely Katie Lee Joel and her husband William over for dinner. Much to my delight, she brought a fresh batch of these cookies with her. I adore the contrast of the dark chocolate and the cherries – heaven.
P.S. We added pecans to our second batch for a pecan lover in the house and it worked very well.
YIELD: about 4 dozen cookies
2 1/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
8 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (be sure to use a high-quality chocolate with more than 60% cacao)
1 cup dried cherries (about 6 ounces), coarsely chopped
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together into a bowl.
In the bowl of an electric mixer (or in a bowl using a handmixer), beat the butter with the sugars until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla. On low speed, add the flour mixture. With a wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate, cherries and pecans (if you’re using them).
Scoop by the heaping tablespoonful onto two nonstick or greased cookie sheets. Bake until golden and chewy, about 12 minutes, rotating the sheets after six minutes. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool and repeat the process with the remaining dough.
For more information about Katie Lee Joel, check out her website http://www.katieleejoel.com.
Evi’s Vanillekipferl
In London I live around the corner from a woman called Evi. Evi is an avid cook of Viennese food, a Stevie Wonder fanatic and a Holocaust survivor. She once made us a batch of these delicious cookies and I went through them in one day. She is sharing her very old, very secret recipe with us, and it is an honor!
Evi says:
“On the 12th of September in 1683, after years of occupation, the Turkish Army was defeated by the Austrians and retreated from Vienna and Austria. To celebrate this event, the Austrians created the ‘Vanillekipferl,’ shaped in the form of the Turkish flag. The rest is history and here’s my secret recipe. There are quite a few recipes for Vanillekipferl on the web but this is THE REAL McCOY!! If you eat more than twelve kipferl in one go, avoid checking your weight for twenty-four hours....”
YIELD: about 10 dozen very small cookies
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour*
pinch of salt
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
*If you can’t find self-rising flour, simply measure out one cup unbleached, all-purpose flour and remove two teaspoonsful. Add a half teaspoon salt and one-and-a-half teaspoons baking powder.
Mix the superfine sugar, almonds, butter, flour and salt together in a bowl with a wooden spoon or your hands. Let the dough chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
Roll the dough into half-inch thick ropes and cut into quarter-inch thick slices. Shape each slice into a small crescent and place on ungreased cookie sheets. You can space them quite close together as they don’t expand that much. Let the cookies rest for half an hour.
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350ºF. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes (until they’re barely browned), rotating the trays after six minutes. Move the cookies to a wire rack and let cool for ten minutes before sifting the confectioners’ sugar over them. Allow the cookies to cool completely before eating (if you can).
Chef Kate's Blondies
This recipe has to be the least healthy ever to be included in GOOP. Butter and sugar GALORE, but you know, you only live once. I didn’t even really know how good a blondie could be until I tried this one. These yield tons of squares so they are ideal for a bake sale. The ingredients are pretty decadent, so out of curiosity we did a calorie count: 160 calories a piece, if you cut them into 60 squares. Not too shabby.
YIELD: 60 squares
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated cane sugar
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Using an electric mixer (counter-top or hand-held), cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three parts, combining well after each addition. Using a wooden spoon, fold in the coconut, peanut butter chips and marshmallows (it’s an arm workout).
Using a rubber spatula, spread the batter evenly in a nonstick or parchment-lined standard cookie sheet (12" x 18") with a 1" rim. Bake for 15 minutes, cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil and bake for an additional 12 minutes. Let cool completely and then cut into 60 squares; they will be soft and chewy on the inside.
For more information about Chef Kate, check out her website: www.chefkatealiveandcooking.com.
Interested in GOOP? Check it out at goop.com!
Friday, June 05, 2009
Joblessness Hits 9.4%, but Slowing Losses Raise Hopes
You know that old saying that you don't know how bad something is until it hits home, well, it has finally hit home for me... In the past I could find seasonal summer work between semesters no problem. I'd show up in STL and submit a handful of applications and in a few days I'd have a job - Easy Peasy. Not so anymore. Since the beginning of May I have submitted more than 80 applications for preferrably full-time, but will accept part time, work. Most don't even bother to respond, and the maybe 10 that have mostly said sorry we can't afford seasonal work this year. Full-time regular employees are supporting the summer rush without the extra help of years past, because companies simply cannot afford to hire the seasonal help they once did. Today is the first day since I came back to Missouri on the 23rd of May that I have not spent hours looking for leads. Why you may ask? Because I've exhausted every lead. I've applied for retail, warehouse, gas station, non-profit, hotel, parks, etc. and either the few jobs they did have were filled by people they rehire every year or they just aren't hiring, so where does that leave little ol' me? Frantically worrying about how I will make my car payment and find the money to return to school and live the 11 days I am expected to be there before loan money comes in. How will I find an apartment before they are all snatched up by other students if I don't have money for a holding fee? Times are hard, and finally months into the economic crisis they have hit home.
June 6, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/business/economy/06jobs.html?_r=1&hpBy PETER S. GOODMAN and JACK HEALY
The American economy shed another 345,000 jobs in May as the unemployment rate spiked to 9.4 percent, but the losses were far smaller than economists expected, amplifying hopes of recovery.
“It supports the idea that before the end of the year and maybe even by late summer we could be at flat employment,” meaning no more net job losses, said Alan D. Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price in Baltimore. “During the course of next year, we’ll probably start to feel better.”
Wall Street saw some fresh signs of potential revival in the better-than-expected report from the Labor Department on Friday, and stocks moved moderately higher after some hesitation.
But many analysts emphasized that the marked slowdown in the pace of job market deterioration — while positive — did not alter the reality that the economy remained very weak, with grave challenges still bearing down on millions of households and businesses.
“These are still terrible numbers,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics. “We’re a million miles away from a recovery.”
Rather than a sign of renewed vigor, the latest monthly snapshot of the job market suggests the end of the acute panic suffered last fall, when the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and credit froze throughout much of the economy.
“That wild disgorging of inventories and workers that we saw in the aftermath of Lehman, what you’re seeing is the reversal of that dynamic,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG. “You had companies throughout the world that suddenly had serious concerns about access to capital and they slashed spending and cut workers well beyond any connection to demand. There’s now a better tone to the data.”
But conspicuously absent, Mr. Barbera said, was any sign of a fresh engine for economic growth. Although home prices appear to have hit bottom in some areas of the country, construction remains weak. The auto industry and retailing remain mired in distress. The job market is likely to remain in the doldrums for many months, he said.
For more than a decade, economic growth and attendant American job opportunities were fueled by swelling wealth and liberal access to credit. As home prices soared, homeowners availed themselves of myriad forms of credit that turned increased real estate values into cash. They sprinkled this money on an array of industries, generating jobs from auto factories and lumber mills to construction companies and restaurants.
Now, as paychecks disappear, consumers are increasingly inclined to save — a source of broad grief in a country in which consumer spending makes up roughly 70 percent of economic activity.
“It’s welcome news that payrolls are declining more in line with other recessions, but we need consumption,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “People are not going to be moving forward based on housing wealth, and they’re not going to be taking on debt. They’ve got to get wage growth.”
Indeed, wage growth has been stagnating even as gasoline and medical costs rise, putting pressure on household finances. Wages were 3.1 percent higher in May than a year ago, but that growth slowed drastically this year. In April and May, average hourly wages grew just 0.1 percent, to a seasonally adjusted $18.54, from $18.52, according to the Labor Department. Wages for manufacturing workers fell 0.1 percent.
The jobs report presented a statistical puzzle. On the one hand, the net decline in jobs was much smaller than expected and the lowest figure since September. The economy lost an average of more than 700,000 jobs a month during the first three months of the year. The pace of losses eased to a revised 504,000 in April and then fell more in May, a welcome sign of improvement.
At the same time, the unemployment rate leapt to its highest rate in more than a quarter-century, reinforcing fears that joblessness will probably reach double digits.
This disconnect is a reflection of the way in which the government collects jobs data. The number of jobs comes from a survey of employers, while the unemployment data is derived from a survey of households. In April and May, the number of people who told surveyors they were actively looking for work increased by more than one million. These people would have previously been excluded from the unemployment calculation as not being part of the labor force. Now, they are back in the hunt — an apparent sign of improvement — yet struggling to secure positions in a still awful market.
The jobs report underscored the lean offerings, with May bringing another brutal stretch of layoffs, furloughs and pink slips. Manufacturers cut 156,000 jobs, including big losses for workers who make machinery, cars and car parts and computers.
That picture will almost surely worsen: this week, General Motors, now in bankruptcy, announced it was closing or idling 14 plants across the country, including several in Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate. The closings will affect as many as 20,000 workers.
Construction jobs fell by 59,000, though that was a marked improvement from just a month ago, when 108,000 construction workers lost their jobs.
Health care remained a rare bright spot, adding 23,500 jobs. Professional and business services shed 51,000 jobs, though that represented a slower pace of loss than in recent months.
Over all, the economy has now shed six million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, and some economists expect an additional two million job losses. Even after the economy resumes growth, perhaps later this year, businesses are likely to be conservative in their expansion, credit will probably remain tighter than in years past, and consumers will be more inclined to save.
Instead of hiring full-time workers, many employers will probably rely on temporary hires or simply add hours for their existing employees.
“There’s no question that the jobless rate is going to continue to rise,” said Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group. “It’s a dismal job market. It’s going to remain awful easily for the balance of this year. Even when the economy begins to recover, we might be witnessing the mother of all jobless recoveries.”
That would keep the pressure on the seven million Americans who have been out of work for 15 weeks or longer — the largest number ever.
Dante Whitfield is among those ranks. Since losing his job as a legal courier in February, Mr. Whitfield, 35, said he had been riding the bus around San Jose, Calif., in a futile quest for work, subsisting on unemployment checks and the value menu at McDonald’s.
“There’s days I come home in tears,” he said. “You just feel lost. You don’t know what to do.”
June 6, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/business/economy/06jobs.html?_r=1&hpBy PETER S. GOODMAN and JACK HEALY
The American economy shed another 345,000 jobs in May as the unemployment rate spiked to 9.4 percent, but the losses were far smaller than economists expected, amplifying hopes of recovery.
“It supports the idea that before the end of the year and maybe even by late summer we could be at flat employment,” meaning no more net job losses, said Alan D. Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price in Baltimore. “During the course of next year, we’ll probably start to feel better.”
Wall Street saw some fresh signs of potential revival in the better-than-expected report from the Labor Department on Friday, and stocks moved moderately higher after some hesitation.
But many analysts emphasized that the marked slowdown in the pace of job market deterioration — while positive — did not alter the reality that the economy remained very weak, with grave challenges still bearing down on millions of households and businesses.
“These are still terrible numbers,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics. “We’re a million miles away from a recovery.”
Rather than a sign of renewed vigor, the latest monthly snapshot of the job market suggests the end of the acute panic suffered last fall, when the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and credit froze throughout much of the economy.
“That wild disgorging of inventories and workers that we saw in the aftermath of Lehman, what you’re seeing is the reversal of that dynamic,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG. “You had companies throughout the world that suddenly had serious concerns about access to capital and they slashed spending and cut workers well beyond any connection to demand. There’s now a better tone to the data.”
But conspicuously absent, Mr. Barbera said, was any sign of a fresh engine for economic growth. Although home prices appear to have hit bottom in some areas of the country, construction remains weak. The auto industry and retailing remain mired in distress. The job market is likely to remain in the doldrums for many months, he said.
For more than a decade, economic growth and attendant American job opportunities were fueled by swelling wealth and liberal access to credit. As home prices soared, homeowners availed themselves of myriad forms of credit that turned increased real estate values into cash. They sprinkled this money on an array of industries, generating jobs from auto factories and lumber mills to construction companies and restaurants.
Now, as paychecks disappear, consumers are increasingly inclined to save — a source of broad grief in a country in which consumer spending makes up roughly 70 percent of economic activity.
“It’s welcome news that payrolls are declining more in line with other recessions, but we need consumption,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “People are not going to be moving forward based on housing wealth, and they’re not going to be taking on debt. They’ve got to get wage growth.”
Indeed, wage growth has been stagnating even as gasoline and medical costs rise, putting pressure on household finances. Wages were 3.1 percent higher in May than a year ago, but that growth slowed drastically this year. In April and May, average hourly wages grew just 0.1 percent, to a seasonally adjusted $18.54, from $18.52, according to the Labor Department. Wages for manufacturing workers fell 0.1 percent.
The jobs report presented a statistical puzzle. On the one hand, the net decline in jobs was much smaller than expected and the lowest figure since September. The economy lost an average of more than 700,000 jobs a month during the first three months of the year. The pace of losses eased to a revised 504,000 in April and then fell more in May, a welcome sign of improvement.
At the same time, the unemployment rate leapt to its highest rate in more than a quarter-century, reinforcing fears that joblessness will probably reach double digits.
This disconnect is a reflection of the way in which the government collects jobs data. The number of jobs comes from a survey of employers, while the unemployment data is derived from a survey of households. In April and May, the number of people who told surveyors they were actively looking for work increased by more than one million. These people would have previously been excluded from the unemployment calculation as not being part of the labor force. Now, they are back in the hunt — an apparent sign of improvement — yet struggling to secure positions in a still awful market.
The jobs report underscored the lean offerings, with May bringing another brutal stretch of layoffs, furloughs and pink slips. Manufacturers cut 156,000 jobs, including big losses for workers who make machinery, cars and car parts and computers.
That picture will almost surely worsen: this week, General Motors, now in bankruptcy, announced it was closing or idling 14 plants across the country, including several in Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate. The closings will affect as many as 20,000 workers.
Construction jobs fell by 59,000, though that was a marked improvement from just a month ago, when 108,000 construction workers lost their jobs.
Health care remained a rare bright spot, adding 23,500 jobs. Professional and business services shed 51,000 jobs, though that represented a slower pace of loss than in recent months.
Over all, the economy has now shed six million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, and some economists expect an additional two million job losses. Even after the economy resumes growth, perhaps later this year, businesses are likely to be conservative in their expansion, credit will probably remain tighter than in years past, and consumers will be more inclined to save.
Instead of hiring full-time workers, many employers will probably rely on temporary hires or simply add hours for their existing employees.
“There’s no question that the jobless rate is going to continue to rise,” said Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group. “It’s a dismal job market. It’s going to remain awful easily for the balance of this year. Even when the economy begins to recover, we might be witnessing the mother of all jobless recoveries.”
That would keep the pressure on the seven million Americans who have been out of work for 15 weeks or longer — the largest number ever.
Dante Whitfield is among those ranks. Since losing his job as a legal courier in February, Mr. Whitfield, 35, said he had been riding the bus around San Jose, Calif., in a futile quest for work, subsisting on unemployment checks and the value menu at McDonald’s.
“There’s days I come home in tears,” he said. “You just feel lost. You don’t know what to do.”
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Her Prince Has Come. Critics, Too.
May 31, 2009
By BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/fashion/31disney.html?_r=1&hp
“THE Princess and the Frog” does not open nationwide until December, but the buzz is already breathless: For the first time in Walt Disney animation history, the fairest of them all is black.
Princess Tiana, a hand-drawn throwback to classic Disney characters like Cinderella and Snow White, has a dazzling green gown, a classy upsweep hairdo and a diamond tiara. Like her predecessors, she is a strong-willed songbird (courtesy of the Tony-winning actress Anika Noni Rose) who finds her muscle-bound boyfriend against all odds.
“Finally, here is something that all little girls, especially young black girls, can embrace,” Cori Murray, an entertainment director at Essence magazine, recently told CNN.
To the dismay of Disney executives — along with the African-American bloggers and others who side with the company — the film is also attracting chatter of an uglier nature. Is “The Princess and the Frog,” set in New Orleans in the 1920s, about to vaporize stereotypes or promote them?
The film, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, two of the men behind “The Little Mermaid,” unfolds against a raucous backdrop of voodoo and jazz. Tiana, a waitress and budding chef who dreams of owning a restaurant, is persuaded to kiss a frog who is really a prince.
The spell backfires and — poof! — she is also an amphibian. Accompanied by a Cajun firefly and a folksy alligator, the couple search for a cure.
After viewing some photographs of merchandise tied to the movie, which is still unfinished, Black Voices, a Web site on AOL dedicated to African-American culture, faulted the prince’s relatively light skin color. Prince Naveen hails from the fictional land of Maldonia and is voiced by a Brazilian actor; Disney says that he is not white.
“Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince,” Angela Bronner Helm wrote March 19 on the site. “His hair and features are decidedly non-black. This has left many in the community shaking their head in befuddlement and even rage.”
Others see insensitivity in the locale.
“Disney should be ashamed,” William Blackburn, a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, told London’s Daily Telegraph. “This princess story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community.”
ALSO under scrutiny is Ray the firefly, performed by Jim Cummings (the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Yosemite Sam). Some people think Ray sounds too much like the stereotype of an uneducated Southerner in an early trailer.
Of course, armchair critics have also been complaining about the princess. Disney originally called her Maddy (short for Madeleine). Too much like Mammy and thus racist. A rumor surfaced on the Internet that an early script called for her to be a chambermaid to a white woman, a historically correct profession. Too much like slavery.
And wait: We finally get a black princess and she spends the majority of her time on screen as a frog?
“Because of Disney’s history of stereotyping,” said Michael D. Baran, a cognitive psychologist and anthropologist who teaches at Harvard and specializes in how children learn about race, “people are really excited to see how Disney will handle her language, her culture, her physical attributes.”
Mr. Baran is reserving judgment and encourages others to do the same. But he added that the issue warrants scrutiny because of Disney’s outsize impact on children.
“People think that kids don’t catch subtle messages about race and gender in movies, but it’s quite the opposite,” he said.
Donna Farmer, a Los Angeles Web designer who is African-American and has two children, applauded Disney’s efforts to add diversity.
“I don’t know how important having a black princess is to little girls — my daughter loves Ariel and I see nothing wrong with that — but I think it’s important to moms,” she said.
“Who knows if Disney will get it right,” she added. “They haven’t always in the past, but the idea that Disney is not bending over backward to be sensitive is laughable. It wants to sell a whole lot of Tiana dolls and some Tiana paper plates and make people line up to see Tiana at Disney World.”
Few people outside the company have seen footage of the movie. Among them are consultants like Oprah Winfrey, whom Disney asked for input on the racial aspects of the film and was cast as Tiana’s mother. (Movie theater owners and members of the N.A.A.C.P. have also been shown scenes, and the reactions, according to a Disney spokeswoman, were “extremely positive.”)
Rather, fueling the debate are photos of related merchandise taken from a toy industry event, a one-minute teaser trailer and Disney’s enormous cultural impact.
The company wants to vanquish once and for all the whispers of racism that linger from stumbles in the past. Yes, “Dumbo” traded in black stereotypes in 1941 with its band of uneducated, pimp-hat-wearing crows. All the animals in “The Jungle Book” from 1967 speak in proper British accents except for the jive-talking monkeys who desperately want to become “real people.”
More recently, “Aladdin” ran into trouble in 1993. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee labeled certain song lyrics defamatory (“Where they cut off your ear/If they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home”).
The company responds that criticism of such well-worn examples — particularly of films from the ’60s and earlier — applies a 21st-century morality to movies made in sharply different times. The United States barely had a Civil Rights Act in 1967, much less a black president.
Disney executives think people should stop jumping to conclusions about “The Princess and the Frog.”
A producer of the film, Peter Del Vecho, said: “We feel a great responsibility to get this right. Every artistic decision is being carefully thought out.”
Ms. Rose, familiar to movie audiences for her role in “Dreamgirls,” has also defended Disney.
“There is no reason to get up in arms,” she told reporters at a recent Los Angeles Urban League dinner. “If there was something that I thought was disrespectful to me or to my heritage, I would certainly not be a part of it.”
Ms. Winfrey declined to comment. A spokesman for the N.A.A.C.P. said the organization had no immediate comment.
Disney often gets criticized no matter how carefully it strives to put together its television shows, theme-park attractions and movies. For years, Disney has been lambasted by some parents for not having a black princess. Now, some of those same voices are taking aim at the company without seeing the finished product. (Officially, the princesses are Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel of “The Little Mermaid,” Belle of “Beauty and the Beast” and Jasmine of “Aladdin” — all white except for Jasmine, who is Arabian. The leads from “Mulan” and “Pocahontas” are sometimes sold with the Princess merchandising line.)
Mr. Del Vecho said the idea for a black princess came about organically. The producers wanted to create a fairy tale set in the United States and centered on New Orleans, with its colorful past and deep musical history.
“As we spent time in New Orleans, we realized how truly it is a melting pot, which is how the idea of strongly multicultural characters came about,” Mr. Del Vecho said.
He described Tiana as “a resourceful and talented person” and the rare fairy tale heroine “who is not saved by a prince.” Once the decision was made to make the lead black, he added, “We wanted her to bear the traits of African-American women and be truly beautiful.”
Getting “The Princess and the Frog” right is of enormous importance to Disney. The company needs hits, as evidenced by a recently announced 97 percent drop in quarterly profit. The Disney Princess merchandising line is a $4 billion annual business and the company has plans for Tiana to be everywhere. Get ready for Tiana dresses, elaborate dolls and Halloween costumes.
The movie also marks a return by Disney to traditional hand-drawn animation. A failure could be the final nail in the coffin of an art form pioneered by Walt Disney himself.
In the last 20 years, Disney has made huge strides in depicting race. In 1997, the company’s television division presented a live-action version of “Cinderella” with a black actress, the singer Brandy, playing the lead. In 1998, “Mulan” was celebrated as a rare animated feature that depicted Chinese characters with realistic-looking slanted eyes; most animated films (even those from Japan) had Westernized versions of Asian people until that time.
THE debate surrounding “The Princess and the Frog” illustrates how difficult it is to deal with race in animation, experts say. Cartoons by their nature trade in caricatures.
Mainstream producers have largely avoided characters of color for fear of offending minority groups, although black producers have been creating cartoons featuring stereotyped characters since the days of “Fat Albert.”
Disney can take some comfort in a backlash to the backlash.
“This is one of those situations where I am ashamed of the black community,” Levi Roberts said in a YouTube video. “Are we being racist ourselves by saying this movie shouldn’t have a white prince?”
Perhaps the final word — for now — should come from somebody who is African-American and a former Disney animator.
“Overly sensitive people see racial or ethnic slights in every image,” wrote Floyd Norman, whose credits span from “Sleeping Beauty” to “Mulan,” in a 2007 essay on the Web site Jim Hill Media. “And in their zeal to sanitize and pasteurize everything, they’ve taken all the fun out of cartoon making.”
By BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/fashion/31disney.html?_r=1&hp
“THE Princess and the Frog” does not open nationwide until December, but the buzz is already breathless: For the first time in Walt Disney animation history, the fairest of them all is black.
Princess Tiana, a hand-drawn throwback to classic Disney characters like Cinderella and Snow White, has a dazzling green gown, a classy upsweep hairdo and a diamond tiara. Like her predecessors, she is a strong-willed songbird (courtesy of the Tony-winning actress Anika Noni Rose) who finds her muscle-bound boyfriend against all odds.
“Finally, here is something that all little girls, especially young black girls, can embrace,” Cori Murray, an entertainment director at Essence magazine, recently told CNN.
To the dismay of Disney executives — along with the African-American bloggers and others who side with the company — the film is also attracting chatter of an uglier nature. Is “The Princess and the Frog,” set in New Orleans in the 1920s, about to vaporize stereotypes or promote them?
The film, directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, two of the men behind “The Little Mermaid,” unfolds against a raucous backdrop of voodoo and jazz. Tiana, a waitress and budding chef who dreams of owning a restaurant, is persuaded to kiss a frog who is really a prince.
The spell backfires and — poof! — she is also an amphibian. Accompanied by a Cajun firefly and a folksy alligator, the couple search for a cure.
After viewing some photographs of merchandise tied to the movie, which is still unfinished, Black Voices, a Web site on AOL dedicated to African-American culture, faulted the prince’s relatively light skin color. Prince Naveen hails from the fictional land of Maldonia and is voiced by a Brazilian actor; Disney says that he is not white.
“Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince,” Angela Bronner Helm wrote March 19 on the site. “His hair and features are decidedly non-black. This has left many in the community shaking their head in befuddlement and even rage.”
Others see insensitivity in the locale.
“Disney should be ashamed,” William Blackburn, a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, told London’s Daily Telegraph. “This princess story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community.”
ALSO under scrutiny is Ray the firefly, performed by Jim Cummings (the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Yosemite Sam). Some people think Ray sounds too much like the stereotype of an uneducated Southerner in an early trailer.
Of course, armchair critics have also been complaining about the princess. Disney originally called her Maddy (short for Madeleine). Too much like Mammy and thus racist. A rumor surfaced on the Internet that an early script called for her to be a chambermaid to a white woman, a historically correct profession. Too much like slavery.
And wait: We finally get a black princess and she spends the majority of her time on screen as a frog?
“Because of Disney’s history of stereotyping,” said Michael D. Baran, a cognitive psychologist and anthropologist who teaches at Harvard and specializes in how children learn about race, “people are really excited to see how Disney will handle her language, her culture, her physical attributes.”
Mr. Baran is reserving judgment and encourages others to do the same. But he added that the issue warrants scrutiny because of Disney’s outsize impact on children.
“People think that kids don’t catch subtle messages about race and gender in movies, but it’s quite the opposite,” he said.
Donna Farmer, a Los Angeles Web designer who is African-American and has two children, applauded Disney’s efforts to add diversity.
“I don’t know how important having a black princess is to little girls — my daughter loves Ariel and I see nothing wrong with that — but I think it’s important to moms,” she said.
“Who knows if Disney will get it right,” she added. “They haven’t always in the past, but the idea that Disney is not bending over backward to be sensitive is laughable. It wants to sell a whole lot of Tiana dolls and some Tiana paper plates and make people line up to see Tiana at Disney World.”
Few people outside the company have seen footage of the movie. Among them are consultants like Oprah Winfrey, whom Disney asked for input on the racial aspects of the film and was cast as Tiana’s mother. (Movie theater owners and members of the N.A.A.C.P. have also been shown scenes, and the reactions, according to a Disney spokeswoman, were “extremely positive.”)
Rather, fueling the debate are photos of related merchandise taken from a toy industry event, a one-minute teaser trailer and Disney’s enormous cultural impact.
The company wants to vanquish once and for all the whispers of racism that linger from stumbles in the past. Yes, “Dumbo” traded in black stereotypes in 1941 with its band of uneducated, pimp-hat-wearing crows. All the animals in “The Jungle Book” from 1967 speak in proper British accents except for the jive-talking monkeys who desperately want to become “real people.”
More recently, “Aladdin” ran into trouble in 1993. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee labeled certain song lyrics defamatory (“Where they cut off your ear/If they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home”).
The company responds that criticism of such well-worn examples — particularly of films from the ’60s and earlier — applies a 21st-century morality to movies made in sharply different times. The United States barely had a Civil Rights Act in 1967, much less a black president.
Disney executives think people should stop jumping to conclusions about “The Princess and the Frog.”
A producer of the film, Peter Del Vecho, said: “We feel a great responsibility to get this right. Every artistic decision is being carefully thought out.”
Ms. Rose, familiar to movie audiences for her role in “Dreamgirls,” has also defended Disney.
“There is no reason to get up in arms,” she told reporters at a recent Los Angeles Urban League dinner. “If there was something that I thought was disrespectful to me or to my heritage, I would certainly not be a part of it.”
Ms. Winfrey declined to comment. A spokesman for the N.A.A.C.P. said the organization had no immediate comment.
Disney often gets criticized no matter how carefully it strives to put together its television shows, theme-park attractions and movies. For years, Disney has been lambasted by some parents for not having a black princess. Now, some of those same voices are taking aim at the company without seeing the finished product. (Officially, the princesses are Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel of “The Little Mermaid,” Belle of “Beauty and the Beast” and Jasmine of “Aladdin” — all white except for Jasmine, who is Arabian. The leads from “Mulan” and “Pocahontas” are sometimes sold with the Princess merchandising line.)
Mr. Del Vecho said the idea for a black princess came about organically. The producers wanted to create a fairy tale set in the United States and centered on New Orleans, with its colorful past and deep musical history.
“As we spent time in New Orleans, we realized how truly it is a melting pot, which is how the idea of strongly multicultural characters came about,” Mr. Del Vecho said.
He described Tiana as “a resourceful and talented person” and the rare fairy tale heroine “who is not saved by a prince.” Once the decision was made to make the lead black, he added, “We wanted her to bear the traits of African-American women and be truly beautiful.”
Getting “The Princess and the Frog” right is of enormous importance to Disney. The company needs hits, as evidenced by a recently announced 97 percent drop in quarterly profit. The Disney Princess merchandising line is a $4 billion annual business and the company has plans for Tiana to be everywhere. Get ready for Tiana dresses, elaborate dolls and Halloween costumes.
The movie also marks a return by Disney to traditional hand-drawn animation. A failure could be the final nail in the coffin of an art form pioneered by Walt Disney himself.
In the last 20 years, Disney has made huge strides in depicting race. In 1997, the company’s television division presented a live-action version of “Cinderella” with a black actress, the singer Brandy, playing the lead. In 1998, “Mulan” was celebrated as a rare animated feature that depicted Chinese characters with realistic-looking slanted eyes; most animated films (even those from Japan) had Westernized versions of Asian people until that time.
THE debate surrounding “The Princess and the Frog” illustrates how difficult it is to deal with race in animation, experts say. Cartoons by their nature trade in caricatures.
Mainstream producers have largely avoided characters of color for fear of offending minority groups, although black producers have been creating cartoons featuring stereotyped characters since the days of “Fat Albert.”
Disney can take some comfort in a backlash to the backlash.
“This is one of those situations where I am ashamed of the black community,” Levi Roberts said in a YouTube video. “Are we being racist ourselves by saying this movie shouldn’t have a white prince?”
Perhaps the final word — for now — should come from somebody who is African-American and a former Disney animator.
“Overly sensitive people see racial or ethnic slights in every image,” wrote Floyd Norman, whose credits span from “Sleeping Beauty” to “Mulan,” in a 2007 essay on the Web site Jim Hill Media. “And in their zeal to sanitize and pasteurize everything, they’ve taken all the fun out of cartoon making.”
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Your Money: A Consumer’s Guide to the New Credit Card Rules
May 20, 2009
By RON LIEBER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/your-money/20money.html?hp
(If you visit the NYT they have a video guide as well)
At first glance, the sweeping credit card legislation that passed the Senate on Tuesday looks like a huge victory for consumers. The bill (and similar legislation that has already passed the House) contains relief from penalty fees and instant interest rate spikes. It even limits expiration dates on gift cards.
And certain cardholders who carry a balance may ultimately pay less under the new rules. But for people who pay their bills off each month, and milk the card rewards programs for everything they are worth, there is some cause for concern.
For months now, the card companies have been threatening to cut rewards programs sharply, even for people who never get into trouble with debt and late payments, to make up for revenue lost to the new restrictions.
My guess, however, is that this talk is just so much saber-rattling. Card companies want to make money, and big-spending customers help them do it, even if they do not go into debt.
First, let’s lay out the things we know will change because of the new legislation (you can skip to the end, if you’d like, to read more about what might happen with rewards). The bills are filled with new rules, which will take effect at various points in the year after President Obama signs the final bill.
¶First, and perhaps most important, there are new restrictions on when credit card companies can increase the interest rate on balances that you’ve already run up. The Senate bill says that banks must wait until you’re 60 days late in making the minimum payment before they can apply a penalty interest rate to your existing debt; the House bill mandates a 30-day wait.
It’s not yet clear how legislators will reconcile the variations. The House may end up voting on whether to simply accept the Senate’s stricter bill, or there may be a horse-trading conference of sorts to work out compromises.
¶The Senate bill requires card companies to, in effect, lower interest rates for cardholders who have exhibited good behavior and paid on time for six consecutive months. Some cards, like Citi’s new Forward card, already offer a similar feature. The House bill has no such provision.
¶Both bills require card companies to give 45 days’ notice before raising the interest rate. The Senate bill, for good measure, requires such notice for any significant change to the card. That may mean that card companies can no longer spring huge alterations in reward programs, effective immediately, on customers who are just short of a reward that they’ve saved for for years.
¶Banks must send your bill out no later than 21 days before the due date. They cannot send it with, say, 14 days to go, hoping that you won’t get a check back in time to avoid a late fee.
¶If the card company gets your payment by 5 p.m. on the due date, it’s on time, according to the new rules. No more of this early-morning deadline nonsense that some card companies were engaged in, aimed at hitting you with a late fee if your payment arrived with the afternoon mail. Also, no more late fees if the due date is a Sunday or holiday and your payment doesn’t arrive until a day later.
¶Let’s say you’re paying many different interest rates on the debt on a single card, one for a cash advance, another for a balance transfer and a third for a new purchase. Now, when you make a payment over the minimum balance, banks will have to apply it to the highest-interest debt first. I bet you can guess how many banks used to handle this sort of situation.
¶At long last, banks must now ask you to opt in before granting you the “privilege” of spending more than your credit limit and paying a fat $39 fee for the privilege. If you want to pay that fee, you’ll have to ask them first.
¶If you’re a student, it will get harder to get a credit card. In the House version of the bill, no one under 18 can apply for a card unless a parent or legal guardian is along for the ride as a primary cardholder.
The Senate, hopping onto the helicopter parenting movement, wants the minimum age to be 21. The senators note that a spouse can co-sign as well, and students with independent income sources can submit proof and ask for an exception. It is not clear how this will work. Will students working as summer camp counselors need to send in a credit card permission slip from their camp director?
And both houses require written permission from a parent, guardian or spousal co-signer for any increase in a card’s credit line.
¶The House throws in what ought to be called “The Fine Print Rule.” Card companies must print their account applications and disclosures in 12-point type or greater. A supervisory board will also probably declare certain hard-on-the-eyes fonts off limits. The Senate is silent on typeface but imposes many other communication requirements. Read all about it through links to the House bill, the Senate bill (and government summaries of the House and Senate bills from the version of this story at nytimes.com/yourmoney.
¶Hate gift cards? Me, too. The House steers clear of them, but if the Senate has its way, there will be some helpful new rules regarding those absurd dormancy fees, which punish people who let the cards sit around before using them (even though the issuers are, meanwhile, enjoying free use of the money stored in the card).
Under the Senate’s rule, retailers and others that issue Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover gift cards or certificates will have to print explicit dormancy fee information on the card. Sellers of the cards will also have to inform the buyer of the fee. That’s a smart twist, since the gift giver can then become aware of the noxious nature of the fee — and elect to give cash or some other gift.
Also, the Senate bans expiration dates on gift cards and certificates any sooner than five years after the card’s original issue date. And the retailer or card issuer will have to print the terms of any expiration date in capital letters in at least 10-point type.
It’s not clear whether this language must be on the card or in a disclosure brochure or packaging that comes with it. But it will be fascinating to see which retailer or card issuer has the chutzpah, after having free use of your money for five years, to tell its customers that it will then take the card back if you don’t use it. So will card companies kill reward programs altogether, or scale them back drastically? Of course not. In fact, Chase is going ahead with the introduction of a major new rewards program this week, knowing full well that it is about to get beaten up by Congress.
“If you strip away the reward component of a credit card, it’s essentially a commodity,” said Rick Ferguson, editorial director at the loyalty marketing company LoyaltyOne. “The reward is what gives it its personality. It works from a branding perspective as well as a mechanism to influence customer behavior and consolidate spending on a particular card.”
That last part is crucial. Sure, people who carry a lot of card debt without defaulting are profitable. But so are people who spend a ton, generating fees galore from merchants back to the card company, as are those customers who may have multiple cards or a checking account and a mortgage at the card-issuing bank, too.
So you may soon see card companies giving more goodies or waiving all annual fees to people who hit certain spending thresholds each year. American Express already does this on a number of cards.
Also, keep in mind that you may have more control over what the card companies do to you than you may think. Banks are going to be testing a bunch of new fees, rewards and other ways to generate revenue or increase loyalty in the new environment.
If you don’t like what they’re doing, make some noise. Send a note to me at rlieber@nytimes.com, so I can write about the latest foolishness — or consumer-friendly twist. Or perhaps you can opt out of the test. Can’t do that? Well, your complaint may still become part of a torrent of data points that will persuade the banks to head in another direction.
“Work your way up the chain,” said Dennis C. Moroney, research direct for bank cards at TowerGroup, a MasterCard-owned financial services consultant. “Banks have to figure out how to position this, but they don’t want to lose your account because of the high cost of replacing you as a customer.”
By RON LIEBER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/your-money/20money.html?hp
(If you visit the NYT they have a video guide as well)
At first glance, the sweeping credit card legislation that passed the Senate on Tuesday looks like a huge victory for consumers. The bill (and similar legislation that has already passed the House) contains relief from penalty fees and instant interest rate spikes. It even limits expiration dates on gift cards.
And certain cardholders who carry a balance may ultimately pay less under the new rules. But for people who pay their bills off each month, and milk the card rewards programs for everything they are worth, there is some cause for concern.
For months now, the card companies have been threatening to cut rewards programs sharply, even for people who never get into trouble with debt and late payments, to make up for revenue lost to the new restrictions.
My guess, however, is that this talk is just so much saber-rattling. Card companies want to make money, and big-spending customers help them do it, even if they do not go into debt.
First, let’s lay out the things we know will change because of the new legislation (you can skip to the end, if you’d like, to read more about what might happen with rewards). The bills are filled with new rules, which will take effect at various points in the year after President Obama signs the final bill.
¶First, and perhaps most important, there are new restrictions on when credit card companies can increase the interest rate on balances that you’ve already run up. The Senate bill says that banks must wait until you’re 60 days late in making the minimum payment before they can apply a penalty interest rate to your existing debt; the House bill mandates a 30-day wait.
It’s not yet clear how legislators will reconcile the variations. The House may end up voting on whether to simply accept the Senate’s stricter bill, or there may be a horse-trading conference of sorts to work out compromises.
¶The Senate bill requires card companies to, in effect, lower interest rates for cardholders who have exhibited good behavior and paid on time for six consecutive months. Some cards, like Citi’s new Forward card, already offer a similar feature. The House bill has no such provision.
¶Both bills require card companies to give 45 days’ notice before raising the interest rate. The Senate bill, for good measure, requires such notice for any significant change to the card. That may mean that card companies can no longer spring huge alterations in reward programs, effective immediately, on customers who are just short of a reward that they’ve saved for for years.
¶Banks must send your bill out no later than 21 days before the due date. They cannot send it with, say, 14 days to go, hoping that you won’t get a check back in time to avoid a late fee.
¶If the card company gets your payment by 5 p.m. on the due date, it’s on time, according to the new rules. No more of this early-morning deadline nonsense that some card companies were engaged in, aimed at hitting you with a late fee if your payment arrived with the afternoon mail. Also, no more late fees if the due date is a Sunday or holiday and your payment doesn’t arrive until a day later.
¶Let’s say you’re paying many different interest rates on the debt on a single card, one for a cash advance, another for a balance transfer and a third for a new purchase. Now, when you make a payment over the minimum balance, banks will have to apply it to the highest-interest debt first. I bet you can guess how many banks used to handle this sort of situation.
¶At long last, banks must now ask you to opt in before granting you the “privilege” of spending more than your credit limit and paying a fat $39 fee for the privilege. If you want to pay that fee, you’ll have to ask them first.
¶If you’re a student, it will get harder to get a credit card. In the House version of the bill, no one under 18 can apply for a card unless a parent or legal guardian is along for the ride as a primary cardholder.
The Senate, hopping onto the helicopter parenting movement, wants the minimum age to be 21. The senators note that a spouse can co-sign as well, and students with independent income sources can submit proof and ask for an exception. It is not clear how this will work. Will students working as summer camp counselors need to send in a credit card permission slip from their camp director?
And both houses require written permission from a parent, guardian or spousal co-signer for any increase in a card’s credit line.
¶The House throws in what ought to be called “The Fine Print Rule.” Card companies must print their account applications and disclosures in 12-point type or greater. A supervisory board will also probably declare certain hard-on-the-eyes fonts off limits. The Senate is silent on typeface but imposes many other communication requirements. Read all about it through links to the House bill, the Senate bill (and government summaries of the House and Senate bills from the version of this story at nytimes.com/yourmoney.
¶Hate gift cards? Me, too. The House steers clear of them, but if the Senate has its way, there will be some helpful new rules regarding those absurd dormancy fees, which punish people who let the cards sit around before using them (even though the issuers are, meanwhile, enjoying free use of the money stored in the card).
Under the Senate’s rule, retailers and others that issue Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover gift cards or certificates will have to print explicit dormancy fee information on the card. Sellers of the cards will also have to inform the buyer of the fee. That’s a smart twist, since the gift giver can then become aware of the noxious nature of the fee — and elect to give cash or some other gift.
Also, the Senate bans expiration dates on gift cards and certificates any sooner than five years after the card’s original issue date. And the retailer or card issuer will have to print the terms of any expiration date in capital letters in at least 10-point type.
It’s not clear whether this language must be on the card or in a disclosure brochure or packaging that comes with it. But it will be fascinating to see which retailer or card issuer has the chutzpah, after having free use of your money for five years, to tell its customers that it will then take the card back if you don’t use it. So will card companies kill reward programs altogether, or scale them back drastically? Of course not. In fact, Chase is going ahead with the introduction of a major new rewards program this week, knowing full well that it is about to get beaten up by Congress.
“If you strip away the reward component of a credit card, it’s essentially a commodity,” said Rick Ferguson, editorial director at the loyalty marketing company LoyaltyOne. “The reward is what gives it its personality. It works from a branding perspective as well as a mechanism to influence customer behavior and consolidate spending on a particular card.”
That last part is crucial. Sure, people who carry a lot of card debt without defaulting are profitable. But so are people who spend a ton, generating fees galore from merchants back to the card company, as are those customers who may have multiple cards or a checking account and a mortgage at the card-issuing bank, too.
So you may soon see card companies giving more goodies or waiving all annual fees to people who hit certain spending thresholds each year. American Express already does this on a number of cards.
Also, keep in mind that you may have more control over what the card companies do to you than you may think. Banks are going to be testing a bunch of new fees, rewards and other ways to generate revenue or increase loyalty in the new environment.
If you don’t like what they’re doing, make some noise. Send a note to me at rlieber@nytimes.com, so I can write about the latest foolishness — or consumer-friendly twist. Or perhaps you can opt out of the test. Can’t do that? Well, your complaint may still become part of a torrent of data points that will persuade the banks to head in another direction.
“Work your way up the chain,” said Dennis C. Moroney, research direct for bank cards at TowerGroup, a MasterCard-owned financial services consultant. “Banks have to figure out how to position this, but they don’t want to lose your account because of the high cost of replacing you as a customer.”
Early Skeleton (Darwinius masillae) Sheds Light on Primate Evolution
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 19, 2009
Filed at 4:51 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/19/science/AP-Ancient-Primate.html?_r=1&hp
NEW YORK (AP) -- The nearly complete skeleton of a small 47 million-year-old creature found in Germany was displayed Tuesday by scientists who said it would help illuminate the early evolution of monkeys, apes and humans. About the size of a small cat, the animal has four legs and a long tail. It's not a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, but it provides a good indication of what such an ancestor may have looked like, researchers said at a news conference.
Because the skeleton is so remarkably complete, scientists believe it will provide a window into primate evolution. The animal was a juvenile female that scientists believe died at about 9 or 10 months.
''She tells so many stories. We have just started the research on this fabulous specimen,'' said Jorn Hurum, of the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, one of the scientists reporting the find.
The creature is nicknamed Ida after Hurum's 6-year-old daughter.
The unveiling, at New York's Museum of Natural History, was promoted by a press release for the cable TV show History, which called it a ''revolutionary scientific find that will change everything.''
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, among the speakers at the news conference, called it an ''astonishing breakthrough.''
The story of the fossil find will be shown on History, which is owned by A&E Television Networks. A book also will be published.
Hurum saw nothing wrong with the heavy publicity which preceded the research's publication Tuesday in the scientific journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One.
''That's part of getting science out to the public, to get attention. I don't think that's so wrong,'' Hurum said.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Gemstones for the Sacral Chakra
I know I promised y'all a chakra a week, but currently my internet access is limited to work and I am in the middle of a move, SO for the time being I will TRY to spread information on a particular chakra over a week time period, but it may be stretched out a few more days.
In continuation of our look at the Sacral Chakra I am going to give an overview of stones that aid this particular chakra. My next post will emphasize yoga for this chakra.
The second chakra, also known as the sacral or spleen chakra, is located midway between your pelic bone and your navel. The second chakra is associated with sexuality and creativity. When it is blocked or unbalanced, you might feel uninspired. You might suffer from sexual dysfunction,infertility, or circulatory problems. But when it's balanced you will feel vibrant, alluring, and filled with creative ideas and inspiration.
The second chakra is orange, so you can place orange crystals there. Try carnelian, tiger's eye, moonstone, orange tourmaline, or topaz.
Orange gemstones bring on menses, purify the kidneys and urinary tract, warm arthritis, aid breathing, increase breast milk (though other stones do this as well), and stimulate the thyroid. Some of the functions of orange gemstones overlap those of red, and many of the functions of orange are also held by its complementary colors blue and indigo.
Carnelian
Coral
Red/Broan Agate
Fire Agate
Orange Zircon
Orange Citrine
Jacinth
Brown Jasper
Phantom Calcite
Poppy Jasper
Wulfenite
Salmon Jade
Orange Saphire
Orange Calcite
Orange Fluorite
Fire Opal
Moonstone
Tiger's Eye
Orange Tourmaline
In continuation of our look at the Sacral Chakra I am going to give an overview of stones that aid this particular chakra. My next post will emphasize yoga for this chakra.
The second chakra, also known as the sacral or spleen chakra, is located midway between your pelic bone and your navel. The second chakra is associated with sexuality and creativity. When it is blocked or unbalanced, you might feel uninspired. You might suffer from sexual dysfunction,infertility, or circulatory problems. But when it's balanced you will feel vibrant, alluring, and filled with creative ideas and inspiration.
The second chakra is orange, so you can place orange crystals there. Try carnelian, tiger's eye, moonstone, orange tourmaline, or topaz.
Orange gemstones bring on menses, purify the kidneys and urinary tract, warm arthritis, aid breathing, increase breast milk (though other stones do this as well), and stimulate the thyroid. Some of the functions of orange gemstones overlap those of red, and many of the functions of orange are also held by its complementary colors blue and indigo.
Carnelian
Coral
Red/Broan Agate
Fire Agate
Orange Zircon
Orange Citrine
Jacinth
Brown Jasper
Phantom Calcite
Poppy Jasper
Wulfenite
Salmon Jade
Orange Saphire
Orange Calcite
Orange Fluorite
Fire Opal
Moonstone
Tiger's Eye
Orange Tourmaline
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Action Alert: Lies that Could Defeat Health Care
Last week Republicans on Capitol Hill held a strategy summit on how to defeat key parts of the president's health care plan.
At one point, Republican pollster Frank Luntz declared, "You're not going to get what you want, but you can kill what they're trying to do."1
Luntz wrote a confidential memo that laid out the Republican strategy: Pretend to support reform. Mislead Americans about the heart of Obama's plan, the public health insurance option. Scare enough people to doom real reform.
Since most people don't know much about the public health care option, these lies could take root if we don't fight back. Can you send this out to all your friends and neighbors?
5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OBAMA'S PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION
The choice of a public health insurance plan is crucial to real health care reform. But right now, it's being smeared by conservatives and insurance-industry front groups. Here's what you really need to know:
1. Choice, choice, choice. If the public health insurance option passes, Americans will be able to choose between their current insurance and a high-quality, government-run plan similar to Medicare. If you like your current care, you can keep it. If you don't—or don't have any—you can get the public insurance plan.2
2. It will be high-quality coverage with a choice of doctors. Government-run plans have a track record of innovating to improve quality, because they're not just focused on short-term profits. And if you choose the public plan, you'll still get to choose your doctor and hospital.3
3. We'll all save a bunch of money. The public health insurance option won't have to spend money on things like CEO bonuses, shareholder dividends, or excessive advertising, so it'll cost a lot less. Plus, the private plans will have to lower their rates and provide better value to compete, so people who keep their current insurance will save, too.4
4. It will always be there for you and your family. A for-profit insurer can close, move out of the area, or just kick you off their insurance rolls. The public health insurance option will always be available to provide you with the health security you need.5
5. And it's a key part of universal health care. No longer will sick people or folks in rural communities, or low-income Americans be forced to go without coverage. The public health insurance plan will be available and accessible to everyone. And for those struggling to make ends meet, the premiums will be subsidized by the government.6
We all need to speak out to make sure we get real health reform. Please pass this email on, then call your senators and ask them to support the choice of a public health insurance plan. Here's the info for your state:
Senator Evan Bayh
Phone: 202-224-5623
Senator Richard Lugar
Phone: 202-224-4814
Then, help us track our calls by clicking here:
http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FSIN_2.FSIN_1&cp_id=907&id=16123-9461854-FX.1r8x&t=3
The public health insurance option is a big part of the change we fought so hard for last fall. We didn't let the smears beat Obama then. And we can't let new lies beat us now. Please forward this to everyone you know.
Thanks for all you do.
Sources:
1. "Words Designed to Kill Health Care Reform," Huffington Post, May 7, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51414&id=16123-9461854-FX.1r8x&t=4
2, 3, 4, 5, 6. "The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform," Institute for America's Future
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51396&id=16123-9461854-FX.1r8x&t=5
At one point, Republican pollster Frank Luntz declared, "You're not going to get what you want, but you can kill what they're trying to do."1
Luntz wrote a confidential memo that laid out the Republican strategy: Pretend to support reform. Mislead Americans about the heart of Obama's plan, the public health insurance option. Scare enough people to doom real reform.
Since most people don't know much about the public health care option, these lies could take root if we don't fight back. Can you send this out to all your friends and neighbors?
5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OBAMA'S PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE OPTION
The choice of a public health insurance plan is crucial to real health care reform. But right now, it's being smeared by conservatives and insurance-industry front groups. Here's what you really need to know:
1. Choice, choice, choice. If the public health insurance option passes, Americans will be able to choose between their current insurance and a high-quality, government-run plan similar to Medicare. If you like your current care, you can keep it. If you don't—or don't have any—you can get the public insurance plan.2
2. It will be high-quality coverage with a choice of doctors. Government-run plans have a track record of innovating to improve quality, because they're not just focused on short-term profits. And if you choose the public plan, you'll still get to choose your doctor and hospital.3
3. We'll all save a bunch of money. The public health insurance option won't have to spend money on things like CEO bonuses, shareholder dividends, or excessive advertising, so it'll cost a lot less. Plus, the private plans will have to lower their rates and provide better value to compete, so people who keep their current insurance will save, too.4
4. It will always be there for you and your family. A for-profit insurer can close, move out of the area, or just kick you off their insurance rolls. The public health insurance option will always be available to provide you with the health security you need.5
5. And it's a key part of universal health care. No longer will sick people or folks in rural communities, or low-income Americans be forced to go without coverage. The public health insurance plan will be available and accessible to everyone. And for those struggling to make ends meet, the premiums will be subsidized by the government.6
We all need to speak out to make sure we get real health reform. Please pass this email on, then call your senators and ask them to support the choice of a public health insurance plan. Here's the info for your state:
Senator Evan Bayh
Phone: 202-224-5623
Senator Richard Lugar
Phone: 202-224-4814
Then, help us track our calls by clicking here:
http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FSIN_2.FSIN_1&cp_id=907&id=16123-9461854-FX.1r8x&t=3
The public health insurance option is a big part of the change we fought so hard for last fall. We didn't let the smears beat Obama then. And we can't let new lies beat us now. Please forward this to everyone you know.
Thanks for all you do.
Sources:
1. "Words Designed to Kill Health Care Reform," Huffington Post, May 7, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51414&id=16123-9461854-FX.1r8x&t=4
2, 3, 4, 5, 6. "The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform," Institute for America's Future
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51396&id=16123-9461854-FX.1r8x&t=5
Worldchanging Interview: Wangari Maathai
Sarah Kuck and Julia Levitt
May 6, 2009 6:02 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009825.html
Sustainability in a bright green world is about much more than environmentalism. It is about preserving our natural resources, yes. But it's also about seeing those resources holistically, and understanding that a healthy environment is the foundation for human health and happiness, for international security, and for economic stability.
Few people embody this vision as passionately as Dr. Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan scholar, activist and politician who in 2004 became the first woman from Africa, and the first environmentalist, to join the ranks of Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Maathai has made a life's work of challenging tradition, questioning authority and exceeding expectations. At a time when few Kenyan women were educated, she won a scholarship to attend college in the United States, where she studied biological sciences as an undergraduate and later earned a masters degree from the University of Pittsburgh. After returning to Kenya and the University of Nairobi, she become became the first woman in her country to be awarded a Ph.D.
In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which has mobilized women across Kenya to plant trees – and has paid them to do so. The Movement has since planted more than 30 million trees, and was recently depicted in the documentary Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai. Maathai has been a fearless activist and spokesperson for issues including women's economic rights, poverty and education. She was elected to Kenya's parliament by an overwhelming majority vote in December 2002, and served as Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife from 2003 until 2007.
Earlier this year, she released her third book, The Challenge for Africa, in which she puts forth realistic but ambitious strategies for Africans to end a decades-long cycle of corruption, poverty, ignorance, environmental degradation and other deep-rooted problems. The solutions, she says, must start with the African people themselves; they must embrace and exude an image of their positive potential rather than their victimhood, and that they must demand respect and justice beginning with their own governments.
We had the honor of speaking with Dr. Maathai during her visit to Seattle in April.
Julia Levitt: In The Challenge for Africa, you argue that of all of the UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015, it's the seventh -- environmental sustainability -- that is most important. How is a healthy environment the keystone for all of these economic and social goals?
Wangari Maathai: The way I look at it, we tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty and send children to school and provide health. But how are you going to do that? In Kenya, one of our biggest exports is coffee. Where do you grow coffee? You grow coffee in the land. To be able to grow coffee you need rain, you need special kinds of soils that are found on hillsides, and that means you have to protect that land from soil erosion so you don't lose the soil. You also want to make sure that when the rains come you're going to be able to hold that water and have it go into the ground so that the streams and the rivers keep flowing and the ground is relatively humid for these plants. For the rains and the rivers you need forests and you need to make sure these your forests are all protected, that there is no logging, that there is no charcoal burning and all the activities that destroy the forest. All this really needs to be done so that you can be able to grow good coffee, so that you can have an income, so that you can send your children to school, so that you can buy medicine, so that you can take them to hospitals, so that you can care for the women, especially mothers.
We see that the environment is something to exploit, because we see the environment in terms of minerals for example, or forests, or even raw materials that we produce on our land, or even land itself. We see it in terms of what we can exploit rather than the medium in which all of these activities have to take place. But you can’t reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.
JL: In your book, you argue that it's most important for African people to develop solutions for their own needs instead of relying on aid from abroad. How do you envision a healthy exchange between Global North and Global South?
WM: I hope that it doesn't come out in the book that I’m saying that Africans don't need any help. What I am trying to say is that they need to learn to rely on themselves and to learn from other people, and when you learn something from other people, then you keep moving onward for yourself.
For example, they have land. The government of Qatar wants to lease the Tana River delta, which is in Kenya, from the Kenyan government, so that they can produce food there. People in Kenya need food. We have people who have studied agriculture. Why is it that if we really need food, we cannot go into the delta and develop our own food? Why do we have to have people come from afar to come and grow food for us, or to grow food to sell to us? It is partly because we are almost becoming used to people doing things for us. Like somebody else is going to solve that problem for us. And that to me is very disempowering system. And that system eventually can make you destroy yourself completely, because you are so dependent on others. Nobody in the world is completely dependent on another person, but we are all interdependent.
I was particularly talking with respect to aid, because that to me is one area that can make people so dependent, and unfortunately, that dependency starts with the government. It goes to local authorities and even to members of Parliament so that individual citizens almost become people who want to sit and wait for their member of Parliament to come and solve the problem. Now that won't take you anywhere. And if you follow it, you will see that it feeds corruption in the country.
JL: You write that African nations are being left behind in the global trend toward renewable energy. Do you have a vision for how African people and governments can work to bring renewable energy industries to African nations?
WM: We have been trying to follow the same development, often that we have learned from the industrialized world. Yet now the industrialized world is moving away from fossil fuels and moving towards renewable sources of energy. And because we have not invested so much into education, we don’t have the technology and sometimes we don't even have the capital to buy this technology. But obviously the world is moving away from high carbon energy to low carbon energy, and eventually moving away toward renewable energy. So it is in the interest of Africa to move towards that, because that's where the world is moving.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe she’s ready to shift -- and she needs to shift. So she needs to get the technology and she can only get that technology from the developed world. So the developed world should be willing to help her and support her and make this energy affordable. Because if Africa is left behind, she is going to continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, especially carbon. She’s going to continue logging the forests, she’s going to continue burning charcoal, she is going to continue practicing agricultural activities that destroy the environment, and sooner or later Africa's problem will become a global problem.
That is why it is in the interest of the developed world to help her, and it is one of the reasons why I say we all need to work together to save the Congo forest, because if we don’t save the Congo forest, the Amazon forest and the southeast Asia forest, if those forests release the carbon they are trapping at the moment, much of what you will be doing in the North will be negated by the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. So this issue of carbon is one area where we really need to work together and if people don’t have the technology they need, that technology needs to be made available and affordable.
Sarah Kuck: In the documentary Taking Root, you said that after you went to America for university, it was very hard to re-adjust to the level of women’s rights in Kenya. Can you talk about how things have changed for African women since the ’60s and what struggles women are still encountering?
WM: Things have changed tremendously. Most parents want to send their children to school, including girls, and usually poverty is the big blockade that makes them not do that. Human rights have also greatly improved. There are laws that allow women to own property, to buy property and to inherit equally as men. But the problem that we have seen since that time is that tradition sometimes excludes the girl child from inheriting; or single women may not want to be perceived as pursuing too much property. The law has come a long way in favor of the woman, but it is the tradition, the attitudes, that we often have to fight.
SK: What kind of things are happening that are changing peoples opinion about traditional women's rights and women's roles?
WM: I have seen a lot of men, for example, who will make a will and include their daughters whether they are married or not. And perhaps the greatest change of attitude is that today, at least in Kenya, if you don’t send your child to school -- unless it's a matter of poverty or religion, and it is not that there no schools -- then people wonder, "why the hell don’t you send your children to school?" Now that's a very big jump from when I was going to school and educating girls was an exception to the rule.
People are dynamic. They change, and soon as there are enough of you, things change [for a whole society]. Education of course is a very empowering experience, so many people who went to school also managed to improve their quality of life much faster because they could get a job, they could get money, and with money you could buy things that you cannot buy if you don’t have money. So once people see that you improve you life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.
SK: Powerful corporations and individuals would like to come into Africa and help with food and farming initiatives. Do you see these as positive, or are they hurting local farmers?
WM: At the moment, both private companies and governments have proposed to come and lease land in Africa. For example, the government of Qatar, as I mentioned, has proposed to come and lease Kenya's Tana River delta in order to farm there. What I am not sure of is, has an environmental impact assessment been made to ensure that exploiting this delta for agricultural activities is the best way we can use the delta?
We must be concerned about the long-term impact of agricultural activities in the delta. That question I feel is very important when you consider, for example, what America did in the Gulf, and a lot of that coastal exploitation, at a time where we did not know enough about how to manage these seaside land masses. Today the American government has spent a lot of money trying to reclaim, for example, the Everglades, and to allow the natural vegetation at the coastal areas to be restored because that was part of the vegetation that actually protected the hinterlands. After Hurricane Katrina, many people said that the levees were not as effective as the natural vegetation that had been removed at the coast. So that means as we develop these seaside land masses, we need to have enough knowledge to not regret in the future. We know that the US government is literally buying these lands back to allow them to be rehabilitated. Why would anyone want to repeat the same mistake in Kenya at this time? And I’m not quite sure that the government of Qatar is ignorant about that and I’m not quite sure that the Kenyan government is ignorant about that, but between the two of them, unless they are going to be questioned, they are interested in making profits now.
I’m sure the government of Qatar is not coming in to grow food for the people of Kenya; it's coming to grow food to sell. If it can also sell to the people of Kenya, well, then good. I think that the moves can be helpful, but I think that the history that Africa knows, as I say in my book, has been a history of exploitation.
There are certain areas where foreign investors can help the local people to generate wealth, and improve their quality of life. Some companies, for example, Del Monte, which produces pineapples in Kenya, pay a huge amount of taxes, I am sure, to the Kenyan government, and they do create jobs for thousands of locals. But there has to be an understanding that you can’t just go there to exploit, and governments need to be interested in protecting their people from such exploitation. An individual citizen cannot protect himself from the powers of large corporations or external governments. It is the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens.
SK: Do you feel that it is an appropriate solution for farming in Africa to start using genetically modified crops that might produce a larger quantity of food?
WM: Maybe instead of answering that question directly, because there are so many pros and cons of genetically engineered food, let me use an example.
Nile perch is a fish that was introduced into Lake Victoria. The reason that fish was introduced into Lake Victoria was because it was decided that the people living near the lake needed more proteins than they were getting. Now, the people around the lake were used to eating a very small fish that was prolific in the lake, and they would fish with very simple nets and very simple boats. Now when Nile perch was introduced, I don’t think enough research was done; maybe it was done, maybe it was not. But Nile perch is a huge fish. So it ate all the little fish, and it grew into a monster which the local people could not fish with their little boats and their little nets.
So now we have allowed people to come, not local people, with these huge boats which can catch this fish, process them, put the meat in freezers and directly export them to Europe or other parts of the world. And the bones are processed by the same boats into chicken feed, which is then sold to the multi-national corporations that produce chicken in large number. So the question I would ask then is, where were the local people helped?
I think some of these solutions are prepared in an office without a full understanding of the local situation...Or maybe there was never the intention to help the people anyway. So GMOs, who knows? Maybe GMOs will come, they will get maize that produces double. But who knows what else may happen to the maize?
As a scientist I cannot say we don’t want to hear anything about GMOs, because these are advances in science. But I think its also important, especially when you are dealing with food, to be cautious, and I think this is one area where the is a need for legal regulations to make sure that companies -- because at the moment, companies are the ones that have this technology -- will not use this technology in a way that could adversely affect the people.
SK: Are there ways that African farmers can work with international corporations for mutual benefit, or do you think that exploitation is always the end result?
WM: First of all, farmers should work with universities and research institutions in the country, and hopefully with the government. One of the reasons why I’ve written The Challenge for Africa is to save it. Surely there are so many problems we can solve in Africa, but first and foremost, we need a government that feels responsible to protect their own people from the exploitations, from the misuse, from the mistreatment that they can easily get. There is no reason why a company like Monsanto, for example, that is pushing GMOs, cannot go to Kenya, partner with the university, partner with the research institutions, and try to promote – in a responsible way — advanced techniques to help farmers. But this should be done in such a way that the farmers’ livelihoods are not undermined because the government is irresponsible or careless, or because it is compromised.
Monsanto will not come empty-handed. Monsanto will come with a big bag of money. And because these governments are poor, when they are shown money for their research institutions, for their universities, for their professors, they are very quick to say yes, and I can tell you that when Monsanto came to Kenya, they were able to be given permission to do research in one of our research institutions, and yet there was not a single law to control such research. They said laws will be created. Why would you want to start the research before laws are created? One should be creating laws so that those scientists are regulated, they are controlled, they are guided by a legal mechanism that will ensure that they remain responsible and accountable to the people for whom they are doing research. I think maybe as we speak, the rules have now been drafted. But it has been more than three years now since that research was started. Those are the kind of steps that make me a little bit nervous because it’s so easy to twist the arms of the government with money.
SK: For the African people whom you know, does the desire and the need for quality and quantity of food supply trump things like environmental safety or longevity for the soil?
WM: Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival. One of the reasons why we started the Green Belt Movement is to work with these ordinary peasant farmers so as to educate them that, despite the fact that they are poor, it is in their interest to protect the soil that they have, to protect the forest they have, to protect the land that they have, because if they don't do it, things can be only worse tomorrow for them for them and for their children.
May 6, 2009 6:02 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009825.html
Sustainability in a bright green world is about much more than environmentalism. It is about preserving our natural resources, yes. But it's also about seeing those resources holistically, and understanding that a healthy environment is the foundation for human health and happiness, for international security, and for economic stability.
Few people embody this vision as passionately as Dr. Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan scholar, activist and politician who in 2004 became the first woman from Africa, and the first environmentalist, to join the ranks of Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Maathai has made a life's work of challenging tradition, questioning authority and exceeding expectations. At a time when few Kenyan women were educated, she won a scholarship to attend college in the United States, where she studied biological sciences as an undergraduate and later earned a masters degree from the University of Pittsburgh. After returning to Kenya and the University of Nairobi, she become became the first woman in her country to be awarded a Ph.D.
In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which has mobilized women across Kenya to plant trees – and has paid them to do so. The Movement has since planted more than 30 million trees, and was recently depicted in the documentary Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai. Maathai has been a fearless activist and spokesperson for issues including women's economic rights, poverty and education. She was elected to Kenya's parliament by an overwhelming majority vote in December 2002, and served as Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife from 2003 until 2007.
Earlier this year, she released her third book, The Challenge for Africa, in which she puts forth realistic but ambitious strategies for Africans to end a decades-long cycle of corruption, poverty, ignorance, environmental degradation and other deep-rooted problems. The solutions, she says, must start with the African people themselves; they must embrace and exude an image of their positive potential rather than their victimhood, and that they must demand respect and justice beginning with their own governments.
We had the honor of speaking with Dr. Maathai during her visit to Seattle in April.
Julia Levitt: In The Challenge for Africa, you argue that of all of the UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015, it's the seventh -- environmental sustainability -- that is most important. How is a healthy environment the keystone for all of these economic and social goals?
Wangari Maathai: The way I look at it, we tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty and send children to school and provide health. But how are you going to do that? In Kenya, one of our biggest exports is coffee. Where do you grow coffee? You grow coffee in the land. To be able to grow coffee you need rain, you need special kinds of soils that are found on hillsides, and that means you have to protect that land from soil erosion so you don't lose the soil. You also want to make sure that when the rains come you're going to be able to hold that water and have it go into the ground so that the streams and the rivers keep flowing and the ground is relatively humid for these plants. For the rains and the rivers you need forests and you need to make sure these your forests are all protected, that there is no logging, that there is no charcoal burning and all the activities that destroy the forest. All this really needs to be done so that you can be able to grow good coffee, so that you can have an income, so that you can send your children to school, so that you can buy medicine, so that you can take them to hospitals, so that you can care for the women, especially mothers.
We see that the environment is something to exploit, because we see the environment in terms of minerals for example, or forests, or even raw materials that we produce on our land, or even land itself. We see it in terms of what we can exploit rather than the medium in which all of these activities have to take place. But you can’t reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment.
JL: In your book, you argue that it's most important for African people to develop solutions for their own needs instead of relying on aid from abroad. How do you envision a healthy exchange between Global North and Global South?
WM: I hope that it doesn't come out in the book that I’m saying that Africans don't need any help. What I am trying to say is that they need to learn to rely on themselves and to learn from other people, and when you learn something from other people, then you keep moving onward for yourself.
For example, they have land. The government of Qatar wants to lease the Tana River delta, which is in Kenya, from the Kenyan government, so that they can produce food there. People in Kenya need food. We have people who have studied agriculture. Why is it that if we really need food, we cannot go into the delta and develop our own food? Why do we have to have people come from afar to come and grow food for us, or to grow food to sell to us? It is partly because we are almost becoming used to people doing things for us. Like somebody else is going to solve that problem for us. And that to me is very disempowering system. And that system eventually can make you destroy yourself completely, because you are so dependent on others. Nobody in the world is completely dependent on another person, but we are all interdependent.
I was particularly talking with respect to aid, because that to me is one area that can make people so dependent, and unfortunately, that dependency starts with the government. It goes to local authorities and even to members of Parliament so that individual citizens almost become people who want to sit and wait for their member of Parliament to come and solve the problem. Now that won't take you anywhere. And if you follow it, you will see that it feeds corruption in the country.
JL: You write that African nations are being left behind in the global trend toward renewable energy. Do you have a vision for how African people and governments can work to bring renewable energy industries to African nations?
WM: We have been trying to follow the same development, often that we have learned from the industrialized world. Yet now the industrialized world is moving away from fossil fuels and moving towards renewable sources of energy. And because we have not invested so much into education, we don’t have the technology and sometimes we don't even have the capital to buy this technology. But obviously the world is moving away from high carbon energy to low carbon energy, and eventually moving away toward renewable energy. So it is in the interest of Africa to move towards that, because that's where the world is moving.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe she’s ready to shift -- and she needs to shift. So she needs to get the technology and she can only get that technology from the developed world. So the developed world should be willing to help her and support her and make this energy affordable. Because if Africa is left behind, she is going to continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, especially carbon. She’s going to continue logging the forests, she’s going to continue burning charcoal, she is going to continue practicing agricultural activities that destroy the environment, and sooner or later Africa's problem will become a global problem.
That is why it is in the interest of the developed world to help her, and it is one of the reasons why I say we all need to work together to save the Congo forest, because if we don’t save the Congo forest, the Amazon forest and the southeast Asia forest, if those forests release the carbon they are trapping at the moment, much of what you will be doing in the North will be negated by the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. So this issue of carbon is one area where we really need to work together and if people don’t have the technology they need, that technology needs to be made available and affordable.
Sarah Kuck: In the documentary Taking Root, you said that after you went to America for university, it was very hard to re-adjust to the level of women’s rights in Kenya. Can you talk about how things have changed for African women since the ’60s and what struggles women are still encountering?
WM: Things have changed tremendously. Most parents want to send their children to school, including girls, and usually poverty is the big blockade that makes them not do that. Human rights have also greatly improved. There are laws that allow women to own property, to buy property and to inherit equally as men. But the problem that we have seen since that time is that tradition sometimes excludes the girl child from inheriting; or single women may not want to be perceived as pursuing too much property. The law has come a long way in favor of the woman, but it is the tradition, the attitudes, that we often have to fight.
SK: What kind of things are happening that are changing peoples opinion about traditional women's rights and women's roles?
WM: I have seen a lot of men, for example, who will make a will and include their daughters whether they are married or not. And perhaps the greatest change of attitude is that today, at least in Kenya, if you don’t send your child to school -- unless it's a matter of poverty or religion, and it is not that there no schools -- then people wonder, "why the hell don’t you send your children to school?" Now that's a very big jump from when I was going to school and educating girls was an exception to the rule.
People are dynamic. They change, and soon as there are enough of you, things change [for a whole society]. Education of course is a very empowering experience, so many people who went to school also managed to improve their quality of life much faster because they could get a job, they could get money, and with money you could buy things that you cannot buy if you don’t have money. So once people see that you improve you life if you are educated, then education becomes a valuable tool and people want it.
SK: Powerful corporations and individuals would like to come into Africa and help with food and farming initiatives. Do you see these as positive, or are they hurting local farmers?
WM: At the moment, both private companies and governments have proposed to come and lease land in Africa. For example, the government of Qatar, as I mentioned, has proposed to come and lease Kenya's Tana River delta in order to farm there. What I am not sure of is, has an environmental impact assessment been made to ensure that exploiting this delta for agricultural activities is the best way we can use the delta?
We must be concerned about the long-term impact of agricultural activities in the delta. That question I feel is very important when you consider, for example, what America did in the Gulf, and a lot of that coastal exploitation, at a time where we did not know enough about how to manage these seaside land masses. Today the American government has spent a lot of money trying to reclaim, for example, the Everglades, and to allow the natural vegetation at the coastal areas to be restored because that was part of the vegetation that actually protected the hinterlands. After Hurricane Katrina, many people said that the levees were not as effective as the natural vegetation that had been removed at the coast. So that means as we develop these seaside land masses, we need to have enough knowledge to not regret in the future. We know that the US government is literally buying these lands back to allow them to be rehabilitated. Why would anyone want to repeat the same mistake in Kenya at this time? And I’m not quite sure that the government of Qatar is ignorant about that and I’m not quite sure that the Kenyan government is ignorant about that, but between the two of them, unless they are going to be questioned, they are interested in making profits now.
I’m sure the government of Qatar is not coming in to grow food for the people of Kenya; it's coming to grow food to sell. If it can also sell to the people of Kenya, well, then good. I think that the moves can be helpful, but I think that the history that Africa knows, as I say in my book, has been a history of exploitation.
There are certain areas where foreign investors can help the local people to generate wealth, and improve their quality of life. Some companies, for example, Del Monte, which produces pineapples in Kenya, pay a huge amount of taxes, I am sure, to the Kenyan government, and they do create jobs for thousands of locals. But there has to be an understanding that you can’t just go there to exploit, and governments need to be interested in protecting their people from such exploitation. An individual citizen cannot protect himself from the powers of large corporations or external governments. It is the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens.
SK: Do you feel that it is an appropriate solution for farming in Africa to start using genetically modified crops that might produce a larger quantity of food?
WM: Maybe instead of answering that question directly, because there are so many pros and cons of genetically engineered food, let me use an example.
Nile perch is a fish that was introduced into Lake Victoria. The reason that fish was introduced into Lake Victoria was because it was decided that the people living near the lake needed more proteins than they were getting. Now, the people around the lake were used to eating a very small fish that was prolific in the lake, and they would fish with very simple nets and very simple boats. Now when Nile perch was introduced, I don’t think enough research was done; maybe it was done, maybe it was not. But Nile perch is a huge fish. So it ate all the little fish, and it grew into a monster which the local people could not fish with their little boats and their little nets.
So now we have allowed people to come, not local people, with these huge boats which can catch this fish, process them, put the meat in freezers and directly export them to Europe or other parts of the world. And the bones are processed by the same boats into chicken feed, which is then sold to the multi-national corporations that produce chicken in large number. So the question I would ask then is, where were the local people helped?
I think some of these solutions are prepared in an office without a full understanding of the local situation...Or maybe there was never the intention to help the people anyway. So GMOs, who knows? Maybe GMOs will come, they will get maize that produces double. But who knows what else may happen to the maize?
As a scientist I cannot say we don’t want to hear anything about GMOs, because these are advances in science. But I think its also important, especially when you are dealing with food, to be cautious, and I think this is one area where the is a need for legal regulations to make sure that companies -- because at the moment, companies are the ones that have this technology -- will not use this technology in a way that could adversely affect the people.
SK: Are there ways that African farmers can work with international corporations for mutual benefit, or do you think that exploitation is always the end result?
WM: First of all, farmers should work with universities and research institutions in the country, and hopefully with the government. One of the reasons why I’ve written The Challenge for Africa is to save it. Surely there are so many problems we can solve in Africa, but first and foremost, we need a government that feels responsible to protect their own people from the exploitations, from the misuse, from the mistreatment that they can easily get. There is no reason why a company like Monsanto, for example, that is pushing GMOs, cannot go to Kenya, partner with the university, partner with the research institutions, and try to promote – in a responsible way — advanced techniques to help farmers. But this should be done in such a way that the farmers’ livelihoods are not undermined because the government is irresponsible or careless, or because it is compromised.
Monsanto will not come empty-handed. Monsanto will come with a big bag of money. And because these governments are poor, when they are shown money for their research institutions, for their universities, for their professors, they are very quick to say yes, and I can tell you that when Monsanto came to Kenya, they were able to be given permission to do research in one of our research institutions, and yet there was not a single law to control such research. They said laws will be created. Why would you want to start the research before laws are created? One should be creating laws so that those scientists are regulated, they are controlled, they are guided by a legal mechanism that will ensure that they remain responsible and accountable to the people for whom they are doing research. I think maybe as we speak, the rules have now been drafted. But it has been more than three years now since that research was started. Those are the kind of steps that make me a little bit nervous because it’s so easy to twist the arms of the government with money.
SK: For the African people whom you know, does the desire and the need for quality and quantity of food supply trump things like environmental safety or longevity for the soil?
WM: Quite often when you help poor people, they don't think about the environment. They think about survival. One of the reasons why we started the Green Belt Movement is to work with these ordinary peasant farmers so as to educate them that, despite the fact that they are poor, it is in their interest to protect the soil that they have, to protect the forest they have, to protect the land that they have, because if they don't do it, things can be only worse tomorrow for them for them and for their children.
Manatees in the Midst
Defenders Magazine
Spring 2009
Are Florida's iconic and endangered marine mammals truly on the rebound?
http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/spring_2009/manatees_in_the_midst.php
by Nick Jans
On an April morning on the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge on Florida's north-central Gulf coast, a crowd mills—more than 150 wetsuit-clad snorklers finning in limpid water. Occasionally, a swirl breaks the surface, and an excited knot converges around a gliding, gray shape: one of several hundred manatees that have wintered in this 72-degree, spring-fed protected area.
The creatures, a few weighing over a ton, flow serenely past their admirers like celebrities on Rodeo Drive; some seem to enjoy the attention, and detour to court gentle touches and scratches along their scarred, leathery flanks. They're used to the commotion. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to Crystal River and other Florida refuges each year, hoping for a little schmooze time with these endangered, iconic mammals.
A few minutes ago I was part of the throng and met a manatee, whiskered nose to mask. Now I sit aboard the dive boat, shaking my head—awed by my point-blank encounter, and bemused by the almost surreal nature of the setting. Like most areas key to manatee survival, Crystal River lies enmeshed in a web of burgeoning coastal development: upscale homes and marinas, resorts and malls, all spreading with no apparent end in sight. Local waterways are crisscrossed by thousands of watercraft; lined by docks; tainted by runoff, subject to increasing human draw-down of vital freshwater springs. Millions of people live within a two-hour drive of all of Florida's critical manatee habitat.
And yet, somehow, almost miraculously, we have these enormous wild creatures surviving in our midst—a population estimated to exceed 3,800. But our ongoing expansion into their habitat begs the question: Are manatees, an endangered species whose numbers seem to be rising, truly on the rebound?
To put it mildly, manatees have been around a skosh longer than we have. The fossil record traces back their forebears in Florida at least 45 million years. To better take advantage of rich sea-grass beds and other vegetation, large, now-extinct wading mammals evolved into fully aquatic creatures with stout, nailed front flippers and paddle-shaped tails. Though manatees and their cousins, dugongs, most resemble walrus, they are in fact most closely related to elephants.
The West Indian manatee is divided into two subspecies: the Florida and the Antillean. They can live for 60 or more years in the wild, and grow throughout their entire lives. While adults average 10 feet long and around a half ton, the current record (a captive female) tips the scales at a whopping 3,300 pounds. Manatees could teach us a thing or two about energy conservation; they typically mosey along at a sedate 3 to 5 mph, and spend the majority of their time eating and resting—preferably in warm water less than 12 feet deep. Though slow-paced and odd-looking by our standards, studies indicate manatees may be as intelligent as seals and dolphins, and possess acute hearing and vision. "They're very much individuals, with recognizable personalities," says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Joyce Kleen.
Biologically speaking, manatees are generalists, able to live in both fresh and salt water, and to graze on a variety of plants. They eat up to 10 percent of their body weight a day. Some animals are homebodies, while others make regular annual migrations over hundreds of miles. Though most common in Florida, in warmer months manatees wander to neighboring states, and occasionally much farther. One individual swam up the Mississippi; others have traveled as far up the eastern seaboard as Massachusetts. But their range is limited by their inability to survive for extended periods in water colder than 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The most recent north-wandering manatee, off Cape Cod in 2008, succumbed to cold-water stress despite a rescue attempt.
Even cautious advocates agree that Florida's manatees as a whole are faring better than they were a generation ago. Says aquatic biologist Patrick Rose, executive director of the Save The Manatee Club, based in Maitland, Florida, "Statewide, numbers are up in three of four populations. In that sense, we've made progress."
Florida's manatees are divided into four distinct stocks. Three of these—the Northwest (including Crystal River), the upper St. John's and the Atlantic—are growing or stable. The Southwest, comprising around 40 percent of Florida's entire stock, seems to be declining. Rose says that protective statutes and regulations have also improved; a 2001 settlement of two lawsuits, brought by a coalition of conservation groups (including Defenders of Wildlife) against federal and state management agencies, has established slow-speed boating zones and sanctuaries in critical habitat, and imposed restrictions on coastal development in sensitive areas.
While manatee advocates applaud these protections, they say enforcement remains inconsistent and violations are commonplace. Last year, a video widely viewed on YouTube showed a boatload of people harassing mothers with calves and even walking on animals.
Still, public concern and support seems on the rise. A 2007 University of Florida study of boaters—a group historically resistant to manatee-related regulations—indicates that roughly 75 percent agree that the mammals should be protected (though the study also found that fewer than half of those same individuals actually slowed enough in posted waterways). Manatee awareness programs—including instructional videos, boaters' guides, more speed zone signs and educational outreach—seem to be working. The manatee reigns as the state marine mammal, and November is officially designated as Manatee Awareness Month.
At Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in north-central Florida, as many as 400 elementary school students a day come for manatee education starring captive animals in a natural setting. Says wildlife care supervisor Susan Lowe as a group of excited fourth-graders watch manatees feed and interact with a keeper, "Here's where we can make a real, lasting difference."
In fact, Florida's manatees have been doing so well, according to the pro-boating and recreational fishing Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), that in 2001 they petitioned Florida agencies to downlist the manatee from "endangered" to "threatened" under controversial new state guidelines. After strong opposition from Defenders and other conservation organizations and prominent scientists, the state reclassification was postponed in 2007, pending a review of the listing criteria. Meanwhile, a federal move to down-list the manatee under the Endangered Species Act, also urged by pro-development forces and boating advocates, is currently simmering on the back burner.
Despite welcome progress, the future of the species is far from assured. A 2007 study by the U.S. Geological Survey for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission stresses that the manatee's long-term prospects hinge not on present conditions, but on those in the future. Despite improved regulation and awareness, human activity—especially boat strikes—still poses the greatest single risk to manatee survival.
A majority of adult manatees bear the scars of repeated, often gruesome maimings from hulls and propellers; some dead animals show evidence of having survived more than 50 collisions. "Manatees have especially dense, un-resilient bones, and they shatter like porcelain," says Lowe, whose facility is one of a handful statewide that helps rehabilitate injured manatees. "But these animals are capable of absorbing incredible impacts. Some manage to live with ribs or even parts of organs protruding through their skin."
Over the past decade, the recorded death toll from boat collisions alone has averaged almost 80 individuals a year. Add to that the number of manatees unable to reproduce or care for young due to injury, and the seriousness of just this single factor looms huge. Says Elizabeth Fleming, Florida representative for Defenders of Wildlife, "While the results of the recent count seem encouraging, the manatee's future is far from secure given the looming threat of loss of warm-weather habitat." She points out that the viability of the species hinges on the number of reproducing females—almost certainly, fewer than half that total. Also, the low genetic diversity of Florida's manatees suggests potential problems, including vulnerability to disease.
Humans have long impacted manatee survival rates; Native Americans hunted them, and settlers sought them for their meat and skins. Killing manatees was declared illegal in 1893, and subsequent federal and state laws established further safeguards. Still, 2006 set a record for confirmed manatee deaths from all causes: 417, more than 10 percent of the estimated population. 2005 ranked second, and while 2008's count decreased to 337, it included 90 confirmed deaths from watercraft strikes—second only to 2005. Though protections have greatly increased in recent years, so has the death toll.
The greatest long-term threat to manatees is loss of warm-water refuges for over-wintering animals. As freshwater springs are tapped for increasing human use, vital winter habitat for manatees constricts. And, as coastal power plants and other industrial warm-water discharge sources (used by hundreds of manatees) become obsolete and are decommissioned, habitat will shrink further. The loss of more essential habitat seems sure; the question is how much, and how soon.
Economic downturn or no, Florida is experiencing explosive growth, much of it from people attracted to manatee habitat. According to a 2007 state report, the state's human population increased by 65 percent between 1985 and 2007; in roughly that same period, boat registrations in Florida increased 59 percent. Currently, there are nearly a million registered watercraft in the state—roughly one for every 20 Floridians, and, more important, 300 for every manatee. That's not counting an estimated 350,000 non-Florida registered watercraft plying the state's waterways. In short, motor-driven boats—the manatee's most immediate threat—are multiplying far faster than the animals themselves.
If you're willing to wade through raw science and graphs, the results of the 2007 U.S. Geological Survey analysis are sobering. According to the study, the chances of manatee populations declining over the next century to 500 individuals on either the Gulf or Atlantic coast is potentially 50 percent if major threats (boat strikes and loss of warm-water habitat primarily) stay the same. However, if the number of watercraft deaths doubles over that time—as it well might—the odds of such a decline skyrocket to 95 percent. Under the same scenario, the chance of a plummet to a population of 250 or fewer individuals on either coast in the next 100 years is calculated at 55 percent; to a population of 150 or fewer animals, 25 percent.
The report's analysis of the projected impact of warm-water refuge loss is no more comforting. The worst-case scenario—a doubling of boat strikes plus a more-rapid-than-predicted loss of warm-water habitat—is left to conjecture. Yet, that negative double whammy is entirely possible. Adding to the potentially bleak prospect are the inevitable loss of feeding habitat; the potential of the powerful pro-development lobby to decrease manatee protections; and various other threats, notably red tides, which seem to be increasing in some areas—perhaps due to climate change and/or pollution.
In short, if we're to ensure the survival of this unique species, maintaining the status quo is not an option. Says Patrick Rose, "We need to push for consistent, continued enforcement and protection to avoid playing catch-up 20 years from now." Adds Laurie Macdonald, Florida program director for Defenders, "We have it within our grasp to promote healthy populations of manatees now and in the future. We just need to make sure we're doing all we can to address their essential needs."
One fact is certain: the fate of this gentle, iconic creature, totally willing and able to abide in our midst, lies squarely in our hands.
Learn more about the Florida manatee's background and recovery.
Defending Manatees
The manatee has been a conservation priority of Defenders' Florida staff for two decades. Among other accomplishments, our staff worked with federal and state officials to help establish 17 federal refuge and sanctuary areas and many additional state speed zones and safe havens for these iconic marine mammals.
Defenders was also instrumental in preventing the downlisting of the manatee by the state, and in convincing Florida officials to revisit their flawed imperiled species listing rule. Our work will help ensure that the manatee receives the state protections it needs.
Conserving important manatee habitat is central to Defenders' current work. Defenders and our allies are pressing federal officials to revise the manatee's 30-year-old critical habitat designation by more specifically identifying areas necessary for manatee survival. We are also advocating for the protection of natural springs and collaborating with industry representatives and government officials to keep manatees safe while warm-water outflows from energy plants are suspended or ended.
Learn more about Defenders' work with manatees and how you can help.
Defenders contributor Nick Jans lives in Juneau, Alaska. Each winter he spends several weeks in north-central Florida, near manatee habitat.
Spring 2009
Are Florida's iconic and endangered marine mammals truly on the rebound?
http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/spring_2009/manatees_in_the_midst.php
by Nick Jans
On an April morning on the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge on Florida's north-central Gulf coast, a crowd mills—more than 150 wetsuit-clad snorklers finning in limpid water. Occasionally, a swirl breaks the surface, and an excited knot converges around a gliding, gray shape: one of several hundred manatees that have wintered in this 72-degree, spring-fed protected area.
The creatures, a few weighing over a ton, flow serenely past their admirers like celebrities on Rodeo Drive; some seem to enjoy the attention, and detour to court gentle touches and scratches along their scarred, leathery flanks. They're used to the commotion. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to Crystal River and other Florida refuges each year, hoping for a little schmooze time with these endangered, iconic mammals.
A few minutes ago I was part of the throng and met a manatee, whiskered nose to mask. Now I sit aboard the dive boat, shaking my head—awed by my point-blank encounter, and bemused by the almost surreal nature of the setting. Like most areas key to manatee survival, Crystal River lies enmeshed in a web of burgeoning coastal development: upscale homes and marinas, resorts and malls, all spreading with no apparent end in sight. Local waterways are crisscrossed by thousands of watercraft; lined by docks; tainted by runoff, subject to increasing human draw-down of vital freshwater springs. Millions of people live within a two-hour drive of all of Florida's critical manatee habitat.
And yet, somehow, almost miraculously, we have these enormous wild creatures surviving in our midst—a population estimated to exceed 3,800. But our ongoing expansion into their habitat begs the question: Are manatees, an endangered species whose numbers seem to be rising, truly on the rebound?
To put it mildly, manatees have been around a skosh longer than we have. The fossil record traces back their forebears in Florida at least 45 million years. To better take advantage of rich sea-grass beds and other vegetation, large, now-extinct wading mammals evolved into fully aquatic creatures with stout, nailed front flippers and paddle-shaped tails. Though manatees and their cousins, dugongs, most resemble walrus, they are in fact most closely related to elephants.
The West Indian manatee is divided into two subspecies: the Florida and the Antillean. They can live for 60 or more years in the wild, and grow throughout their entire lives. While adults average 10 feet long and around a half ton, the current record (a captive female) tips the scales at a whopping 3,300 pounds. Manatees could teach us a thing or two about energy conservation; they typically mosey along at a sedate 3 to 5 mph, and spend the majority of their time eating and resting—preferably in warm water less than 12 feet deep. Though slow-paced and odd-looking by our standards, studies indicate manatees may be as intelligent as seals and dolphins, and possess acute hearing and vision. "They're very much individuals, with recognizable personalities," says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Joyce Kleen.
Biologically speaking, manatees are generalists, able to live in both fresh and salt water, and to graze on a variety of plants. They eat up to 10 percent of their body weight a day. Some animals are homebodies, while others make regular annual migrations over hundreds of miles. Though most common in Florida, in warmer months manatees wander to neighboring states, and occasionally much farther. One individual swam up the Mississippi; others have traveled as far up the eastern seaboard as Massachusetts. But their range is limited by their inability to survive for extended periods in water colder than 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The most recent north-wandering manatee, off Cape Cod in 2008, succumbed to cold-water stress despite a rescue attempt.
Even cautious advocates agree that Florida's manatees as a whole are faring better than they were a generation ago. Says aquatic biologist Patrick Rose, executive director of the Save The Manatee Club, based in Maitland, Florida, "Statewide, numbers are up in three of four populations. In that sense, we've made progress."
Florida's manatees are divided into four distinct stocks. Three of these—the Northwest (including Crystal River), the upper St. John's and the Atlantic—are growing or stable. The Southwest, comprising around 40 percent of Florida's entire stock, seems to be declining. Rose says that protective statutes and regulations have also improved; a 2001 settlement of two lawsuits, brought by a coalition of conservation groups (including Defenders of Wildlife) against federal and state management agencies, has established slow-speed boating zones and sanctuaries in critical habitat, and imposed restrictions on coastal development in sensitive areas.
While manatee advocates applaud these protections, they say enforcement remains inconsistent and violations are commonplace. Last year, a video widely viewed on YouTube showed a boatload of people harassing mothers with calves and even walking on animals.
Still, public concern and support seems on the rise. A 2007 University of Florida study of boaters—a group historically resistant to manatee-related regulations—indicates that roughly 75 percent agree that the mammals should be protected (though the study also found that fewer than half of those same individuals actually slowed enough in posted waterways). Manatee awareness programs—including instructional videos, boaters' guides, more speed zone signs and educational outreach—seem to be working. The manatee reigns as the state marine mammal, and November is officially designated as Manatee Awareness Month.
At Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in north-central Florida, as many as 400 elementary school students a day come for manatee education starring captive animals in a natural setting. Says wildlife care supervisor Susan Lowe as a group of excited fourth-graders watch manatees feed and interact with a keeper, "Here's where we can make a real, lasting difference."
In fact, Florida's manatees have been doing so well, according to the pro-boating and recreational fishing Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), that in 2001 they petitioned Florida agencies to downlist the manatee from "endangered" to "threatened" under controversial new state guidelines. After strong opposition from Defenders and other conservation organizations and prominent scientists, the state reclassification was postponed in 2007, pending a review of the listing criteria. Meanwhile, a federal move to down-list the manatee under the Endangered Species Act, also urged by pro-development forces and boating advocates, is currently simmering on the back burner.
Despite welcome progress, the future of the species is far from assured. A 2007 study by the U.S. Geological Survey for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission stresses that the manatee's long-term prospects hinge not on present conditions, but on those in the future. Despite improved regulation and awareness, human activity—especially boat strikes—still poses the greatest single risk to manatee survival.
A majority of adult manatees bear the scars of repeated, often gruesome maimings from hulls and propellers; some dead animals show evidence of having survived more than 50 collisions. "Manatees have especially dense, un-resilient bones, and they shatter like porcelain," says Lowe, whose facility is one of a handful statewide that helps rehabilitate injured manatees. "But these animals are capable of absorbing incredible impacts. Some manage to live with ribs or even parts of organs protruding through their skin."
Over the past decade, the recorded death toll from boat collisions alone has averaged almost 80 individuals a year. Add to that the number of manatees unable to reproduce or care for young due to injury, and the seriousness of just this single factor looms huge. Says Elizabeth Fleming, Florida representative for Defenders of Wildlife, "While the results of the recent count seem encouraging, the manatee's future is far from secure given the looming threat of loss of warm-weather habitat." She points out that the viability of the species hinges on the number of reproducing females—almost certainly, fewer than half that total. Also, the low genetic diversity of Florida's manatees suggests potential problems, including vulnerability to disease.
Humans have long impacted manatee survival rates; Native Americans hunted them, and settlers sought them for their meat and skins. Killing manatees was declared illegal in 1893, and subsequent federal and state laws established further safeguards. Still, 2006 set a record for confirmed manatee deaths from all causes: 417, more than 10 percent of the estimated population. 2005 ranked second, and while 2008's count decreased to 337, it included 90 confirmed deaths from watercraft strikes—second only to 2005. Though protections have greatly increased in recent years, so has the death toll.
The greatest long-term threat to manatees is loss of warm-water refuges for over-wintering animals. As freshwater springs are tapped for increasing human use, vital winter habitat for manatees constricts. And, as coastal power plants and other industrial warm-water discharge sources (used by hundreds of manatees) become obsolete and are decommissioned, habitat will shrink further. The loss of more essential habitat seems sure; the question is how much, and how soon.
Economic downturn or no, Florida is experiencing explosive growth, much of it from people attracted to manatee habitat. According to a 2007 state report, the state's human population increased by 65 percent between 1985 and 2007; in roughly that same period, boat registrations in Florida increased 59 percent. Currently, there are nearly a million registered watercraft in the state—roughly one for every 20 Floridians, and, more important, 300 for every manatee. That's not counting an estimated 350,000 non-Florida registered watercraft plying the state's waterways. In short, motor-driven boats—the manatee's most immediate threat—are multiplying far faster than the animals themselves.
If you're willing to wade through raw science and graphs, the results of the 2007 U.S. Geological Survey analysis are sobering. According to the study, the chances of manatee populations declining over the next century to 500 individuals on either the Gulf or Atlantic coast is potentially 50 percent if major threats (boat strikes and loss of warm-water habitat primarily) stay the same. However, if the number of watercraft deaths doubles over that time—as it well might—the odds of such a decline skyrocket to 95 percent. Under the same scenario, the chance of a plummet to a population of 250 or fewer individuals on either coast in the next 100 years is calculated at 55 percent; to a population of 150 or fewer animals, 25 percent.
The report's analysis of the projected impact of warm-water refuge loss is no more comforting. The worst-case scenario—a doubling of boat strikes plus a more-rapid-than-predicted loss of warm-water habitat—is left to conjecture. Yet, that negative double whammy is entirely possible. Adding to the potentially bleak prospect are the inevitable loss of feeding habitat; the potential of the powerful pro-development lobby to decrease manatee protections; and various other threats, notably red tides, which seem to be increasing in some areas—perhaps due to climate change and/or pollution.
In short, if we're to ensure the survival of this unique species, maintaining the status quo is not an option. Says Patrick Rose, "We need to push for consistent, continued enforcement and protection to avoid playing catch-up 20 years from now." Adds Laurie Macdonald, Florida program director for Defenders, "We have it within our grasp to promote healthy populations of manatees now and in the future. We just need to make sure we're doing all we can to address their essential needs."
One fact is certain: the fate of this gentle, iconic creature, totally willing and able to abide in our midst, lies squarely in our hands.
Learn more about the Florida manatee's background and recovery.
Defending Manatees
The manatee has been a conservation priority of Defenders' Florida staff for two decades. Among other accomplishments, our staff worked with federal and state officials to help establish 17 federal refuge and sanctuary areas and many additional state speed zones and safe havens for these iconic marine mammals.
Defenders was also instrumental in preventing the downlisting of the manatee by the state, and in convincing Florida officials to revisit their flawed imperiled species listing rule. Our work will help ensure that the manatee receives the state protections it needs.
Conserving important manatee habitat is central to Defenders' current work. Defenders and our allies are pressing federal officials to revise the manatee's 30-year-old critical habitat designation by more specifically identifying areas necessary for manatee survival. We are also advocating for the protection of natural springs and collaborating with industry representatives and government officials to keep manatees safe while warm-water outflows from energy plants are suspended or ended.
Learn more about Defenders' work with manatees and how you can help.
Defenders contributor Nick Jans lives in Juneau, Alaska. Each winter he spends several weeks in north-central Florida, near manatee habitat.
Action Alert: Help Stop the Seal Slaughter
There's been a huge victory for seals! Thanks to the tireless efforts of members and supporters, PETA has scored a major victory for baby seals who have their heads bashed in or are shot for their skins in Canada's annual massacre on ice.
Members of European Parliament voted for a ban on seal fur products from Canada! Yes, the European Union took a big step forward, recognizing that these "hunts" can never be humane. The ban sends a very clear message to the Canadian government that this bloody massacre must stop once and for all and that the world will not stand by as baby seals are bludgeoned to death in front of their wailing mothers for a product that no one needs.
The world is demanding an end to the slaughter. But the massacre is not over, and seals still need your help. Please forward our petition to everyone you know using this form and make your voices heard!
All eyes are on Canada as it prepares to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Now is the time to demand that the Canadian government hear the worldwide call to stop this bloody massacre of seals.
Please make sure everyone you know takes this opportunity to urge Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee to use their influence to help stop the slaughter!
During Canada's annual war on seals, hundreds of thousands of baby seals are killed for their skin in the most horrific ways imaginable. Seals stand no chance against club-wielding trappers who are after their fur, and they must look on as fellow pups are bludgeoned to death before meeting the same bloody fate.
These seals, many of whom are only weeks old when they're barbarically killed, have their skulls smashed in or are shot point-blank by hunters who are driven by profit and greed. The anguish that a mother seal feels as she watches her baby being beaten to death just a feet away from her is horrifying and can be heard in her desperate cries and seen in her attempts to get to her baby.
Last year, more than 205,000 individual seals were killed during the massacre, which is nothing more than a money-making scheme orchestrated by professional fishers, and Canada will soon begin its annual merciless attack on seals for their fur. We need you to speak up for seals now and demand a permanent end to the cruel seal slaughter.
For all you've already done—and will do—to help with this historic campaign, thank you.
Members of European Parliament voted for a ban on seal fur products from Canada! Yes, the European Union took a big step forward, recognizing that these "hunts" can never be humane. The ban sends a very clear message to the Canadian government that this bloody massacre must stop once and for all and that the world will not stand by as baby seals are bludgeoned to death in front of their wailing mothers for a product that no one needs.
The world is demanding an end to the slaughter. But the massacre is not over, and seals still need your help. Please forward our petition to everyone you know using this form and make your voices heard!
All eyes are on Canada as it prepares to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Now is the time to demand that the Canadian government hear the worldwide call to stop this bloody massacre of seals.
Please make sure everyone you know takes this opportunity to urge Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee to use their influence to help stop the slaughter!
During Canada's annual war on seals, hundreds of thousands of baby seals are killed for their skin in the most horrific ways imaginable. Seals stand no chance against club-wielding trappers who are after their fur, and they must look on as fellow pups are bludgeoned to death before meeting the same bloody fate.
These seals, many of whom are only weeks old when they're barbarically killed, have their skulls smashed in or are shot point-blank by hunters who are driven by profit and greed. The anguish that a mother seal feels as she watches her baby being beaten to death just a feet away from her is horrifying and can be heard in her desperate cries and seen in her attempts to get to her baby.
Last year, more than 205,000 individual seals were killed during the massacre, which is nothing more than a money-making scheme orchestrated by professional fishers, and Canada will soon begin its annual merciless attack on seals for their fur. We need you to speak up for seals now and demand a permanent end to the cruel seal slaughter.
For all you've already done—and will do—to help with this historic campaign, thank you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
