5 posts tagged “animals”
Okay, so I'm guess I'm going whole-hog with the Flickr thing. If you're interested, I've been uploading batches of photos from the iPhoto library.
- California 2007
- More zoo pictures
- The Police play at Fenway Park (iPhone pics)
- The Dresden Dolls play at Paradise
And on that note, I'm off to see Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls play with the venerable Boston Pops. Wheee!
It seems the Somerville Public Library's decorated bull skull carvings are called bucrania, which is an ancient Roman tradition, or an even older neolithic fertility totem.
I'd always just assumed that the architect had a Texas fetish. It's heartening to learn that it goes a lot deeper than that. Moreover, such things can be found all over town, if you keep an eye out.
That is all, move along, citizens.
Brass Monkey
That Funky Monkey
Brass Monkey, Junkie
That Funky Monkey-- The Beastie Boys, "Brass Monkey", License to Ill
There have been stories for a couple of years now about how the rise in prices of basic mineral commodities fueling the rapid economic growth in China and southeast Asia has in turn spawned a thriving global black market in stolen metals, as thieves steal all kinds of things for the raw materials, from automotive catalytic converters (platinum), to roofs (lead), plaques (bronze), and -- my favorite -- home electrical wiring (copper).
The items aren't taken for their own value -- there aren't underground art collectors out there building up catalogs of public statues -- but rather they get melted down and sold as slabs to dealers who export them to Asian factories. This seems to be safer & more profitable than more traditional crimes like mugging, drug dealing, home burglary, etc.
(Perhaps ironically, the rise of this kind of crime has coincided with a broader fall in crime rates, particularly violent crimes, that has itself been tentatively linked to banning lead from paint & gasoline -- so maybe somehow, in some way, our baser urges are driven by minerals trade. Or maybe I'm just taking this line of thought too far, nevermind.)
In any case, while this raw materials black market has been percolating for years, I was reminded of it recently by a local story about someone stealing a quarter-ton of cast iron metal from an active roadway construction site, and somehow no one saw it happen.
Someone stole 475 pounds of cast iron metal off the new pavement of Josephine Avenue Sunday night, according to police, and no one saw a thing.
The suspect traveled along Josephine Avenue, from Kidder to Broadway, and stole 20 manhole and 15 water gate covers, police said.
The manhole covers weigh at least 20 pounds and the water gate covers weigh five pounds, said Somerville Police Captain Paul Upton. They had been taken from the street and stacked on top of one another as work crews repaved the road and replaced sewer infrastructure, according to city spokeswoman Lesley Delaney Hawkins.
“They’re not light,” Upton said. “It took some time for it to happen.”
The police do not have a suspect. Upton said residents have not been able to provide police with information. None, he said, reported hearing or seeing 475 pounds of metal taken from their street between 5 and 10 p.m.
Last night police sent out an automated call to every home within four square blocks of Josephine Avenue asking for help.
“Not only is this a crime but it presented a serious safety concern for anyone walking or driving along this street,” Upton said in the message.
The weighty heist begs the question: how did it happen? Any scenario it seems would involve a vehicle with a lot of storage room. But Upton said there are other possibilities.
“It’s not inconceivable that someone living right on the street rolled them into their backyard,” he said.
“It’s unlikely but you can’t rule any possibility out.”
But this kind of thing isn't unique to Somerville, of course. Apparently it's also a problem in southern California, as roadway thieves have taken traffic signals, signage, and guardrails, as well as tools and wiring. And it's happening all over the place.
In the United States, a quick search turns up everything from California military bases and Oregon firefighting equipment, to Missouri scrap yards, Connecticut swimming pools, and Michigan electrical equipment.
Around the world, headstones are stolen from cemeteries in Australia, the lead roof is stolen three times in one month from a church in England, a robbery at a cable company is blocked in India, and fibre optic data cables are stolen by divers in Vietnam (oops! those are made out of cheap glass, not valuable copper).
And this isn't even getting into the many stories about how people driven by the subprime mortgage crisis are being evicted after foreclosure, and getting back at the banks by taking everything they can, from appliances to lighting fixtures to the wiring from the walls. One could almost take a charitable view here and argue that these aren't even really theft, as the house had recently belonged to them, it was arguably taken away by forces beyond their control, and besides, it isn't like the bank is going to get a quick sale on the place anyway, unless maybe the government wants to buy the house. But maybe that's a bit too charitable.
In any case, it's clear that this is an accelerating worldwide trend, being driven by metals prices that are rising just like the prices on gas & food are rising. Where will it all end? Back here in Somerville, the manhole cover theives are still at large, but the police did catch four men trying to steal "hundreds of railroad spikes and plates". Which would be great for the trains, if anyone actually took the trains, but hey, the police have to start somewhere.
A lot of the things I've written about on here are simply facets of big trends driving the world today. You could punt and say that the big trends are just "global warming", or "peak oil", or "peak food", or "the credit crunch", but even those seem like facets of the broader globalization trends going on. If it were just the USA putting out greenhouse gases, consuming oil & other resources, and driving the credit markets, then the problems we're having now might (maybe) still be happening, but less acute. But the big national economies are all interdependent now, and depend crucially of the rapid growth of big new economies like China, India, Brazil, and others.
On one level, the growth of these emerging nations is unquestionably a good thing. It raises the standard of living in the growing countries, provides cheap goods & services to the developed nations, and opens up new markets on both sides. But it raises problems as well: as the standard of living in the emerging countries comes up, so does their level of consumption, increasing the strain on global resources and amplifying trends like climate change and habitat destruction, raising questions about whether this is all sustainable into the future, or whether it brings back a Malthusian crisis.
Thomas Malthus realized in 1798 (!!!) that human populations rise geometrically ("fast"), while natural resources rise linearly ("slow"), and eventually we're likely to hit a point where there aren't enough resources to feed everyone any more. The only problem is, Malthus ended up being wrong: the population has ballooned massively since 1798, and so has the global standard of living by almost any measure. The reason is often believed to be the Industrial Revolution., which brought about a wave of prosperity & growth that swept the world and is still improving lives today. While the pressures Malthus raised over 200 years ago are still present, many feel we can continue to stay ahead of them, while others point out that Malthus was right for all of human history up to his own time, and for all we know we won't be able to escape the trap he identified forever.
Enter Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, who has coined the term "the rise of the rest" to describe where we stand now:
- Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008, "The Future of American Power: How America Can Survive the Rise of the Rest", by Fareed Zakaria"
- Newsweek, May 12 2008 issue, excerpt from Zakaria's "The Post-American World"
- NPR/PRI's Marketplace, May 12 2008 broadcast, interview with Zakaria, "Economic problem: 'The rise of the rest'"
- Bostonist blog, May 9 2008, article on a talk Zakaria gave about the book at Harvard
The main differences between what Zakaria is arguing and the themes I've been looking at include:
- Zakaria is the editor for Newsweek, and I'm just some guy, so people will actually listen to him.
- Zakaria has been watching these trends a lot longer, and thinking about them a lot more deeply, than I have, so people will actually pay attention to him.
- Zakaria seems to be a lot more optimistic about the long term outcomes than I currently feel, so maybe people will prefer his take on the situation to my bleaker one.
I'll finish with an excerpt from Zakaria's "Marketplace" piece:
Expensive oil is one facet of the signature trend of our age -- global growth. Last year 124 countries around the world grew at over 4 percent. This year, despite the American slowdown, growth in most of those countries remains robust. While we debate the current financial panic and impending recession, our future is not likely to be shaped by crisis and collapse. The real problems we will face will be the consequence of what I call the "rise of the rest" -- the rest of the world that is.
Look around, it's not just oil that is soaring. Almost every commodity is at a 200-year high. Wheat and rice prices have doubled and then kept on rising over the last two years. In some cases, demand is so high that we're actually running out of stuff. Helium, the gas used in balloons and MRI machines is in short supply globally. And it is the second-most abundant element in the universe.
The problems of growth are, of course, high quality problems. But on this scale they are problems we have never really experienced before. We know how to handle a recession. But how do we handle the rise of the rest? That will be the real challenge of the next decade, long after this recession has turned to recovery.
A break from all the apocalyptic gloom & doom I've been posting here -- some photos from our visit to the Franklin Park Zoo this weekend.
