#posting this before i venture to another one of the 13 colonies | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fatehbaz · 2 years

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There are three reasons why an international audience should care about the otherwise insignificant Canadian city of Thunder Bay, a community of 120,000 souls 100km North of the American border right in the middle of the world’s second most spacious nation-state.

The first is that, as Canada’s murder and hate-crime capital, with the vast majority of these terrors directed at Indigenous people, roughly 13-20 percent of the population, its example has a lot to teach us about the dire failure of the Canadian model of liberal capitalism, corporate multiculturalism, and half-hearted “reconciliation.”

Second, as a troubled (post-)extractive and logistics-based economy in a “first-world” country — a country that exports and finances extractive industries around the world — its patterns of racist violence reveal something profound about capitalism today.

Finally, Thunder Bay’s problems demand, and are generating, the kind of radical, grassroots solutions that point towards the kind of transformations all communities need to embrace in the years to come to overcome the dangerous intertwined orders of contemporary colonialism and capitalism [...].

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The isolation, the economic marginality, and the history of extraction and racial resentments all contribute to, but cannot completely explain, the staggering degree of racism in the city. [...] Like many police forces in Canada, officers in the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS) have been known to drive Indigenous people out to the outskirts of town, take their shoes and coats, and leave them to walk back or freeze to death. Unlike most police forces in Canada, the TBPS has recently been found to be plagued with profound “systemic racism” by two independent and high-profile reports. [...] The real reason for the investigations was the deaths of seven Indigenous youth, most from remote Northern communities, most in the city to access high school education or medical services denied to them in their communities. [...]

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As scholars Damien Lee and Jana-Rae Yerxa note, many precedents stand behind these fears. Indigenous people end up dead in Thunder Bay at staggering rates. [...] Just before the most recent police reports were issued, the mayor (a former Police Association president), the police chief (a fool) and the city’s most successful lawyer (a convicted child molestor) were all implicated in a scandal involving a blend of sexual abuse, extortion, and breach of trust. [...]

Meanwhile, just as I moved to the city in early 2017, an Indigenous woman was fatally injured in the street when one of a gang of white teenagers out joyriding threw a heavy metal trailer hitch at her from their speeding car. It took her several agonizing months to die from her internal injuries. [...]

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The rank, racist and reactionary hypocrisy so common in Canada and in Thunder Bay is, unfortunately, often mistaken for merely a cultural anachronism, which can be solved through better public education, greater cultural sensitivity and more opportunities to celebrate diversity. This has, for instance, been the approach to the problems of racist policing in the city: another “cultural competency” workshop [...].

In spite of a great deal of rhetoric about “nation-to-nation” negotiations by the Trudeau government, it is profoundly clear, as Mi’Kmaq lawyer and professor Pam Palmater warns, that the State does not and cannot accept the idea that Indigenous people would be allowed to say “no” to, for instance, mines, forestry, corporate fishing or pipelines [...].

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To this day Canada is a key player in a global capitalist imperium that specializes in extractive industries and extractive forms of debt.

The Mining Association of Canada reports that “the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange accounted for 57 percent of the global mining equity raised in 2016.” As Alain Deneault and William Sacher have noted, Canada has historically structured its laws and commercial norms to empower the theft of indigenous lands to be violently transformed into “resources” for export, a specialization that is now itself exported around the world as Canadian-owned or -funded corporations are called upon to “develop” mines and extractive projects globally.

Every Canadian with savings is necessarily complicit: almost all pension funds, banks and other investment vehicles here are wrapped up in the TSX and therefore the extractive industry. Meanwhile, as Peter Hudson illustrates, Canada also has a long legacy of renovating national, municipal and personal debt into a tool of neocolonialism, notably in the Caribbean where Canadian banks have enjoyed profound influence, even monopolies. [...]

The ruling class and international capital, working hand in glove, have consistently used divide-and-conquer techniques to sew the seeds of racism that undermine solidarity. Thunder Bay is only a particularly poignant example, a place so small and marginalized that it cannot sustain the veneer of polite, civil, cheerful liberalism that is the country’s brand.

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Text by: Max Haiven. “The colonial secrets of Canada’s most racist city.” ROAR Magazine. 13 February 2019. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

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shewhowillrise · 6 years

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Still bitter about the cancellation of Almost Human five years later? Here’s a list of 5 awesome shows that have the same look, feel, or character bonds as Almost Human!

1) Continuum - 4 seasons - Netflix

Continuum revolves around Kiera Cameron, a cop from the future who is trapped in the present with 8 different escaped criminals, also from the future, who she has to capture. The show takes place in current Vancouver and Kiera must use her prowess and powers to take on and hunt the 8 members of Liber8 who are running rampant before they manage to alter the future significantly.

Notes:

There are flashforwards (technically flashbacks - time-travel is weird) to the future. Honestly, Almost Human seems like a prequel to Continuum in a way. There’s a lot of the same tech in both shows. It’s also a cop drama, much like Almost Human, and Liber8, this show’s inSyndicate, has an interesting story arc within the plot. There’s many twists and turns and with time-travel, there’s no end to the wacky science-bable. You’re at the edge of your seat the whole time wondering what’s next? and how does this change things in the future?

2) Dark Matter - 3 Seasons - Netflix

Dark Matter tells the story of the crew of the derelict spaceship the Raza, awakened from stasis with no memories of who they are or how they got on board. Facing threats at every turn, they have to work together to survive a voyage charged with vengeance, betrayal and hidden secrets.

Notes:

A group of six people and an android learning and regaining their humanity. What does that remind you of? This crew is fun to watch develop deep relationships and trust with one another as they try to regain their pasts. It’s a space opera with an interesting twist, and if you’re a star trek fan, they have their mirrorverse they have to survive. Now, the show was cancelled after season 3 (with a mind blowing cliffhanger no less!) because of money, but!!!! stay with me, the show runner recently posted there were *distant rumblings* of the show having a season 4 & 5, and whether that be live action, or comic book, this show is worth it! (the show runner has actually posted the scripts of the first two episodes of s4 on his blog!)

3) Altered Carbon - 1 Season (renewed for a 2nd season!) - Netflix

In the future, people's consciousnesses are contained in what are called "stacks", storage devices attached to the back of a person's neck. Physical bodies are turned into what's called "sleeves", mere disposable vessels. Takeshi Kovacs, a violent mercenary, wakes up 250 years after his sleeve is killed, and he's given the choice to either spend the rest of his life in prison for his crimes, or help solve the murder of the wealthiest man in the world.

Notes:

I’m only a few episodes in, but the look and feel of the show is very Blade Runner and it’s been helping me ease my soul about Almost Human. It has a cop-esque plot. With different technologies practically every scene, it’s another show that seems it can be a continuation in the Almost Human/Continuum timeline.

4) Westworld - 2 seasons (renewed for a 3rd season!) - HBO

Westworld isn't your typical amusement park. Intended for rich vacationers, the futuristic park -- which is looked after by robotic "hosts" -- allows its visitors to live out their fantasies through artificial consciousness. No matter how illicit the fantasy may be, there are no consequences for the park's guests, allowing for any wish to be indulged.

Notes:

I love this show. It’s amazing and the story is intriguing, the characters evolve, and the integrated storyline keeps you guessing on what’s really happening. Robots becoming conscious on who they are and what they are to humans is mind exploding. And it seems like the first five seasons have been planned, and it’s on it’s way to being another Game of Thrones but for scifi fans, so there doesn’t seem to be a cancellation in sight!

5) Battlestar Galactica - 1 Miniseries and 4 seasons - Hulu

In this series we follow a human battleship in deep space known as Battlestar Galactica. The ship is fleeing a relentless attack to wipe out the entire human race implemented by their own created AI beings known as Cylons. The Battlestar accompanies and protects what they assume to be the last 50,000 people in existence after a quickly executed genocidal attack on all 12 human colonies, in which the Cylons were almost completely successful. They occupied all colonies and killed any found survivors. With low supplies, no allies, and little hope, the entire convoy ventures into uncharted space to flee the onslaught in hopes of finding refuge among the stars. Their destination is the fabled 13th Colony of Earth, founded by a tribe said to have left the human origin planet of Kobol "early on" before any other tribes or the founding of the 12 colonies.

Notes:

Another Robots vs Humans! This show has many twists and turns and keeps you guessing on who’s a robot and who’s a human. Loyalties are tested and unlikely bonds are formed. It has a shocking ending that gosh if you watch this, I wish I could see your face for the big reveal. Make sure to watch the mini series (two tv movies, totally about 4 hours) first, which is the prelude to the actual show.

Honorable Mention: (only an honorable mention because I haven’t watched it myself, but it sounds like Detroit: Become Human but as a tv series)

Humans - 2 seasons (renewed for a 3rd season!) - Amazon Prime

Set in suburban London, the story takes place in a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a Synth – an android robot eerily similar to a human in nearly every respect. Based on the swedish show, Real Humans.

And one Awesome Movie!: Next Gen - Netflix

Next Gen is about a 13-year-old girl who hates robots when her father lost everything. Her world was surrounded by robots and she denies everything around her, including her mother who loves robots more then her daughter. Her life changed when she encounter 7723, a secret robot whose weapons are overpowered and is known to be theorized as the strongest bot in the world. They both must face a evil menace who threatens to destroy the world.

Notes:

Yeah this is a movie, not a show, but the main character has a distaste for robots, much like John Kennex, until she learns to love her one of a kind robot, kinda again, much like Kennex. It has hilarious moments and tense scenes. A cute fun movie that is all around, enjoyable.

Want to watch these shows but don’t have Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime? I can give you links to some, uh, other sites. Just send me a message and I’ll back to you as soon as I can.

#almost human #ana recs things

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46ten · 7 years

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“Reflections on Courtship and Marriage,” part 2

(Part 1 here) One of the best things about this pamphlet is that it shows romantic ideals about conjugal love and companionship, commonly associated with the 19th century, being presented in 1746 in Colonial America. There are a handful of Hamilton biographies and papers that make the assumption that the marriage of AH and ES must have been a sort of business/political contract, as the authors believe was common in that society/period.

Reading this pamphlet (and other newspaper columns that I will post in the future) shows that AH was familiar with the standards of the day when it came to marriage. It was something he seemed to have thought carefully about - the qualities he wanted in a life partner, how his marriage would operate - and he may have framed his own thoughts about marriage through guides that were likely similar to this one, in addition to personal experience. One thing that stands out in AH’s letters to ES, even compared to this pamphlet, is his repeated emphasis on, and needing assurance of, her affection and tenderness for him, as though her qualities and their relationship could satisfy several common criteria, but she also needed to really really love him.

To the pamphlet:

Do not marry for money:

The real felicity of marriage does undoubtedly consist in a union of minds, and a sympathy of affections; in a mutual esteem and friendship for each other in the highest degree possible. But in that alliance, where interest and fortune only is considered, those refined and tender sentiments are neither felt nor known. ...And what are the consequences to the parties themselves? Why, at best, a cold, flat, and insipid intercourse; void of the exquisite relish of a sincere esteem, and the divine pleasures of a reasonable and honourable friendship. [8-9]

Be clear with your partner about your financial situation and needs:

How much, or how little a fortune will content us, depends chiefly on our own way of thinking. Be this as it will, it should seem very proper before all marriages, for both parties to know truly and fairly what they have to expect on this head; and seriously to consider with themselves whether it will be sufficient so far to answer their desires, as to prevent future murmurings and anxieties, and prudently allow them to enjoy life as they intend. All deceit herein should be carefully avoided; we may otherwise impose on ourselves, and ruin all our future felicity. [11] This sounds a lot like the Aug1780 letter from AH to ES.

Do not marry solely for passion:

What has been observed, seems to point out, that a blind, a sudden and intoxicating passion, has a natural tendency, under its own direction, to ocasion unhappy marriages, and produce scenes of grief and repentance. Let us, on the contrary, proceed with deliberation and circumspection. Let reason and thought be summoned before we engage in the courtship of a lady; endeavour as much as possible to stifle all those passionate and amorous emotions that would cloud and bribe our judgments. Let us seriously reflect, that engagements of this kind are of the greatest moment to our future happiness in life; that courtship brings on marriage, and that makes all the peace and welfare of our lives dependent on the behavior and dispositions of another; a matter of the utmost consequence, and of which we cannot well think too long or too much. Let not therefore our eyes or passions previal with us, to barter away all that is truly valuable in our existence for their gratification. Some women have infinite art, being early bred to disguise and dissemble; yet by a skilful attention calmness, and impartiality, we may form a judgment of their characters in the main: Which we should endeavour to do, and compare them fairly with our own; see how they will correspond; be rationally convinced of a similitude in our ways of thinking, a harmony in our minds and tempers, before we venture to change the name of mistress into that of wife. [13-14]

Having now driven the mercenary herd to their native mines, and made evident their unfitness for breathing the pure and generous air of matrimonial felicity; left the inamoratoes to float in their fool's paradise with novels and romances; let us endeavour to fix ourselves on the true basis of conjugal happiness, and see if we can hit upon the path wherein an agreeable companion, a steady friend, and a good wife, may be found. [14]

Do not hide who you really are:

[During courtship] In our addresses, let our conduct be sincere, our tempers undisguised; let us use no artifices to cover or conceal our natural frailties and imperfections, but be outwardly what we really are within, and appear such as we design steadfastly to continue. ...Love and friendship are of so nice and delicate a texture that disingenuity in the smallest matters should be avoided. [15-16]

[Don't conceal your appearance!] It is really amazing how people can be so preposteriously wicked, in a correspondence of the most sacred and tender kind, in the consequences of which all the future happiness of their lives may depend. How stupid thus to study our own ruin, by the infamous deception of one we choose for the partner of our joys and our cares, the companion of our days and our nights! How shocking to set out with fraud, and proceed with deceit, in such solemn engagements! How shallow is the cunning of such inconsiderate minds! Must not all the pleasures of marriage be unanimous and inseparable? Do they not flow from real and unaffected loveliness? Can we think the cheat will lie long concealed in a society so intimate! When time and experience unmasks our assumed appearances, throws us in our native colours, and exposes that reality we have so industriously laboured to cover; we can expect love and esteem from any one whom we have so shamefully over-reached and insnared? Surely no. On the contrary, we shall entail on ourselves certain indignation, and lasting contempt. [17]

Do not flatter too much:

It was an objection, you may remember, made against matrimony, That the education of young ladies gave such a trifling turn to their tempers, and manner of thinking, as rendered them unfit for the rational pleasures of society and conversation. Allowing this to be true, and in general but too true it really is, how prejudicial and fatal must flattery be to such? And how completely must that foppish rant called Gallantry poison their understandings, and tend to destroy the possibility of inspiring them with sentiments or reason and good sense? [18]

[Endeavour, by every probable method, to inspire her with the sentiments of a rational esteem, a generous and steadfast friendship for us.] By reasonably introducing into conversation useful subjects on human life and characters, by making solid and practical reflections thereon, and engaging the attention by a polite, an easy, and lively manner; we shall correct and strengthen the judgment, enlarge the faculties of the mind, and raise the soul to a free and generous way of thinking; drive out and extirpate that childish, that little narrow spirited way of thinking, that mean and injudicious distrust, those low and pitiful artifices, and that lurking fort of cunning, which is too much the characteristics of many women, is the detestation of every great mind, and the abhorrence of all ingenuous spirits. There is no friendship or confidence to be had with such dirty, tricking, low minds. They are an uttter privation to all social happiness; and when carried into a married life, and insuperable obstacles to its welfare. Many opportunities may likewise be found for recommending the perusal of elegant and improving books; which, by a good choice, and a judicious taste, will have a beneficial effect on the mind and understanding. [20-21]

What fermentations and heats often arise from breaking of china, disordering a room, dinner not being ready at a precise hour, and a thousand other such impertinent bagatelles? ...The reproving each other before company, and sparing as it were together, is mighty wrong, and very unpolite. It irritates themselves, and makes their company very uneasy. ..follow Mr. Pope's advise on another subject: "At every trifle scorn to take offense; It always shows great price, or little sense ("Essay on Criticism") [34-35]

Other odds and ends from this pamphlet:

A section on "housewifery" (managing the household) starts on page 45.

A letter to a very young letter on her marriage by Dr. Swift [pg 55] “I must therefore desire you, in the first place, to be very slow in changing the modest behaviour of a virgin. It is usual in young wives, before they have been many weeks married, to assume a bold forward look, and manner of talking; as if they intended to signify in all companies, that they were no longer girls; and consequently that their whole demeanor before they got a husband, was all but a countenance and constraint upon their nature....“

#18th century marriage #18th century courtship

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kenysholar1990 · 4 years

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Jenis Cat Spray Startling Unique Ideas

Some cats scratch themselves on occasions and it is one of the cat's neck.After about 20 minutes home he came from plaque build up on them, they let you.Carpet should be satisfactory, as long as we're on the inhumane, these tactics to manipulate and they are stressed.Female fleas can easily get in trouble around the house should be told what sort it prefers to use.

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Sometimes you don't tape them closed, then throw the bags away.Most likely, these are associated with allergic dermatitis may have come up to a pet into a pet enzyme cleaners available do nothing more than protect your cat for adoption since it cannot be stopped altogether - but there are so many underlying reasons first before they will break down the toilet.No matter what you can not stop or don't do that, you must first find out what catnip is.Using a fork, flatten the fish balls you will need to eliminate in a nice golden patch of sunlight on the property.She could have come from the other side of mouth across the top of it on the cat is to get the stinky cat litter

How To Stop A Neutered Cat From Spraying In The House

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Juniper Smells Like Cat Pee

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#Jenis Cat Spray Startling Unique Ideas #How To Stop A Tom Cat Spraying In My House

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jghouse-asia-pacific · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.jg-house.com/2020/07/06/chapter-4-part-1-road-to-podor-raphael/

Chapter 4, Part 1: Road to Podor - Raphael

Music drifted through the warm air. At one edge of the dining room on the threshold of an open glass door leading to the courtyard a tall floor fan turned slowly on its axis, pushing a breeze gently across the room. Two Africans, moving more resolutely among the tables, carried food and drink to the group of foreigners. Even though it was still early in the afternoon, several of them had ordered glasses of wine. Raphael looked at me.

I drank only water though as I took notes on a pad of paper and listened to the sounds of Baaba Maal, Senegal’s most famous singer, coming from the tiny speaker perched on a flower pot in the sunlit courtyard. Lomax, in contrast, already had drunk one bottle of Flag, the nation’s most popular beer, with his lunch of fish and rice and now was drinking a second.

It was another hot day in northwestern Senegal, although I hadn’t yet ventured outside, after spending the entire morning in my room on the 3rd floor of Hôtel de La Résidence and then, at noon, descending directly to the restaurant.

We were about to start a four-hour bus trip from St. Louis on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to Podor on the edge of the Sahara Desert. From Podor, we planned to take a four-night cruise on a diesel-powered boat, called Bou el Mogdad, down the Senegal River stopping at villages on the banks. Lomax and I sat at a table at the back of the dining room.

“It looks like there are 13 of us,” Lomax commented, looking up from the screen of his laptop computer before draining the contents of his second bottle of beer.

Elementary School, St. Louis, Senegal

It was the first time Lomax and I had seen the tour members together, although we had met almost half of them after arriving in St. Louis three days earlier. The members came from France, with the exception of one couple, a man and a woman in their 30s who appeared to be from China, and François, the Canadian, whom we had met on our first day, a Thursday, in the hotel.

It was Sunday. The sun was bright.

At the front of the dining room stood a middle-aged African man wearing glasses with thin, circular frames addressing us in French. The man, named Raphael, the chief guide for our group, so far had spoken only in French but had mentioned he spoke ten languages including English when he introduced himself.

I could understand only a small percentage of Raphael’s remarks in French. Lomax, I knew, could understand none. It was the reason he paid no attention. Staring at his computer screen, he tinkered with photos taken on the streets of N’Dar, adjusting colors and contrasts.

Abruptly, Lomax raised his empty bottle into the air and caught the eye of a waiter, who responded immediately, nodding and smiling before making his way to the bar.

“As you probably already know,” Raphael said in French, “it’s going to get progressively hotter the farther north and the farther east we travel.” Raphael stopped talking and looked at Lomax. “So, it’s important you drink a lot of liquids,” Raphael resumed after several moments. “Probably water would be best.”

“When are we leaving?” asked François, who although he was bilingual in English and French now spoke in French. He sat at a table with a young African woman, named Anta, who had introduced herself to the group as a masseuse saying she would be available once we were on board the Bou el Mogdad.

Masseuse

Departure from Hôtel de La Résidence

Raphael turned and looked over his shoulder at a clock on the wall to one side of a set of double glass doors.

“It’s a little after 1:00,” Raphael noted in French. “Let’s plan to board the bus at 1:30. Make sure your bags are on the bus before we leave.”

I glanced out the window facing the street, Rue Blaise Diagne, and saw a white vehicle parked in front of the hotel. It was not modern and neither small nor large and appeared to have about ten rows of seats. At the front of the vehicle, in the seat behind the wheel, an African man sat slumped against a window, seeming to be fast asleep. On the street next to the bus, a slight movement caught my attention, and my gaze shifted to a figure approaching the hotel. The figure stopped in front of the window and looked at me bowing his head slightly and bringing up two fingers to one eyebrow in a salute. It was Ismael.

“Esby, do you and Lomax have any questions?” Raphael asked in English.

The waiter approached and placed a full bottle of beer on the table in front of Lomax. After picking up the empty bottle from the table, the waiter walked back toward the kitchen. When I looked at Raphael across the room I noticed that Madeleine, who sat at a table by Raphael’s side, smiled at me. At her table, in addition, Sylvie talked with two French men, one in his early 30s and the other in his early 60s. They appeared to be gay.

“Do you offer Rémy Martin 1689 on board the boat?” asked the older man, named Denis, putting an emphasis on his French words and scowling at me before directing his gaze again to Raphael. Either the older man was irritated because I was too slow to respond to Raphael’s question or he was annoyed because Raphael switched to English. Raphael looked at Denis but didn’t reply.

“The cognac,” Denis added, still speaking in French. “I need a glass at night after dinner, sometimes two.” He stared at Raphael. “You don’t know the cognac?” he continued. “I would settle for Rémy Martin 1738, if you can’t provide a better version.”

Raphael stared at Denis, still not saying anything.

“Okay,” Raphael replied in French, “I’ll talk with you about it later.” He paused, a look of incomprehension still on his face. He paused again before adding, “I can assure you that every member of the crew on the boat will do everything to make you happy.”

Denis looked at his companion, named Jean-Paul, who placed a hand on the older man’s arm. Jean-Paul suggested they visit a liquor store right away.

“Better yet,” Jean-Paul added, comfortingly, “we can send someone from the hotel to buy a decanter.”

“Don’t expect to find that brand around here,” interjected Bertrand, the insurance executive from Montpellier sitting at an adjacent table with his wife and another couple.

“You don’t know,” replied his wife, Beatrice, an economics professor. “St. Louis has modernized over the years, as we have noticed.”

Three Men

Next to Bertrand and Beatrice sat Hercule and Delphine, a man and woman in their late 60s from Lyon not far from Switzerland. The two couples exchanged looks. Hercule studied Denis, showing an expression of disdain.

The Chinese couple stayed silent.

Lomax raised his camera to take a photo of the group, catching the attention of Madeleine, who looked at Lomax and preened.

“All right,” Raphael announced, “make sure you have everything on the bus.”

Immediately, the young man and woman from China stood up from their chairs, picked up two small pieces of luggage, and exited the restaurant through the set of glass doors. As the French couples gathered their belongings, I looked out the window, but Ismael was nowhere to be seen. I knew he could re-appear at any moment. Lomax finished his beer. Already, the largest pieces of luggage for the group had been loaded into compartments in the back and on top of the bus. I stood up, inserted my iPhone and papers into a backpack, and placed the straps of the backpack over my shoulders. Lomax closed his computer, stood up, and inserted all of his camera equipment into a larger pack. The waiter approached us carrying a medium-sized Styrofoam box with the dozen bottles of cold beer Lomax had requested.

After Lomax handed some bills to the waiter, he picked up the Styrofoam box. I picked up his large pack. We walked across the street to the bus parked with its front pointing north on the east side of Rue Blaise Diagne at the intersection with another, equally narrow street, Rue Seydou Tall. When Lomax ascended the stairwell of the bus, I followed. We found the rest of the group already seated. In the first row, on the side of the bus opposite the driver, now fully awake and staring out the front window, the Chinese couple sat staring out the front window.

“I brought some beers for the road,” Lomax said in English as he passed the Chinese man. “You’ll be thirsty once we reach the desert in one hour.”

The Chinese man and his wife didn’t reply. They either didn’t speak English or didn’t’ like beer. Or maybe they thought the rest of us were boring.

Lomax sat in the fifth row and I sat in the sixth row behind the bus driver. As the driver was closing the door of the bus, a young African man came on board and took a seat in the last row. He was a porter hired by tour organizers to load and unload luggage for us. I had seen him handling some of the bags before.

The driver turned the key in the ignition, starting the engine, but abruptly he removed a mobile phone from one of his shirt pockets, brought it up to his face, and spoke. A few moments later, while the engine idled, the driver put the phone back in his pocket, peered into the long mirror on his left, and released the brake on the bus. We lurched forward. All of us looked out the window in front.

Roadside Eatery

New St. Louis

Maneuvering the bus around the corner, the driver proceeded east on Rue Seydou Tall to Quai Roume, the final street on N’Dar Island before the island gave way to the sluggish currents of the Senegal River. After turning right on Quai Roume, the driver started south along the concrete docks toward Pont Faidherbe, the bridge which connected the French colonial quarter on N’Dar Island to the more ordinary sections of St. Louis. They sprawled to the East on the African mainland.

The bus driver, now encountering pedestrians on the road, drove slowly past the Hôtel de La Poste on our right. I saw a sudden outburst of activity near the end of the bridge on our left. Streams of vehicles and pedestrians moved in groups, either coming from or going onto the bridge through an intersection which was narrow and gave no margin for error. We had reached the place where Quai Roume merged with Rue du General de Gaulle. It was a thoroughfare for people from the island and from the mainland to cross the river. Two days earlier, I had observed this flow of vehicles and pedestrians in a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, and colors while exploring N’Dar on foot and was almost knocked over by people.

“What’s in the box?” asked a voice.

I looked up and to my left. Madeleine stood in the aisle. Her use of English and her precise pronunciation caught me off guard once again. I still wasn’t accustomed to a Parisian who possessed such skill. My ex-wife, who also had grown up in Paris, spoke English with a stereotypical French accent for a long time, although it was true that when she became a nurse some years after arriving in San Diego she spoke English with a Californian accent.

Madeleine not only spoke English well. She preferred English. The previous day, on a tour of Guet N’Dar, led by Ismael, she had quizzed me on a number of topics, from my job in the United States and my new girlfriend in Washington, D.C., to my style of dress and my plan to buy an African robe, called a boubou. Now she waited for an answer to her question.

“Well?” Madeleine said.

I looked at the white Styrofoam box containing 12 bottles of cold beer. Lomax had placed it on the seat beside me so that he could keep his large pack with all of his camera equipment close by.

“Take one,” I said, removing the lid from the box and revealing the green bottles inside. Madeleine hesitated.

“Lomax isn’t going to drink 12 beers when we reach the desert, especially considering he drank three just a few minutes ago,” I said. I thought Madeleine’s gold hoop earrings accentuated her black hair, which she had piled up on top of her head, making her face look thinner and more attractive. “Anyway, he brought the beers for people in the group,” I added.

Woman with Baby Selling Watermelon

Madeleine removed one of the bottles from the box and looked at the label for a few moments before replacing the bottle.

“Maybe later,” she said as she turned toward the window. “Can you believe it? Ismael has surfaced again.”

Ismael stood looking in our direction on the sidewalk in front of a two-story white building. It showed the city’s French colonial style and featured a large balcony with an ornate balustrade on the second level. The bus driver, carefully maneuvering through the streams of vehicles and pedestrians, avoided a collision with another bus and, next, threatened to hit a group of men as he carved a path toward Ismael. They adroitly avoided the bus. Ismael, slender and very dark, made eye contact with the bus driver but otherwise did not move from his position on the sidewalk.

“We visited the museum yesterday,” Hercule said in French, addressing Lomax but glancing out the window at the building’s white façade and its sign displaying five words printed in blue letters, Syndicat d’initiative et de Tourisme. He turned to his wife, Delphine, who nodded at her husband. Two days before, I had taken a tour of the old building and stumbled upon the museum, called Musée Jean Mermoz, which comprised a series of small rooms featuring a handful of exhibits dedicated to the achievements of pioneering French aviators, including Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He had achieved fame for his novella, Le Petit Prince, or, in English, The Little Prince, published in 1943. Also, he’d led a much-publicized life of adventure, exploring France’s territories across Africa at a time when most Europeans rarely ventured past the Mediterranean.

“It’s an important museum,” Hercule added. “But I think it should focus on Saint-Exupéry exclusively.” He paused. “He was a true adventurer. Of course, I’m a pilot myself. Well, I was 40 years ago, when I first met Delphine and started to work for her father flying his plane.”

“Saint-Exupéry died young,” Delphine commented to no one in particular, speaking in French and referring to the airplane crash in the Mediterranean which claimed the life of the Frenchman when he was only 44 years old. “His body was never found,” she added, looking around at the other passengers. “My husband wishes, I think, he had lived the life Saint-Exupéry lived and not married me. I couldn’t get him out of the museum.”

Fruit Stand

After the driver opened the door of the bus, Ismael entered and stopped in the stairwell. He stared at the Chinese couple in the first row. When he glanced into the interior of the bus, he nodded at Sylvie sitting near the front. As he swept his gaze across the other passengers farther away, he looked at me before kneeling down in the stairwell with his back to the driver.

“What a surprise!” Madeleine exclaimed. “It looks like Ismael is going to Podor with us. By the way, did you know that in French the word, podor, means gold? How appropriate for Ismael to accompany us to Podor.” After peering into the long, vertical mirror to his left and seeing a gap in the traffic, the driver pulled the bus away from Musée Jean Mermoz and joined the stream of vehicles onto the bridge.

“Yes,” I said. “Ismael seems to turn up everywhere.” The thought occurred to me it was Ismael who had called the bus driver a few minutes earlier as the driver was about to pull away from Hôtel de La Résidence. Madeleine looked up the aisle to the second row behind the driver where Sylvie sat next to the window.

“What’s he trying to accomplish?” Madeleine asked. She was silent for a few moments. Then she said, “Sylvie should know what’s going on. She communicates with Ismael regularly.”

“Go ask her,” I said.

Madeleine scowled. She glanced at her seat next to Sylvie and hesitated. She didn’t want to give the impression she was following my order, but she soon tired of standing and returned to her seat beside Sylvie. Madeleine had seemed worried. It was possible, I thought, that the business dealings between her close friend, Sylvie, and Ismael, who had agreed to sell some gold pieces to Sylvie, were not going smoothly. But also, I knew that Sylvie, an anesthesiologist at a large hospital in a suburb of Paris, was a smart woman. She knew how to take care of herself. I didn’t think Madeleine had cause for concern.

Five Children

When I looked out the window, I saw we were in traffic on Pont Faidherbe, which extended over the water below for almost 2,000 feet between N’Dar Island and the African mainland. Built in the 1890s and renovated in the early 2000s at a cost of about $30 million, the bridge had eight spans made of metal. One of the spans at the western end was shorter than the other seven and could pivot on a separate pylon, enabling the shorter span to turn and allow large boats to pass underneath the bridge. I could see some of the metal spans, formed with riveted girders, were new; they had been installed a few years before, according to François, who had provided a history of the bridge on the previous afternoon during a tour led by Ismael.

The bus driver guided the bus carefully to the end of the bridge and drove onto the African mainland. Now we were entering the more recently built neighborhoods of St. Louis and entered a roundabout. Inside the bus, sitting three rows up the aisle from me, Denis and Jean-Paul were talking loudly in French.

“What about my cognac?” Denis was saying to his companion.

“I took care of it,” Jean-Paul replied.

“The good stuff?” Denis asked.

“Yes,” Jean-Paul said.

Passing through the roundabout, we ignored the extension of Avenue General de Gaulle which went straight ahead on the other side of the roundabout toward a commercial district with a soccer stadium close by, called Stade Me Babacar Sèye. Instead the driver turned on a separate road, Route de la Corniche, running along the east side of the Senegal River. Raphael stood up from his seat in the middle of the bus, balanced himself on two sandaled feet in the aisle, and pointed out the window at a pale-yellow structure of three stories on the east side of the road. On its façade, I saw the words, Ecole de L’Elevage, printed in large letters above a mural composed of abstract designs depicting, likely, scenes of the Senegalese countryside.

“The building you see there,” Raphael announced, speaking loudly in French but addressing no one in particular, “is a national training center.” He looked around the bus, hoping to catch the eye of anyone who was interested. “It prepares young people for careers in animal husbandry,” he added. “They learn, among other things, how to raise cows, goats, and sheep for commercial purposes.”

Cattle

Hercule had a strained look on his face as he sat on the edge of his seat a few inches from Raphael. Hercule mumbled something to his wife, Delphine, who sat by his side next to the window. At the same time, François, sitting across the aisle from Hercule, looked out the window and studied the school with great interest.

“Oh, yes, I have been inside the building,” François interjected, speaking in French. “I visited an old colleague on my first visit to Senegal.” He glanced to his left at Anta, sitting by his side next to the window. “It was a long time ago,” he added.

Anta smiled, revealing beautiful, white teeth, but did not speak. She looked out the window to the left of the bus as the driver approached a long curve in the road. On a few acres of a sand-covered space, I could see a collection of circular structures built with mud bricks and featuring thatched roofs spread out at wide intervals behind a low white wall. Next to these primitive structures scattered across the compound were gum acacia trees of varying sizes, most of them over 15 feet tall. A green sign with the words, Village Artisanal, loomed over the driveway at the front of the compound. Raphael remained standing in the aisle, but he didn’t offer comments about the community or the products its workers sold. When the driver rounded the curve on Route de la Corniche, we found ourselves on a new road, called Route du Cimetiere. We now were heading south.

Lomax, who had been taking photos out the windows from different seats in the back of the bus, approached and looked at his Styrofoam box, seemingly thinking about a beer. He glanced out a window as the driver slowed the bus and noticed a collection of watermelons on a narrow lot by the road. When the driver brought us to a standstill to avoid colliding with a group of three men, two women, and some children crossing Route du Cimetiere, Lomax snapped photos of the slow-moving pedestrians. On the right side of the road, he took another series of photos of an oddly shaped restaurant, called Dibiterie du Carrefour. A sign on one wall of the modernistic building had been painted in blue letters. Below the name, someone had drawn an image of a cow. The place was a steakhouse.

#Africa, #Travelogue #Africa, #Art, #Beauty, #ClimateChange, #Culture, #Environment

#Africa #art #beauty #climate change #culture #environment

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toldnews-blog · 5 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/travel/a-new-kind-of-hamilton-show-this-time-on-lake-michigan/

A New Kind of ‘Hamilton’ Show, This Time on Lake Michigan

CHICAGO — Audrey Burcham and Grace Troelstrup got up at 5 a.m. Saturday to be sure they’d make it on time. By 7, three hours before a large “Hamilton” exhibition opened here, they were standing at the front of the line with their moms. Audrey, 12, was clutching an Alexander Hamilton doll as well as a hard-bound collection of inspirational tweets from Lin-Manuel Miranda and, of course, a Playbill; Grace, 13, was wearing a gold star “Hamilton” knit cap and toting “Hamilton: The Revolution,” the explanatory book known to fans as the Hamiltome.

“We’re obsessed,” Audrey said. Grace nodded in agreement. “Hamilton is our life now.”

Hamilfans (yes, that’s what they call themselves) have a lot of ways to engage with the juggernaut musical. There’s the show itself, of course, now playing in six productions in North America and Britain, with a seventh expected at some point in Germany, and the books and the app and the cast recording and the mixtape.

But now “Hamilton,” created by Mr. Miranda, has taken a step that appears to be without precedent in the theater world. On an island in Lake Michigan (well, it’s called Northerly Island, but it’s really more of a peninsula attached to a popular park) the show has erected a huge shed in which it has created a high-tech exhibition that combines entertainment (a 3-D theater offers a rare you-are-on-the-stage view of Mr. Miranda leading the Washington cast in performing the show’s opening number), education (more than you probably want to know about the Articles of Confederation) and commerce ($25 for your very own pair of King George socks).

The exhibition is a commercial venture, overseen by Jeffrey Seller, who is the musical’s lead producer, and designed by David Korins, who is the musical’s set designer. It has been capitalized for $13.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission — more than the cost of the original Broadway musical, which was $12.5 million. Tickets are $39.50 for adults, $25 for children and free for Chicago public school groups.

The show is betting that interest in “Hamilton” remains so high, both among those who have seen the show and those who have not, that it can sustain the exhibition here for months and then move it to another location — San Francisco or Los Angeles are “logical options,” Mr. Seller said. It is built to tour, although it will require space — the exhibition occupies 35,000 square feet in a hangar-like structure that is 300 feet long and 100 feet wide — and expense: Moving it will take 80 trucks, compared to just seven to move a touring production of the show.

The exhibition is starting in Chicago in recognition of the musical’s success here, where the first production outside New York opened in 2016, and the musical has now been seen by more people in Chicago than in New York.

Among those who attended a ribbon-cutting on Friday was the mayor-elect of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, who said she had seen the musical four times (once in New York, three times in Chicago), and was “blown away by everything about it.”

The exhibition is a cousin to any number of museum-lite shows, often combining artifacts and fun-for-the-family activities in a selfie-conducive setting, that have been mounted in association with television shows (“Downton Abbey”), movies (“Jurassic Park”), games (“Angry Birds”) and musical groups (the Rolling Stones). Some are mounted at nonprofit institutions — just within the last year, New York has seen museum exhibitions about David Bowie (at the Brooklyn Museum), Harry Potter (at the New-York Historical Society) and Tolkien’s Middle-earth (at the Morgan Library & Museum). But many are in less rarefied for-profit settings — at shopping centers, for example. Just this week, a “Hunger Games” exhibition is opening inside a casino hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

“Brands are looking to connect with consumers, and people are looking for an experience that is more than being on their phones all the time,” said Tom Zaller, the chief executive of Imagine Exhibitions, which helped conceive this project but is no longer working on it. “There have certainly been other ‘Hamilton’ exhibitions that museums have done, but your typical ‘Hamilton’ theater fan is probably less likely to go to a history museum than to hear Lin-Manuel Miranda tell them the story.”

The immersive exhibition tracks the life of Alexander Hamilton, who was the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, from his childhood in the Caribbean to his fatal shooting on a dueling ground in Weehawken, N.J., and it also uses his life as a tool for exploring early American history.

It follows the arc of the musical, but also delves into issues that are only lightly mentioned onstage — like the role of slavery in the economy of the Americas, including colonial New York, and offers information about soldiers of color, women at war and Native Americans. A room focused on the election of 1800 features silhouettes of those excluded from voting in early America, including women, enslaved African-Americans, Native Americans and poor whites.

There are carnival-game-style exhibits that try to help visitors understand Hamilton’s concern with debt, banking, and manufacturing policy, and, inside a facsimile of George Washington’s wartime tent, there is a tabletop plan for the Battle of Yorktown featuring toy ships and soldiers that move by magnetization. There is a room with a spiral path to represent the hurricane that affected Hamilton’s early life, there are quotes about Hamilton from famous Americans and there’s a legacy area where visitors can write down their own wishes for America.

“I have so many people come up to me and say, ‘I hardly knew anything about Hamilton, and I want to know more,’” Mr. Miranda said in an interview here. “This is for them.”

There are, of course, many nods to the musical, including an audio guide narrated by Mr. Miranda and two other member of the original cast — Phillipa Soo and Christopher Jackson. The exhibition also has a soundtrack that will be familiar to fans — it’s a reorchestrated instrumental version of the show’s score, recorded in a Los Angeles studio by a 27-piece band.

Scattered throughout are small white signs that correct historical inaccuracies in the musical. On the audio guide, Mr. Miranda refers to them as “tweaks to history” and “fun facts that set the record straight.” The most significant, given the debate in some circles over how the musical depicts its hero’s relationship to slavery, is a sign that says that “The real Hamilton wasn’t an abolitionist, but he did oppose slavery.”

Mr. Miranda is straightforward about the fact that his musical is not precise history. In a welcoming video to the exhibition, he says, “I made a lot of things up,” and in the interview he said, “Don’t expect to pass a test on Argentinean politics by watching ‘Evita.’”

The exhibition aspires to greater historicity. Joanne Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale, served as an adviser and narrates some of the audio; Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of American legal history at Harvard Law School, served as a consultant.

“There are two ways to respond to the musical — one is to say, ‘Everything is not accurate, and I don’t like that,’ and the other is to say, ‘Everything is not accurate, so come with me and let me tell you more,’” Professor Freeman said. “I’ve been studying this period for many decades, and I’ve never seen this kind of interest — people want to know more, and it’s a wonderful thing that the show wanted historians to come in and offer a responsible version of more.”

Professor Gordon-Reed, who called the musical “fictionalized biography,” said the exhibition “attempts to tell the story in broader context.” “I imagine lots of young people will be there, and this will give them a more nuanced view of what happened in early America,” she said.

Early attendees seemed impressed. Among those lined up for the opening were Alex Lipp, 19, of Chicago, and Cyandra Bennett, 19, of Sheldon, Ill. On Friday night, they had seen the musical in Chicago — Ms. Lipp cosplaying as King George and Ms. Bennett as Hamilton. And on Saturday morning, Ms. Lipp showed off a forearm tattoo with words from the show’s libretto, “History has its eyes on you,” while Ms. Bennett had the show’s signature star drawn in black makeup under her left eye. Because they were in the first group to move through the museum, they got an unexpected bonus — they spotted Mr. Miranda in the last room, and got a selfie with him. “It was surreal — I was shaking really hard,” Ms. Lipp said. As for the exhibition, she said, “There was literally nothing I didn’t like.”

#m1 travel news southbound #snow and travel news #travel news 2br #travel news buxton #travel news m4/5 #travel news underground

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jerrytackettca · 6 years

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Can You Believe There Are Cockroach Farms in China?

The featured video, produced by the South China Morning Post, opens with these words: "If cockroaches make you uncomfortable … this could be your worst nightmare." Indeed. Most of us would do almost anything to avoid a daily work environment that involves contact with millions of teeming roaches. In China, however, cockroaches are big business.

A number of Chinese cities contending with explosive population growth are finding cockroaches to be a helpful solution to the ever-increasing problem of food waste disposal. With landfills approaching capacity in some areas, it's roaches to the rescue.

Not only do these pesky insects eat food scraps, but they also are a source of animal feed and an ingredient in some health and beauty products, as well as medicines. Though you may find it hard to believe, cockroach breeding farms in China are the real deal.

Roaches to the Rescue: China's Unusual Urban Waste Disposal System

Cockroaches are big business in China, where, according to Reuters, teeming colonies of them are entrusted with the serious job of devouring tons of kitchen waste.1 Though the thought of millions of cockroaches together in one location sounds like something from a horror movie, it is actually the foundation of an innovative urban waste disposal system.

The goal: Reduce the amount of food-related garbage deposited in landfills. The issue of food waste is particularly problematic in large Chinese cities with rapidly expanding populations. Because roaches have voracious appetites and are easy to house, they are, it seems, the perfect match for China's garbage problem.

These so-called cockroach farms are maintained in humid, near-dark conditions, which are ideal for the insects. When the bugs eventually die, they are usually transformed into animal feed. On the outskirts of Jinan, for example, the capital of eastern Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are being fed about 50 metric tons of kitchen waste a day.

That's an amount equivalent in weight to seven elephants. With respect to how the garbage makes its way to the roaches, Reuters states:2

"The waste arrives before daybreak at the plant run by Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co., where it is fed through pipes to cockroaches in their cells. Shandong Qiaobin plans to set up three more such plants next year, aiming to process a third of the kitchen waste produced by Jinan, home to about 7 million people."

While some people despise cockroaches and others are disgusted by them, Li Yanrong, general manager of Shandong Qiaobin, sees these hardy insects only for their beneficial qualities. In 2017, Li told China Daily:3

"We spent six years doing research into using cockroaches after finding that they can feed on kitchen waste and create no pollutants. Using cockroaches to deal with kitchen waste is good for our country and for business. Social problems created by kitchen waste will be eradicated."

Li claims cockroaches are able and willing to devour almost anything. He says they can consume up to 5 percent of their body weight every day. "Cockroaches have been eating plants and organic matter since hundreds of millions of years ago," he said. "They are experts in waste composting."4

Cockroaches Picking Up Where Pigs Left Off After Swine Fever Outbreak

Li is not the only one enthused about roaches. "Cockroaches are a biotechnological pathway for the converting and processing of kitchen waste," says Liu Yusheng, president of Shandong Insect Industry Association and entomology professor at Shandong Agricultural University.5

This is particularly the case because it's currently illegal to feed human food waste to pigs in China. Roaches have come to the forefront, in part, due to the Chinese nationwide ban on using food waste for pig feed.6 That ban, which has fueled the growth of the cockroach industry, came about as a result of African swine fever outbreaks first detected in August 2018.7

In October 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a statement saying, "After the provinces with outbreaks and neighboring provinces completely banned feeding of kitchen waste to pigs, the epidemic was greatly reduced, which fully demonstrates the importance of completely prohibiting the feeding of waste [to pigs]."8

The industry is primed to grow even more as a result of the new laws around pigs and food waste. In the past three years, Liu notes the number of cockroach farmers in Shandong alone has tripled to about 400. "There have been huge developments in cockroach breeding and research in the past few years," said Liu.9

Novel Uses for Cockroaches Include Health and Beauty Applications

Beyond eating waste, cockroaches are valued for other reasons, including their eggs. Li told China Daily his company can earn 36.5 million yuan ($5.3 million) a year by selling protein feed produced from cockroach eggs.10 "A cockroach begins laying eggs when it is 4 months old. It lays one egg each week and can lay eggs for eight months," Li said.11

In addition, roaches are being considered for their potential usefulness in health and beauty products and medications. As presented in the featured video, in Sichuan, a privately held company called Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Research, established in 1998, is raising about 6 billion cockroaches.

Geng Funeng, president of Gooddoctor, who appears in the video, says he hopes the international science community will one day recognize the value of roaches for medicine.

"Insects are a complete and living organism," Geng states in the video. He told the Sydney Morning Herald he personally eats 10 of them a day.12 "They contain multiple compounds to benefit our health," he added. "I think the problems in our lives can be better solved with living solutions."

Beyond the use of cockroaches in medications, researchers at Gooddoctor are also investigating the possibility of using roach extracts in beauty masks, diet pills and even hair-loss treatments.13 Another source says it can be used to treat diabetic ulcers and severe skin wounds.14

"The essence of cockroach is good for curing oral and peptic ulcers, skin wounds and even stomach cancer," asserts Wen Jianguo, manager of Gooddoctor's cockroach facility.15 According to Reuters, "At Gooddoctor, when cockroaches reach the end of their life span of about six months, they are blasted by steam, washed and dried, before being sent to a huge nutrient extraction tank."16

"They really are a miracle drug," Liu added. "They can cure a number of ailments and they work much faster than other medicine."17 In 2013, Liu told The Telegraph a cream made from powdered cockroaches had been used in some Chinese hospitals as a treatment for burns and for cosmetic facial masks in Korea.18

Beyond that, The Telegraph reported a syrup invented by a drug manufacturer in Sichuan promises to cure duodenal ulcers, gastroenteritis and pulmonary tuberculosis.19 "China has the problem of an aging population," said Liu. "So, we are trying to find new medicines for older people, and these are generally cheaper than Western medicine."20

Cockroaches Used to Feed Chickens and Humans

At Shandong Qiaobin, Li and his employees bake and mill dead cockroaches into high-protein powder that is added to chicken feed. He claims the powder has been found to "reduce body fat and boost immunity in the 1,000-plus chickens he has raised."21

The South China Morning Post calls out the high protein content of cockroaches, suggesting they can be useful as food not just for animals, but humans as well.22 Consumer Reports notes the use of insect protein in energy bars and other food items sold in the U.S. In a 2014 review of such products, they stated:23

"[T]he cricket products popping up on store shelves in the U.S. don't contain insects that are rounded up in the wild. These critters are raised on domestic cricket farms, where they are fed a grain-based diet. They're dried or roasted and then milled into a fine flour. About 40 crickets are packed into an average snack bar."

According to Liu, restaurants in major cockroach-farming provinces like Shandong, Sichuan and Yunnan already sell cockroach dishes for human consumption.24 Very often, he notes, molting cockroaches are seasoned with salt or spices and then deep-fried or stir-fried.

Although nobody has made a commercial venture selling edible cockroaches on a large scale, Liu said he believes businesses will soon make the move. "They can easily mill the molting cockroaches and make flour with them," he said.25

Given the increasing interest in insects as food, in May 2018, the 2nd International Conference "Insects to Feed the World" was held in China to discuss the role of insects in helping to sustain human life and promote nutrition.26

In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (U.N.) published a report suggesting people start eating insects as a possible solution to global food shortages.27 As for the types of insects most commonly eaten for food, the U.N. notes the following breakdown:28

Beetles (Coleoptera) — 31 percent

Caterpillars (Lepidoptera) — 18 percent

Bees, wasps and ants (Hymenoptera) — 14 percent

Grasshoppers, locusts and crickets (Orthoptera) — 13 percent

Cicadas, leafhoppers, planthoppers, scale insects and true bugs (Hemiptera) — 10 percent

Termites (Isoptera, also known as Blattodea) — 3 percent

Dragonflies (Odonata) — 3 percent

Flies (Diptera) — 2 percent

Other orders — 5 percent

As members of the same order as termites, cockroaches rank No. 6 on the list of most commonly eaten insects. You can learn more about the U.N. report by checking out my article "Eat Insects, Save the World."

Speaking of roaches as a food source, more intriguing still is the notion of cockroach milk as a potential super food. Yes, that's right, cockroach milk. A certain type of cockroach (Diploptera punctata), found mostly in the Pacific Islands, is the main source of this bug beverage.

A 2016 study29,30 from India asserts cockroach milk contains more than three times as much energy as cow's milk. That said, the researchers indicated there is a lack of evidence roach milk is safe for human consumption, so further investigation is needed.

To learn more about this, you may want to read my article "Cockroach Milk — The Most Nutritious?" Roach milk aside, the potential for other roach-inspired food products has captured the interest of at least one cockroach farmer in Sichuan province's rural Yibin city.

He sells about 22 pounds of cockroaches a month to two local restaurants, where they are used in various dishes. Says Li Bingcai:31

"I plan to produce food products like cockroach meatballs and cockroach flour in two years. I've always wanted to make food products from the beginning. People were scared of [cockroaches] at first, but now so many are eating them. The taste is special and they are full of protein."

Cockroaches Are a Lucrative Business in China

While it is clear there is money to be made across the board with cockroaches and cockroach breeding farms in China, it seems operations focused on using roach extracts for medicinal purposes are among the most lucrative.

As reported by The Telegraph,32 Wang Fuming operates a cockroach farm in China's Shandong province, where he houses more than 22 million of the insects in concrete bunkers in the suburbs of Jinan. Wang raises the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) exclusively and sells his output to pharmaceutical companies for top dollar.

Previously, Wang says he bred a particular type of wingless, flightless cockroach (Eupolyphaga sinensis) whose dried body is prized in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

The increases in demand for the American cockroach are such that from 2011 to 2013 he claims to have quintupled production to more than 100 tons a year. "There are hundreds of species of cockroaches, but only this one has any medicinal value," says Wang."33

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Gooddoctor's 2017 sales amounted to 6.3 billion Chinese yuan ($914 million). Their best seller, worth $1 billion yuan ($145 million), was a cockroach-containing "Recovery New Potion" that can be consumed orally or used on your skin.

While using legions of cockroaches as waste composters or as food and medicine continues to make news in China, most people in the U.S. and other Western nations still consider this insect as nothing more than an unwanted pest.

Unless you are looking to shock your family or friends by eating cockroaches, I recommend waiting for researchers in China and elsewhere to further develop the science around how cockroaches may benefit human health.

from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/12/29/cockroach-farming-in-china.aspx

source http://niapurenaturecom.weebly.com/blog/can-you-believe-there-are-cockroach-farms-in-china

0 notes

jakehglover · 6 years

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Can You Believe There Are Cockroach Farms in China?

youtube

Roaches to the Rescue: China's Unusual Urban Waste Disposal System

That's an amount equivalent in weight to seven elephants. With respect to how the garbage makes its way to the roaches, Reuters states:2

Cockroaches Picking Up Where Pigs Left Off After Swine Fever Outbreak

Novel Uses for Cockroaches Include Health and Beauty Applications

Geng Funeng, president of Gooddoctor, who appears in the video, says he hopes the international science community will one day recognize the value of roaches for medicine.

Cockroaches Used to Feed Chickens and Humans

Beetles (Coleoptera) — 31 percent

Caterpillars (Lepidoptera) — 18 percent

Bees, wasps and ants (Hymenoptera) — 14 percent

Grasshoppers, locusts and crickets (Orthoptera) — 13 percent

Cicadas, leafhoppers, planthoppers, scale insects and true bugs (Hemiptera) — 10 percent

Termites (Isoptera, also known as Blattodea) — 3 percent

Dragonflies (Odonata) — 3 percent

Flies (Diptera) — 2 percent

Other orders — 5 percent

He sells about 22 pounds of cockroaches a month to two local restaurants, where they are used in various dishes. Says Li Bingcai:31

Cockroaches Are a Lucrative Business in China

Previously, Wang says he bred a particular type of wingless, flightless cockroach (Eupolyphaga sinensis) whose dried body is prized in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/12/29/cockroach-farming-in-china.aspx

0 notes

ellebeebee · 7 years

Text

2.537

Part Nine

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight || Part Nine || Epilogue

Phrixus Jaril, 13, moves to the Citadel at a delicate age: namely, the peak of his teenage angst. He doesn’t expect much from these rich Citadel kids. But then he meets the Ryder twins, and all their friends, and realizes that he may have been a wee bit wrong about things. His relationship with Mira Ryder evolves over the years, and he never expected things to end up the way they did.

3951 words, Female Ryder|Sara Ryder/Original Male Turian Character, teen rating

AO3

They hadn’t met face to face in seven years.

That last glimpse of her as he boarded the ship for boot camp. Her golden brown face, frozen as she turned to watch him go. The messages caught on her tongue and in his omnitool logs, promises to wait. Things hadn’t turned out like they’d thought it would, and maybe that’s what the fear in her eyes knew back then.

But now, she stood at a corner of a busy lane in Silversun, looking at her tool and not realizing yet that he was nearby. She’d dressed up, heels. Not the running gear he remembered from those Arena days, and the messy house parties, beer everywhere. He smoothed down the front of his clothes and approached her.

She glanced up, and then did a double-take. Breaking into a grin, she straightened.

“Phri,” she said, arms going out for a hug.

A knot in his stomach he hadn’t even been aware of loosened at her reaction.

“Mira.”

He had to stoop a little (well, a lot) to comfortably get his arms around her. Released, she stumbled back on her heels, a hand going to her mouth.

“When did you get so tall?” she laughed.

“When did you get so short?” he returned.

She bit her lip, looking down. He watched, and then cleared his throat to look around. The holosky above had cycled into the dark period, the alleys and storefronts gleaming with neon lights and glittering advertisements. Hover vehicles hissed overhead, laughter and loud indistinguishable voices bouncing around the narrow valley of the building fronts. A dense traffic of every species in the galaxy sped around them.

“And when did this place get so small?” he asked.

She tucked a curl behind an ear. “It does seem different, doesn’t it?”

He looked back at her. Their eyes met, and the look made them both glance back away, laughing nervously.

“Um, sooo,” she said. “You hungry? There’s this new sushi place that’s supposed to be great.”

The restaurant sat up in one of the nicer high-rise buildings, looking over the vista of the dazzling neon and the writhing crowds below. Across the lane, another nice high-rise with a bar pulsed with music and dancing figures. The restaurant was pretty aggressive about showing you how fresh their food was; several aquariums divided areas of the dining floor, chefs occasionally coming out to scoop up the next order. Nice music and well-to-do waiters; it certainly wasn’t the greasy smoke and rickety, cheap aluminum tables from years ago.

After being seated in the dappled shadows of one of those aquariums and ordering drinks, (and after a great deal of nervous glances and smiles) Mira cleared her throat over the menu.

“How’re your moms?”

“Good,” he said. “They miss you.”

She smiled. “That’s sweet.”

As they waited for the bar to send over their drinks, they worked out their mutual nerves with catch-up smalltalk. Calix and Domera. Forta and Alec. Aela, N’tessa, N’kae, all the old faces. A little about their postings, Ena Mar and Mars.

The waiter came back around for their orders.

“Oh, umm. You go ahead,” Mira said, looking back down at the menu.

Phrixus ordered, and handed his menu back, eyeing her as she hummed and mumbled. The waiter waited with sardonic impassivity.

“Should I order for you?” Phrixus drawled.

She glanced up at him. Her eyes twinkled and she handed her menu to him, propping her head on her hands so her eyes could twinkle at him, full-force.

“Go ahead,” she said.

Phrixus reeled off an order, and then some. He went down the menu, picking out a good portion of the levo offerings. The waiter stared at him, their fingers flying across a datapad and face expressing nothing beyond a spot of boredom. Across from him, Mira’s brow was rising.

As the waiter walked off, she leaned toward him. “What are you doing? How am I supposed to eat all that?”

He gave her a look. “The reason you were always so indecisive is because you wanted all the food, right?”

“What? That’s not true,” she huffed, biting at a grin.

He gave her a look.

“Okay, maybe a little true,” she snorted.

“So,” he said, tilting his head. “Let’s get all the food, then.”

Smiling, she looked down and shook her head.

As the drinks arrived, he sipped at his glass and considered her. She was different. Her face wasn’t like he remember, but then, nothing is ever as you remember. Older, more… streamlined? More real? More itself? Not fifteen anymore, but neither was he.

He put his glass down. “Okay. Seven year ice is broken. Tell me about the Andromeda Initiative.”

Running a finger through the condensation of her own glass, Mira considered her words.

“Well,” she said. “It’s a colonization venture. A hundred thousand colonists and personnel, with about equal percentages of the major Milky Way races. Dad is what they’re calling a ‘Pathfinder.’ Spearhead of the exploration once we get there. Forta and I are part of his team.”

“So this was all your dad’s idea?”

She nodded. “He’s actually been a big part of the part of the project planning. He’s made a contribution that’s, well, become essential.”

She hesitated, and leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It’s an AI.”

His mandibles jerked out and tucked back. What in the– something seemed strange here. AI research had long been illegal in Citadel space, and since when had Alec Ryder been doing such work? He thought back to those afternoons spent in the Ryder apartment. All of the terminals and boards with formulas. And. Surely the travel to an entirely new galaxy had nothing to do with… an AI. Right?

He cleared his throat. “But. Mira. Cryo sleep for six hundred years, traveling all those light years?”

“I know,” she said. “They have all this trial data and test analyses. It’s all going to be very safe.”

“That’s reassuring, but not really what I meant,” he said.

Her eyes shot down.

“…I know,” she murmured. “I mean. Honestly– I’m a little terrified.”

She stared aside at the teeming fish in the aquarium beside them, to lessen the impact of her words. Blue light played across her features. It didn’t make sense. He could logically think, in the very near future this person will no longer exist. She will be far and away, encased in icy air and falling through dark space. That the next time she wakes, the next time she ‘exists,’ he will no longer exist. Not his children, or his children’s children.

It didn’t make sense. Not Mira Ryder. Not the girl who… well. It was as if his whole being, from his mind down to his spirit, wanted to reject that thought wholly and totally.

“There’s still time, right?” he asked. “I mean, you don’t have to…”

She was shaking her head at him before he finished. “A month. Well, more like a little over three weeks now. But, no, I do have to.”

He shifted, brow plate drawing down. He found himself staring at the dance of water’s prismatic shadows across her short-bridged nose as she continued.

“This is Dad’s– dream, I guess. It’s his life’s work. And Forta– you should hear him go on about all our potential colony sites and all the ‘adventure’ he’s planning on having. Exploration and all that. They both want this. And after Mom… I can’t lose them. I couldn’t…”

She smiled a smile that wasn’t a smile. “I mean, if it was Domera and Calix, could you just stay here and watch them go?”

He couldn’t.

“No,” he said.

Silence stretched between them. Then the waiter came around again, with another waiter, each shouldering great platters of little sushi plates, slices of orange and red and yellow and white fish. Translucent and fresh. Brilliant little piles of roe, gleaming and shiny. It was a wonder that the table didn’t sag under all of it. Mira gazed at it all, the dampness about her eyes giving away to a small smile.

“Well,” Phrixus said, picking up his eating sticks. “I guess we should eat.”

She coped him, and tilted her head. “I guess we should.”

The Initiative was put aside for the moment as they ate. And even though she protested an inability to consume all that fish, she made a point of trying everything. And telling him about every morsel, complaining about his dextro-ness coming between him and trying everything, too.

They finished eating and left, walking along the main lane of Silversun and not saying much of importance. Remembering, mostly. This or that place they got kicked out of. That spot where a really good ice cream stand used to be. They came to a stop in front of Armex Arsenal Arena.

Mira sighed. “Too bad we don’t have a full team. I could work off all these calories.”

Phrixus hummed. “You know, we lost the last match I was in? If I’d thought about it then…”

“Did we?” she mused, staring up at the radiating sign above them.

It surprised him how hard it was, walking along the old places with her. Her shoes clicking and their hands not meeting, holding the way they used to.

He turned to her. “You still a half-decent shot?”

She gazed up at him, a smirk at the corner of her lips. “Are you sure you want to find out? Don’t want to embarrass the Hierarchy and all.”

“Gun range, it is.”

They chose a VR range; they’d had one drink each, and a ton of food besides, but they were being responsible. Or something like that. And she was still a half-decent shot. Tossed off her shoes and wielded a rifle like another limb. They shared targets, and he suspected that anything he hit was only because she left it for him. Much more than a half-decent shot. It was a wonder that the Alliance had her stuffed away doing peacekeeping for some Prothean researchers, even if she did enjoy it.

That certainly wouldn’t fly in the Hierarchy. Someone’s a good shot and their potential isn’t utilized? That’s on their commanders for failure to strengthen the whole. Well. That’s how things should be, anyways.

“You remember that big fight I got into with Aela?” Phrixus asked her, outside of the gun range and strolling down the main avenue. The couplet-declaiming elcor was still at the same corner, probably still working through the same play.

“How could I forget?” Mira smiled. “My wild and colorful youth wouldn’t be complete without it.”

He laughed. “I was a kind of an ass, wasn’t I?”

“A little,” she said. “But so was Aela.”

His mandibles flicked. “Well. I was just thinking. I was a bit naive back then. Maybe still am. But still, even if things weren’t perfect in this galaxy…”

She paused, her feet stopping. The bass rippling from a club nearby brushed against them, with a wash of gold and orange. She looked up at him.

“Even if things aren’t perfect, I’m glad people still expect it to be,” she said. “I’m glad that you do.”

One of her hands reached out, on instinct, out of deep-buried habit maybe, toward him. It dropped halfway, though. She swallowed and looked away.

“This galaxy isn’t perfect,” she said. “And the next one won’t be either. But I guess– I guess we still should keep hoping, though. Right?”

He looked down at her. His head swam with dizziness of unknown origin. He’d only had the one drink hours ago, and he didn’t get VR motion sickness. What was he supposed to say? It still didn’t make sense to him, that she was shortly going to cease to exist. That was an exaggeration, but– deep down, he’d thought that even if they didn’t speak every day, even if years went in between seeing one another, even if they weren’t meant to be together– even then, he’d thought he’d always know she was out there, somewhere. Living her life, being happy somehow, with someone else.

“I guess,” he managed.

They walked on. A Thing was walking with them. It egged them on, prevented them from stopping. Kept them a certain distance apart. This Thing was a composite: the years between them, all the unsaid things, the frightening things ahead. And– she knew about Naea. He’d told her, some months ago, and he knew she wasn’t seeing anyone. Still, neither one of them was saying anything about it. They were on a date, no point being coy about it, but neither of them would say anything.

Probably neither of them ever would. They’d just let it be this Thing between them.

The street wound around, pushing them past the dark shops and the bright arcades and bars and restaurants, deep into the quieter parts of Silversun. “Quiet” being a relative term; there were still drunks at the food stands, gangs of kids hooting about nonsense.

Mira slowed down beside him, and moved into the shadow of a closed storefront. She leaned against the black glass, and lifted an ankle to her fingers.

“Sorry,” she told him. “My feet are killing me. What I get, I guess. Wearing these things.”

He shifted under the darkness with her. Her neck, lined with a soft red glow from somewhere, turned toward him.

“Listen,” she said softly. “Phrixus. I just wanted… well. When I messaged you, I wanted to say that you’ve always been there, in the back of my mind. I’ve always hoped… that you were happy. I know things ended up like they did with us, but I never stopped, you know– caring.”

“I…” he started. “Me too. I really never expected this. I thought for sure someday you’d be… I don’t know. In love and happy somewhere. I had hoped so, anyway. I’m sorry about back then. I wasn’t there for you. You deserved more. You still do.”

He could vaguely make out the way her expression loosened. “I’m sorry, too. I was so– immature and clingy.”

He shook his head. “Mira, you were lonely. You were a lonely girl with a sea of friends doing her best to make herself feel better.”

She sputtered with a wobbly laugh. “Wow. Not pulling punches, huh?”

“I thought we were being honest.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Then– Phrixus, you’re a good person, you know that? You deserve more than just duty and the Hierarchy. You should be happy. But you’re not going to be unless you let yourself have it. Stop putting yourself last. It makes the people that love you sad.”

He was silent. He deserved that, he supposed. His eyes could distinguish her better now: the way she bent back into the glass of the storefront and her face turned up to him. She shifted from foot to foot, probably dying to get off her feet.

“Anyway,” she sighed. “I– I don’t know. There’s a lot that I wished I knew how to say, but– well, you know. I needed to say goodbye, and… Thank you. For letting me say it.”

His heart stuttered. Because it didn’t make any logical sense. How could she say it already– it was too soon, there hadn’t been enough time. She was saying goodbye, and not just goodbye, but goodbye. As final as it comes. Because in less than a month she would be pulled from the same plane of existence that he lived in. She would somewhere he couldn’t reach, couldn’t even message. Not Mira Ryder. Not the girl he’d…

“Wait,” he said.

He reached out and took her wrist.

“Wait,” he repeated. “Mira, I’ve thought about it. And I’ve regretted a lot of things I said back then, but what I hate most is what I didn’t say–”

He took her other hand, his chest tight and pounding, his head swimming.

“I never told you I loved you.”

She inhaled, and he took another step closer.

“I never said it,” he said softly. “Not back then, when we actually…”

And she blinked furiously. “I didn’t either. Back then…”

And then he was slipping a hand around her waist, pulling himself into her. And he was looking into her eyes for a confirmation, seeing himself outlined in soft red light like her. And then he was crashing into her again like he’d done so many times before, and it was nothing like it had been and far too much like before.

Their foreheads tapped, harder than before, and rolled, much more quickly than before, and their mouths searched for each other– much more painfully than before. And she gasped, the way that used to drive his fourteen-year-old self bonkers when he remembered in the middle of chemistry. He clutched at her, pulling her by the small of her back up into him, and her hands flew up across his neck, seeking that tender flesh underneath his mandibles.

And then their chests met, pushed against one another (equal and opposite forces), because he was pulling and clutching and her feet may have left the ground, he couldn’t be sure. Her wet tongue, so unlike his, swept and sought the soft spots, toying and cloying. That hair, curling and falling everywhere, washed him in something sweet and floral. Old colors floated through his head: lavender and peach. She mumbled his name into his mouth, and that set him aching and thrilled him. Shot him full of adrenaline and heat. Pierced his heart. He had his hands slipping beneath her, pulling her up and yanking at her skirt.

An abrupt, loud, and sharp wolf-whistle shattered the quiet.

“That’s not protocol for interspecies cooperation!”

Phrixus and Mira jerked, and she slid down from his hands. He whirled. Four kids stood meters away, holding in giggles and staring.

“Say that again you little fuck,” Phrixus stated, low and flat.

“Fucking spirits, run!” one of them shouted.

And off they went, running for their lives and shrieking with laughter. Phrixus didn’t even bother with a single step after them; he turned back to her. She looked at him. And they burst into laughter.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe–”

“Shit–”

She raised a hand to her red face. “I guess this is a public area”

They stood, giggling and slightly breathless and dizzy, in the dark recess of a storefront. The lane was quiet, with only a few passerby; the most sound came from the distant music and crowds of the main strip, and the ringing of a food stall owner’s cooking utensils a block away. But even so, even with the interruption (which had floored him and made him wonder if some other kid would remember the way he had), they didn’t make an effort to move. She shifted, pushing back down at her skirt with the heel of a palm.

“Mira,” he said, his hand brushing her elbow. “Don’t go tonight.”

She stared up at him, her voice going small. “You sure?”

He nodded. When her expression didn’t change, he reached for her hand. “You didn’t think this might happen?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know– I guess so, maybe. It’s not like I could have made the first move, though.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Are you?”

She squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”

Hours later, in the hotel room, she leaned across to the nightstand and fished around in the little bag she’d had.

“Do you care if I smoke?” she asked, her smooth back turned to him.

“You’re still doing that?” he asked.

She settled back, and a little flame lit her face as she clicked a lighter.

“When I can,” she said, exhaling white into the deep blue darkness. “Ship regulations are so strict, and so are most military buildings. Whole planets, even.”

As she considered her hand, he put an arm around her, and she leaned into it.

“This is my very last one, though. Can’t bring a habit like this across two-point-five million light years.”

The smell, harsh and unsympathetic, brought back the image of her bare back, from before, turned to him. Things unsaid and fear sitting between them. When was that? Just before he left, it must have been.

“Your last one, with me?” he murmured. “What an honor.”

Softly, she laughed. “You’d be surprised. Generally, people say they hate it. The smell and all. Cancer. But when I do this, they remember.”

“So this is one of your moves,” he said.

“Yeah,” she grinned up at him. “It is. And you were the first I used it on. Did it work?”

He moved his hand up, gently sweeping sticking curls off the side of her face. “Yes. But you didn’t need a move to make me remember.”

Her smile changed from playful teasing to something softer. “Sorry. Just–”

Pausing, she went for another inhale and exhale. His fingers toyed with her hair. That was one thing he missed: the feathery feeling of curls between his fingers.

“Sorry, Phrixus,” she whispered. “I really just wanted someone here to remember me. I’m the one going ahead, I know, but I’m scared I’ll…”

She pulled up and turned around to face him. “I just need to know someone here will remember me. Really remember me. And you were– the first for so many things for me. You…”

“I know,” he said. He touched her cheek, lightly grazing with a soft talon. “I won’t forget. Some things are permanent.”

But before that, a pharmacy had to be hunted down (and then came the jokes about getting high not being the objective that night) and the hotel found. They chose a new one, not one of the ones they used to sit outside of and watch the pairs (and sometimes then some) pay by the hour.

There was a Thing between them. It was the years, the long silences, the hurtful words, and the good things left unsaid. It was other people, other responsibilities, their own assholery in going this far. It was the future, and the finality of what tomorrow would bring.

But there was also a Thing that tied them. Equal and opposite. All the firsts, all the smiles, all the shared tears. As fragile and ephemeral as they seem, imprinted as they are in their finite, fallible memories– some things are permanent.

When the room’s door hissed behind them, she held him, arms reaching up and grasping desperately. The hateful shoes slipped off and his clothes peeled away. He was fourteen again, discovering someone anew, becoming vulnerable. The way he clutched her to him and the way he ran his hands over her warm skin– it was new and old. The way she fell back and pulled him under– it was strange and familiar.

It was overwhelming, the feeling that overcame him as they shuddered together. It was too much, and yet–

Not enough.

What more could be said, though?

Some things were permanent.

She left in the morning without saying anything. He pretended to be asleep as she leaned over him, and ran light fingers over a mandible.

Just over three weeks later, the Andromeda Initiative launched.

#mass effect andromeda #mass effect #fanfiction #sara ryder #turians #original turian oc #sara ryder/orignal turian character #my writing #the ending~~#almost #except for an epilogue #haha this was the part that i had originally intended to write #but then my brain got away with me #i'm happy tho with how this whole fic turned out #and phrixus became such a dear little bby cakes to me #:>>>

0 notes

raglanphd · 8 years

Text

The Ice Age and Human Civilization

Written July 4 2016 The oldest human societies don't go back much further than 10,000 years from the present. Six civilizations developed independently: Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, Peru, Mexico, and India. The earliest, Egypt and Mesopotamia, don't go back before 8-10,000 years. I've always wondered why this took so long if anatomically modern humans developed over a hundred thousand years ago and control of fire, to make tools, thousands of years before civilization. For most of our existence we were hunter gatherers, coexisting with other hominids and large land mammals as competition. We had bipedalism, tool use, and intelligence, but didn't make the leap to "civilization." What is civilization anyway? One could describe it as "a place for my stuff", invoking comedian George Carlin's routine. One day we had so much stuff that we couldn't walk around without leaving some behind. And another day we had so much that we couldn't just pack up and go from a campsite we had to settle more permanently, to get more stuff. Being bipedal slowed us down as does the long time it takes for children to develop their big heads, which increases the investment from male hunters, to come home and share, and prevents female gatherers from going too far from camp, where the most important stuff is. Civilization in a general sense is a situation where humans gain some command over nature so that they can remain in the same place and get used to the area to learn more methods of control. Culture comes from Latin cultus; to cultivate, to till. Sedentary existence, agriculture, domestication of animals, prediction and expectation of weather/climate, and some common social expression and communication are basic markers of society from this definition. For society to get growing, there had to be security that we could reap what we sowed. Protection from marauders, natural calamity like flood or drought, storage of surplus production which would enable greater division of labor. Why did it take until about 10,000 years ago for some of us to settle down permanently? Humans spread all over the Earth from presumably a small single population, until some people stopped leaving or never came back to where they came from. The answer I think is the environment itself, the last ice age 2 million to 12,000 years ago, the Pleistocene and the Paleolithic. The last ice age was when we learned to live together after we transitioned from ape to human. It was by the end of the ice age that we learned to control fire, domesticate our first animal the wolf, other hominids went extinct, large land animals provided our opportunities for hunting and eventually went extinct, and Homo sapiens moved from Africa to Europe, Asia, and North America. Neanderthals in Europe disappeared around 30,000 years ago. Necessity caused all these factors and by the time the climate warmed, we were triumphant in our new environments, with the preconditions to settle down. Our transition to hunting ape was perfected during the ice age, marking our transition from ape society. Colder temperatures began back in the Pliocene 5 to 2 millions of years ago when the trees began to disappear, forcing our ancestors to adapt to life on foot in the savanna. As the climate got colder and trees fewer, having a diet of some meat would have been adaptive. Rather than being dependent on nature, we could take the prerogative of finding our own food. Eating meat along with cooking it shaped our complex social organization, sharing food and greater parental investment in young, and enabled a big brain, providing lots of energy and decreasing our jaw size relative to the nut and fruit eating primates. This change to hunting precipitated a social change from primate society, away from a dominance hierarchy with an alpha male on top to one with more equality between males as well as more investment in offspring. The alpha male had primary access to females, probably taking a few mates for himself. Hunting to the contrary was most likely a cooperative venture of acquisition with primitive tools, against large animals. A system of either sexual promiscuity or serial monogamy guaranteeing individual sexual access would have been more advantageous to male loyalty, and so the alpha ape had to die. During this time, a forced egalitarianism in small groups would develop to ensure the sharing of meat. Attachment to multiple females, by confusing paternity, or a single partner, guaranteeing paternity, would guarantee such paternal investment. Sandor Ferenczi the Hungarian psychoanalyst made a connection between Sigmund Freud's psychosexual stage of latency and the last ice age. "Having ventured so far beyond the knowable, we have no reason to shrink before the last analogy and from bringing the last great step into individual repression, the latency period, into connection with the last and greatest catastrophe that smote our primate ancestors...,i.e. with the misery of the glacial period, which we faithfully recapitulate in our individual life." Sandor Ferenczi, Stages in the Development of the Sense of Reality 1913 Freud himself mentioned the theory in The Ego and the Id 1923. "According to one psychoanalytic hypothesis [by Ferenczi], the last mentioned phenomenon, which seems to be peculiar to man, is a heritage of the cultural development necessitated by the glacial epoch. We see, then, that the differentiation of the superego from the ego is no matter of chance" Latency is the period after age 5 or 6 and before puberty, around age 12-13. Sexual identification has already occurred during the previous genital stage. During this period sexual urges are held back and the child is able to make social relationships with fellow children of the same sex and through education take in the morals of adults, fully developing a superego. The sexual instinct is chilled during this cool off period so we can live together. The ice age would have been miserable and therefore formative on our social character for two major reasons; climate and large predators. The former is obvious and is connected with the latter. Bergmann's rule states that a more massive organism has a smaller surface area to volume ratio (short and stocky), the effect of which is less heat loss. This means larger animals fare better in cold environments, also due to storing more fat. Woolly mammoths, giant beavers, saber tooth cats, mastodons and other megafauna roamed the Earth. To survive we would have to work together, hunt the megafauna together. Closer look? When the climate changed and the Earth warmed, humans emerged as one species. Humans do much better in warm climate it seems, having already learned to survive in various climates.Warmer temperatures open up new land for agriculture, the viking colony of Greenland during the medieval warming period as well as wine being grown in Britain as examples. The industrial revolution occurred soon after the end of the "little ice age" around the 19th century and temperatures have risen since along with massive population growth. There were 1 billion people in 1800, 1.6 billion at the start of the twentieth century, and 6 billion by the end of the century. The last two centuries have seen exponential growth, occurring along with the end of this little ice, lowering poverty rates and increasing populations. This is a however somewhat pessimistic answer for the beginnings of civilization. Our entry into civilization was as dependent on the environment as much it was a break away from environmental influence. We learned to live together during harder times where we were forced to live in close quarters and cooperate for our survival, developing at best a negative or forced altruism in small groups of kin or near-kin. The next ice age could mean the end of our interglacial success, a punishment for our decadence. Post-Christian western society still loves the idea of apocalypse, that there will be a cataclysmic end to humanity because of our attitudes toward each other and the world. More likely is gradual or bumpy decline. And it isn't as if nothing of the past would remain. Those of us descended from the collapse of the western Roman empire have the collective memory of the dark ages which followed. But the eastern Roman Empire continued on until the 15th century, and the Islamic Middle East had a golden age of science and philosophy. Glacial periods however are much longer than interglacial periods, lasting in the hundreds of thousands of years. Even with current global warming, the amount of fossil fuels if continued to burn will only last a few centuries and the natural climate cycle due to Earth's orbit around the sun will start to cool the climate. This is far into the future from our perspective though, and much will happen.

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