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11.11.11 :: Year 8, Issue 33

Nov-11-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: In a week when it became clear that Keystone wouldn’t even supply jobs, there was some light at the end of the pipeline, as Obama effectively killed the it (at least as an election issue.) Malcolm Gladwell explores the particular genius of Steve Jobs, and reviews Isaacson’s bio en route. A simple map of the countries who voted for or against Palestinian admission to UNESCO is very revealing: click and look. And two revelations about Fukushima, one expected, one revelatory. Expected: they lied about how much radiation was released; it was twice as much as they said. News: At least one of the plants was already emitting radiation after the earthquake, but before the tsunami hit.

* Keystone Rejected. We Won. You Won.

A few minutes ago the President sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. There’s no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the world’s second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster. And he has made clear that the environmental assessment won’t be carried out by cronies of the pipeline company — that it will be an expert and independent assessment.

* THE TWEAKER: The real genius of Steve Jobs.by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker

Not long after Steve Jobs got married, in 1991, he moved with his wife to a nineteen-thirties, Cotswolds-style house in old Palo Alto. Jobs always found it difficult to furnish the places where he lived. His previous house had only a mattress, a table, and chairs. He needed things to be perfect, and it took time to figure out what perfect was. This time, he had a wife and family in tow, but it made little difference. “We spoke about furniture in theory for eight years,” his wife, Laurene Powell, tells Walter Isaacson, in “Steve Jobs,” Isaacson’s enthralling new biography of the Apple founder. “We spent a lot of time asking ourselves, ‘What is the purpose of a sofa?’ ”

It was the choice of a washing machine, however, that proved most vexing. European washing machines, Jobs discovered, used less detergent and less water than their American counterparts, and were easier on the clothes. But they took twice as long to complete a washing cycle. What should the family do? As Jobs explained, “We spent some time in our family talking about what’s the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table.”

*Interesting infographic on the recent UNESCO vote Mondoweiss

red state blue state: who voted for and against Palestine at UNESCO

* Fukushima Released ‘Twice As Much’ Radioactive Material As First Thought The Guardian

(Editor’s note: Gee, the plant owners lied. Who would have expected that?)

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have released twice as much radiation into the atmosphere as previously estimated, according to a study that contradicts official explanations of the accident. In a report published online by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, experts from Europe and the US estimated that the quantity of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 released at the height of the crisis was equivalent to 42% of that from Chernobyl. Significantly, the report says the plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, may have started releasing radiation between being hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake on 11 March and the arrival of a tsunami about 45 minutes later.

Oct 7th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 29

Oct-07-2011 | Comments (1)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Fukushima has irrevocably changed the way the Japanese feel about their government argues “Contaminated by Mistrust”, the powerful lead story in this week’s Guardian Weekly, as it looks at the psychological fallout from the nuclear disaster. From the Middle East, Al-Jazeera looks at why Palestinians have a problem recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. And a followup to last week’s Asian pictures, a wonderful “Big Picture” set of pictures explores Kashmir and Ladakh.

* Fukushima disaster: it’s not over yet Jonathan Watts The Guardian

….Before publication, I sent Reiko a draft of this article. Her reply was polite, but I felt she was disappointed. “Maybe you can find the answer. Maybe it is too much to ask. If so, just forget it. Even though I am much louder than other Japanese, I feel I am lost. My life here requires me to be normalised, to behave like we used to. I have to work, I have to eat. After five months of struggling, I am getting tired of worrying. It is much easier to give up pursuing reality. What bothers me most is being torn in this conflicting situation with no answer, every moment.”

I sympathise immensely but regret that I cannot offer the comfort of clarity. The nuclear disaster has been terrifying, but not as expected. If someone had told me a year ago that three reactors would melt down simultaneously, I would have assumed an apocalypse. Yet Japan today is not like any doomsday I imagined. Instead, there is a kind of slow decay. After three visits to Fukushima, I am less afraid of radiation than I was a year ago but more worried about Japan.

* Muslim Philosopher Dissembles the Concept of a “Jewish State” Al-Jazeera

First, let us say that confusion immediately arises here because the term “Jewish” can be applied both to the ancient race of Israelites and their descendants, as well as to those who believe in and practice the religion of Judaism. These generally overlap, but not always. For example, some ethnic Jews are atheists and there are converts to Judaism (leaving aside the question of whether these are accepted as such by Ultra-Orthodox Jews) who are not ethnic Jews.

Second, let us suggest also that having a modern nation-state being defined by one ethnicity or one religion is problematic in itself – if not inherently self-contradictory – because the modern nation-state as such is a temporal and civic institution, and because no state in the world is – or can be in practice – ethnically or religiously homogenous.

Third, recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” implies that Israel is, or should be, either a theocracy (if we take the word “Jewish” to apply to the religion of Judaism) or an apartheid state (if we take the word “Jewish” to apply to the ethnicity of Jews), or both, and in all of these cases, Israel is then no longer a democracy – something which has rightly been the pride of most Israelis since the country’s founding in 1948.

* Scenes from Kashmir The Big Picture