Eideard

Edmar Araújo still remembers the awe. As he cleared trees on his family’s land decades ago near Rio Branco, an outpost in the far western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, a series of deep earthen avenues carved into the soil came into focus.

“These lines were too perfect not to have been made by man,” said Mr. Araújo, a 62-year-old cattleman. “The only explanation I had was that they must have been trenches for the war against the Bolivians.”

But these were no foxholes, at least not for any conflict waged here at the dawn of the 20th century. According to stunning archaeological discoveries here in recent years, the earthworks on Mr. Araújo’s land and hundreds like them nearby are much, much older — potentially upending the conventional understanding of the world’s largest tropical rain forest.

The deforestation that has stripped the Amazon since the 1970s has also exposed a long-hidden secret lurking underneath thick rain forest: flawlessly designed geometric shapes spanning hundreds of yards in diameter.

Alceu Ranzi, a Brazilian scholar who helped discover the squares, octagons, circles, rectangles and ovals that make up the land carvings, said these geoglyphs found on deforested land were as significant as the famous Nazca lines, the enigmatic animal symbols visible from the air in southern Peru…

For some scholars of human history in Amazonia, the geoglyphs in the Brazilian state of Acre and other archaeological sites suggest that the forests of the western Amazon, previously considered uninhabitable for sophisticated societies partly because of the quality of their soils, may not have been as “Edenic” as some environmentalists contend…

While researchers piece together the Amazon’s ecological history, mystery still shrouds the origins of the geoglyphs and the people who made them. So far, 290 such earthworks have been found in Acre, along with about 70 others in Bolivia and 30 in the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Rondônia.

RTFA.

Slash-and-burn deforestation is just as likely to lead to destruction of the cultures hidden by that forest. I doubt of many of those moving in to exploit the land are any more burdened with ethics about history than they are about ecology.

There are many reasons to stay properly hydrated, but only recently have scientists begun to consider diabetes prevention one of them. The amount of water you drink can play a role in how your body regulates blood sugar…

The reason: a hormone called vasopressin, which helps regulate water retention.

When the body is dehydrated, vasopressin levels rise, prompting the kidneys to hold onto water. At the same time, the hormone pushes the liver to produce blood sugar, which over time may strain the ability to produce or respond to insulin.

In one of the largest studies to look at the consequences…published last year in Diabetes Care…French scientists tracked more than 3,000 healthy men and women ages 30 to 65 for nearly a decade. All had normal blood sugar levels at the start of the research.

After nine years, about 800 had developed Type 2 diabetes or high blood sugar. But those who consumed the most water, 17 to 34 ounces a day, had a risk roughly 30 percent lower than that of those who drank the least. The researchers controlled for the subjects’ intake of other liquids that could have affected the results, mainly sugary and alcoholic drinks, as well as exercise, weight and other factors affecting health. The researchers did not look at eating habits, something future studies may take into account.

Another study worth expanding. We already have sufficient evidence of the need for controlled, healthy nutrition. Coupled with exercise, folks have a better chance of avoiding this disease. Sufficient water consumption may be one relatively easy victim of our hectic culture to restore to something more appropriate to our evolution.

Northern Ireland’s first police ombudsman has called for a single unified body to deal with all the unsolved crimes of the Troubles and arrest suspects even in cases that are decades old. Nuala O’Loan, who as ombudsman from 1999 to 2007 exposed the state’s use of informers who killed while in the crown’s pay, said such an inquiry unit should also be granted full powers of prosecution.

Most of the 3,269 murders committed during the conflict since it began in 1969 remain unsolved. More than 30,000 people were injured, many seriously.

In an interview with the Guardian, O’Loan said she was convinced that the police had deliberately destroyed evidence in “a lot” of killings involving the security forces. “That will inhibit the possibility of a full investigation…”

“It is not a truth commission because it would require that all the parties to the conflict tell the truth and I see no evidence that the parties are ready for that yet. And I am not sure that they ever will be.”

The victims were owed something, she said, and that should be a single independent historical investigations unit…

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Much to the chagrin of Free Body Culture (FKK) enthusiasts who have been stripping off their clothing on beaches and parks since the early 1900s, a cold wind has been blowing across Germany for nudists and their numbers are steadily dwindling.

“German society is changing and it’s not easy to be a naturist anymore,” said Kurt Fischer, president of the German FKK association (DFK). There are some 500,000 registered nudists and a total of seven million Germans sunbathe naked regularly…

The main problem is the shrinking population, Fischer said.

The number of Germans fell by more than 3.2 million over the last three decades even though the country’s total population has managed to remain more or less steady at about 82 million thanks to immigration — often from countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans as well as Turkey and Arabic countries.

“Our problems are demographic changes and the fact that immigrants aren’t interested in social nudity,” said Fischer, 70, whose association has such honored standing in Germany that it is even part of the Olympic Sport Federation (DOSB).

“Germany is relying more and more on immigrants to keep the population steady. But many come from countries with strong religious beliefs. They just aren’t into FKK.” Immigrants who arrive from cultures where headscarves are common will not usually be interested in becoming naturists in Germany, he said…

Nude sunbathing has a long tradition in Germany. The Free Body Culture (FKK) movement was founded in the early 20th century and succeeded in taking much of the smut and embarrassment out of nudity.

Even Germany’s top model Heidi Klum was quoted in the German media recently extolling the virtues of topless sunbathing and describing difficulties she has pursuing it in places such as the United States and Italy where it’s frowned upon or illegal…

In Germany, public nudity on beaches and lakes is by and large tolerated and practitioners face no legal consequences, although some courts have fined some caught hiking nude on public trails or riding bikes or horses while naked…

There are other reasons contributing to decline of the unique German cultural tradition. As a 70-year-old eastern woman named Brigitte pointed out, growing prosperity has led to growing waist sizes…

“But with the rise in prosperity a lot of people have come apart at the seams and they can’t show their bodies in public anymore. We’ve become a lot chubbier with all this prosperity. It’s not really very aesthetic anymore.”

I grew up with a flavor of naturism over my summers at my grandparents’ farm. Though Italian, their view of nature and the human body was influenced by German and Austrian groups like the FKK who spent a significant part of their outdoor time in northern Italy. I still have truly embarrassing photos hidden away somewhere of family frolics under an artificial rain shower from a hose on hot summer days.

I even managed some mountain biking au naturel here in New Mexico when I moved here a quarter-century ago. Not now, though. Aside from upsetting neighbors in this rather staid workingclass [predominantly Catholic] community, Rally would probably bark at me for being out of shape.

Catholic University is bringing back single-sex dorms starting with next year’s freshman class. Why? To reduce binge drinking and hooking up, University President John Garvey said this week in The Wall Street Journal. The right place for a CU editorial for sure.

Garvey said studies show that students drink more, and have more sexual partners, when they live in co-ed dorms. His university’s job is to train students in the virtuous life, and certain virtues are best learned and practiced living apart.

He has good intentions, I’m sure, and some 18- and 19-year-old students will be attracted to single-sex living. But I’m not convinced he’ll achieve the results he seeks. Nothing in my 20 years of experience writing about young people suggests that reverting to the old days of male and female dorms will substantially reduce the frequency of drinking or casual sex.

Moreover, his explanation for the change has a let’s-protect-the-women ring to it that is decidedly out of step with the gender roles and expectations of today’s young women and young men…

Author Liz Funk, a New York resident in her 20s who was raised as a Roman Catholic, attended a co-ed college with co-ed dorms. She remembers, “Without the presence of guys, my friends and I had no problem throwing back three to eight drinks in a sitting. And on the occasions where accidents happened … it was always in an all-female context.” No doubt the same in many all-guy drinking bouts… The phrase, “I must have been drunk” comes to mind.

None of this is to say that Catholic University, like other schools, shouldn’t be talking to students about drinking, sex and having fun in a way that is consistent with the school’s values. Students flock to such discussions, depending on who leads them, and more schools — non-religious as well as religious — should offer them.

Garvey ignores what to me has been one contribution of co-ed dorms: the ease with which members of this generation relate to each other as friends, and the depth of their understanding of the opposite sex. I can’t help but believe those qualities will help sustain their intimate partnerships in the future.

This good Catholic official seems stuck into the same ignorance that afflicts his religion at root, its hierarchy, as a matter of course.

Ignore the realities of best practices grounded in modern knowledge – and you induce the same frustration, rejection and confrontation that continues to demolish all fundamentalist sects.

American students are less proficient in their nation’s history than in any other subject, according to results of a nationwide test released on Tuesday, with most fourth graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought American troops during the Korean War.

Over all, 20 percent of fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency on the exam, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Federal officials said they were encouraged by a slight increase in eighth-grade scores since the last history test, in 2006. But even those gains offered little to celebrate, because, for example, fewer than a third of eighth graders could answer even a “seemingly easy question” asking them to identify an important advantage American forces had over the British during the Revolution, the government’s statement on the results said.

Diane Ravitch, an education historian who was invited by the national assessment’s governing board to review the results, said she was particularly disturbed by the fact that only 2 percent of 12th graders correctly answered a question concerning Brown v. Board of Education, which she called “very likely the most important decision” of the United States Supreme Court in the past seven decades.

Students were given an excerpt including the passage “We conclude that in the field of public education, separate but equal has no place, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” and were asked what social problem the 1954 ruling was supposed to correct.

“The answer was right in front of them,” Ms. Ravitch said. “This is alarming…”

History advocates contend that students’ poor showing on the tests underlines neglect shown to the subject by federal and state policy makers, especially since the 2002 No Child Left Behind act began requiring schools to raise scores in math and reading but in no other subject. The federal accountability law, the advocates say, has given schools and teachers an incentive to spend less time on history and other subjects.

“History is very much being shortchanged,” said Linda K. Salvucci, a history professor in San Antonio who is chairwoman-elect of the National Council for History Education.

Bragging about scant victories, the report applauds our school system for 42% of students knowing something of day-to-day economics. That’s the best our kids do on any topic. 42%.

There is nothing quite like a bit of spring sunshine for raising the spirits. It seems instantly to chase away the gloom that has descended during the dark winter days, and most of us will have been invigorated by this year’s Easter sunshine.

For those who live near the east coast, however, it was not a case of wall-to-wall sunshine. From time to time, there were unwelcome visits from an old friend, the haar…

In Scotland, a haar is a kind of sea fog which creeps in from the North Sea to cover the area near the east coast when the rest of the country is basking in brilliant sunshine.

An east coast haar, pronounced like far, is a deeply depressing experience. It is not as if any warmth remains amidst the fog. Far from it. A haar is not only dark, dank and damp, but often so cold that it seems to penetrate your very bones. Those of us who live in haar country should be used to it by now, but it often catches us by surprise…

Sometimes the haar deals out even crueller treatment. We awake to rejoice in the brilliant sunshine – then the haar descends about mid-morning, just as we have assembled the picnic things and the beach umbrella. The sunshine that we were enjoying has been callously taken away from us…

The word haar originally referred to a cold easterly wind before it took on its cold fog meaning, and it is derived from a Low German and Middle Dutch word hare, meaning a biting cold wind. The biting cold part has stayed with us.

When I left the northeast coast of the United States – as my grandparents left the east coast of PEI – I discovered that a cold easterly wind, quite common in a New Mexico winter, often gives way to a clearing breeze from the northeast and eventually sunshine and warming. I have tempered what is a dour comment in my ethnic past with clear skies and sunlight – which is after all a sign of hope.

Har has become reasonably positive – with a remembrance of irony.

 
‘In the old days all the movie songs were recorded right there on set,” remembers Asha Bhosle, the quintessential Bollywood singer. Now 77, Bhosle was just 11 when she performed her first song on a movie soundtrack, Chala Chala Nav Bala from Majha Bal in 1943. In the 68 years since, she has provided the on-screen singing voice for generations of actresses unable to capture and deliver a song as brilliantly as she could, singing around 20,000 tunes in 14 languages, as well as recording with Robbie Williams, Michael Stipe and the Kronos Quartet, and lending her name to Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha, one of the landmark No 1 hits of the 1990s.

“My son Anand first heard that song in San Francisco and told me all about it,” she says, via a friend and translator, from Australia where she is appearing in concert. “I was at the immigration counter at Heathrow Airport once and the young officer read the profession listed in my passport as ‘singer’. He was intrigued, so I told him I was the Asha from Brimful of Asha, and he was so excited he left his post and called his friends over to meet me. So I guess, at the very least, that song helped me clear UK immigration faster than usual.”

When Bhosle thinks back to the start of her career she remembers dusty movie sets, people running around, lights and cameras. “And there was little me,” she says, “falling asleep and being woken up to sing my part. I think of that time fondly – it was pre-independence India. Only my sister Lata [Mangeshkar, a hugely popular singer in her own right], Manna Dey [the 91-year old Bengali singer] and I are left from those who began their careers in what was British India…”

Bhosle became particularly well known for her ability to change her voice for each role and a huge amount of film work, alongside established male singing stars such as Dey, Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi, followed…

“Rahul Dev’s music was way ahead of its time,” she says. “He had so many different styles and rhythms in his music. You can hear jazz, Latin, that John Barry, super-spy sound, some blues, calypso and pop in there; 17 years after he died, he’s more popular than ever.”

RTFA. Learn to love some of the best pop music ever to reach out to the whole world.

Mike Luckovich, AJC

Andrew Madden is one of a relatively new breed of Irish celebrities who would just as soon be less well known. He was among the first people in Ireland to go public about being sexually abused by Catholic clergy — one of those who set off the intense bout of soul-searching that has racked the country lately. When I met Madden last fall in Dublin, the early rumbles of the collapse of Ireland’s economy were shaking the country, and throughout much of a pub lunch he talked about the failures of the government and the banks. It was only later, once we were driving around his old neighborhood, past the pebbledash house where he grew up and where his parents still live, that he began to talk about his childhood. As we sat in his car in front of Christ the King Church, where he spent much of his youth as an altar boy and a choir member, he outlined the four years of torment he suffered in the late 1970s at the hands of the Rev. Ivan Payne, one of the infamous serial sex offenders among the Irish Catholic clergy whose stories have transfixed the country over the past year and a half…

My afternoon with Andrew Madden might serve as a snapshot of what Ireland has been through lately. The country is preoccupied with the fallout — personal, social and political — from the crash and burn of the Celtic Tiger. But beneath that, and in a way connected to it, is a more primal pain: one deeper, lodged in the bones, maybe. The phenomenal economic boom over the past two decades, and the secularization that came along with it, allowed Ireland to think it was no longer what it once was: a backward land dominated and shaped by the Roman Catholic Church. But as the economy has crashed, the Irish have come face to face with their earlier selves, and with a church-state relationship that was and in many ways still is, as quite a few people in the country see it, perversely antimodern.

Of the various crises the Catholic Church is facing around the world, the central one — wave after wave of accounts of systemic sexual abuse of children by priests and other church figures — has affected Ireland more strikingly than anywhere else. And no place has reacted so aggressively. The Irish responded to the publication in 2009 of two lengthy, damning reports — detailing thousands of cases of rape, sexual molestation and lurid beatings, spanning Ireland’s entire history as an independent country, and the efforts of church officials to protect the abusers rather than the victims — with anger, disgust, vocal assaults on priests in public and demands that the government and society disentangle themselves from the church…

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