Arnaldo Jabor

"A política está tão repulsiva que vou falar de sexo".

Outro dia, a Adriane Galisteu fez uma entrevista dizendo que os homens não querem namorar as mulheres que são símbolos sexuais. É isto mesmo. Quem ousa namorar a Feiticeira ou a Tiazinha?

As mulheres não são mais para amar; nem para casar. São para "ver". Que nos prometem elas, com suas formas perfeitas por anabolizantes e silicones?

Prometem-nos um prazer impossível, um orgasmo metafísico, para o qual os homens não estão preparados. As mulheres dançam frenéticas na TV, com bundas cada vez mais malhadas, com seios imensos, girando em cima de garrafas, enquanto os pênis-espectadores se sentem apavorados e murchos diante de tanta gostosura. Os machos estão com medo das "mulheres-liquidificador".

O modelo da mulher de hoje, que nossas filhas ou irmãs almejam ser (meu Deus!), é a prostituta transcendental, a mulher-robô, a "Valentina", a "Barbarela", a máquina-de-prazer sem alma, turbinas de amor com um hiperatômico tesão.

Que parceiros estão sendo criados para estas pós-mulheres? Não os há. Os "malhados", os "turbinados" geralmente são bofes-gay, filhos do mesmo narcisismo de mercado que as criou. Ou, então, reprodutores como o Zafir, para o Robô-Xuxa.

A atual "revolução da vulgaridade", regada a pagode, parece "libertar" as mulheres. Ilusão à toa. A "libertação da mulher" numa sociedade escravista como a nossa deu nisso: superobjetos. Se achando livres, mas aprisionadas numa exterioridade corporal que apenas esconde pobres meninas famintas de amor, carinho e dinheiro. São escravas aparentemente alforriadas numa grande senzala sem grades. Mas, diante delas, o homem normal tem medo. Elas são "areia demais para qualquer caminhãozinho".

Por outro lado, o sistema que as criou enfraquece os homens eles vivem nervosos e fragilizados com seus pintinhos trêmulos, decadentes, a meia-bomba, ejaculando precocemente, puxando sacos, lambendo botas,engolindo sapos, sem o antigo charme "jamesbondiano" dos anos 60.

Não há mais o grande "conquistador". Temos apenas os "fazendeiros de bundas" como o Huck, enquanto a maioria virou uma multidão de voyeur, babando por deusas impossíveis.

Ah, que saudades dos tempos das "bundinhas e peitinhos normais" e "disponíveis"... Bundinhas com celulite, mas verdadeiras não empinadas à base de plástica e peitos não siliconados, até meio caídos, mas naturais....

Pois bem, com certeza a televisão tem criado "sonhos de consumo" descritos tão bem pela língua ferrenha do Jabor (eu). Mas ainda existem mulheres de verdade. Mulheres que sabem se valorizar e valorizar o que tem "dentro de casa", o seu trabalho. E, acima de tudo, mulheres com quem se possa discutir um gosto pela música, pela cultura, pela família, sem medo de parecer um "chato" ou um "cara metido a intelectual".

Mulheres que sabem valorizar uma simples atitude, rara nós homens de hoje, como abrir a porta do carro para elas. Mulheres que adoram receber cartas, bilhetinhos (ou e-mails) românticos. Escutar no som do carro, aquela fitinha velha dos Beegees ou um cd do Kenny G (parece meio breguinha)... mas é tão bom!!! Namorar escutando estas musiquinhas tranqüilas.

Penso que hoje, num encontro de um "Turbinado" com uma ”Saradona" o papo deve ser do tipo: - "meu"... o meu professor falou que posso disputar o Iron Man que vou ganhar fácil!." - "Ah meu...o meu personal Trainner disse que estou com os glúteos bem em forma e que nunca vou precisar de plástica". E a música??? Só se for o último sucesso "(????)" dos Travessos ou Chama-chuva..." e o ”Vai Serginho"???...

Mulheres do meu Brasil Varonil!!! Não deixem que criem estereótipos!! Não comprem o cinto de modelar da Feiticeira. A mulher brasileira é linda por natureza!! Curta seu corpo de acordo com sua idade, silicone é coisa de americana que não possui a felicidade de ter um corpo esculpido por Deus e bonito por natureza.

E se os seus namorados e maridos pedirem para vocês "malharem" e ficarem iguais à feiticeira, fiquem... Igual a Feiticeira dos seriados de TV: Façam-os sumirem da sua vida !!!



Os homens desejam as mulheres que não existem

Está na moda - muitas mulheres ficam em acrobáticas posições ginecológicas para raspar os pêlos pubianos nos salões de beleza. Ficam penduradas em paus-de-arara e, depois, saem felizes com apenas um canteirinho de cabelos, como um jardinzinho estreito, a vereda indicativa de um desejo inofensivo e não mais as agressivas florestas que podem nos assustar. Parecem uns bigodinhos verticais que (oh, céus!...) me fazem pensar em ... Hitler.

Silicone, pêlos dourados, bumbuns malhados, tudo para agradar aos consumidores do mercado sexual. Olho as revistas povoadas de mulheres lindas... e sinto uma leve depressão, me sinto mais só, diante de tanta oferta impossível. Vejo que no Brasil o feminismo se vulgarizou numa liberdade de "objetos", produziu mulheres livres como coisas, livres como produtos perfeitos para o prazer. A concorrência é grande para um mercado com poucos consumidores, pois há muito mais mulher que homens na praça (e-mails indignados virão...) Talvez este artigo seja moralista, talvez as uvas da inveja estejam verdes, mas eu olho as revistas de mulher nua e só vejo paisagens; não vejo pessoas com defeitos, medos. Só vejo meninas oferecendo a doçura total, todas competindo no mercado, em contorções eróticas desesperadas porque não têm mais o que mostrar. Nunca as mulheres foram tão nuas no Brasil; já expuseram o corpo todo, mucosas, vagina, ânus.

O que falta? Órgãos internos? Que querem essas mulheres? Querem acabar com nossos lares? Querem nos humilhar com sua beleza inconquistável? Muitas têm boquinhas tímidas, algumas sugerem um susto de virgens, outras fazem cara de zangadas, ferozes gatas, mas todas nos olham dentro dos olhos como se dissessem: "Venham... eu estou sempre pronta, sempre alegre, sempre excitada, eu independo de carícias, de romance!..."

Sugerem uma mistura de menina com vampira, de doçura com loucura e todas ostentam uma falsa tesão devoradora. Elas querem dinheiro, claro, marido, lugar social, respeito, mas posam como imaginam que os homens as querem.

Ostentam um desejo que não têm e posam como se fossem apenas corpos sem vida interior, de modo a não incomodar com chateações os homens que as consomem.

A pessoa delas não tem mais um corpo; o corpo é que tem uma pessoa, frágil, tênue, morando dentro dele.

Mas, que nos prometem essas mulheres virtuais? Um orgasmo infinito? Elas figuram ser odaliscas de um paraíso de mercado, último andar de uma torre que os homens atingiriam depois de suas Ferraris, seus Armanis, ouros e sucesso; elas são o coroamento de um narcisismo yuppie, são as 11 mil virgens de um paraíso para executivos. E o problema continua: como abordar mulheres que parecem paisagens?

Outro dia vi a modelo Daniela Cicarelli na TV. Vocês já viram essa moça? É a coisa mais linda do mundo, tem uma esfuziante simpatia, risonha, democrática, perfeita, a imensa boca rósea, os "olhos de esmeralda nadando em leite" (quem escreveu isso?), cabelos de ouro seco, seios bíblicos, como uma imensa flor de prazeres. Olho-a de minha solidão e me pergunto: "Onde está a Daniela no meio desses tesouros perfeitos? Onde está ela?" Ela deve ficar perplexa diante da própria beleza, aprisionada em seu destino de sedutora, talvez até com um vago ciúme de seu próprio corpo. Daniela é tão linda que tenho vontade de dizer: "Seja feia..."

Queremos percorrer as mulheres virtuais, visitá-las, mas, como conversar com elas? Com quem? Onde estão elas? Tanta oferta sexual me angustia, me dá a certeza de que nosso sexo é programado por outros, por indústrias masturbatórias, nos provocando desejo para me vender satisfação. É pela dificuldade de realizar esse sonho masculino que essas moças existem, realmente. Elas existem, para além do limbo gráfico das revistas. O contato com elas revela meninas inseguras, ou doces, espertas ou bobas mas, se elas pudessem expressar seus reais desejos, não estariam nas revistas sexy, pois não há mercado para mulheres amando maridos, cozinhando felizes, aspirando por namoros ternos. Nas revistas, são tão perfeitas que parecem dispensar parceiros, estão tão nuas que parecem namoradas de si mesmas. Mas, na verdade, elas querem amar e ser amadas, embora tenham de ralar nos haréns virtuais inventados pelos machos. Elas têm de fingir que não são reais, pois ninguém quer ser real hoje em dia - foi uma decepção quando a Tiazinha se revelou ótima dona de casa na Casa dos Artistas, limpando tudo numa faxina compulsiva.

Infelizmente, é impossível tê-las, porque, na tecnologia da gostosura, elas se artificializam cada vez mais, como carros de luxo se aperfeiçoando a cada ano. A cada mutação erótica, elas ficam mais inatingíveis no mundo real. Por isso, com a crise econômica, o grande sucesso são as meninas belas e saradas, enchendo os sites eróticos da internet ou nas saunas relax for men, essa réplica moderna dos haréns árabes. Essas lindas mulheres são pagas para não existir, pagas para serem um sonho impalpável, pagas para serem uma ilusão. Vi um anúncio de boneca inflável que sintetizava o desejo impossível do homem de mercado: ter mulheres que não existam... O anúncio tinha o slogan em baixo: "She needs no food nor stupid conversation." Essa é a utopia masculina: satisfação plena sem sofrimento ou realidade.

A democracia de massas, mesclada ao subdesenvolvimento cultural, parece "libertar" as mulheres. Ilusão à toa. A "libertação da mulher" numa sociedade ignorante como a nossa deu nisso: superobjetos se pensando livres, mas aprisionadas numa exterioridade corporal que apenas esconde pobres meninas famintas de amor e dinheiro. A liberdade de mercado produziu um estranho e falso "mercado da liberdade". É isso aí. E ao fechar este texto, me assalta a dúvida: estou sendo hipócrita e com inveja do erotismo do século 21? Será que fui apenas barrado do baile?

Rules of Thumb

06/07/07, Gwynne Dyer, The End of Cheap Food, Source.
31/07/04, Devinder Sharma, So-Called "Green Revolution" Driving Thousands of Indian Farmers to Suicide, Source.
02/03/05, Vandana Shiva, Farmers' Suicides, Hunger Deaths and Globalization, Source.
07/07/07, Doug Saunders, Dream farms turning into nightmares, Source.
17/07/07, President Bush Presents Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Norman Borlaug, Source.


06/07/07, Gwynne Dyer, The End of Cheap Food, (Back).

The era of cheap food is over. The price of corn (maize) has doubled in a year, and wheat futures are at their highest in a decade. The food price index in India has risen 11 percent in one year, and in Mexico in January there were riots after the price of corn flour (used in making the staple food of the poor, tortillas) went up fourfold. Even in the developed countries food prices are going up, and they are not going to come down again.

Cheap food lasted for only fifty years. Before the Second World War most families in the developed countries spent a third or more of their income on food (as the poor majority in developing countries still do). But after the war a series of radical changes, from mechanisation to the Green Revolution, raised agricultural productivity hugely and caused a long, steep fall in the real price of food. For the global middle class, it was the Good Old Days, with food taking only a tenth of their income.

It will probably be back up to a quarter within a decade, and it may go much higher than that, because we are entering a period when three separate factors are converging to drive food prices up. The first is simply demand. Not only is the global population continuing to grow (about an extra Turkey or Vietnam every year), but as Asian economies race ahead more and more people in those populous countries are starting to eat significant amounts of meat.

Early this month, in its annual assessment of farming trends, the United Nations predicted that by 2016, less than ten years from now, people in the developing countries will be eating 30 percent more beef, 50 percent more pig meat and 25 percent more poultry. The animals will need a great deal of grain, and meeting that demand will require shifting huge amounts of grain-growing land from human to animal consumption -- so the price of grain and of meat will both go up.

The global poor don't care about the price of meat, because they can't afford it even now -- but if the price of grain goes up, some of them will starve. And maybe they won't have to wait until 2016, because the mania for "bio-fuels" is shifting huge amounts of land out of food production. One-sixth of all the grain grown in the United States this year will be "industrial corn" destined to be converted into ethanol and burned in cars, and Europe, Brazil and China are all heading in the same direction.

The attraction of bio-fuels for politicians is obvious: they can claim that they are doing something useful to combat emissions and global warming (though the claims are deeply suspect), without actually demanding any sacrifices from business or the voters. The amount of US farmland devoted to bio-fuels grew by 48 percent in the last year alone, and hardly any new land was brought under the plough to replace the lost food production. In other big bio-fuel producers like China and Brazil it's the same straight switch from food to fuel. In fact, the food market and the energy market are becoming closely linked, which is very bad news for the poor.

As oil prices rise (and the rapid economic growth in Asia guarantees that they will), they pull up the price of bio-fuels as well, and it gets even more attractive for farmers to switch from food to fuel. Nor will politics save the day. As economist Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute told the US Congress last month: "The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's two billion poorest people." Guess who wins.

Soaring Asian demand and bio-fuels mean expensive food now and in the near future, but then it gets worse. Global warming hits crop yields, but only recently has anybody quantified how hard. The answer, published in "Environmental Research Letters" in March by Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California and David Lobell of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is quite simple: for every 0.5C (0.9F) hotter, crop yields fall between three and five percent. So two degrees C hotter (3.6F), the lower end of the range of predicted temperature rise in this century, means a twelve to twenty percent fall in global food production.

This is science, of course, so that answer could be wrong -- but it could be wrong by being too conservative. Last year in New Delhi, I interviewed the director of a think tank who had just completed a contract to estimate the impact on Indian food production of a rise of just two degrees C in global temperature. The answer, at least for India, was 25 percent. That would mean mass starvation, for if India were in that situation, every other major food-producing country would be too, and there would be no imports available at any price.

In the early stages of this process, higher food prices will help millions of farmers who have been scraping along on very poor returns for their effort because political power lies in the cities, but later it gets uglier. The price of food relative to average income is heading for levels that have not been seen since the early 19th century, and it will not come down again in our lifetimes.


31/07/04, Devinder Sharma, So-Called "Green Revolution" Driving Thousands of Indian Farmers to Suicide, (Back).

It doesn't shock the nation anymore. Reports saying that 65 of the 243 farmers who committed suicide in Vidharbha region of Maharashtra had debts as little as Rs 8,000 have not shaken the conscience of the world's biggest democracy. That Meena Prakash Rechpade, widow of the 36-year-old farmer, Prakash, of village Dhanori, near Wardha, in Maharashtra , has no money to arrange for the last rites of her husband, who took the fatal route to escape the misery of the green revolution no longer evokes a strong reaction.

In Andhra Pradesh, ever since Y S Rajasekhar Reddy took over as the Chief Minister some three months ago on May 14, more than 400 farmers have committed suicide. This was the official death toll in the suicide register till July 15. In Karnataka, the new Chief Minister Dharam Singh has no time for farmers in distress. He has been too busy with balancing the equation of coalition politics. More than 300 farmers have committed suicide in the state, which claims to be on the highway leading to the convergence of information technology and biotechnology. The sad part of the story is that a majority of those who committed suicide were relatively young, below the age of 45 years.

In western Uttar Pradesh, more than 14 farmers have committed suicide in the month of July. In the frontline agriculture states of Punjab and Haryana, the situation is no better. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had himself gone on record (before he was elected) saying that close to 2,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past few years.

Sensing the uneasiness being felt by the agricultural scientists, lest they be hauled up for the bloodbath being enacted in the farm sector, support has already flown in from the expected quarters - the biotechnology industry.

The US-based International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Application (ISAAA), which unabashedly promotes genetically engineered crops and 'transfer' of technology with multi-million dollar funding from Bayer, Cargill, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis, Pioneer, Syngenta, in addition to foundations and Western governmental funding agencies, is busy collaborating with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which is besotted with the vision of India as one vast genomic valley.


02/03/05, Vandana Shiva, Farmers' Suicides, Hunger Deaths and Globalization, (Back).

Globalization is killing the people of India . Farmers are being pushed to suicides with rising debts due to deregulation of inputs such as seeds and chemicals and imports by the removal of quantitative restrictions. The poor are facing starvation. Reports of hunger deaths have become routine even as 65 million tonnes of foodgrain are rotting in godowns.

At a seminar on Food Sovereignty organised by Sustainable Agriculture Movement - Navdanya, as part of the Asian Social Forum, farmer leaders and food right activists presented analyses and testimonies on why are farmers committing suicide and why are the people being starved to death.

* Over 8000 children have died of malnutrition in Maharashtra since Globalization

* Nearly 2000 farmers have committed suicide in Rajasthan in the last 3 years

* More than 100 farmers from three villages - Rentachintala, Khambhampadu, and Macherla in East Andhra Pradesh have sold kidneys to avoid starvation.

* Between 1997 and 2000 in just one district - Anantpur - in Andhra Pradesh, 1826 people, mainly marginal farmers, committed suicide.

* Wheat is being exported at Rs. 3.96 a kilo even while the BPL price is Rs. 4.20 and the economic cost to FC I is Rs. 8.30

* The Supreme Court's Commissioners on Food found that almost 70% of the food offtake by Rajasthan government was for exports.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, the founder of Navdanya, and a leading figure of the anti-Globalization movement, said these glaring facts show that under Globalization, the Indian food system is being hijacked for super profits of MNCs and is no longer designed to serve either peasants or the poor. She gave an overview of the impact of a decade of Globalization on the food sovereignty of the country and the food entitlement of the people of India . She also laid out the strategies for fighting WTO and agribusiness at the national and international levels, especially in the context of the upcoming Ministerial meeting of WTO in Cancun and the total collapse of the negotiations on agriculture.


07/07/07, Doug Saunders, Dream farms turning into nightmares, (Back).

Thousands who found success in the Green Revolution have become suicidal as they face smaller yields and bigger debts.

WARDHA, INDIA -- Only a few years ago, the Bandharkawda family considered themselves one of the developing world's great success stories. From the depths of rural poverty, on farm-labour earnings of a few cents a day, they had saved for 40 years to attain the old Indian dream of owning land and becoming actual farmers.

When the patriarch, Barku Bandharkawda, 80, bought his hectare of fertile land in the sun-baked centre of India for the equivalent of $375 in 1997 and planted it with hybrid cotton seeds, he was joining the tail end of the country's so-called Green Revolution, growing a high-yield cash crop destined for world markets. He was part of the Indian agricultural success story.

This summer, his dream came to a despondent end. While he was attending a wedding in a neighbouring village a few weeks ago, Mr. Bandharkawda's only son, Ishwar, 45, strolled into his parched fields with a glass bottle in his hand. The next morning, Mr. Bandharkawda found his son's body amid the furrows. He had taken his life, leaving a wife and two beloved children, in a symbolic manner that has become alarmingly popular around here: drinking a litre of agricultural pesticide.

"Going into farming was the worst mistake I ever made," Mr. Bandharkawda said as he surveyed the lifeless fields from the porch of his mud house. "I didn't know what it was doing to my son - he hadn't bought any seeds for this year's crop because he couldn't afford to keep up with his debts. He never said anything, so I never knew about his suffering."

Mr. Bandharkawda's peculiar form of suffering is part of an epidemic that is leading thousands of this region's farmers to take their lives. The extraordinary rise in suicides among farmers, a phenomenon that has grown dramatically in the past few years, has the government of India scrambling to respond, embarrassed by this shadow on the country's great economic rise.

Politicians and lobbyists are competing to explain this wave of self-induced death. Some point to U.S. cotton subsidies, others to genetic-engineered hybrid seeds, to the prevalence of chemical-fertilizer farming or to the rise of consumerism among the world's poor. While these factors all play a role in the region's problems, it is clear that there is a deeper and more fundamental cause, one that governments of rich and poor countries alike have failed to address.

In short, unlike farm crises of earlier generations, these farmers are victims of success, driven to death by an agricultural boom that has produced more food than the world needs, more cotton than markets can bear, more crops than the land can sustain and far too many farmers. The Green Revolution, which 30 years ago put an end to India's famines and food shortages and turned farming into a profitable business, has self-destructed in a spiral of bankruptcy and death.

Last week, as farmers in this dusty region awaited the monsoon rains and prayed for better crops after years of dwindling yields, the suicide numbers once again began to mount. In a three-day tour of a few of the region's 1,400 villages, it was easy to find a dozen families who have lost their fathers to suicide in recent weeks.

In 2006, a record 746 farmers took their lives in this heavily agricultural state of Maharashtra (whose population of 100 million includes the giant city of Mumbai), a number that has risen rapidly from 50 in 2001. Few have left notes or explanations. But, tellingly, in 79 per cent of cases, they have killed themselves by drinking pesticide.

Anecdotally, it appears that this summer will produce a similar or even greater number of deaths.

In the past five years, 11,387 farmers nationwide have committed suicide, according to a study completed by a group of Indian think tanks this month. These numbers finally forced Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take action last year, offering more money to support farmers - a move that may have inadvertently increased suicides by encouraging family farmers to stay on unprofitable land. Despite this, many Indian politicians still say that the farmer-suicide crisis is a myth.

"There is no suicide crisis - it's just something the media likes to say," said Jambuvantrao Dhote, a local political leader with a large following among farmers, as he held court at his street-side office in the regional capital of Vidarbha. "People in cities commit suicide, police commit suicide, people in the U.S. commit suicide ... yet they are picking on us."

That view was demolished this year by the Mumbai-based economist Srijit Mishra, who examined the actual suicide rates. What he found was shocking: Among poor labourers in Maharashtra state, suicide rates rose slightly during the past decade from 17 per thousand people to 20. Among male farmers, though, the rate has almost quadrupled from 15 to 57 per thousand - one of the highest suicide rates in the country.

"All of us are getting these kinds of feelings: What can I do? How can I afford it? How can I ever manage? It's a real temptation to go and drink pesticide and end your problems," said Gopal Dafere, 28, whose younger brother, Ganesh, killed himself in May, leaving behind an 18-month-old daughter and a mountain of debt.

"But I look at the children and it stops me. For my brother, it just became too much to bear."

Why so many dead farmers, and why now? This is not a case of abject poverty: In fact, these are among India's less destitute farmers, in material terms. The villages are prosperous, most houses have colour TV and access to telephones, and most larger villages have excellent schools and agricultural universities. This has baffled authorities in India and the West. After visiting a dozen families, though, a surprising set of patterns becomes clear.

Mountain of debt

The village of Rehaki is home to 5,000 people in a tightly packed enclave of tiny dung-walled houses painted a cheerful blue, its dirt streets packed with bicycles, cows and three-wheel auto-rickshaws. Along one bumpy lane you will find the narrow, one-room house of the Chaple family.

Six family members were sitting in the narrow lane alongside their house the other day, wondering what they were going to do. A few mornings before, Mukta Chaple, 45, had poked her head out of the house to find her husband of 20 years, Ramaji, lying in this lane, his body stiff, a pesticide bottle clutched in his hand.

"I had no indication that anything was wrong," Ms. Chaple said, barely able to speak through her tears. "He didn't give any indication that he was depressed or in despair. He never told me anything."

A few days after Mr. Chaple's funeral, his brother Shaligiam, who runs a roadside snack stand, came over and began to discover things. His brother had a long-outstanding loan of about $500 from a local moneylender at the traditional village rate of 25 per cent every four months, a larger bank loan equivalent to $1,750 and an unpaid electrical bill of several hundred dollars. In a very good year, his farm might have made $1,000.

The family's 1.2-hectare plot had produced good yields of cotton a decade ago, giving them high hopes of saving money, buying a bigger house and maybe sending one of their three teenaged children to university. But it simply became impossible to make money.

The amount of cotton they were able to produce kept dwindling. Last summer, Ramaji spent $300 on cotton seeds and fertilizer, and in the autumn he sold his cotton for a mere $400, leaving $100 for the year. His other brother, who grows oranges, gave him enough money to feed the children for the winter.

"He had all this debt, and he hadn't made any money last year. We should have realized that this meant he couldn't buy any seeds or fertilizer this year," Shaligiam says. He was in despair. And on top of that, he had been unable to save any money for his 20-year-old daughter Shilpa to get married. In rural India, marriages remain central to a family's self-respect, but they have become increasingly expensive: Around here, $1,000 or more in dowry and gifts isn't unusual.

"We'd bring prospective grooms over, but they'd take one look at this house and the way we were living, and they'd say they couldn't marry me," Shilpa said. "My father got very upset because he couldn't do anything to help me."

As countries such as India have improved rural services to advance health and education, the cost of being a poor farmer has increased considerably. Along with increasingly expensive marriages, there are now monthly bills for electricity, cable TV and sometimes telephones. Many farmers, excited by the money they made from their early high crop yields, have bought motorcycles, DVD players and other goods they can't really afford.

But the cost of farming has also increased.

"When I started out 40 years ago, it didn't cost anything," veteran agriculturalist Anand Subhedar said.

"You'd use the seeds from the previous year's crop, and your cow's manure for fertilizer. If you had a bad crop, you'd eat poorly for the year, but you'd be able to start again the next year."

Starting in the 1970s, India's farm economy changed. The Green Revolution introduced chemical fertilizers and hybrid seeds, allowing huge yields. On the whole, this was very successful: Since the seventies, there have been no major famines in India, and the country usually produces large food surpluses.

Many farmers switched to cotton, with government encouragement: The Mumbai-based fabric industry was hungry for the fibre, and new techniques promised big yields.

In the 1990s, new genetically engineered cotton seeds became available, which produced far higher yields and healthier crops with less use of pesticides. Most Indian farmers switched to Bt seeds made by Monsanto Co., which can produce rewarding results in large-scale farms. But they have one flaw for the small farmer: New seeds must be purchased each year, at a high price. Counting seeds and fertilizer, the cost of starting each year's crop has jumped from zero to hundreds of dollars.

At the same time, cotton prices have plunged, mainly because of oversupply but also because the United States, the world's largest cotton producer, provides generous government subsidies to its farmers, allowing them to sell at a far lower cost.

This has led many in India to blame the Americans for producing both the expensive farming techniques and the declining cotton prices.

"Our farmers are victims of a global economic system that provides all the benefits to the United States at the expense of the world's poor," Vijay Jawandia, head of the local farmers' union, said.

"Globalization has supposedly been good for India's economy, but it is killing the farmers, and nobody seems to care."

India recently walked out of World Trade Organization talks over this unfair situation.

But it is not the whole story. If you examine the farmers' balance sheets, you find that, even if cotton prices were double what they are now and the input costs disappeared, most of them would still be plummeting into debt. Their intensive, high-yield farming methods, aggressively pushed in the Green Revolution, have exhausted their soil, reducing their annual yields, in many cases, to one-tenth the level they saw a decade ago. Larger farms can afford to regenerate soil by leaving a third of their fields fallow for long periods. This is impossible for tiny family farms.

"The farmers have still not escaped the old mindset that cotton is a good cash crop," said Mr. Subhedar, an agricultural researcher and farmer in the nearby town of Yavatmal. "What happened in the United States in the 20th century is beginning to happen here - it's becoming apparent that cotton is not an economical crop. Yet the universities keep on teaching the mantra of the Green Revolution, which is to maximize yield at all costs. That made sense for India at one time. Now it's just hurting people."

The small farms, combined with the intensive, soil-exhausting farming techniques that promise great rewards at enormous risk, have made farming an ill-fated pursuit for small families. Yet the Indian government's solution to the suicide crisis has been to offer more money to farmers - an important humanitarian move, but one that offers few incentives for people to leave farming.

According to Mr. Subhedar, who stopped growing cotton a decade ago, most of these small farmers would make more money, and have more stable incomes and no debt, if they were farm labourers rather than farmers.

But this is unthinkable for farmers and the government.

"Indians are very passionate about owning the land," Mr. Subhedar said. "It isn't a passion for any sensible financial reason; we consider the land a goddess, we actually pray to her. It is very difficult emotionally for a man to sell his land and become a labourer, even though it makes more sense. It came from his forefathers."

At a moment when poor countries should be winding down the Green Revolution and reducing the number of farmers, countries such as India find themselves trapped: The cities lack the infrastructure for another urban population surge. And the kind of agriculture that employs large numbers of labourers - the medium-sized, well-managed farm - isn't taught in universities.

"The farmer here is stuck," Mr. Subhedar said. "He doesn't know how to invest the money and make a better future for himself, or get out of farming - so he will wait around until the last straw breaks."

Turning points

FAMINES IN INDIA Before the 1950s, India suffered a series of famines that killed millions of people and depopulated entire provinces. At times, the famines lasted longer than the periods between them. Since gaining independence from Britain, however, it hasn't had a significant famine.

THE GREEN REVOLUTION In the 1960s, Western industrial farming techniques, including chemical fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified high-yield seeds, were promoted in the developing world to solve food shortages.

NORMAN BORLAUG The U.S. scientist developed strains of high-yield crops, and has promoted their use worldwide as a solution to food shortages. For this, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, but has faced criticism over the long-term sustainability of his techniques, his promotion of genetic modification and his dismissal of organic farming.

HOW IT TRANSFORMED INDIA Among the first countries to adopt the techniques, India raised rice yields by 30 per cent to quickly go from the world's largest food importer to a self-sufficient food exporter.

THE DOWNSIDE The intensive farming techniques deplete the soil and require a large investment. The high-yield seeds don't naturally reproduce themselves, so farmers must buy new seeds each year. As well, the fertilizers and pesticides needed are more expensive than natural aids such as manure. As a result, Green Revolution techniques are of questionable long-term value to small-scale farmers.

Source: Staff, Indian Institute of Science


17/07/07, President Bush Presents Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Norman Borlaug, (Back).

United States Capitol

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, all. Madame Speaker, thank you. Madame Speaker, Mr. Leader, members of the congressional leadership, members of the Iowa delegation, fighting Texas A&M Aggies, Dr. Borlaug and his family:

All around us are testaments to our republic's young and storied history. Yet sometimes it takes a ceremony like this to remind us what a special place America is.

Ours is a land of hope and promise and compassion. And we see that compassion and promise in the man we honor today -- a farm boy, educated in a one-room schoolhouse, who left the golden fields of Iowa to become known as "The man who fed the world."

Many have highlighted Norman Borlaug's achievements in turning ordinary staples such as wheat and rice into miracles that brought hope to millions. I particularly appreciated the story about a former Vice President, and fellow Iowan, named Henry Wallace, who once came to observe Norman's grain experiments up close. The Vice President looked around, and then asked why a good Iowa boy like Norman wasn't working on something to do with corn. (Laughter.)

Norman Borlaug's life has taken him from laboratories in America and Mexico to dusty villages throughout the developing world. He has consulted with presidents and prime ministers in important countries like Pakistan and India. He's helped inspire students at Texas A&M, where an institute bearing his name is dedicated to completing his life's work. To this day Norman leads an active life -- listen to a friend, who said that Norman spends half his year in Texas, half his year in Mexico -- and the other half wherever else he's needed. (Laughter.) That is interesting math. I was going to say that I bet some of us wish we could use that kind of math during the budget process here in the Capitol. (Laughter.) I'm afraid sometimes we do.

What that friend meant was that Norman Borlaug has lived his life with urgency. He has long understood that one of the greatest threats to global progress is the torment of human hunger. And we've seen that plague haunt history many times. Famine in the mid-1800s forced hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens to take a sad and desperate journey to America -- and turned the Atlantic Ocean into what an Irish poet called "a bowl of bitter tears." More than a century later, wrenching images of emaciated children in Ethiopia rallied the world to the tragedy of famine. Hunger continues to cast its miserable shadow across much of the developing world -- robbing villages of children, and forcing human beings to make desperate and daily searches for food and clean water.

Wealthy and prosperous nations have a moral obligation to help poor and struggling people find their own paths to progress and plenty. To whom much is given, much is required, and we've been given a lot here in America. It's the calling of our conscience, and it's a compelling national interest. A quote that Dr. Borlaug made reference to when he received the Nobel Prize says it well: "You can't build peace on empty stomachs."

In the past half-century, we have seen a glimpse of the world that is yet to come. Since the end of the World War II, the advance of trade and technology has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. That's really the triumph of human liberty stretching across natural boundaries. It is a tribute to innovation and entrepreneurship. And these are the characteristics that can be found in the very best of our citizens, such as the man we honor today.

When Dr. Borlaug received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from one of my predecessors, Gerald Ford, the citation noted that Norman's work "has pushed back the shadow of hunger on this planet and given us precious time to force its final retreat." That final retreat will come only as long as we hold in our hearts the revolutionary spirit of men like Norman Borlaug, whose Green Revolution brought hope to troubled corners of the world, where grateful villagers still praise his name.

The most fitting tribute we can offer this good man is to renew ourselves to his life's work, and lead a second Green Revolution that feeds the world, and today we'll make a pledge to do so.

Dr. Borlaug, I thank you for your vision and dedication. I thank you for leading a life of great purpose and achievement. I thank you for proving to Americans that what we learned as children is true, that one human being can change the world. May God bless you, sir. May God continue to bless our wonderful country.

And now I ask the Speaker and Senator Reid to join me for the Gold Medal Presentation.

(The Congressional Gold Medal is presented.) (Applause.)

(Back)

A síndrome da incompetência generalizada

A síndrome da incompetência generalizada

Arnaldo Jabor

Não há remedios para a doença administrativa que assola o pais

A sordidez do que acontece no Brasil é tal, que até criticar o governo só serve para legitimá-lo. Este governo não merece nem uma critica à "luz da razão". Tem de ser analisado como um exame de patologia clinica. Estamos sendo infectados por uma doença historica. Chama-se a "sindrome da incompetência generalizada". Ou então, "falência multipla dos orgãos publicos".

Esta doença se espalha a partir do centro do Executivo, do topo da piramide de poder. Lula foi a bandeira de bolchevistas e intelectuais durante décadas. Era a esperança do velho populismo e dava um rosto operário concreto aos ideólogos. Controlado pelos comandados de Dirceu, acabou eleito pela habilidade realista de um publicitário. Com a intervenção salvadora de Jefferson, Lula criou sua propria doutrina, que hoje se derrama sobre todos os aparelhos do Estado e se infiltra, pelas alianças, nos outros poderes. As caracteristicas dessa doença que infecta o pais são oriundas de uma vasta cepa de germes historicos e ideologicos. Há uma cepa herdada (resistente a antibióticos) de um autoritarismo com ecos stalinistas, que se cruzou com o germe do sindicalismo oportunista, com o stafilococus do populismo pos-getulista, formando um novo tipo de microbio que, com a baixa imunidade da democracia representativa, se espalha de forma profusa e letal. Esta doença grave fica muitas vezes dissimulada pela figura de Lula, com seu carisma de simbolo, assim como certas febres podem levar à alucinações enganadoras.

Lula não ama o povo. Ao contrario, quer ser amado por ele. A recente vaia que o "magoou", feriu-o por ele se sentir uma especie de pioneiro da ascençaõ social , que ele diz desejar para todos. Aliás, a crença de que o homem "de esquerda" pensa no "bem" real do povo é mais uma falácia herdada da tradição. Stalin amava o povo? O povo é visto pelos totalitários como uma "massa" (nome usado por eles) a ser moldada como uma maquina humana se reproduzindo sempre, obediente a lideres. O "povo" não é visto como seres para brilhar ou florescer, mas para serem controlados. O recente "top top" do velho Marco Aurelio é a metafora simétrica da vaia: "vão ter de nos engolir!" a opinião publica e a imprensa, o inimigo maior...

Outra carateristica dessa anomalia é sua espantosa incapacidade administrativa. A ideia de "competência" é vista com desconfiança, inclusive teoricamente, como já foi relatado por intelectuais como Marilena Chaui, porque a competência técnica pode "encobrir um desvio neo-liberal, de direita". "Administrar" é visto como ato menor, até meio reacionário, pois administrar é manter, preservar, coisa de capitalistas. A incompetencia paralitica deste governo é uma mistura esquisita de restolhos de slogans socialistas com uma adesão custosa e desconfiada ao nosso sub-capitalismo, a não ser nas regras "macro" que FHC deixou, em que Lula, por instinto, não mexe.

Essa ambiguidade paralisa processos e projetos. Nosso Estado quebrado não pode fazer "desenvolvimentismo" e a desconfiança congênita na iniciativa privada impede o crescimento. Só respeitam os bancos e os grotões eleitorais. Isso, misturado a uma vaga idéia de "futuro" que habita a tôsca cabeça dos sindicalistas oportunistas e velhos "bolchevos", cria uma desvalorização do "aqui e agora", como se o "presente" fosse algo desprezivel. Assim, tudo fica parado no ar, nada sai do papel. As promessas e os anuncios bastam; a realização é supérflua.

Sem falar na infecção do baixo aliancismo - o que faz a roubalheira ser vista quase como um mal necessário e inevitavel ("ôba!"), o que permite a predação da Republica com a consciencia limpa.

Tambem a invasão de cargos tecnicos por hordas de sindicalistas sem preparo, ignorantes, gera a infecção da burocracia labirintica. A confusão mental e a obsessão paranóica da "conspiração" cria mecanismos de defesa que impedem qualquer eficiencia, em nome de uma vigilancia contra os inimigos (nós). Assim, nada anda com o passo eficaz do capitalismo. Em dez meses de caos aereo, com 354 mortos, só agora se tocaram para o óbvio de medidas anunciadas e que, talvez, nem sejam cumpridas. A isso, claro, some-se o carater preguiçoso e deslumbrado do Lula, que se declina por todos os escalões do Estado , como uma degeneração de qualquer fé ou iniciativa. Se o comandante berra "dane-se!", todos depõem suas armas. Alem de não saber o que fazer, Lula não tem saco para nada. Sua atitude de se colocar acima da politica cotidiana desqualifica a propria politica, como sendo coisa menor, o que é uma sopa no mel para corruptos e vagabundos.

Por outro lado, como a economia mundial é favoravel, temos a impressão de saúde e os danos ficam ocultos, e só ficarão claros com a proxima crise. Em vez de ser usada, a economia mundial esta sendo abusada, como uma droga entorpecente. Pela ausencia de projetos, resta aos donos atuais do poder manter comprado o apoio das "massas", com bolsas-familia e aumentar gastos publicos em contratações e falsas iniciativas. Tudo que tinha de ser reformado, não o será, pois "reforma" repugna revolucionarios.

É isso ai. Tudo que o governo anterior introduziu e que poderia nos fazer avançar foi paralisado. Estamos diante de um grave retrocesso historico. A tragedia de Congonhas é uma metafora sinistra de nosso momento: o avião estava muito veloz para frear e muito lento para arremeter. Como o Brasil. Não só nada avança, como o que antes funcionava está quebrando. Alem disso, os germes cruzados com muitas cepas, fortalecidos por décadas de superstições populistas são muito resistentes. Não há antibiótico conhecido contra estes microbios. Nenhum, muito menos o PSDB, que morreu, contaminado por si mesmo.

27/07/07, Rebecca Dube, Vancouver's garbage strike has a green lining

Like most eco-conscious Vancouver residents, Ann Gibbon reduces, reuses and recycles.

She totes her groceries in cloth bags, sorts out her recycling and gets electronic bank statements to cut down on paper waste. In short, she thought she was pretty green.

Then the Vancouver municipal workers' strike started this week, and garbage collection stopped. And Ms. Gibbon's family, like many others, got a little greener. "We didn't like the idea of stinky old garbage piling up in our garage. We really thought, 'We have to do something about this.' "

So her family bought a backyard composter, into which they toss their yard waste and kitchen scraps. She estimates that they've decreased their garbage by about 75 per cent.

"And the important thing is, the really gross stuff is down dramatically," Ms. Gibbon says.

"It's totally easy and really wonderful. I feel liberated."

Though the summertime garbage strike may be a neat freak's nightmare, it could become an environmentalist's dream.

Amid warnings that the labour standoff could stretch on for weeks, Vancouver residents are rinsing their jars and tins extra-carefully to keep bad smells and bugs away from their recycling, trying to reduce their waste and running out to buy backyard composters.

Out of enlightened self-interest, city officials are encouraging residents to step up their recycling efforts and consider composting, and they seem to be heeding the call. A survey of Canadian Tire, Rona and Home Depot stores in Vancouver this week found that most were sold out of composters, while a few had just one left in stock.

The run on composters reverses the trend of the past decade. Last year, 30 per cent of people in British Columbia used a backyard composter, according to Statistics Canada - ahead of the national average of 27 per cent, but down from the 38 per cent figure the province achieved in 1994.

Researchers attributed the decrease to more people moving into apartments and condominiums in Vancouver, where the composting rate is about 24 per cent.

"I think people will get more into composting" as a result of the strike, says Susan Antler, executive director of the Composting Council of Canada. While she wants the strike to be short and sweet for Vancouverites' sake, she hopes it will get them thinking harder about their trash.

About half of household garbage is organic material that could be composted, Ms. Antler says. You can put lawn and food waste except for meat, bones and dairy products into a backyard composter, about the size of a garbage bin. The organic material decomposes and transforms (shrinking in size) into humus, a rich soil component prized by gardeners.

The best part is that composting is one small way to move off the power grid, Ms. Antler says.

"You can control your own agenda versus being dependent on others," she says. "You can basically become virtually independent."

Raqib Burke hopes the strike will serve as a wake-up call. He lives in a co-housing complex in North Vancouver and produces no garbage - he either recycles it, composts it or doesn't buy it in the first place. The strike doesn't affect him at all, except, of course, for the smell that's starting to permeate the city.

"Our entire lifestyle needs to be sustainable, and creating garbage is a very unsustainable part of an unsustainable lifestyle," Mr. Burke says. "We ought to be looking at ourselves in the mirror."

Together with the roughly 35 other residents of his complex, Mr. Burke returns meat and fish bones to the butcher to be recycled. (Companies collect the waste from butchers to make bone meal and blood meal for gardening and agriculture.)

Using the deposit money from their beer, wine and juice bottles, they pay to ship their Styrofoam waste to a specialized recycling plant.

Not everyone will go to such lengths, but Mr. Burke hopes the garbage strike will inspire people to take simpler steps, whether it's backyard composting or just rinsing out their recyclables more carefully.

So far, no savvy environmental groups have jumped on the strike as a marketing opportunity for recycling and composting. But families such as the Gibbons have already gotten the message on their own.

"I'm really buying into this composting," Ms. Gibbon says. "We're not going to stop it after the strike is over. It does make you conscious of how much waste you produce."

27/07/07, Rex Murphy, Gimmicks won't fix politics

The Democratic contenders for their party's presidential nomination had another of their debates this week. This one was a little different from those, by now, almost ritualistic encounters.

The edge of novelty came from CNN's call for the questions to be posted on the versatile and popular YouTube. CNN then picked from the great torrent of postings what it felt were the best. Host Anderson Cooper, more emcee than moderator, introduced the Internet mini-productions and directed which candidates were to answer which questions.

It was, in most ways, no better or worse than other so-called debates.

It certainly didn't suffer from the absence of a panel of journalists asking obligatory and predictable questions. But neither was much gained by the scattershot of mostly equally predictable queries from a handful of wired ordinary folks.

But it did have its moments. We knew there would be a global-warming question. But we did not know, and perhaps few would have had the stomach to guess, that it would come from a man, dressed up as a melting snowman, who asked in a nerve-grating, whiny, maudlin squeak: “I've been growing concerned that global warming, the single most important issue to the snowmen of this country, is being neglected.”

Cute can be so painful at times.

Now, to begin with, a snowman in July shares with hell's proverbial refrigeration the property of statistical freakishness. But, no matter.

Our deliquescent YouTuber capped his Socratic moment with the inquiry: “As president, what will you do to ensure that my son will live a full and happy life?” The proper answer might have been “I will make sure that candidates for the highest office of the most powerful country in the world will not again endure the camp of answering questions on live television from adults ridiculously dressed up as snowmen, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or any other manner of self-displaying kitsch.”

That was not to be.

Mr. Cooper gave the snowman question to Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, perhaps the likeliest of the eight candidates looking to soak up the preschool vote, and Mr. Kucinich, after a prelude on moving away from dirty coal and dirtier oil, offered this inspired piece of uplift as his closer: “We don't have to have our snowmen melting and the planet shouldn't be melting either.”

Has it come to this? That a potential nominee for the U.S. presidency is offering reassurances to his fellow citizens in midsummer about “melting snowmen?” Somewhere in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Ill., you would have heard the bones of Abraham Lincoln rattling in desperate rotation and ricocheting around the crypt.

How far, I wonder, from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or from the chilling ardour of Patrick Henry's “Give me liberty or give me death” has the U.S. system travelled when mock cartoon characters or chatter about snowmen occupy electoral discourse? The infantilism of both the format and the affected mannerisms of the inquiry were deeply depressing.

The YouTube dimension might have been new, but the silliness of this part of it wasn't. Nor was the willingness of those seeking the highest office to surrender some portion of their dignity in the hope of appearing to be in touch with the ordinary folk, or hip or non-pretentious – all obligatory genuflections in the mass campaigns of a media-driven politics.

Back in the early days of Bill Clinton's campaign for the presidency, Mr. Clinton, always a pioneer of new formats for politics, went on MTV, and in response to a question from one of the policy wonks who crowd every MTV studio, alerted America to his preference for boxers over briefs. It is amazing, but until that moment, the underwear of potential presidents had been left unexplored – at least in public – in every campaign since America had had a president.

Politics has been bleeding away from what it should be about – the issues and challenges of governance – and from the dignity that is one of its essential supports. Hence the search for novelty, in its presentation or its content, and the increasing reliance on staged moments of naturalness (the reality-television syndrome). Remember John Kerry dressing up as a “real” duck-hunter for one day?

These are trivial moments but they are telling. They are signals of politics in flight from itself, taking on any guise other than that of the seriousness of a real public calling and real, unadorned, public service.

Turning debates into ersatz game shows, blending them with the latest Internet fad, and inanely pious declarations that Americans should not put up with “melting snowmen” is one more lamentable illustration of how feeble and false, alas, democracy has become.

Stephen Leacock - Humour As I See It

It is only fair that at the back of this book I should be allowed a few pages to myself to put down some things that I really think.

Until two weeks ago I might have taken my pen in hand to write about humour with the confident air of an acknowledged professional.

But that time is past. Such claim as I had has been taken from me. In fact I stand unmasked. An English reviewer writing in a literary journal, the very name of which is enough to put contradiction to sleep, has said of my writing, "What is there, after all, in Professor Leacock's humour but a rather ingenious mixture of hyperbole and myosis?"

The man was right. How he stumbled upon this trade secret I do not know. But I am willing to admit, since the truth is out, that it has long been my custom in preparing an article of a humorous nature to go down to the cellar and mix up half a gallon of myosis with a pint of hyperbole. If I want to give the article a decidedly literary character, I find it well to put in about half a pint of paresis. The whole thing is amazingly simple.

But I only mention this by way of introduction and to dispel any idea that I am conceited enough to write about humour, with the professional authority of Ella Wheeler Wilcox writing about love, or Eva Tanguay talking about dancing.

All that I dare claim is that I have as much sense of humour as other people. And, oddly enough, I notice that everybody else makes this same claim. Any man will admit, if need be, that his sight is not good, or that he cannot swim, or shoots badly with a rifle, but to touch upon his sense of humour is to give him a mortal affront.

"No," said a friend of mine the other day, "I never go to Grand Opera," and then he added with an air of pride, "You see, I have absolutely no ear for music."

"You don't say so!" I exclaimed.

"None!" he went on. "I can't tell one tune from another. I don't know 'Home, Sweet Home' from 'God Save the King.' I can't tell whether a man is tuning a violin or playing a sonata."

He seemed to get prouder and prouder over each item of his own deficiency. He ended by saying that he had a dog at his house that had a far better ear for music than he had. As soon as his wife or any visitor started to play the piano the dog always began to howl -- plaintively, he said -- as if it were hurt. He himself never did this.

When he had finished I made what I thought a harmless comment.

"I suppose," I said, "that you find your sense of humour deficient in the same way: the two generally go together."

My friend was livid with rage in a moment.

"Sense of humour!" he said. "My sense of humour! Me without a sense of humour! Why, I suppose I've a keener sense of humour than any man, or any two men, in this city!"

From that he turned to bitter personal attack. He said that 'my' sense of humour seemed to have withered altogether.

He left me, still quivering with indignation.

Personally, however, I do not mind making the admission, however damaging it may be, that there are certain forms of so-called humour, or, at least, fun, which I am quite unable to appreciate. Chief among these is that ancient thing called the Practical Joke.

"You never knew McGann, did you?" a friend of mine asked me the other day.

When I said I had never known McGann, he shook his head with a sigh, and said:

"Ah, you should have known McGann. He had the greatest sense of humour of any man I ever knew--always full of jokes. I remember one night at the boarding-house where we were, he stretched a string across the passage-way and then rang the dinner bell. One of the boarders broke his leg. We nearly died laughing."

"Dear me!" I said. "What a humorist! Did he often do things like that?"

"Oh, yes, he was at them all the time. He used to put tar in the tomato soup, and beeswax and tin-tacks on the chairs. He was full of ideas. They seemed to come to him without any trouble."

McGann, I understand, is dead. I am not sorry for it. Indeed, I think that for most of us the time has gone by when we can see the fun of putting tacks on chairs, or thistles in beds, or live snakes in people's boots.

To me it has always seemed that the very essence of good humour is that it must be without harm and without malice. I admit that there is in all of us a certain vein of the old original demoniacal humour or joy in the misfortune of another which sticks to us like our original sin. It ought not to be funny to see a man, especially a fat and pompous man, slip suddenly on a banana skin. But it is. When a skater on a pond who is describing graceful circles, and showing off before the crowd, breaks through the ice and gets a ducking, everybody shouts with joy. To the original savage, the cream of the joke in such cases was found if the man who slipped broke his neck, or the man who went through the ice never came up again. I can imagine a group of prehistoric men standing round the ice-hole where he had disappeared and laughing till their sides split. If there had been such a thing as a prehistoric newspaper, the affair would have headed up: "Amusing Incident. Unknown Gentleman Breaks Through Ice and Is Drowned."

But our sense of humour under civilisation has been weakened. Much of the fun of this sort of thing has been lost on us.

Children, however, still retain a large share of this primitive sense of enjoyment.

I remember once watching two little boys making snow-balls at the side of the street and getting ready a little store of them to use. As they worked, there came along an old man wearing a silk hat, and belonging by appearance to the class of "jolly old gentlemen." When he saw the boys his gold spectacles gleamed with kindly enjoyment. He began waving his arms and calling, "Now, then, boys, free shot at me! free shot!" In his gaiety he had, without noticing it, edged himself over the sidewalk on to the street. An express cart collided with him and knocked him over on his back in a heap of snow. He lay there gasping and trying to get the snow off his face and spectacles. The boys gathered up their snow-balls and took a run toward him. "Free shot!" they yelled. "Soak him! Soak him!"

I repeat, however, that for me, as I suppose for most of us, it is a prime condition of humour that it must be without harm or malice, nor should it convey incidentally any real picture of sorrow or suffering or death. There is a great deal in the humour of Scotland (I admit its general merit) which seems to me not being a Scotchman, to sin in this respect. Take this familiar story (I quote it as something already known and not for the sake of telling it).

A Scotchman had a sister-in-law--his wife's sister--with whom he could never agree. He always objected to going anywhere with her, and in spite of his wife's entreaties always refused to do so. The wife was taken mortally ill and as she lay dying, she whispered, "John, ye'll drive Janet with you to the funeral, will ye no?" The Scotchman, after an internal struggle, answered, "Margaret, I'll do it for ye, but it'll spoil my day."

Whatever humour there may be in this is lost for me by the actual and vivid picture that it conjures up--the dying wife, the darkened room and the last whispered request.

No doubt the Scotch see things differently. That wonderful people--whom personally I cannot too much admire--always seem to me to prefer adversity to sunshine, to welcome the prospect of a pretty general damnation, and to live with grim cheerfulness within the very shadow of death. Alone among the nations they have converted the devil --under such names as Old Horny--into a familiar acquaintance not without a certain grim charm of his own. No doubt also there enters into their humour something of the original barbaric attitude towards things. For a primitive people who saw death often and at first hand, and for whom the future world was a vivid reality that could be felt, as it were, in the midnight forest and heard in the roaring storm, it was no doubt natural to turn the flank of terror by forcing a merry and jovial acquaintance with the unseen world. Such a practice as a wake, and the merry-making about the corpse, carry us back to the twilight of the world, with the poor savage in his bewildered misery, pretending that his dead still lived. Our funeral with its black trappings and its elaborate ceremonies is the lineal descendant of a merry-making. Our undertaker is, by evolution, a genial master of ceremonies, keeping things lively at the death-dance. Thus have the ceremonies and the trappings of death been transformed in the course of ages till the forced gaiety is gone, and the black hearse and the gloomy mutes betoken the cold dignity of our despair.

But I fear this article is getting serious. I must apologise.

I was about to say, when I wandered from the point, that there is another form of humour which I am also quite unable to appreciate. This is that particular form of story which may be called, par excellence, the English Anecdote. It always deals with persons of rank and birth, and, except for the exalted nature of the subject itself, is, as far as I can see, absolutely pointless.

This is the kind of thing that I mean.

"His Grace the Fourth Duke of Marlborough was noted for the open-handed hospitality which reigned at Blenheim, the family seat, during his regime. One day on going in to luncheon it was discovered that there were thirty guests present, whereas the table only held covers for twenty-one. 'Oh, well,' said the Duke, not a whit abashed, 'some of us will have to eat standing up.' Everybody, of course, roared with laughter."

My only wonder is that they didn't kill themselves with it. A mere roar doesn't seem enough to do justice to such a story as this.

The Duke of Wellington has been made the storm-centre of three generations of wit of this sort. In fact the typical Duke of Wellington story has been reduced to a thin skeleton such as this:

"A young subaltern once met the Duke of Wellington coming out of Westminster Abbey. 'Good morning, your Grace,' he said, 'rather a wet morning.' 'Yes' said the Duke, with a very rigid bow, 'but it was a damn sight wetter, sir, on the morning of Waterloo.' The young subaltern, rightly rebuked, hung his head."

Nor is it only the English who sin in regard to anecdotes.

One can indeed make the sweeping assertion that the telling of stories as a mode of amusing others ought to be kept within strict limits. Few people realise how extremely difficult it is to tell a story so as to reproduce the real fun of it--to "get it over" as the actors say. The mere "facts" of a story seldom make it funny. It needs the right words, with every word in its proper place. Here and there, perhaps once in a hundred times, a story turns up which needs no telling. The humour of it turns so completely on a sudden twist or incongruity in the denouement of it that no narrator, however clumsy, can altogether fumble it.

Take, for example, this well-known instance--a story which, in one form or other, everybody has heard.

"George Grossmith, the famous comedian, was once badly run down and went to consult a doctor. It happened that the doctor, though, like everybody else, he had often seen Grossmith on the stage, had never seen him without his make-up and did not know him by sight. He examined his patient, looked at his tongue, felt his pulse and tapped his lungs. Then he shook his head. 'There's nothing wrong with you, sir,' he said, 'except that you're run down from overwork and worry. You need rest and amusement. Take a night off and go and see George Grossmith at the Savoy.' 'Thank you,' said the patient, 'I am George Grossmith.'"

Let the reader please observe that I have purposely told this story all wrongly, just as wrongly as could be, and yet there is something left of it. Will the reader kindly look back to the beginning of it and see for himself just how it ought to be narrated and what obvious error has been made? If he has any particle of the artist in his make-up, he will see at once that the story ought to begin:

"One day a very haggard and nervous-looking patient called at the house of a fashionable doctor, etc. etc."

In other words, the chief point of the joke lies in keeping it concealed till the moment when the patient says, "Thank you, I am George Grossmith." But the story is such a good one that it cannot be completely spoiled even when told wrongly. This particular anecdote has been variously told of George Grossmith, Coquelin, Joe Jefferson, John Hare, Cyril Maude, and about sixty others. And I have noticed that there is a certain type of man who, on hearing this story about Grossmith, immediately tells it all back again, putting in the name of somebody else, and goes into new fits of laughter over it, as if the change of name made it brand new.

But few people, I repeat, realise the difficulty of reproducing a humorous or comic effect in its original spirit.

"I saw Harry Lauder last night," said Griggs, a Stock Exchange friend of mine, as we walked up town together the other day. "He came on to the stage in kilts" (here Grigg started to chuckle) "and he had a slate under his arm" (here Griggs began to laugh quite heartily), "and he said, 'I always like to carry a slate with me' (of course he said it in Scotch but I can't do the Scotch the way he does it) 'just in case there might be any figures I'd be wanting to put down'" (by this time, Griggs was almost suffocated with laughter)--"and he took a little bit-of chalk out of his pocket, and he said" (Griggs was now almost hysterical), "'I like to carry a wee bit chalk along because I find the slate is'" (Griggs was now faint with laughter) "'the slate is--is--not much good without the chalk.'"

Griggs had to stop, with his hand to his side, and lean against a lamp-post. "I can't, of course, do the Scotch the way Harry Lauder does it," he repeated.

Exactly. He couldn't do the Scotch and he couldn't do the rich mellow voice of Mr. Lauder and the face beaming with merriment, and the spectacles glittering with amusement, and he couldn't do the slate, nor the "wee bit chalk"--in fact he couldn't do any of it. He ought merely to have said, "Harry Lauder," and leaned up against a post and laughed till he had got over it.

Yet in spite of everything, people insist on spoiling conversation by telling stories. I know nothing more dreadful at a dinner table than one of these amateur raconteurs--except perhaps, two of them. After about three stories have been told, there falls on the dinner table an uncomfortable silence, in which everybody is aware that everybody else is trying hard to think of another story, and is failing to find it. There is no peace in the gathering again till some man of firm and quiet mind turns to his neighbour and says, "But after all there is no doubt that whether we like it or not prohibition is coming." Then everybody in his heart says, "Thank heaven!" and the whole tableful are happy and contented again, till one of the story-tellers "thinks of another," and breaks loose.

Worst of all perhaps is the modest story-teller who is haunted by the idea that one has heard this story before. He attacks you after this fashion:

"I heard a very good story the other day on the steamer going to Bermuda"--then he pauses with a certain doubt in his face--"but perhaps you've heard this?"

"No, no, I've never been to Bermuda. Go ahead."

"Well, this is a story that they tell about a man who went down to Bermuda one winter to get cured of rheumatism --but you've heard this?"

"No, no."

"Well he had rheumatism pretty bad and he went to Bermuda to get cured of it. And so when he went into the hotel he said to the clerk at the desk--but, perhaps you know this."

"No, no, go right ahead."

"Well, he said to the clerk, 'I want a room that looks out over the sea'--but perhaps--"

Now the sensible thing to do is to stop the narrator right at this point. Say to him quietly and firmly, "Yes, I have heard that story. I always liked it ever since it came out in Tit Bits in 1878, and I read it every time I see it. Go on and tell it to me and I'll sit back with my eyes closed and enjoy it."

No doubt the story-telling habit owes much to the fact that ordinary people, quite unconsciously, rate humour very low: I mean, they underestimate the difficulty of "making humour." It would never occur to them that the thing is hard, meritorious and dignified. Because the result is gay and light, they think the process must be. Few people would realise that it is much harder to write one of Owen Seaman's "funny" poems in Punch than to write one of the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermons. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a greater work than Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Charles Dickens's creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race--I say it in all seriousness--than Cardinal Newman's Lead, Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.

But the deep background that lies behind and beyond what we call humour is revealed only to the few who, by instinct or by effort, have given thought to it. The world's humour, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilisation. One thinks here not of the mere spasmodic effects of the comic artist or the blackface expert of the vaudeville show, but of the really great humour which, once or twice in a generation at best, illuminates and elevates our literature. It is no longer dependent upon the mere trick and quibble of words, or the odd and meaningless incongruities in things that strike us as "funny." Its basis lies in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager and fretful anxieties of to-day that fade into nothingness to-morrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till as we look back upon the course that has been traversed we pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood. And here, in its larger aspect, humour is blended with pathos till the two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth.

20/07/07, Mark Kingwell, So there's a philosopher, a rabbi and a lawyer ...

In an essay called Humour As I See It, Stephen Leacock spelled out his philosophy of funny — remarkably managing to write about the mechanics of wit and show some at the same time. This rare effect is achieved through gentle mockery of pretentious anecdotage, the unintentional humour arising from people trying to be funny. Such fond social satire is timeless, which is why Leacock, best known for Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, is still celebrated, including at a literary festival dedicated to his memory happening this week in Orillia, on Lake Simcoe.

But Leacock oversteps himself at one point. "Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn," he asserts, arguing that humour has social value, "is a greater work than Kant's Critique of Pure Reason." This is incorrect. Everyone knows that Huckleberry Finn cannot account for the conditions of his own possibility. And so, adrift on a river raft of doubt, Huck is mired in the Humean condition. Bahahaha.

That is a philosophy joke. Yes, philosophy and humour do have something in common. Philosophy jokes, as opposed to philosophical humour, are often a form of secret handshake. If, contrary to all likelihood, you found it funny — well, you must be one of us. The most representative of all philosophy jokes might be the cartoon that shows a man in front of a map of the Institute of Philosophy. An arrow points to a dot on the map. Above it, the caption reads: "Why are you here?"

Often, though, philosophers are funny in ways that lie behind their control. Plato tells us that ancient astronomer Thales, in his efforts to scan the stars, fell down a well, provoking storms of side-splitting laughter among his fellows. This is the one recorded commonality between the ancient Greeks and the viewers of America's Funniest Home Videos.

Leacock suggests that laughing at people getting hurt is the earliest and most robust form of humour, uniting schoolboys, the starving Ik people of Uganda and whichever bloodthirsty Germans took time out of their busy pillaging schedules to coin the term schadenfreude. Leacock imagines the headline in a prehistoric newspaper: "Amusing Incident. Unknown Gentleman Breaks Through Ice and Is Drowned."

But humour progresses. It soon becomes, with art, the most interesting aspect of any civilization. Everyone knows that a sense of humour varies, sometimes wildly, from person to person — though nobody alive has ever seriously believed he or she lacked one. Humour also has significant national or cultural variance, so that critic A.A. Gill can write, in his funny recent book about England, The Angry Island, that English humour is almost always cruel, aimed at someone else, while Jewish humour is self-deprecating, existential, and aimed at the self.

Such generalities are risky. Charles Dickens? Jane Austen? And what would the Scottish Gill make of Leacock's example of a quintessential Scottish joke. A man can't stand his wife's sister, and routinely refuses to go anywhere with her. The wife, alas, is dying. On her deathbed, she entreats her husband: "John, ye'll drive Janet with the funeral, will ye no?" After a long thoughtful pause, the husband answers: "Margaret, I'll do it for ye. But it'll spoil my day."

The point is that trying to explain humour is at once imperative and impossible, a bit of a joke in itself.

Sigmund Freud's famous attempt, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, is not, as commonly claimed, a spectacularly unfunny book. The jokes are all there and they're all funny, if a little fey and fin-de-siècle. Where Freud goes wrong is in thinking, per his general theory, that jokes are forms of repression, acceptable ways of speaking the unspeakable. Certainly some jokes are just that, or Family Guy and Borat would have no purchase on our funny bones, but not all.

In fact, let's go further: The highest forms of humour exhibit something that is also characteristic of philosophy at its best, which is a sense of irony. I don't mean the cheap effect of camp or mere outrageousness, but what Leacock describes this way: "the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement."

In that phrase, you can hear everything of Leacock's small-bore genius, from the rattled bank customer of My Financial Career to the social striving of Mariposa's bright lights. "Humour is blended with pathos till the two are one," he says, "and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth."
Some people claim Leacock is not funny. One contemporary critic asked, "What is there, after all, in Professor Leacock's humour but a rather ingenious mixture of hyperbole and myosis?" Leacock was suitably abashed at this revelation of his trade secret. "The whole thing," he admitted, "is amazingly simple."

Which is to say that it isn't. Personally, I prefer something less kindly than those merry Sunshine Sketches: Evelyn Waugh's lucid savagery, say, or Martin Amis's mordant wordplay. But good humour is always a confrontation with our limits — our conditions of possibility — including the big one of death. The best humour, cruel and kind at once, slices a thousand small cuts that feel like caresses. It says, "The big joke is on you." Who else?

Mark Kingwell is a philosopher at the University of Toronto. He will be reading tonight as part of the Leacock Summer Festival in Orillia, Ont.

Brasil Germany

18/07/07, Jens Glüsing, 200 Feared Dead in Sao Paulo Crash, Source.
16/07/07, Political Meltdown, German Mishaps Put Nuclear Power under Scrutiny, Source.


18/07/07, Jens Glüsing, 200 Feared Dead in Sao Paulo Crash, (Back).

At least 195 people have been killed in what is believed to be Brazil's worst-ever plane crash. The crash, however, appears to be a product of a country with an air travel infrastructure that has been plagued by chaos in recent years and which has failed to keep pace with Brazil's rapid growth.

Taxi driver Paulo Carol felt like he had suddenly been transported to the set of a Hollywood disaster film. In front of his car, an airplane crossed six lanes of the Avenida Washington Luis, which leads to Congonhas in southern Sao Paulo, one of the two main airports for the Brazilian connurbation with its more than 18 million residents. Frightened, Carol turned off his engine and fled on foot with his two passengers.

The Airbus A-320, which was operated by the Brazilian airline TAM, skidded off the runway after touching down. It collided with a number of cars and plowed through a gas station before crashing into a TAM maintenance building and going up in flames. At least 195 people were killed in the explosion: 180 who were passengers on the Airbus jet, plus a further 15 people caught in its wake, including employees working inside the TAM building.

Luiz Santos, 36, who had been driving a Volkswagen Golf belonging to his employer, barely escaped the explosion. "The airplane was coming right at me," he said. "I could hear the sound of the engines and then it exploded." The windows of his VW were shattered and the explosion destroyed the back end of his truck, but Santos and the person travelling with him were able to escape the inferno. "I feel like I've been born again," he said.

Flight JJ 3054 took off from the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre at 5:16 p.m. and landed according to schedule at Congonhas about two hours later, but the plane apparently touched down too far down the runway.

A Series of Accidents and Mishaps

The Sao Paulo crash will likely turn out to be the biggest in Brazilian history. It will also mark the tragic pinnacle of a series of accidents, mishaps and scandals that have made flying in South America's biggest country a potentially deadly adventure.

Last September, a Gol airlines Boeing 737 collided with a private jet over the Amazon, claiming 154 lives. The investigation into the crash is still ongoing, but a number of hair-raising details have already been leaked. But that doesn't even begin to provide insight into the chaos of the Brazilian skies. Flight controllers are poorly trained, overworked and under-paid. Many barely speak English. The radar technology in the Amazon is also aging and often defective.

The country's air travel infrastructure has been unable to keep up with Brazil's fast economic growth. In recent years, Brazilian air travel has grown by 10 percent annually, but investments in training for air-traffic controllers and equipment for airports has been neglected. Most air-traffic controllers belong to the air force, which has been completely overtaxed in controlling Brazilian air traffic. Air traffic controllers responded to threats of disciplinary action after the Gol Boeing crash with slowdown strikes and sabotage. They want responsibility for air traffic control to be transferred to a civil aviation authority and they are demanding better pay. In recent months, this situation repeatedly led to a collapse of Brazilian air travel, and hours-long delays became part of the daily routine.

The decline of Brazil's former flag carrier, Varig, has exacerbated the chaos. After it declared bankruptcy, the company was purchased by competitor Gol and today it only serves a few of its former routes. Meanwhile, TAM and Gol haven't managed to grow quickly enough to handle the flood of passengers. TAM's network broke down in December under the strain of overbooking, forcing the air force to make planes available to transport holiday travellers who had been stranded at airports for hours or days.

"Relax and Have an Orgasm"

The government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has also shown itself to be incompetent in the face of the air traffic chaos. Tourist Minister Marta Suplicy -- who used to give sex advice on a popular TV show -- recently told protesting passengers, who in some case had been waiting days for their flights, to "relax and have an orgasm" in an unfortunate double entendre. And Defense Minister Waldir Pires, an affable old gentleman who is responsible for the air force as well as civilian air traffic, has proven himself to be the wrong man for the job. He wasn't even informed of the chaos at Congonhas, Brazil's most important and busiest airport.

For years, experts have considered the Sao Paulo airport to be a safety problem. South America's busiest airport is located in the midst of a densely populated residential area, and its runway is extremely short -- so much so that some even call it the "aircraft carrier." Because of its proximity to Sao Paulo's financial district, the airport is particularly popular with businesspeople, and planes land and take off every minute. But even the most veteran frequent fliers can't help but feel queasy as planes approaching the runway practically buzz the roofs of skyscrapers and apartment buildings.

A few months back, the state-run company Infraero, responsible for operating the airport, closed Congonhas's main runway for repaving. It led to countless flight delays. The airlines pushed for work to be expedited, but that may well have led to the current disaster. Infraero opened up the runway again before workers had a chance to make grooves in the asphalt which are necessary to reduce the risk of hydroplaning on the runway during heavy rain.

Late last year, a Boeing aircraft operated by the airline BRA overshot the runway during rain, and on Monday of this week, a large propeller plane slid past the end of the runway and got stuck in the mud. According to the wire service Bloomberg, the airport had to shut 18 times because of runway flooding in the first quarter of this year alone.

On Tuesday night, Brazilian station TV Globo played recordings taken from the cockpits of several jets. The pilots were afraid to land at Congonhas and warned each other by radio of water puddles on the runway. "The runway is so slippery, it's as if someone smeared soap on it," one complained. Despite the fact that it had been raining for three days, Infraero never closed the runway.

In the end, that may have spelled doom for TAM Flight JJ 3054. Despite the heavy rains, the fire continued to burn at the site of the accident on Tuesday night, where flames reached an intense 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). The tail fin sticks out of the warehouse like a make-shift memorial to the crash. The building is threatening to collapse and no one knows if they will be able to recover all of the victims.

President Lula, for his part, has declared three days of official mourning.


16/07/07, Political Meltdown, German Mishaps Put Nuclear Power under Scrutiny, (Back).

The company at first said it was just a small fire. But the blaze at Vattenfall's Krümmel reactor has since become a political wildfire. Now, Germany's pro-nuclear energy politicians have gone into hiding.

The event featured finger sandwiches with liverwurst and salami, a Dixieland band and Chancellor Angela Merkel telling marginally funny jokes, like the one about her not being too concerned about the southern state of Baden-Württemberg's future because its residents are capable of doing just about anything, except, of course, speak German properly. When the state's environment ministry celebrated its 20th anniversary last Wednesday in Ludwigsburg, the mood was so relaxed that the governor of Baden-Württemberg, Günther Oettinger, decided to take advantage of his guests' high spirits to deliver an important message.

According to Oettinger, who belongs to Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, nuclear energy should be part of Germany's energy mix in the future as a climate-friendly energy source. The reactors, he said, should be kept in operation longer than current plans call for -- and he is certain that the policy of shutting down Germany's nuclear power plants by 2021, passed under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder during his coalition government with the Greens, will eventually be reversed.

It was an important issue for Oettinger, whose state derives more than half of its electricity from nuclear power plants -- a rate almost twice as high as in Germany as a whole. But his audience was not convinced. Indeed, Oettinger's comments received no applause, nor even a few nods of approval. The Baden-Württemberg governor, it seemed, was giving his speech in the wrong place and at the wrong time.

'Occasional Explosion or Fire'

Nuclear power has received a tremendous boost since climate change has made Germans suddenly fearful about the future. Regional politicians like Oettinger, Roland Koch of Hesse and Edmund Stoiber of Bavaria, as well as CDU General Secretary Ronald Pofalla, have become increasingly vocal proponents of extending the shelf life of nuclear power plants. But during the last two weeks or so, amid thick clouds of smoke enveloping a nuclear power plant in Krümmel and reports of technical failures, human error and corporate incompetence, opponents of nuclear power see their arguments gaining credence once again. Suddenly the Social Democrats, especially Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, see themselves justified in taking the position that nuclear energy is a "risky technology." "German nuclear power plants are the safest worldwide," Gabriel said acerbically last week, "aside from the occasional explosion or fire."

Not only has Gabriel recognized an opportunity to shift public opinion away from nuclear power, he is also clearly aware of the issue's symbolic importance. By defending the movement to phase out the technology in Germany, Gabriel has assumed the role of the protector of the Schröder government's legacy. Of course, the issue also revolves around emotions, history and the right to interpret history. Was the battle against nuclear power wrong? Was the decision to phase out the technology a historical mistake, as the conservatives claim? Was it in fact an environmental mistake? Or was the decision to abandon the dangerous technology the right one, because it is in fact so difficult to control, as the Greens and Social Democrats argue?

Since the two most recent incidents-- at the reactors in Krümmel and Brunsbüttel -- became public at the beginning of the month, Gabriel has positioned himself as a leading critic of Vattenfall, the company that operates the two stricken reactors. And he has been demanding answers.

Gabriel's posturing is the type that even a few short weeks ago would have triggered automatic retorts from conservatives. But last week there was hardly a whimper from even the staunchest proponents of nuclear power. Economics Minister Michael Glos (CDU) told a small group: "One hardly even dares take a position anymore." Dietrich Austermann (CDU), the minister of economics for the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, an advocate of extending plant operating licenses, admitted that the incident at Krümmel has weighed heavily on the debate.

Proved to Be a Lie

The reason for the change in thinking is clear. Whereas most of the some 130 reactor incidents reported annually in Germany are minor and go unnoticed, smoke pouring out of a transformer as happened in Krümmel tends to attract attention. It took the fire department hours to extinguish the blaze. Even worse, the plant operator's claim that a fire in the transformer had no effect on the reactor itself proved to be a lie.

In short, the incident has made it clear that nuclear energy is by no means the modern, well-organized high-tech sector portrayed until recently by politicians and industry advocates. Indeed, the frequency of problems occurring at Germany's aging reactors is on the rise. Just as old cars will eventually succumb to rust, the country's nuclear power plants, built in the 1970s and 80s, are undergoing a natural aging process.

The problems are complicated by maintenance and supervision issues among aging and unmotivated employees. A dangerously lackadaisical attitude has taken hold that is making Germany's nuclear power plants increasingly unsafe. Most incidents to date have proven to be relatively minor, and yet each new incident becomes yet another link in a chain of problems with the potential to end in a serious accident.

As if the nuclear industry weren't facing enough problems with the recent incidents, representatives of the district attorney's office in the northern city of Lübeck took matters into their own hands last Friday when they appeared at Krümmel plant to get a clear answer on who exactly is responsible for operations at the plant. Vattenfall, the plant's owner, had refused to promptly provide the district attorney with the relevant information. Uwe Döring, the justice minister in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, said that he was "speechless" over Vattenfall's response, "especially coming from a company fighting to preserve its credibility."

Ignited Several Tons of Transformer Oil

With Vattenfall coming under growing pressure, company executives last week were even considering a plan to transfer the operating licenses for its two nuclear reactors to E.on, which is both a partner and a competitor. The executives reason that because the Düsseldorf-based energy giant, which owns 50 percent of the Krümmel reactor and 33 percent of the Brunsbüttel plant, has a better reputation when it comes to operating nuclear reactors, an E.on takeover would help prevent the plants from being shut down. The two companies have already entered into serious talks over the plan, but E.on plans to wait until the incidents at Krümmel have been fully investigated before reaching a decision.

According to the initial report issued by Vattenfall Europe, Germany's third-largest energy utility, a phenomenon known as arcing caused a fire at 3:02 p.m. on June 29. The fire ignited several tons of transformer oil, which normally circles around the voltage transformer in sealed metal pipes, cooling the transformer. According to a statement issued the same day by the head of the nuclear division of Vattenfall's German subsidiary, Bruno Thomauske, the problem was under control and the safety of the local population was not endangered "at any time."

Part 2: Blatant Efforts to Downplay Major Problems

But the public learned more and more about further deficiencies at the plant in the ensuing days. "One has the feeling," Minister of the Environment Gabriel said derisively, "that someone from Greenpeace is doing their PR."

Vattenfall has now come under increased scrutiny. "We are taking a careful look at what's happening in Germany," says Peter Rickwood, a spokesman of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). After an incident at the Forsmark nuclear power plant in Sweden last year, in which two backup generators broke down and the reactor had to be operated "flying blind" for 20 minutes, Vattenfall submitted a report to the IAEA that clearly glossed over the seriousness of the situation. The same pattern seems to have emerged in the Krümmel incident, as well as at the Brunsbüttel plant, where the reactor was temporarily shut down because of a "network problem." In both cases Vattenfall's report assigns the lowest problem classification -- "N" for normal -- to the incidents.

This blatant effort to downplay problems at the reactors has even led to ill will against Vattenfall management among employees. "Our people working in the nuclear power plant are not permitted to say anything, but they are furious," says Uwe Martens, the managing director of the Hamburg branch of the services union Ver.di. Indeed, Thomauske chose to blame others at the lower end of the hierarchy for the Krümmel incident. According to Thomauske, a "misunderstanding" between the reactor manager and the shift manager led to the inadvertent opening of valves. Another unanswered question is why up to 25 people were congregated in the reactor's operating room at the time of the accident.

Over the weekend, Vattenfall management finally began taking responsibility for the management meltdown. And on Monday, Thomauske was fired along with company spokesman Johannes Altmeppen. The decision was made at the headquarters of Vattenfall's German subsidiary in Berlin in conjunction with the mothership back in Stockholm.

Acting Irresponsibly

But the move might have come too late. Gitta Trauernicht, the Schleswig-Holstein minister for social affairs, has clearly distanced herself from Vattenfall. "What happened here is a first in the history of the nuclear industry," said Trauernicht, whose agency is investigating Vattenfall and the reliability of its operations. Trauernicht has said she would not hesitate to withdraw Vattenfall's license to operate nuclear power plants if it became clear that the company was acting at all irresponsibly.

Even Vattenfall's competitors say that they are concerned about the way the Krümmel incident was handled. Officially the utilities have complained to government officials in Berlin that the mishaps could discredit the entire nuclear industry. But unofficially they have reproached Vattenfall for serious deficiencies in its ability to manage a crisis like the one that happened at Krümmel.

Public relations officials in the nuclear industry traditionally meet once a year to discuss strategy. In the mid-1990s, this group agreed on a plan to deal with crisis situations. It called for being upfront with the public and responding clearly and quickly, mainly to prevent rumors from developing, but also to demonstrate the industry's proactive approach to such problems. Apparently only a few German companies -- and Vattenfall -- have failed to implement the plan. When the Krümmel incident occurred, Vattenfall reacted as it would have in the 1980s: provide as little information as possible, admit only what can no longer be denied and downplay the facts.

Just why the company chose cover-up over clearing up is unclear. Vattenfall cannot exactly claim that its PR policies are based on a lack of experience. Safety issues have become an all-too-common occurrence in plants run by the company. An internal report by Forsmark, a Swedish power plant operator and subsidiary of Vattenfall, reveals why this is the case. According to the report, which is unsparing in its criticism of Vattenfall, there has been a "decline in the safety culture" at the company. Vattenfall's "focus on increasing production" and its "too rapid renovation of plants" have led to many "unacceptable quality defects." In addition, when Forsmark alcohol-tested 25 people who were involved in its audit at the plant, which is located about 200 kilometers north of Stockholm, three had to be sent home.

Problems the Rule Rather than the Exception

Some of these problems are attributable to constant repairs at the plants, repairs that are also long overdue at German nuclear power plants. In a 55-page report, Germany's Reactor Safety Commission (RSC), which advises Gabriel's environment ministry, writes about "containing the aging processes" and that some age-related problems are only being discovered by chance. According to the RSC, these problems are difficult to correct, partly because "suppliers and manufacturers are no longer in business."

The 31-year-old Neckarwestheim I reactor -- along with the Biblis A reactor, Germany's oldest reactor still in operation -- is one of a group of nuclear dinosaurs where problems have become the rule rather than the exception. When a fire broke out in a major incident in October 2005, the reactor had to be shut down manually. The state environment ministry in Stuttgart had imposed a €25,000 fine on the plant's operator shortly before the incident. It had taken the operator, EnBW, about 20 days to discover a leak of radioactively contaminated water into the Neckar River, and another nine days to report the problem.

For years the Philippsburg 2 nuclear power plant, which went online in 1984, was repeatedly started up again after maintenance work and shutdowns without the emergency cooling system being correctly filled. Nevertheless, a court in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where Philippsburg is located, turned down a request by the state government for tightened safety regulations as being "too vague."

Problems at the Biblis A power plant reveal how inadequate work has been on aging reactors. The plant's operator, utility giant RWE, insists that it has invested about €1.2 billion in refurbishing the plant's A and B units in the past eight years. Nevertheless, Biblis A retains the dubious reputation of being a "junkyard reactor." For decades inspectors have failed to notice serious maintenance deficiencies. It wasn't until 2003 that an inspection engineer hit upon the idea of measuring the opening size of one of the reactor's backup cooling systems. As a result of the test, the reactor was shut down for eight months and authorities demanded a complete overhaul of the approval process.

But even when it came to the many improvements to the reactor, both the operator and supervisory authorities revealed a lack of the necessary attention to detail. During a walk-through last September, inspectors discovered small concrete fragments on the floor of the reactor building. A subsequent inspection revealed that more than half of about 15,000 heavy dowels installed in 2001 to safeguard central plant components in both Biblis reactors against earthquakes had in fact been installed incorrectly and were not as strong as required.

In addition, the Biblis reactors are virtually unprotected against terrorist attacks from the air, even though they are located only a few flight minutes from Germany's busiest airport in Frankfurt. The concrete containment shell of reactor A is less than 60 centimeters thick, a problem also encountered at two other aging plants, Brunsbüttel and Philippsburg 1.

Part 3: Aging, Unmotivated Workforce

Experts believe that the risks posed by plant personnel even outweigh those of an airborne terrorist attack. Employees who have spent years staring at the plants' security monitors without experiencing a major incident are bound to acquire a false sense of security, which ultimately leads to a more lax approach to safety precautions. In 1987 this phenomenon resulted, at the Biblis A nuclear power plant, in what until then was the most serious incident in the history of German nuclear power. For hours the team in the control booth ignored a warning light indicating an open valve in the cooling cycle.

"Working in a nuclear power plant is incredibly boring, but you still have to be completely on the ball," says Michael Sailer of the Darmstadt-based RSC. "Sloppiness is dangerous." Another factor complicating the problem is the aging of workers at nuclear power plants. Operators are having trouble recruiting new employees. Nuclear power plants are "simply no longer sexy," says Jef Vanwildemeersch, a former Belgian government official and now a nuclear industry lobbyist. In the mid-1980s there were about 300 students learning the nuclear power business in Germany. By 2006 that number had plunged to only about 20, half of them coming from abroad.

Insiders also report a lack of motivation among employees. The work ethic has suffered as a result of cost-cutting measures, job cuts and outsourcing. According to Uwe Möller, a lecturer at the Essen Power Plant School, "the mood is somber at a few power plants because many are focused on the time they have left until retirement." Because of personnel shortfalls, some companies are bringing early retirees and pensioners back to work to ensure continued operation. Utilities E.on and RWE say they are already spending "millions" to train new employees internally.

Nevertheless, internal criticism of the industry and its current state remains a taboo. Eberhard Grauf, the former director of the Neckarwestheim II nuclear power plant, was abruptly dismissed in July 2004. Grauf, a professional with an international reputation, had previously complained about "unacceptable work loads" at the plant operated by energy giant EnBW.

Overloading the Transformer

Industry insiders complain that for some time power plant operators have been attempting to squeeze as much profit as possible out of their old, and for the most part depreciated, reactors. In recent years, for example, the owners of the Krümmel nuclear power plant have invested about €50 million in technical improvements to increase the efficiency of the plant's turbines, a move that has brought a 7 percent improvement in net output. But these alleged improvements have also increased stress on secondary systems such as the plant's transformer, systems that were apparently not retrofitted. In fact, this may have been the cause of the Krümmel fire. According to Günther Pikos, a nuclear expert from the western German city of Düren, "the transformer was apparently already damaged by a string of earlier incidents." Pikos believes that this, combined with the increase in turbine output, was what ended up overloading the transformer.

E.on has also asked the Bavarian state government for its approval of a similar efficiency upgrade at its Gundremmingen nuclear power plant. Raimund Kamm of the Forum for a Responsible Energy Policy is concerned about the upgrade: "It's the same situation as when you're upping a car's performance. The engine becomes more powerful, while the brakes stay the same."

Minister of the Environment Gabriel is familiar with these risks. But he is equally alarmed over scenarios that extend into the political arena. He and fellow members of his party are becoming increasingly concerned that the operators of aging nuclear power plants will take advantage of the current mood to attempt to push through a program that could only be to their benefit. By agreeing to shut down trouble-prone reactors prematurely and transfer their operating licenses to newer reactors, companies could extend the operating life of the newer reactors by five to 10 years.

This sort of maneuver would put pressure on politicians, especially Social Democrats. One of them, Gabriel, will soon have a chance to demonstrate how strong his support is for unconditionally abandoning nuclear power. This week he is scheduled to meet with Klaus Rauscher, the head of Vattenfall Europe.

By Matthias Bartsch, Frank Dohmen, Simone Kaiser, Sebastian Knauer, Udo Ludwig, Cordula Meyer, and Roland Nelles

(Back)