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Enjoy these teas with my Honors students on Wednesday, December 12. From 3:20 to 4:10 that afternoon, we will be in the Atrium of the Conant Science Building (now known as DMF), where the Ben Linder Café could one day be located. From China and Ceylon, by way of Tealuxe in Providence clockwise from top-left Golden Monkey Keemum  (black) Ti-Quan Yin   Iron Goddess of Mercy (oolong)   Dragon Pearl Jasmine  (green) Yalta Evergreen Estate Ceylon  (black) Background I spent my 2012 sabbatical both learning more about  coffee  and expanding my interests to include tea . As part of that process, I was an informal observer at a meeting of the U.N. Intergovernmental Group on Tea. The meeting was much smaller than I expected -- even the hotel staff did not know what it was. The convener welcomed the 38 attendees as the "Captains of Tea." Plus me, the Coffee Maven. I think I was one of four U.S. citizens at the meeting, and I still remember a delegate from India ...

Jamal Khashoggi of was a journalist working for the Washington Post when he was ambushed and assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. It was immediately clear that the murder was ordered by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. It was less clear how the United States government would react. Almost immediately, the president of the United States began offering alternative theories and excuses, but the evidence that one of his key allies was involved was overwhelming, and his efforts to postpone taking a stand eventually ran out. This happened over the weekend, when the CIA confirmed what we all knew about the killing. The president dismissed, demurred, and finally declared his real opinion on the matter: he simply does not care that his allies killed this journalist. The economic relationship with Saudi Arabia and its alliance against Iran are more important, he said, than the death of this journalist. To be fair, he is not the first U.S. president to prioritiz...

Followers of this blog (see especially my 2017  Unicorn Cult  post) and innocent bystanders to my various rantings will know that I am more than a little dubious about the powers of markets to solve problems in the real world. I was therefore surprised by my own reaction to journalist Kara Miller's conversation with urban-planning professor Michael Manville, in which he offers a market-based approach to the pernicious problem of traffic. Related links are on the Innovation Hub's blog post for this story. The conversation begins with laments about traffic from person-on-the-street interviews in Chicago and Atlanta -- two cities in which I have spent hours stuck in their legendary traffic jams and in which it was easy to find ordinary people with extraordinarily strong feelings on the subject. Their discussion includes cogent description of the environmental, health, and economic costs of congestion. It then turns to things that have been tried -- adding capacity, improvin...

Who deserves to call a place home? This was a good day for Tanzina Vega to discuss the question with Jose Antonio Vargas and Julissa Arce, who have lived as undocumented Americans. Vargas, in fact, still does. I had the privilege of hearing him speak in Bridgewater a couple of years ago, and look forward to reading his new book. For those who suggest "getting in line" to claim their home country, they explain that there is no line. Deborah Berenice Vasquez-Barrios and her son Kenner after he delivered his remarks at the St. Paul & St. Andrew Methodist Church in New York (AP photo via The Takeaway)

Photo by way of PopGun I had not heard of the Puerto Rico-Brooklyn band until yesterday, when I caught this interview on the NPR program Studio 360 (which gave credit to Latino USA for the original story). The interview centers on the construction of the band's signature "dreambow" rhythms, particularly in the band's new song El Espanta . Angélica Negrón describes what she sees as the therapeutic value of this approach. I found it both enjoyable and instructive to listened to that song a few times before returning to the interview. The video of Balún's La Nueva Ciudad is an example of what the artists mean by dreambow, and is a perfect example of Negrón's expression "sleep while dancing." The lyrics describe a progressively more complicated metaphorical connection between the narrator and the stars, as her head, throat, and legs represent a telescope. The chorus laments a growing distance from a human subject. The longer video "Full Episode...

Rachel Carson (1907 to 1964) birdwatching at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she began her work as a biologist. Image: Rachel Carson Council by way of The Wildlife Society . SPOILER ALERT : I learned something so surprising from the radio segment below that I recommend listening to it (about 18 minutes) before reading my comment. It's OK. I'll wait. OK. Welcome back. Did you find Rachel Carson Dreams of the Sea  as interesting as I did? I hope so. As is so often the case, I heard part of this New Yorker Radio Hour  piece while I was doing some errands. The timing was perfect, because I am re-reading Silent Spring  with my students, with whom I recently watched the American Experience  documentary about the writing and publication of that book. It is a wonderful hour-long biographical treatment that I think compliments the book perfectly, putting it in context and making clear its historic significance. I was drawn into this piece by its description of the first wav...

I started my Sunday with this discussion between journalist Guy Raz and volcanologist Andrés Ruzo, whose childhood conversations at home led him to an amazing discovery in the Amazon Basin of Peru. (Because it contains have of the basin, Brazil is the best-known of the Amazon countries, but several upstream neighbors also have vast tracts of the basin and its forests.) I recommend listening to the audio and then watching Dr. Ruzo's full TED Talk , given in 2014 in Rio de Janeiro. His story begins with curiosity, legend, and history. It provides insight into indigenous knowledge, geothermal science, ecology, and the concept of ecotourism. It even touches on coffee! And from the TED Radio summary, I learn of Dr. Ruzo's coffee connection. In addition to growing up in Peru, part of his childhood was near volcanoes in Nicaragua, which means he is not far removed from coffeelands. Andrés Ruzo has written his story in The Boiling River

In the United States, we do not elect kings. The Framers of the Constitution had been living in a monarchy, and they crafted the balance of powers among three branches of government to preclude its return. They did not foresee the advent of Sen. Mitch McConnell -- who does not share their vision -- but they did seem to understand that an additional protection was needed. Thus, in order to check the excesses of the three branches, they included protection of the Fourth Estate -- the press -- in the very First Amendment to their carefully written work. It is the only profession mentioned in the document. The patriotism of those who put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard or stylus to smartphone) is at least as important to the protection of the republic as are that of those who put on any of the uniforms of the armed services. This is true of local journalists such as those assassinated in Annapolis this summer and those threatened by a terrorist in Boston more recently. Neither man...

Photo: Geoffrey Scott Baker , resident of nearby Oella who calls Ellicott City his muse I remember this riddle from middle school days -- "If a plane crashes on the U.S.-Canada border, where would they bury the survivors?" The punchline, of course, is that you don't  bury survivors. I was reminded of this when reading Ambitious Ellicott City flood prevention plan would tear down 19 buildings in historic downtown , by Baltimore Sun  journalists Sarah Meehan and Jess Nocera. The headline is an accurate summary of what Howard County officials have proposed in response to the devastating floods of July 2016 (see my Flood Flash and and Flood Peak articles) and May 2018 ( Flooding: It's Not in the Cards ). The headline hints at some of the problems with the response of county officials. The plan is indeed ambitious, in the way that Al Capone was ambitious at banks: it contemplates obliterating the victims. The financial cost to be paid by the county would be high, but the...

I found this image while browsing for something to represent the idea of environmental regulations from the point of view of what the regs are meant to protect. It is from a short video in which the Canadian NGO West Coast Environmental Law  makes a strong case for citizen participation in the details of environmental protection.  Environmental Planning Tom Daniels Since I was hired to teach environmental geography in 1997, I have taught Environmental Regulations about once every alternate year. It had an even wonkier title when I first arrived, but the simple title to which I changed it reflects the applied (as opposed to theoretical) approach I take in the course. More than anything else I teach, this course provides students with skills and knowledge that have direct workforce application. It is the course that draws most directly on my non-academic work in geography -- a single year between graduate programs in which I worked for what was then the world's largest civil an...

Journalist Carrie Kahn reports on legal measures that Nicaragua's increasingly authoritarian president has recently implemented to restrict dissent . In the guise of fighting terrorism, new laws appear to make free expression and free assembly even more difficult. Ortega signals a willingness to continue ignoring human-rights organizations, the international community, the Catholic Church and to embolden a violent minority of Nicaraguans to commit atrocities in support of his regime. For more details of how such a beautiful country arrived at such a terrible impasse so quickly, please see my #SOSnicaragua (May) and Nicaragua's Kent State (July) posts, as well as journalist Jon Lee Anderson's Fake News  article, appearing in the current issue of the New Yorker . He describes Ortega's application of lessons learned from autocrates abroad. Parallel Just as Ortega is intensifying his attacks on dissidence by branding protestors as terrorists, parallel strategies are emerg...

Just yesterday,  I learned about a special service of the BBC, known as BBC Great Lakes. It was established in 1994  by BBC journalists seeking to help reunite families in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda. It continues to broadcast in the Kinyarwanda and Kirundi languages. Its online presence includes the newsy  BBC Gahuza page,  as well as social media channels. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was from PRI's The World that I learned about this news service, in a piece entitled Memories of growing up in Bujumbura , in which producer Robert Misigaro reflects on the importance of a youth center in his home city, the capital of Burundi and shares music from that city. Lagniappe The Great Lakes region of Africa is not merely a BBC construction; the term is sometimes used narrowly to refer to the are bordering Lakes Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. Map source: ACCORD More broadly, it refers to the 12 member countries of the International Conference on the Great Lakes R...

Tea gardens of Cha Gorreana -- Photo: Kaizr I teach several courses each year on coffee, but some while ago I offered a one-credit honors colloquium on tea -- more specifically on tea and climate change . I intended to do this just once, but we learned that it was a popular topic, so I have continued to offer it each semester. It has been a great way for me to keep meeting new honors students, whose curiosity and willingness to take intellectual risks is always invigorating. The Azores are part of Macronesia It has also been a way for me to keep learning about tea, which remains a distant third behind coffee and chocolate in terms of my direct experience. Part of that learning came from the honors program itself, whose key staff person was an accomplished tea collector and hobbyist who would visit our class a couple of times each semester. She is still a consummate tea maven, but has recently moved on to another university. As a sort of parting gift, she shared the article The Tea Cap...

Hearing this interview on my local NPR station today reminded me of The One Who Got Away ... the academic version. When I was at University of Arizona during the early days of climate-change, Dr. Diana Liverman was a guest speaker a few times. I also met her -- and more importantly her graduate students -- at conferences. I almost transferred to Penn State, where she was on the faculty, even though PhD students do not really do that. It did not work out, and she ended up coming to Arizona, too late for me to have a decent advisor, though I eventually wiggled my way through . Hearing her cogent discussion on the radio took me way back, but I have no regrets -- I love what I do now and work with her would have kept me in the R-1 orbit . Like many geographers, she is deeply worried but not yet resigned -- we could not continue to teach if we did not retain at least some hope. And like many geographers, her work is deeply interdisciplinary. The interview draws on a recent report -- Trajec...

Over the weekend, New York Times journalist Kirk Semple and photojournalist Daniele Volpe provide a comprehensive update on the dire condition of Nicaragua. For those of us who love Nicaragua -- meaning anybody who has visited -- the title is heart-breaking, because it summarizes a dire condition that we could not have imagined six months ago: ‘There’s No Law’: Political Crisis Sends Nicaraguans Fleeing . (See my July 27 Nicaragua's Kent State  post for a bit more about recent developments.) Semple details the losses in the tourism industry that have resulted from the government's lawless response to protests since April. Photographer Volpe captures one of my very favorite places in this photo -- the usually bustling main square of Granada, now idle. The NYT article hints at a question I have had since the very beginning. The second political life of the FSLN has relied on a strange combination of revolutionary rhetoric and nostalgia on the one hand (left) and alliance with ru...

Sometimes a large city can give a person a feeling of profound anonymity. I felt it the first time I flew over São Paulo -- among the millions there, I envisioned myself as nameless. But what if the city itself had no name? That is exactly what the new urban place at 30°01'48"N 31°46'48"E is: a nameless city. I will be interesting to compare this July 2018 screenshot with the imagery of Egypt's new capital as it continues to be built out. Even now it is a bit difficult to see what is emerging in the Saharan sands some 30 miles to the east of Cairo (and not to be confused with New Cairo City, about halfway between the two). Journalist Jane Arraf told the story of Egypt's new capital , as officials decide that relief from congestion and pollution in centuries-old Cairo cannot be provided otherwise. Wikipedia simply calls the emerging city Proposed new capital of Egypt in its description of the details of its establishment. Unlike the original Cairo -- whose or...

In his unfortunately-titled 2009 book Idiot America , Boston sports writer Charles P. Pierce describes the growing aversion in his country -- and mine -- for public policies that are grounded in facts. I consider the title unfortunate because it is guaranteed to raise hackles more than it will invite readers, and in the process a very well-reasoned and researched book is not well known. Writing a few years before the web of deception strategies was condensed to just two words -- fake news -- Pierce identified three great premises of idiot America: Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough I would use the term "incurious America" instead and might add a corollary: My opinion is as good as your expertise For it is the continued assault on the value of inquiry, research, and knowledge itself t...

Note: This is an update on the ongoing crisis in Nicaragua. For detailed background, please see the #SOSNicaragua article that I posted on May 17 and continued to update until this week. A friend in Nicaragua shared this terrible map today. It shows the geographic depiction of the killings at protests between April 18 and July 25. This is a pace of state-sponsored killing equivalent to a Kent State massacre every day . In a country 1/50th the size of the United States, the impact of such repression is difficult to imagine.  Not since the Somoza regime has the Nicaraguan  government turned on a crowd  in this way, though we are aware of previous acts of repression by the Ortega regime in recent years. International condemnation has been widespread, including a bipartisan resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives. Perhaps anticipating that rebuke, Ortega sat for an interview with Fox News Monday night. Given the scant attention this story has gotten in the United St...

The title of this post is redundant -- like "chili con carne with meat" -- but it is in fact how a U.S. visitor to Mexico City would need to get a quesadilla that would meet the key expectation of queso-ness. Reporting for PRI's The World , journalist Maya Kroth recently explored the culinary and linguistic story of the cheeseless quesadilla .

A recent hour of the NPR program On Point  explored the question shown below. I had the luxury -- I must have been in the car for a long ride -- of hearing the whole conversation as it aired last week. Fortunately, journalist extraordinaire Linda Wertheimer had nearly a full hour to mull various aspects of the question with some bright people who have given it a lot of thought. I recommend listening to the whole program -- including the calls from listeners -- for some important thoughts about a question I would frame in a slightly different way. As posed in the title, it seems that a binary answer is being sought. I would rather ask, "How can we maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of gentrification?" I would not have thought of it this way before hearing this program. One of the callers in particular caught my attention. The experience of Portland, Maine validates the finding mentioned earlier in the program, that gentrification is not limited to large cities. I had...