How to use this Page

Today's guest brings us a little excerpt from his family-friendly book Gazpacho.

Prologue

The Arrival

Oh what a glorious light it was, so brilliant, bold and white. The light was so magnificent and powerful that I struggled in vain with my yet unopened eyes to gaze directly upon it. At first, with only but a glance and then with only a glimpse, I attempted to shield my newborn sight with the aid of the tiny hands and fingers that appeared there before me all aglow and bathed by the radiant light.

I quickly learned that each precious digit was mine to command. And, once I did, every one of them was sent out on the same mission of exploration, toward the light, filled with the hope and desire to touch it. Floating mere inches above me from where I lay, the light hovered ablaze, in all of its divine splendor, just out of reach. I soon came to understand that the light was never meant for me to touch in that way, but it was there for me to feel in a different way, instead. From somewhere deep inside myself I felt the incredible presence that was within it and it reached out to me with a message of love. As my eyes adjusted and grew more accustomed to the light, I marveled to behold a multitude of colorful rays on display. They danced, flickered and sparkled out from its center in every direction possible. All to a dazzling effect that filled me with joy.

Not a sound did it make, but even in the first few moments of my life, I knew that, somehow, the light had come to greet me and to help see me into the world. And I loved the light, almost as much as I felt the presence within it love me. Soon after I had made the connection with it, however, the light pulled away, faded and left. I didn’t like to see it go, but I was so very glad for the time that it had come to be with me. Even more than that, I was ever so grateful for the experience it left me with, to have known, felt, and witnessed something that was that good.

As those moments faded away, all of my physical senses took on a greater awareness. For the first time I heard soothing and comforting voices around me. At first the voices were faint, but before long, I could hear the sound coming from somewhere near me. Although I couldn’t understand exactly what they were talking about, I could feel that they were saying all kinds of nice and wonderful things just for me to hear. Love is also what I felt from them. And even though it was somehow different from the love that I felt from the light, the feelings were unmistakable and I loved them very much too!

So… this is what it’s like to be alive. Well hey, this certainly feels great! I really like it here!

Add a Comment

Tweet

By Tee L. Guidotti

Mengxi Village, in Zhejiang province, in eastern coastal China, is an obscure rural hamlet not far geographically but far removed socially from the beauty, history, and glory of Hangzhou, the capital. Now it is the unlikely center of a an environmental health awakening in which citizens took direct action by storming the gates of a lead battery recycling plant that has caused lead poisoning among both children and adults in the village.  Sharon Lafranierre reported the story on 15 June 2011 in the New York Times.

What was unusual about the incident was not that the community was heavily polluted and that the health of children in the village has been harmed but that local residents, 200 of them, took violent action, smashing property in the plant, and seem not to have been punished for it. The incident opens a window on the rapid change in attitudes in China toward industrialization, pollution, and authority.

Like many rural settlements, Mengxi responded to the opening of the Chinese economy by creating small-scale business to make money and to raise local residents out of poverty. Compared to earlier local “township enterprises,” this plant came late to Mengxi; it was only opened in 2005. But it caught a wave of increased business demand and now employs a reported 1000 workers, making it an important economic support for rural Deqing County. Historically, these township enterprises have been a peculiar and often corrupt blend of local government and local entrepreneurship. They have been grossly undercapitalized and essentially unregulated: the Mengxi battery plant had apparently been knowingly operating for at least six years in violation of environmental emissions standards. The central Government has been cracking down in recent years and making examples in some egregious cases but local authorities are stronger in rural areas.

Local officials, having a deep and usually personal stake in these enterprises, often try harder to protect them than to protect the local people for whom they are responsible. Mengxi illustrates the problem of local officials refusing to act, denying that the problem exists, and suppressing efforts to find out by journalists or by public health experts. Part of this may be greed but once the damage is done fear probably takes over as the main motivation for concealing the truth. Already, eight company officials have been arrested and all must be very aware of the two senior executive and the dairy boss who were executed in China this year for allowing contamination of milk.

Battery plants on this small scale are particularly hazardous and in the absence of effective regulation can be very dangerous to local residents, especially children, who are more vulnerable than adults to lead poisoning. Lead exposure in this situation may occur from airborne dust containing lead, contact with dirt contaminated from larger particles of lead that drop out of the air from fumes, food grown in contaminated soil, dust brought home on the clothes of adults who work in the plants, and even in homes, where some families actually smelt small quantities of lead as a cottage industry. Lead exerts its major toxic effects on the nervous system. In children, it can cause a spectrum of disorders ranging from severe lead poisoning and brain damage (“toxic encephalopathy”) at levels seen in some children in the village to more subtle toxicity that causes a reduction in potential intelligence (difficult to measure in an individual child but demonstrable in a population) and loss of impulse control, which can be seen at levels that are now common throughout China and used to be common in the United States dec

Add a Comment

It is my absolute favorite time of the year on the OUPBlog. Word of the Year time (or WOTY as we call it in the office). Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary prepares for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. The 2008 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) hypermiling.

Do you keep the tires on your car properly inflated to maximize your gas mileage? Have you removed the roof rack from your vehicle to streamline the car and reduce drag? Do you turn your engine off rather than idle at long stoplights? If you said yes to any of these questions you just might be a “hypermiler.”

Some history:
“Hypermiling” was coined in 2004 by Wayne Gerdes, who runs this web site. “Hypermiling” or “to hypermile” is to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques. Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.

Many of the methods followed by hypermilers are basic common sense—drive the speed limit, avoid hills and stop-and-go traffic, maintain proper tire pressure, don’t let your car idle, get rid of excess cargo—but others practiced by some devotees may seem slightly eccentric:
• driving without shoes (to increase the foot’s sensitivity on the pedals)
• parking so that you don’t have to back up to exit the space
• “ridge-riding” or driving with your tires lined up with the white line at the edge of the road to avoid driving through water-filled ruts in the road when it’s raining

The hypermiling movement has been criticized for its alleged promotion of driving tactics that are considered dangerous or illegal, such as overinflating tires, rolling through stop signs, and following closely behind large vehicles to cut down on wind resistance. The American Automobile Association (AAA) has issued statements condemning hypermiling as unsafe, while hypermilers have countered that AAA’s characterization of hypermiling is a misrepresentation (see links below for more info).

Hypermiling has also gotten some positive attention in 2008, gaining mainstream traction as gas prices soared and the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, especially those from foreign sources, has become more apparent. A new initiative launched by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers and supported by such notables as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advocates the practice, referring to it as EcoDriving.

President-elect Barack Obama observed during his campaign that Americans could save as much oil as would be produced by proposed off-shore drilling if only they kept their tire pressures at recommended levels and took their cars in for regular tune-ups. Republicans’ subsequent criticisms of Obama’s statement put these measures advocated by hypermilers in the center of the debate between conservation and drilling as solutions to Americans’ foreign oil dependence problem.

A growing number of Americans favor hypermiling as a sensible set of practices for all drivers who are concerned about their wallets, the environment, and fuel independence, not just for those on the fringe who are obsessed with increasing their MPG numbers.

Related Links…

AAA on hypermiling

Wayne Gerdes response to AAA

Links relating to “EcoDriving”:
NBC Chicago
Eco Driving USA

Word of the Year Finalists:

frugalista – person who leads a frugal lifestyle, but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying second-hand, growing own produce, etc.

moofer – a mobile out of office worker – ie. someone who works away from a fixed workplace, via Blackberry/laptop/wi-fi etc. (also verbal noun, moofing)

topless meeting – a meeting in which the participants are barred from using their laptops, Blackberries, cellphones, etc.

toxic debt – mainly sub-prime debts that are now proving so disastrous to banks. They were parceled up and sent around the global financial system like toxic waste, hence the allusion.

Word of the Year Shortlist:

CarrotMob, carrot mob – a flashmob type of gathering, in which people are invited via the Net to all support and reward a local small ethical business such as a shop or café by all patronizing it at the same time. Also as noun, carrotmobbing.

ecohacking (also known as geoengineering) – the use of science in very large-scale projects to change the environment for the better/stop global warming (e.g. by using mirrors in space to deflect sunlight away from Earth).

hockey mom – like a soccer mom, but one who is supportive of her ice-hockey playing kids, as popularized by Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin

link bait – content on a website that encourages [baits] a user to place links to it from other websites

luchador – a wrestler, an exponent of lucha libre [Mexican Spanish, lit. = ‘free wrestling’, a form of professional wrestling originating in Mexico and popular in Latin America, with spectacular moves, showy costumes, etc.]

rewilding – the process of returning an area to its original wild state/flora/fauna etc.

staycation – vacation taken at or near one’s home, taking day trips, etc.

tweet – a short message sent via the Twitter service, using a cellphone or other mobile device.

wardrobe – has become a verb, as in: Ms. Mendes has a long-standing relationship with the house of Calvin Klein and has been wardrobed by Calvin Klein Collection.

Display Comments Add a Comment