Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) come ashore at a gravel beach on Arakamchechen Island in the Bering Sea, Chukotka, Russia. Photograph: Jenny E Ross/Corbis
Thanks to Guardian’s coverage of this excellent, innovative campaign:
The 148m users of the Russian social network service Odnoklassniki are being targeted by a World Wildlife Fund for Nature campaign that uses ‘404’ error pages to raise awareness of species on the verge extinction.
It does not matter whether you are a farmer, a geneticist, or whatever you do with your time: you will almost certainly be affected in important, unexpected ways after time spent in Paris. Continue reading
Mattancherry
Photo credits: Renjith
Ochira, located in the Kollam district of Kerala, is famous for the Parabrahma Temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva. The Ochirakkali is a mock fight enacted between groups of men dressed as warriors on the battlefield, commemorating the historic battle fought between the Kayamkulam and Chempakasseri soldiers. Continue reading
Goats on the hillside in Vermont. Photo by Anne Buchanan
It has been some time since we first found an article in this publication, which we have continued following. There is at least one emerging pattern to explain why we keep going back: every article has an image that transports us, that makes us want to go see the who, what and where of the description:
…Jennifer and her husband Melvin work Polymeadows Farm, a small goat dairy farm and dairy plant in Vermont. They are currently milking about 120 goats. During kidding season, twice a year, the newborns spend their first night in a barrel of hay in the kitchen. This is important during Vermont winters, but also in summer, so that Jennifer knows the kids are healthy before they go out and join the rest. Continue reading
Thekkady, Kerala
A view of the Taj Mahal beneath the cloudy skies
Throughout my life I have had the privilege of frequently traveling and visiting new countries. However, I had not yet had the pleasure of seeing any of the deemed “Seven Wonders of the World.” A week ago, I was finally able to change that when I took a trip to Agra and visited the Taj Mahal with my father. Continue reading
Kitchen Confidential juggled with foodies’ fascinations in new and unusual ways, and since then reality television seems to be the appropriate new home for that side show. Oddly, it began in 1999 with an article in the New Yorker. So it is only fitting that the magazine has been balancing those dynamics with the work of less celebrity-oriented writers ever since. None better than Bill Buford, who gets out there, and in there, like a citizen scientist for the story (though he is not shy of carny, either). Here what catches my attention is the collaboration, but plenty on the ethos of an artisan, the farm as the garden of eden, and last but not least the role of food in heritage and heritage in food (click the image above to go to the article):
Two years ago, during the summer of 2011, Daniel Boulud, the New York-based French chef, told me he had been thinking about a project that we might do together. We were both in France at the time. I was living in Lyons—I had moved there in order to learn French cooking—and Boulud was visiting his family in Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, a nearby village on a wooded ridge in the open countryside. Continue reading
Photo credits : Ramesh Kidangoor
The Sunflower is an annual plant and its name is derived from the image and shape of the flower, which depicts the Sun. Sunflowers are also an important source of food. It’s oil is valued as a healthy vegetable oil, making it a popular agricultural crop in south India. Continue reading
Getting greener on the transportation front is partly about reducing use of fossil fuel, partly about reducing the noise and particulates generated by motorized vehicles, and partly just the fun of alternative methods of getting around. Sometimes pedicabs are simple visions, other times elaborate hipsterisms. The image above links to just one of the several companies peddling practical person-powered vehicles, now ubiquitous world-wide… Continue reading
Grapes ready for harvest
The first thing that I noticed about Tamil Nadu was the juxtaposition to the Kerala landscape to which I am now accustomed. Unlike the mountainous western Kerala, where during monsoon rain is plentiful and direct sunlight a rarity, just across the border in Tamil Nadu the land is flat, and during monsoon the air is dry and the sun shining. It is a shockingly fast transition that you can see as soon as you are at the base of the mountains. I knew this part of Tamil Nadu was flat, but I thought it would all be made up of lush green farm land, but instead what I encountered resembled central Texas, dry and rocky. In fact, it made me feel quite at home.
After seeing the landscape it was not surprising to hear from a local organic farmer, that most of the water in Tamil Nadu comes from the Periyar River in Kerala via the Mullaperiyar Dam. The farm boasted many types of fruits, including grapes and pomegranates. It was well worth the trip to see a farm in action and to see how and where some of the local fruits are grown. Continue reading
What makes a great New Yorker Talk of the Town piece?
Small surprises.
Quirks.
Unexpected perspective.
At the outset in this case our hearts are immediately with the folks daring the harbor on kayaks, but our brains are (gulp) subsequently with the residents against the kayakers. All within a few hundred words:
…Last year, in her capacity as a co-chair of the New York City Water Trail Association, Brous began collating the complaints of other paddlers that the myriad ferryboats using the river routinely failed to toot their horns before pulling away from the dock, in defiance of maritime law, specifically Inland Navigation Rule 34. The kayakers feared that a ferry might run one of them down. Brous wrote to various entities with some waterfront sway and eventually found herself sending periodic e-mails to the Coast Guard, detailing instances of law-flouting ferries. Nothing changed. The ferries ferried hornlessly…
Reciting the Holy Book of Ramayana
Karkidakam is the last month in the Malayalam calendar, which this year falls between 17th July and 16th August on the Western calendar. Historically the southwest monsoon is bringing chilling torrential rain during this period. In Kerala every observant Hindu family recites the Holy Book of Ramayana in homes and temples during this time, making Karkidakam popularly known as Ramayana Masam.
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Birds are the most common feature on this site, for reasons we cannot possibly explain in the prelude to a post about another type of flying creature. Butterflies are certainly underrepresented here, and with this post we will begin to correct that. Four of Raxa Collective’s contributors, and many others who have visited Costa Rica, first learned of butterfly farming due to the good graces of Joris Brinckerhoff and Maria Sabido and that is just one of the reasons to smile thanks to Robert Krulwich’s recent post:
I’ve got a friend, Destin, who has a YouTube channel called Smarter Every Day, where he pokes around with his camera to get extremely intimate looks at small miracles in nature. In this one, about the secret life of baby butterflies, he learns that when it comes time for the caterpillar to turn itself into a butterfly, it doesn’t spin a lot of silk and build itself a shelter (a pupa). I thought that what caterpillars do. But no … take a look at what actually happens. Continue reading
In several past posts about historically interesting interactions between Europeans and Indians, the New World variation on that story was invoked to make a point, mainly with an eye toward environmental history. Today’s Hindu has an article that draws on the history contained in the journal to the left about (Old World) Vasco de Gama’s first experience in (Older World) India, specifically the Malabar Coast and what is now the state of Kerala. Click the image to go to the source of the book, and here to go to the Hindu article:
The hero of the first Portugese contact on Indian shores is a degradado, or Portugese convict and exile, not Vasco da Gama.
One of the greatest navigators from the Age of Discoveries, da Gama, appointed by Dom Manuel, King of Portugal, for his “energy and high spirits” refused to take the initiative to go ashore on the morning of May 21, 1498. Instead, da Gama chose to wait in the depths of his ship, Sao Gabriel, while the convict Joao Nunes stepped out into the monsoon showers off the western coast of Kozhikode to meet, much to his amazement, a pair of multi-lingual Tunisian merchants. Continue reading
Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea plants are strong-growing plants with an enormous range, from dry Mediterranean regions to the cool, wet climates found in hill ranges of the India’s Western Ghats. Continue reading
View the video by clicking the image above, again brought to you on Cornell University’s website:
The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. Continue reading
Organikos 