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From Cicero to Lynne Truss with Robert Lane Greene
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Robert Lane Greene’s new book “You Are What You Speak” examines how language we speak is bound up in our identity. How much does our native language define us? How much does it set our ways of thinking? Can we think a different way in a different language? Why do people get so persnickety about punctuation? Why do grammar sticklers yearn for a golden age of usage that usually coincides with their school days? Download MP3
Fukushima vs. Chernobyl–Comparison less useful than ever
Nowhere near Chernobyl. Except sort of. But really, much, much less bad. Or… maybe worse. If your head’s hurting right now trying to keep track of official evaluations of the scale of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, well, get in line for the aspirin. If not yet the iodine pills [...]
Haiti beats Harvard
At the end of what would have been a game tied at zero-zero, a series of penalty kicks gave Haiti’s national men’s soccer team a 4 to 1 victory over Harvard University. At the final point, the already joyous, heavily Haitian crowd erupted into hysterical cheers and chants of, “Haiti! Haiti!” [...]
Robots in post-quake Japan
In the course of seven years of tech reporting for The World, it’s fair to say that I’ve done my fair share of stories about robots, both for the radio show, and for my weekly podcast. It is also fair to say that many of those stories have come from Japan, a recognized world leader when it comes to robot research, design, and use. And that’s why it struck a chord with me when Tech Podcast listener James Middleton asked, essentially, “where are the robots?” [...]
Noisy Oceans Could Traumatize Squids
Giant squids are fascinating, deep sea creatures that are so elusive that a live one was photographed for the first time just last year. So it was very unusual for the people of Asturia, in northern Spain to encounter five giant squids on their beaches in 2001. The squids were dead, and the carcasses washed ashore over a two-month period. Four more carcasses were found in 2003 [...]
Fukushima likely not as bad as Chernobyl, but what does that mean?
For four weeks now, the world has watched with a surreal combination of horror and helplessness as the Japanese have struggled to regain control of their crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima, staunch the flow of radioactivity, and evaluate the long-term impact of the disaster on human health, the environment, and communities near and far [...]
Juliano Mer Khamis funeral
I took these photos while reporting on the Juliano Mer Khamis funeral. More on this story in the broadcast Thursday [...]
Ozone levels over the Arctic hit all-time low
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There’s an odd feeling of déjà vu these days here on the environment beat. First came the awful events in Japan with a nuclear disaster on a scale unseen since Chernobyl in the 1980s. Now comes news about atmospheric ozone that takes us back to the 80s as well [...]Voices on the Haitian elections
Haiti’s electoral council has said it will announce today the provisional results of the country’s presidential run-off. The losing candidate will then have an opportunity to challenge the vote count before final results are declared. The elections have been mired in controversy, with allegations of fraud on both sides, and with some calling the whole process illegitimate [...]
Libya and The Great (Viral) Game
By now you’ve likely seen the Russian-made video which uses the mobile game Angry Birds to have some fun with recent news out of North Africa. But if you’ve missed it, here it is [...]
Haiti: A country re-divided?
Just a note for the record: In a recent interview, Lisa Mullins asked me about Aristide’s popularity. My reply suggested that if one digs down, one might find the occasional, quiet, non-enthusiast. While this reflected my experience near the airport on March 17, 2011, the day of the former president’s return to Haiti, I’m afraid it glossed over important recent history [...]
Dictators with dialects, finger spelling and universal Inuit
Napoleon, Hitler and Gaddafi all grew up speaking a distinct dialect of their native tongue. Coincidence? Dialects are the languages of outsiders, at least until they are co-opted by people, or governments, trying to standardize the language. That’s what’s happening right now in northern Canada, where with the dialects of the Inuit. The hope is that language will unite this widely scattered people[...]
Lakay se lakay … home is home
“Si Aristide te la….” “If Aristide were here….” So started the chants in countless demonstrations on the streets of Port-au-Prince over the last seven years, since then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was flown into exile in Africa on a US military plane. If Aristide were here, the thinking went, we wouldn’t be so hungry, so many of us wouldn’t be living in tents, and we would have some hope for the future of our country [...]
In Spain, stolen babies come to light, unleashing grief, legal action
Beyond the debate over the numbers, whether we’re talking about 3,000 or 300,000 illegal adoptions, there’s the story of Antonio Barroso. Antonio is 42. His whole life he’d suspected he’d been adopted. But his parents always denied it. You’re our son, they said. And then, when he was 38, his phone rang. It was a childhood friend. That friend had just left his own father’s death bed and come away with a confession. Both he and Antonio were adopted [...]
Explaining Japan’s disaster to kids and Russian beer to Americans
Japan has a whole lexicon of earthquake-related phrases. But the severity of this quake is expanding that lexicon. Also, a video explains the nuclear emergency to children with an analogy that kids understand all too well. In France, meanwhile, the government is battling news outlets over probes into the practices of some politicians. And American brewers are giving reviving a centuries-old type of beer, Russian Imperial Stout, and plundering Russian history to name the brews [...]
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