DANTEmag - N.6

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DANTE FOR THE RENAISSANCE IN US

The only international magazine with an Italian soul

Germany’s Green Tech: The Rise - and Fall? of an Industry

Re-use me The creative spirit of recycling design

A Planet in Crisis: Can Art Save Us? Is it even trying?

man-made versus nature! Why we have to start caring to cure.

9 772051 002005

Plastic hell

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Issue - June/July 2012

www.dantemag.com

UK £ 7.50 - $ 12.50 - EU € 8.5 - Hong Kong $ 95 - China RMB 79

Issue - September/October 2012

www.dantemag.com

UK £ 7.50 - USA $ 12.50 - EU € 8.5

DANTE FOR THE RENAISSANCE IN US

The only international magazine with an Italian soul

Germany’s Green Tech: The Rise - and Fall? of an Industry

Re-use me The creative spirit of recycling design

A Planet in Crisis: Can Art Save Us? Is it even trying?

man-made versus nature! Why we have to start caring to cure.

9 772051 002005

Plastic hell

ISSN 2051-0020 DANTEmag Print

Overture q q

DANTEmag n.6

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DANTEmag n.6

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index MISSION STATEMENT

BY THE EDITORS Dante and Beatrice p. 8

Food for thought! p. 10

DIVINA COMMEDIA AROUND THE WORLD. p.12

ART.

Implemented Environments: Solastalgia, Enlightenment, Red Tape and the Void p. 14 A Planet in Crisis: Can Art Save Us? Is it even trying? p. 22

LITERATURE

Mort Todd: Diabolikal Super-Kriminal p. 30

MUSIC Green Rock p. 38

DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE

RE-USE ME The Creative Spirit of Recycling Design p. 44 A Director’s Guide to Overnight Success in Hollywood: A 10-Step Programme p. 50 Malina Pasthira: Sustainable Architecture in Thailand p. 58

COVER

Window of the soul The Unlikely Abbot p. 104

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

TRAVEL Secret Islands Of The Caribbean p. 112 Mexico’s Eco-tourism Quest: In Search of a Gentle Shark p. 120

Plastic Hell - Man-made Versus Nature.

Why We Have to Start Caring to Cure. p. 66

FOOD Superfoods to the Rescue? p. 126

POLITICS

COLUMNS

American Apocalypse - Then and Now p. 76 My Country ‘Tis of Thee: Election Blues and Patriots’ Angst p. 82

Nonno Panda tales Nonno Panda and ... a Goblin an Elf and a Fairy p. 132

BUSINESS

Leviathan p. 134

Germany’s Green Tech: The Rise - and Fall? - of an Industry p. 90 The Nukleus Story p. 92

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Editor Asia and Middle East Joseph Mayton

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Music Editor Dean Rispler

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Letter from the Editors When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot ~ Cree Prophecy ~ eat money.

D

Dante shudders at all the propaganda masquerading as journalism that prevails in print and on the airwaves. Our hope, by contrast, is that we will never fail to call a rose a rose.

There are certain inalienable truths that cannot be denied.

One of these truths – often misattributed to a Native American leader of the 19th Century (Chief Seattle of the Suquamish people) but salient nonetheless – is that whatever we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.

Thus we devote Number Six of our magazine to green issues.

We do not do so because it is fashionable. We do not do so as a token gesture. You will hear from us on this score again and again, just as you may have become accustomed by now to see our pages repeatedly concerned with human rights, good governance, social justice and the study of human conflict in all of its forms.

We would go so far as to claim that the defence of the natural environment is nothing less than the greatest battlefield of our age. Does it seem preposterous to state that the fight for Mother Earth dwarfs all others? What do struggles for national liberation, for human emancipation, for ethnic or cultural survival, for the defence of free expression and other noble human ideals mean? Indeed, what do nations mean, what do all their pride, their intransigence, and their economic prerogatives amount to, if the Earth is dying?

We know for a fact that while their shrinkage may have

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slowed, the polar ice caps are melting at a steady, inexorable rate. Climate change – global warming – is also an empirical fact, yet there are those that still decry it as myth. We can confirm that great swathes of the world’s oceans are all but permanently polluted. To take one example alone, the damage wrought by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is damage that will take centuries to undo, if that is even possible. Just on American shores we still contend with the ecological harm caused by the Exxon Valdez disaster that occurred when many of us were still children decades ago.

How long will it take before Japan recovers from the Fukushima meltdown? If Chernobyl is anything to go by, none of us reading this editorial will see the day when vast areas of Japan are once more habitable, a day that might come when the Irish Sea is no longer one of the most irradiated corners of the planet and that day will not come soon.

Untold numbers of as-yet undiscovered species of flora and fauna are being exterminated in the rainforests of the Amazon Basin, in large part to satisfy our hunger for fast food hamburgers. The tragic reality of our age is that it seems the steady extinction of our natural environment is an all-too-acceptable price to pay for so-called human progress and economic development. At least that is the response China, India and the United States keep providing in the face of urgent pleas to reduce their emissions of green house gases and the panoply of incalculable tons of industrial pollutants spewed into the atmosphere each day. It’s just bad for business.

And so the juggernaut of modernity keeps bulldozing its way to the future. But what sort of future will this relentless drive

yield? Mexico City is now so polluted that routinely, on bad smog days, birds fall dead from the sky. The statistics for respiratory diseases in the Mexican capital are staggering. So too are the occurrences of congenital birth defects in Mexican maquiladora slum towns, where industrial waste, the aguas negras, or black waters, flow into open sewers, causing babies to be routinely born with encephalitis. Is that a fair price to pay for a cheap toaster?

coasts of East Africa that former Somali fishermen now turn to piracy. Yet rather than examining our complicity, we condemn them. And who cares about elephants in Tsavo or gorillas in Rwanda and the Congo? Well, someone has to. And do we really have to strip mine Alaska for a paltry decade’s worth of oil and minerals? For that matter, must we do the same in virtually any corner of the Earth, from the Peruvian Amazon to the Australian outback?

And how many more wars will we wage in the Middle East in the name of petroleum, no matter how we might to try to disguise the underlying call to arms in the name of democracy, peace and security? More than a million dead Iraqis would beg to differ with that rationale.

So at Dante we embrace solar power, wind power and all forms of renewable clean energy, organic farming, an end to overfishing, the redoubling – nay tripling – of efforts to ensure conservation of all endangered habitats and all the species within them. We hope that one day penalties for environmental crimes and poaching will be as severe as any others under global criminal statutes. That Japan still has an active whaling fleet is an abomination. And if you’re really attached to that fur coat, let’s make it a requirement that to own that same coat you must first participate in the wholesale slaughter of baby seals and help club them to death personally.

We are journalists at Dante; we don’t claim to be scientists.

But we are humanists unabashedly in love with our planet.

Without reservation we stand our ground when it is a matter of life and death, when the uneven struggle to save the natural world is nothing less than a do-or-die effort. So we will not be squeamish or mince our words.

Nuclear power, like nuclear weapons, has had its day and must be got rid of. Dependency on fossil fuels is a fool’s paradise. Bio-engineered produce and insecticide-laden food is something we’d rather not eat. Organic isn’t hippy or retrostupid – it is common sense and as Mother Nature intended.

We cannot favour cutting down huge, irreplaceable tracts of Borneo’s old-growth rain forest in order to create palm oil plantations. In the flawed logic of growing a clean fuel source while burning so many trees, the emissions nullify the effort.

Industrial fishing fleets have so depleted the fish stocks off the

What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. We do not suggest a return to the cave, we merely point out that we are doing nothing less than returning to a dark age, if in our insatiable appetite for the comforts and convenience of modernity, we fail to recognise that our ease and consumption comes at too great a price. Our lavish and untroubled destruction must end, or it will end us.

Dante and Beatrice (Alias the editors)

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Food For Thought!

by Massimo Gava

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I I don’t want to be king in a world without green.

I don’t want to be king In a world without dreams.

Tell me who wants to be king In a world without green.

Tell me who wants to be king In a world without dreams.

King Leo XIV the Splendid (Main character in novel “The Zoo”)

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comedy THE DIVINE Around the World

Half along our life’s path. Lost in a dark wood.

Unable to find the right way….

PARADISO Dear Beatrice…

CANTO I

tly unsorted – into the machine and then explaining the process The world produces 260 million tons of plastic a year – as the machine breaks the stuff 20% more than it did fifty years down. “It’s not trash,” he inago. And all that plastic is fore- sists. “It’s treasure.” Blest goes ver, right? Well, not necessarily. into schools to demonstrate the machine and educate kids on Several companies – including plastics and recycling. “I want one in Japan, and others in them to look at this,” Ito says, the U.S. – have come up with ways not just to recycle plastic, as he surveys piles of bulging rubbish bags, “and see an oil but to render it back down to field.” We hope these technoloits original form – petroleum.

This may sound too good to be gies will soon be available more true (and there are some scams widely, and on an industrial scale. out there), but the technology exists to do it. A Japanese company called Blest, for example, CANTO II is currently marketing a home- ITALY – In the Trentino sized machine that can take region, famous for cultivating household plastic and break it the country’s most delicious down into unrefined oil. Since apples, the village of Pejo has unrefined oil is used mainly for created a biofuel heating and industrial purposes, Blest also electricity plant, using not only sells a machine that can break waste fruit from the orchards the oil down into products that but also other waste produced can be used immediately for by the clean-up of a 40 km area things like motor oil. In a viof the surrounding forest. This deo, that’s made the rounds on plant has an output of about YouTube and on internet sites, five megawatts and will mean you can see Akinori Ito, the cheaper electricity bills for machine’s developer, gleefully the locals. At the moment the stuffing plastic trash – apparenDANTEmag n.6

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energy is used only for local public buildings administrative offices, schools, libraries, town halls, etc. But in a year’s time, when the grid network gets sorted, homes in the local villages will be connected up, eliminating, for the most part, CO2 emissions in that area.

That’s what we call an ecofriendly community. Well done, Pejo.

CANTO III

TAIWAN. Hopes that the country would be the first in Asia to legalise gay weddings are a step closer to being realised. In August, to the accompaniment of 300 chanting Buddhists, two women, Huang Mei-yu and Yu Ya-ting, tied the knot in a Buddhist ceremony held in a monastery in Taoyuan in the northen part of the country. Homosexuality is not prohibited in Buddhist teachings. The wedding was celebrated by Buddhist master Shih Chao-hwei, a professor at Hsuan Chuang University. She said in an interview with Taipei Times: “It’s difficult enough to maintain a relationship. . . .

How could you be so mean as

to begrudge a couple for wanting to get married, regardless of their sexual orientation?”

Oh, well. You tell us. We don’t understand why people get married in the first place, when more than half of all marriages end in divorce anyway. . . .

But, dear Beatrice, we don’t want to sound too bitter about it, and we shouldn’t spoil their moment of happiness. So we’ll kiss the brides and wish them all the best in their life together.

INFERNO CANTO I

Purgatorio Virgil what can be said of...

CANTO I

...the Marie Antoinette heading the IMF. Christine Lagarde, after urging the Greeks to pay their taxes or face catastrophic consequences, is not herself paying a penny in tax as part of the salary package of 500,000 euros a year plus benefits. Such benefits apparently include the audacity to tell people around the world that they should pay their taxes - otherwise how will she get her salary paid? Well, I guess it’s part of the tradition that comes with that package, isn’t it? We’ve seen how her predecessor, Dominique Strauss Khan, has benefited from his position. How appropriate is that? Give them cake... give them cake...

ce of soprano Anastasia Zanni.

The actual Greek Olympic athletes, on the other hand, were given 300 euros to cover personal expenses during their stay in London, and were asked to give half of it back if they left the Olympic Village earlier than planned. I wonder what the suffering people of Greece think of all this, considering they’re repeatedly told there’s no money left... none left for some I guess...

CANTO III

In 1920, Robert Frost wrote: “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.” Almost a century later, an end in ice is looking less and less likely. Two recent reports indicate that the world’s pack ice is disappearing more quickly than CANTO II expected. NASA reported that In the meantime Greek Olym- satellite data shows that in July pic officials threw lavish parties 94% of Greenland’s ice sheet at the Carlton Club, one of the experienced surface melt this most elite conservative clubs in summer. While not historically St. James, London. Organised unusual, this bears watching as by the British Hellenic Chamcore sampling shows it should ber of Commerce, President only happen every 150 years Harris Ikonomopoulous said or so. The last time this occurthe parties were meant to atred was in 1889. If it begins tract investment for the ailing to happen more frequently, Greek economy, which just it could spell trouble. More got a second bailout from the worrisome are reports that Eurozone of 130 billion euros, the Arctic sea ice is melting and that the cost of 150,000 much faster than previously pounds to hire the venue was thought. If it continues at the supported partially by private present rate, within a decade firms. The Greek embassy said there’ll be no Arctic sea ice in it was the only venue available summer. The disappearance of at such short notice. Politicians, the summer ice pack will have officials and sponsors mingled a myriad consequences, incluand danced with the athletes ding weather disruptions in the and listened to the performan- Northern hemisphere.

Another day and another banking scandal in the land of the politically correct and perfect business sense. Fresh from the Libor-fixing affair where Barclay’s Bank was forced to pay a £290 million fine, another bank, Standard Chartered, has settled with New York State financialservice to resolve allegations that the firm hid $250 billion in transactions tied to Iran, in violation of U.S. sanctions.

Standard Chartered will pay a fine of $340 million to New York State. This goes handin-hand with the fine facing HSBC equal to £600 million for money laundering billions of pounds for Mexican drug lords. In the meantime, the US government has decided not to proceed against Goldman Sachs for the Abacus subprime scandal where thousands of clients lost their money. The bank wanted to settle payment of $550 million some time ago but now the Department of Justice has decided there is no evidence of any wrong doing by the bank, so no need for a trial. It sounds so convenient...

CANTO II

One might be tempted to make jokes about Mothra, if it weren’t so serious. A team of Japanese researchers has discovered that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 has caused serious physiological and genetic damage to a common species of Japanese butterfly, the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha.

While the first generation of butterflies that emerged after the Fukushima melt-down had mild abnormalities, the next generation showed more severe mutations, including significantly smaller wing size, morphological deformations, eye deformations, and strangely mutated antennae. Butter-

flies are particularly sensitive to environmental changes, so they are useful to study as harbingers of environmental problems. At the time of the earthquakes and the subsequent disaster at Fukushima, scientists had already been studying this species for about ten years, looking for changes due to global warming.

The scientists published their findings in the journal “Nature”, commenting that “. . .precise information on exactly what occurred [at the Fukushima plant] and on what is still ongoing is yet to be established. This lack of information raises serious concerns about biological influences on living organisms that could ultimately produce long-term destruction of ecosystems and cause chronic diseases.”

CANTO III

If we were in the time of the French revolution, they would’ve been classified as conspirators and had their heads chopped off. These days, they are installed as financial gurus by inept politicians, who are unable to tackle the real economic problems caused by their own activities. In wildwest style financial markets, they become VIPs. Because ruining millions of people’s lives, thanks to unregulated market regulation, can earn you lots and lots of money. So when one of them announces to a small group of friends that he’s marrying for the third time to a woman forty-two years his junior, it becomes headline news in the national press.

Let’s wish the happy couple as much happiness as they have created around the world...

To what other terraces of doom and pain, dear Virgil, will you accompany me...next time...

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ART

Barbara Wildenboer

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ART

Implemented Environments:

Solastalgia, Enlightenment, Red Tape and the Void

By Tim Leibbrandt

While attention to the natural environment is critical, it is easy to forget – or indeed not to realise at all – that our environment as humans is also a made thing. For humans as a whole, in fact, our environment could be said to consist of the natural world where we find ourselves and what we’ve made of those natural surroundings, our interaction with them. As is usually the case, such concepts come clearest to us through art.

A

As environmental awareness garners increased attention within popular collective consciousness, there exists a tendency towards viewing the environment as a dislocated entity; as something separate and removed that warrants preservation but is ultimately heterogeneous. Often, the definition of environment in this context refers specifically to the natural environment, at the expense of the additional applications of the term.

With this in mind, the title of Brundyn and Gonsalves’ exhibition, “Implemented Environments” alludes to an active and personal engagement with differing notions of environment on the part of the participating artists.

Thus whilst the exhibition is certainly imbued with a “green” conscience (evidenced particularly in the work of Sean Slemon, Jan van der Merwe and DANTEmag n.6

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ART

Mohua Modisakeng, Untitled 2010,

Barbara Wildenboer), this by no means comprises its sole focus. Rather, emphasis is on the interrelatedness of varying concepts of environments and the artists’ relationship to these external factors as something active, shifting and mutable.

To this extent, the qualifying term “implemented” is key, implying a sense of agency or action and indeed all of the artists within the exhibition demonstrate this in a manner relevant to their practice. Thus the “implemented environment” becomes something that one experiences, but also something that one perpetuates and has the potential to influence; environment as an entity sustained by a series of actions and reactions.

Implicit in the assertion of action/reaction is the notion of consequences, bringing to mind the work of Sean Slemon and Barbara Wildenboer.

Slemon’s Public Property (2010) incorporates a concept of implemented environments through an examination of the paradoxical existence of nature within an encroaching urban environment. As a specifically constructed entity that has to be planned, planted and accommodated for, there is nothing fundamentally natural about trees (in this instance) within the public sphere.

Yet at the same time, it marks a necessary incorporation of nature into the DANTEmag n.6

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urban landscape both for physical, psychological and environmental reasons.

Isolating and taking apart a diseased elm tree, Slemon’s series of video stills resembles a set of assembly instructions, reducing the tree to a generic constructible public space prop. This conflict between the natural and urban environments is further emphasised through the conceptual drawing Disappearing Tree- Nature Engulfed in Urbanity (2009). As the depicted tree, felled by Slemon’s signature red ribbon (a subtle allusion to bureaucratic red tape?) is erased, it is usurped by cement, polyurethane and soil.

A term with practical application throughout the exhibition is the neologism “solastalgia” (coined by Glenn Albrecht in 2003 and cited by Wildenboer in relation to her work). The term refers to psychic or existential distress resulting from environmental changes and ... the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault ... a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at “home.”

Within the context of Wildenboer’s Organism/Environment (2011) series this is

ART

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ART

related to the plight of the endangered South American hummingbird.

Produced on a residency to North Colombia, the series of prints depicts taxidermied hummingbirds on loan from the Museum of Natural History, albeit with their wingspans replaced with wings fashioned from pages of the atlas relating to their indigenous environment. The compounding effects of deforestation and chemical pollution have jeopardised the livelihood of these hummingbirds, hence Wildenboer’s citing of solastalgia as a relevant concept. Subsequently, the taxidermied hummingbirds may one day have to function as a surrogate for the living birds, a disturbing notion mimicked in Wildenboer’s second level substitution of the bird maquettes for prints bearing their image.

An assumption of Albrecht’s solastalgia is the perception of a stable starting DANTEmag n.6

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point, a notion challenged by the autobiographical protagonist of Mohau Modisakeng’s triptych C-print Untitled (2010). The work functions as a visually striking interrogation of the artist’s identity within a complex heterogeneous, social environment. Moving towards a more socio-political view of environment, Modisakeng emphasises the postcolonial premise that the circumstances and structures that have resulted in historically silenced voices cannot be ignored and their reality must be specifically acknowledged if one is to come to terms with and alleviate the underlying structures that perpetuated them.

In order to understand the individual’s role amidst the confusion of mangled underlying historical structures, the personal archive of experience must be unpacked. Assuming an active stance, Modisakeng explores this through visually isolating himself; nothing remains in the achromatic liminal void

ART

Elmosn’s public property 2010

Playing on the history of implemented environmental factors such as fire and sunlight, the role of light in shaping perception is similarly central to Jessie Hammond’s contributions; realised in a series of ash monoprints of lighthouses (a key example of light facilitating the perception of a space) and constructed “projector contraptions”. Recalling Francisco Tropa’s ‘Scenario’ exhibition at the Portuguese Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, Hammond’s projectors extend the tradition of “magic lanterns” (an ancestor of the modern slide projector, developed in the 1600s, which utilised an oil burner or candle for its light source).

except for the artist and the symbolic representation of his identity.

Similarly displaced within a void are the floating crystals of Daniella Mooney’s Obscured by Clouds (2010). Taking its title from Pink Floyd’s soundtrack album to French director Barbet Schroeder’s 1972 film La Vallée, the fragmented sculpture’s constructed qualities quite literally present an implemented environment complete with trees and lampposts. That the inhabitants of said environment are absent raises numerous questions (have they suffered a similar fate to Wildenboer’s hummingbirds?).

The protagonists of Schroeder’s film are in search of an untouched utopia nestled within an area demarcated as “obscured by clouds” on the map.

Viewed in this light, the lampposts can be read as an encroachment of urban development upon a natural environment; an inversion of Slemon’s elm tree.

In addition, the question of function arises too. Lampposts serve as a means of assisting navigation or traversal of a darkened space with light, perhaps one’s existence in this environment is intended to be transient. There is indeed a sense of parallel dimensions, an inherent duality emphasised in the mirror-like symmetry of the piece.

Using bulbs as the source of their light, Hammond’s projectors reference the history of utilising fire for projection light by exposing the slides to flame; capturing smoke on the glass and then delicately rearranging the residual into the desired image with a needle. By including both lighthouses (structures that reveal through light) and projectors (structures that create an illusion through obstructed light) Hammond has astutely put into play Plato’s quintessential allegory of philosophical enlightenment, the Allegory of the Cave.

The notion of carbon remnants (implicit in Hammond’s smoke and ash) resurfaces through the use of charcoal in Jan van der Merwe’s conflicted Drag Marks/ Sleepmerke (2010), a sculptural work created entirely through “posttree” materials (wood, fibre paper, charcoal). Resembling a forensic crime scene (a reading easily applicable to Slemon’s Disappearing Tree also) the work contains an artist’s book of charcoal drawings detailing the progressive dragged removal of a tree stump in a state of mid-metamorphosis into a chair. As the chair-stump is dragged over successive pages it ultimately joins the marks on the rest of the table (on which the book is placed.)

As such the work draws attention to the post-mortem arbor mutilation inherent in its materials, yet finds itself unable to condemn this due to the productive purpose that they serve This is a sentiment van der Merwe is unable to extend to the spoils of poaching, harshly criticised and parodied in DANTEmag n.6

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ART

Wat Ga’aan 2011 Zwelethu Mthethwa and Willie Bester’s

his Trophies/Trofees series (2010) through a substitution of typical poaching/ hunting trophies with rusted tins.

An alternative reading of this work equates the weathered tins to rusting, decayed Ozymandias-esque trophies of consumerism. The two photographic subjects of Zwelethu Mthethwa and Willie Bester’s collaboration Experiment 5 … Wat ga’aan (2011), whilst on the periphery, seemingly find themselves similarly in the realm of found objects; sifting through the remnants of consumer goods for that which can be subsequently recycled or recontextualised.

ments’ is provided by the shattered pressure gauge in the lower left-hand corner of Mthethwa and Bester’s work. Whilst the source of said shattering is left abstract - be it attributed to climate change, urban sprawl, sociopolitical unrest or all of the above - the primary implication is a reaching and crossing of a threshold. This is further emphasised through the phrase in the title “Wat ga’aan”; derived from “Wat gaan aan” or “What’s going on?”

Evidently this is a question that plagues all eight of the artists on this exhibition.

This gesture is enacted within the work itself through the presentation of found rusted cups as art objects in a mirrored display or the inclusion of the motherboard and circuitry in the top-left corner. The presence of these mixed media components also allows the work to transcend photographic “flat death” and instead bestow a sense of depth and presence upon the viewer.

Indeed, an apt summation of the ideas surrounding ‘Implemented EnvironDANTEmag n.6

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All images are Courtesy the artist and Brundyn + Gonsalves, Cape Town. SA www.brundyngonsalves.com

ART

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ART

A Planet in Crisis: Can Art Save Us? Is it even trying?

by Rodrigo Ca単ete

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ART

One condition for the production of great art is that it must not be an instrument at the service of any master, but must be master of itself, its own aesthetic and message. It needs to be self-

Vik Muniz, Tiao as Marat by David

sufficient and autonomous, and speak and express the truths of its time. In our time, the planet is in danger because of human excess, so what has art to say about that? Can it help?.

A

Art expands itself by recycling - of a sort. Art and artists have always re-visited, re-interpreted, and re-shaped forms, motifs, themes, and tropes. This is not because we must conserve artistic concepts or reuse them because we have overproduced or run out of them, but rather because certain truths cross time and space.

Artists go back to them again and again as to a deep well in our collective consciousness. They allude to works by other artists as part of ongoing conversations about human concerns and ideas of beauty.

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ART

Titian, Diana and Callisto, 1556, National Gallery of Scotland

Figures such as Michelangelo - who are iconic to us now - engaged in this form of “recycling.” It took place in Rome in the Renaissance, for example, when the most important ancient sculptures were discovered and unearthed in the villas of the Papal families in Rome. From a millenary dream, pieces like the Borghese Hermaphrodite or the Laocoon emerged. When visiting the excavation site, Michelangelo shouted: “Il Laoconte!” In a lost Sophocles play, whose existence we only know of from other authors referring to it, the priest Laocoon is killed by Poseidon-sent snakes, after trying to expose the ruse of the Trojan horse with a spear. Michelangelo, who was working on his Last Judgment at the Sistine Chapel, was invited to see the newly discovered sculpture and committed himself to restoring it and bringing it back to life. Of course, by identifying it as the murdered priest he linked everything to a very personal impression which forced him to complete the body of the figure which was unrecognisable. Hence, Michelangelo’s addition of a leg, two feet and an arm. How did he come to that conclusion? In DANTEmag n.6

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my opinion he would not have been able to explain his reasons and anyway he was probably wrong. If the right arm the Florentine added had originally been not raised to hold a spear, it would be impossible to name the sculpture as that of Laocoon. However, when faced with the task he set himself, he applied his artistry to that of the ancients, with no regard for any archeological truth.

But what about the more literal contrast between the organic materials used to create works of art in the past and the ones we use today? The economy of art as debris is not a minor aspect of art. Where do these materials go?

When art goes out of fashion, like clothes, it is disposable. Do these pieces end up in dumps or are donated to schools or other institutions for reuse?

Does any public policy exist for works of art that are priceless – not priceless like, say, Titian but literally priceless, because nobody wants to bother even looking at them, much less buying them? In fact, only two out of ten artists represented by the top galleries in the previous decade continue to

ART

Victor Grippo, Tiempo, 2nd version, courtesy Inhotim collection minas gerais.

be important enough to be still represented at that level. The others slowly disappeared from the artistic scene.

What about art that uses recyclable materials itself ? During the seventies, the Italian movement called Arte Povera, or the Argentine informalism of Victor Grippo, created a type of art that is organic, perishable and recyclable. Grippo’s art consisted, among other things, of various configurations of potatoes hooked to a DC meter. He made art from various old tables, wheelbarrows, and other work implements. The problem with informalism and Arte Povera is that it was strictly linked to a theoretical discussion about the boundaries of the medium of art and its point was not in fact to save the earth or to place artists on a moral highground.From the antipodes of European “Poor Art” and, in the American West, Robert Smithson’s experiments with Land Art, which used the landscape as a medium to question the confining nature of exhibition spaces, we actually find nothing to do with the earth or how to protect it. Closer to the idea of rubbish as sculpture in

a form as it has been presented for hundreds of years, John Chamberlain’s works are made of discarded refrigerators and cars that are crunched up by machines to create abstract shapes. His project is a commentary on American art specifically, and on the place of the beautiful in art. However, in all honesty, this approach still does not deal with the issue of recycling rubbish in order to reduce emissions.

So what kind of art uses recyclable materials that, if not used in this way would have made any massive urban landfill bigger? Art and recycling sometimes comes together in eco-friendly art and similar types. Here the work is created with objects that have been basically rescued from the rubbish.

It uses empty Coca Cola cans, for example which represents its concept, which is identical to what one can see - there is nothing hidden behind the facade. The problem with art like this is that visually it doesn’t work. Loud and defensive it is usually created by individuals who embrace a cause as a means of self-justification. A supersonic fast track for whatever guilt trip DANTEmag n.6

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ART

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah Courtesy Mocala

John Chamberlain Nutcracker, 1958

they might be going through in life, it provides them with a reason for existing which makes their “art” completely dependent on their own self-worth.

That cannot be called art. It is too redundant and very quickly starts to be annoying. Maybe why it is so loud is because it can only be sold at craft fairs or at weekends. Art whispers, it never shouts.

Last year, a film on a Brazilian artist called Vik Muniz (who I did not particulary like before) took all this to a new level. The film worked on two levels: it made people aware of the situation with our massive landfills and at the same time created a process where everybody involved - from the viewers to the film’s protagonists - reviewed their own lives in real time. And that is Art. The film, directed by Lucy Walker, traces the development of a 2008 series of monumental photographic portraits Muniz took of trash. Called “Pictures of Garbage,” they were created by him in collaboration with the garbage pickers of Jardim Gramacho, a 321-acre open-air garbage dump DANTEmag n.6

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just outside Rio that is one of the largest landfills in Latin America. Muniz worked with an unofficial workforce — or catadores, as they are known — that live off the dumps. In the process, they have become world experts in selecting rubbish for recycling. As a direct consequenc of this film, Brazil passed a law a year ago to eradicate open dumps and integrate the catadores into the recycling industry. The catadores are still an underclass but, in a way, that is the point of the film. Because the only thing that matters in life is one’s actions. It is about how we use our resources and abilities to make the lives of the people who will come after us if not better, then at least the same as the level we inherited from the generation before us.

“Wasteland” depicts Muniz’s efforts to help those at Jardim Gramacho take charge of their lives, while giving them a new perspective on the world through art. In the meantime, the viewer can see Muniz deconstructing himself. Without realising it, the same thing is happening to the viewer. It is

ART

Vik Muniz, The Gipsy (Magna), from the series Pictures of Garbage, 2008

Laocoön and his sons, also known as the Laocoön Group.

Marble, copy after an Hellenistic original from ca. 200 BC. Found in the Baths of Trajan, 1506 Pio-Clementino, Octagon, Laocoön Hall

a film on rubbish that uses the potentially distorting effects of cinematography – exaggeration, sentimentalism and monumentalisation of the hero – but at the same time gives the viewer the tools to discern both the formal aspects of the movie and the actual issue that is affecting the world in such an immense way and that includes the art world. It is the place of truth, love and respect in our lives. We are made to realise that our lives are in the dumps in a very literal way and it is up to us to pick ourselves up. A silent revolution might be beginning when patron, artist and victimised sitter feel true empathy and decide to do something about it. It is our life after all. At that very moment, we make a connection through space and time and then transformation is possible, if we desire it. That is the real power of art - to connect us, to help us confront the dangers and challenges of our age.

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LITERATURE

Mort Todd:

Diabolikal Super-Kriminal

By Michael Chandler

Cartoonist/writer/editor/producer - OK, Renaissance Man - Mort Todd has had a storied career in comics, music, television, and film. He’s worked everywhere from Cracked Magazine to Walt Disney and with everyone from the Rolling Stones to John Kricfalusi. Childhood pal Michael Chandler has a chat with him about everything from Roy Lichtenstein - don’t get him started! - , his own media company “Comicfix”, and most especially, his stint as producer of the documentary “The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal” - about a 1960s Italian comic villain.

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LITERATURE

M

Mort Todd and I met when we were teenage, punk-rock high school students in Portland, Maine. I first knew him by his given name, Michael Delle Femine, and by his alias at that time, Dr. Death. We met at a house party, and he seemed to scan his landscape and turn what he saw and heard into an artistic conversational output. In the many years since, he has turned that talent into a career.

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LITERATURE

A short time after we became friends, Mort and I each moved to New York City. I ended up as a nightclub entertainer, and Mort had enrolled in the School of Visual Arts. He was, and remains, a very gifted cartoonist – if that does not insult the notion of “comic book artist” – as well as a writer, editor, and TV and film producer. At SVA, he studied under the legendary likes of Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, while plunging into the New York underground comic art, music, and television scene. Perhaps as a result, he did not graduate from SVA.

John Severin, later to be joined – through Mort – by Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko, and neophytes Peter Bagge, Dan Clowes, and Rick Altergott.

From Cracked, Mort moved to become Editor-in-Chief of the Marvel Music imprint, during which time he worked alongside the likes of the Rolling Stones and Kiss to release graphic novel-style biographical comics.

Throughout his magazine years, Mort was also the exclusive LP cover artist for Crypt Records’ Back From the Grave series, work that harkened back to Delle Femine’s childhood horror-comics roots.

A few years after non-matriculation and with a few deviant comic book credits and a television pilot (featuring underground hero, Dan Clowes) on his resume, Mort was hired as Editor-in-Chief of Cracked magazine, the arch-nemesis of Mad magazine, from whom Mort stole none other than American comic book icon, Don Martin. Already on Cracked’s roster was

In recent years, inking and producing to the beat of his own drummer, Mort has exhumed and reintroduced to the psycho-comic and wackoid-cinema world, an Italian original, a multinational character of evil and intrigue from the 1960s, which he renamed, “Sadistik,” for his Comicfix imprint.

I had to ask my chum:

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LITERATURE

What the hell is Sadistik: Diabolikal Super-Kriminal all about?

MORT: When I was a little kid, I was a big fan of this Italian film, Diabolik.

It was also called Danger: Diabolik. It was directed by Mario Bava, and it kind of presaged the whole Batman [1960s TV series/movie] thing. And there were comics too. Really, Italy has a tradition of “super-villains” as opposed to superheroes, and you could equate this guy’s popularity to Batman’s in America in the 1960s. Back then, the Diabolik comic character was really big in every country except the United States.

That’s the case even today. They were shooting the Diabolik movie at the same time they were shooting Barbarella, and both movies had some of the same actors.

I gotta tell you, Diabolik is a much superior film.

So I was looking to get the rights to the character to reprint the Diabolik comics here in America, but it was – whoosh – way too expensive.

As I’m talking to the guys about this, one of them says that he’s aware of a property that was similar, that they wanted to sell outright, that was a lot cheaper than Diabolik. That turned out to be pretty damn cool, and I’ll tell you why.

This whole thing started in Italy with Diabolik, the movie, and the comic books. Then there were characters called, Killing, and Kriminal who each had another group of pulp magazines in other countries. These were magazines known as “photo novels,” (black and white photo stories with caption balloons) that were big all over the world, again, except in America.

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LITERATURE

So the movie, Danger: Diabolik, just set you off on this?

MORT: I saw Danger: Diabolik when I was a kid. A long time after that, I found out about the Turkish photo comics. I didn’t know about the movies.

I started digging through Video Watchdog, and I found out that there were these movies that were based on the photo comics. I hunted around for the movies, and there were about a dozen bootleg films that they shot in Turkey from the mid-60s through the 1970s, and they were . . . just insane.

They would take the Sadistik character, and they would put him in – well, they did a few blatant rip-offs of the photo novels, but then they would put him in a Western setting. Or have him meet Frankenstein. Or, actually, in the first movie, he went up against a Super-Batman. They would just rip off James Bond soundtracks too. They didn’t care about any copyright laws back then. So when this guy told me that the rights were available, I just said, “Gimme.”

Germany, France, they both had their versions of him too. He had a different name and a different spelling in every country. In France, he’s known as “Satanik.” So all these criminals had a k in their names - I guess they got it from “sputnik” or something. I made up the name “Sadistik” to try to combine the different versions.

Then I used “Diabolikal Super-Kriminal” to kind of tie all of the brand names together.

The only photo comics I can recall from the USA were National Lampoon Magazine’s “Foto Funnies,” from the 1970s.

MORT: Well, yeah, photo comics are rare from America, but I’m such a geek for that stuff that I dug around. And about all I came up with, other than “Foto Funnies,” were a couple of movie and TV adaptations that were photo mags with captions. I also did a photo comic while I was at Cracked.

Then this “photo-novel” comic character, based on you think that the idea of a photo novel could the movie, Diabolik, grew in both underground and Do have been at all propelled by Roy Lichtenstein’s art? popular culture?

MORT: Oh, come on! [Laughs heartily.] Don’t get me started with that one.

MORT: He was phenomenally big. In Turkey, they called him, “Killink.”

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LITERATURE

I know a lot of the artists he swiped from, and it’s criminal. The guy is a fuckin’ forger, and he’s shitty forger. These guys he stole from were getting five bucks a page, a buck and a quarter a panel for what this fucker is getting fourteen million for.

Oops. Well, speaking of marketing, you surely didn’t get into the whole Diabolikal Super-Kriminal thing just for the print aspect.

MORT: Hell no. The whole thing for buying a property is, “Oh boy, let’s make some movies and a TV show and some action figures.”

You were the producer of an Italian documentary called The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal, and as I understand it, you got to wear the original “Killing” character’s mask.

MORT: That’s right, and I need to give credit to the costume designer, Carlo Rambaldi for designing the original costume. But it’s funny; even though these were photo novels, the actors were in tons of movies – spaghetti

westerns, science fiction, soft-core porn, horror, slasher movies. So in these books, a lot of times I’ll add filmographies of these actors, because it’s fascinating, their whole careers.

When we did the documentary, we had this whole spectrum of some of the actors who had held onto their props, and then some others who said, “I... um... don’t remember doing this. I guess I must have needed the money.”

The director of the documentary, SS-Sunda, did a fantastic job tracking down all the original actors, and believe it or not, there was only one guy who played Sadistik over sixty-six issues of the magazine.

Since you never saw his face, you’d think that they could have just gotten anybody. In fact, it was only one actor, who was under contract never to reveal who he was. Even when he was on the set or on locations, he couldn’t take his mask off. So when the director started looking for all the actors, nobody either knew or could remember who was the guy who played Sadistik.

A lot of the intrigue in the documentary is based on trying to find out who played him. Ironically, it turns out that he’s a hugely famous TV sportscaster named Aldo Agliata that probably half of Italy would recognise. He’s like their Regis Philbin.

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LITERATURE

It’s funny that the actor would now be a household name and face, because the Sadistik character is really unrepentant when it comes to violence and showing no mercy to his victims. Not to mention, he’s very sexist, even by older standards.

MORT: As I’m translating from Italian to English, a lot of times I’ll add stuff to the stories, not just to make it more interesting to the readers, but in the magazines, they never reveal his face or give any of his origins or anything like that. So I came up with a back-story from World War II to the 1960s. Then I put some of those elements into some of the issues to create this bigger mythology.

You might wonder, what are his motivations? Why is he a “Super-Kriminal?” So I usually try to stress the fact that he does not initiate the violence. A lot of times I get comments like, “Hey, he’s tying up girls in their underwear.” And I have to say, hey, they started it, because they’re usually these strong, feministic women trying to further their careers in crime, and they’re usually involved in some scam to try to screw Sadistik over first. So I don’t think there’s anything objectionable about that.

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I wonder how that attitude nestled into Italian culture in the 1960s. What do you figure was Sadistik’s appeal back then?

MORT: I think around that time, the Catholic Church’s hold in Italy and the Christian Democracy Party had started to wane, and other types of films like neo-realism came in, and there was nudity. This is a time when people started doing really brutal horror films and stuff, so Sadistik was just a by-product of that.

What do you figure is Sadistik’s appeal today?

MORT: It’s obvious that in popular culture comic characters are bigger than ever, and the American audience has caught up with the idea of the anti-hero protagonist. Traditional superheroes are now darker – like Batman, Spiderman, and even James Bond. There has always been an appeal for a character who is bold, independent, and in his career in crime-fighting, successful. And he gets the girls!

LITERATURE

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MUSIC

Green Rock

By Mark Beech

Rock music can be less cerebral than other arts, a little less caring. In its purest form, it often appeals more to parts of the body below the waist than to those above the collar. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have an impact – and a significant one – in the struggle to save the planet.

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MUSIC

I

If you believe the most pessimistic timescale, we have a few short years, maybe even mere months to save our planet from destruction. The urgency and magnitude of this task is overwhelming.

The world’s future has long exercised novelists, poets, painters, actors and sculptors. So what happens when such an agenda meets music? Rock, pop, dance, rap and soul together make up what is arguably the most potent, pervasive and persuasive form of popular culture. It has potentially the greatest power to change hearts and minds.

That could be an invaluable weapon for green campaigners – though on the face of it, such an affinity might not be obvious. Commercial music is a natural partner to fashion, art and film. It sits less comfortably with political rhetoric and campaigning. Much modern music is synonymous with a sense of revolution, a whiff of danger and a view that world issues are just a bit too serious.

Popular music is rarely elitist, white collar, upper class and right wing. It’s

Neil Young, poses with his guitar during the making of the album “Le Noise.’’

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MUSIC

usually all-encompassing, blue collar, working class and liberal, if not left wing. It has long spoken to youth concerns, and not just the right to party (apologies to the Beastie Boys), to play loud music and stay out late.

Pop has often also been about “sticking up for the little guy”, and sticking it to “The Man.” This anti-capitalism has frequently sat oddly next to the record companies’ aim of making as much money as possible, but that is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of rock. As Elvis Costello noted on “The Other Side of Summer”: “Was it a millionaire who said ‘imagine no possessions’?” Yes, he was referring to John Lennon – ironically, one of the most political of rockers.

And there’s always been a breed of rocker who burns fuel and cash with ostentatious methods of transport - rides that pump noxious greenhouse gases. Consider how much damage was done by Elvis Presley’s gas-guzzling Cadillacs in the 1950s, Lennon’s Rolls-Royce Phantom Vs in the 1960s (he owned two of them), and Rod Stewart’s Lamborghini Muira in the 1970s.

Or we might gulp at the private helicopters or jets favoured by Jamiroquai, Elton John, Pink Floyd, the Eagles or Led Zeppelin.

In July 1985, Phil Collins was actually applauded for supersonically jetting across the Atlantic during the Live Aid charity concert. He sang “Against All Odds” and “In the Air Tonight” in London before literally taking to the air himself, dashing to Heathrow for a Concorde flight to New York, then on to Philadelphia. There were frenzied helicopter hops between the venues and airports. How we marvelled as he sang for a second time, casually remarking “I was in England this afternoon . . . funny old world, innit?”

Few people questioned whether this was a good use of resources. In 1985 the term “carbon footprint” wasn’t part of common parlance. And after all, the airliner, on its normal run, would have burned the same amount of fuel whether Collins was on board or not. He did it to promote the plane, Britain, the concert – and just because he could. Hell, he’s a rock star, we all DANTEmag n.6

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said. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And to be fair, practically no one at the time connected such climate-deranging practices with phenomena like the very drought-induced famine the concert itself was meant to alleviate.

Still pop music has demonstrated, from its earliest days, some political tinges within certain areas of concern - class being, as I mentioned, one of those areas. And in the 1960s, those tinges became more and more prominent.

One of the key records of that era, and indeed of any era, was Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” from 1971. I replayed the LP recently for the first time in ages. I’d forgotten quite how good it is.

The song cycle is full of feelings for the world, most obviously on “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” which became a single after an insistent Gaye convinced Motown to release it. The company had serious misgivings about his move away from the straightforward love songs he used to write for his singing partner Tammi Terrell, who had died in 1970. But he got his way, as one of Tamla’s biggest stars, and the rest is history.

It’s the singer’s masterpiece and it was remarkably daring for its day. Indictments of poverty and pollution go down more easily when they are wrapped round by seductive Bob Marley reggae or silky R&B – check out Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler).”

At much the same time, Joni Mitchell wrote “Big Yellow Taxi,” inspired by the depressing view of a concrete field from her Hawaii hotel window, with the beautiful mountain skyline in the distance, showing how it used to look.

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” she famously opens. The lines “they took all the trees, and put ‘em in a tree museum” refer to a Honolulu garden of endangered plants. Mitchell also encompasses organic food with “hey farmer, farmer, put away that DDT now.” On some concert versions, Mitchell adds an extra environmentally-friendly verse, suggested by Bob Dylan’s 1973 cover of the song, with a big yellow tractor talking away her house and land.

MUSIC

Mitchell’s friend Neil Young also writes with genuine passion about environmental degradation. In fact, he seems to be getting angrier as time runs out, forests are torn down, and oil reserves get drained dry. Earlier Young compositions such as “After the Gold Rush,” with its vague post-apocalyptic vision, evolved into more explicit material such as “Vampire Blues,” “Natural Anthem,” and the snarling “Piece of Crap.” The “Greendale” project in 2003 spanned a CD, book and movie calling for an end to smoking chimneys and dangerous power. “Rockin’ in the Free World” rails at “Styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer – fuel to burn and roads to drive”.

Young’s “Fork in the Road” album was inspired by his 1959 Lincoln Continental being converted to run on alternative energy – the so-called Lincvolt project. Young sank $120,000 of his own money into the classic car which supposedly achieved gas mileage of 100 miles to the gallon. The project even survived a fire when the Lincoln was left plugged into an electrical socket which wasn’t properly tested.

Young isn’t the only star to take green initiatives away from what you hear on the record. Bands still need to do world tours, of course, and that by definition involves a lot of travel. Radiohead made a huge fuss with what it claimed was the first carbon-neutral concert series. Pearl Jam also “tours green” and works with conversation organisations such as EarthCorps.

There’s a Green Music Group which includes Alanis Morissette, who runs her tour buses on biodiesel and uses solar panels. Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Rait, Linkin Park and Janelle Monáe support another non-profit organisation, Reverb.

Such efforts pale into insignificance, though, when put next to the efforts of U2. Let me run this sentence past you: “One of the world’s biggest rock stars, Bono, is being increasingly talked of as one of the most powerful politicians and environmental campaigners too.”

Okay, that’s a test designed to produce an emotional response. Bono has strongly divided people.

On the minus side, a rocker can appear faintly ridiculous when he plays at being a statesman. Bono has been called a pretentious, smug meddler. His detractors argue that rather than being a serious rebel, he is a court jester, playing into the hands of the professionals.

Bono stands repeatedly accused of becoming too big for his own highheeled boots, spouting off on subjects he knows little about, and doing it all for his own self-aggrandisement. According to his enemies, this may be to satisfy ego, ease guilt at making millions, get free column-inches, promote records and give himself something interesting to say.

On the plus side, Bono’s supporters paint him as a saint and a modern-day superhero who is prepared to risk damaging U2’s credibility for the cause.

The Edge has raised concern about his friend dining with right-wing politicians and businessmen. Bono responds: “I’d have lunch with Satan if there was so much at stake.”

Bono’s campaigns for world poverty and ecological management have put him on first-name terms with world leaders, though you’d virtually need to live on another planet not to have heard of him. While he’s been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, that’s not a difficult feat – literally hundreds of folks are put forward for the prize. It’s more impressive that he has been a frontrunner in online betting before each announcement.

Bono has done his homework, lobbyists say, and has spent years globetrotting, making speeches to the UN, World Economic Forum, IMF and G7.

He has raised more than $1 billion for world poverty through lobbying the U.S. government alone, according to some reports. Other newspapers claim that the Bono-backed African Well Fund has saved more than 5,000 lives in Mali, Angola and elsewhere by addressing water-shortage problems. Drilling clean wells provides healthy water, cuts down disease and provides proper DANTEmag n.6

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MUSIC

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Alanis Moirssette irrigation for crops.

That doesn’t make him immune from criticism but it should give pause to those who condemn him: how many lives have they saved? Five thousand?

The UN’s special adviser on poverty, Jeffrey Sachs, said in Dublin in an address to members of the Institute of European Affairs that if Bono wasn’t the most important politician in the world, he was “definitely number two.”

In 1992, U2 also joined a protest at a U.K. nuclear processing plant at Sellafield and joined a “Stop Sellafield” concert. The organiser Greenpeace has repeatedly questioned the plant’s safety record and says that it has the highest concentration of radioactivity on the planet with consequent risks to the lives and health of those living nearby.

Such nuclear concerns have been going for decades in music. The Musicians United for Safe Energy (Muse) movement founded by Raitt and others in 1979 also produced the “No Nukes” concert and video with Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and others.

Just about all the major environmental concerns have come up somewhere, from the rise of polluted seas (“London is drowning and I live by the river,” sang the Clash) to the destruction of the Brazilian rainforests - a subject dear to the heart of Sting, whose tracks include “Fragile Planet”.

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Sting - Euro tour recording; Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra money, nuclear energy, feminism, sexual and racial discrimination.

Even if it hasn’t changed opinions single-handed, it’s reinforced other calls for action.

It has saved thousands of lives and raised millions of dollars via Live Aid, Band Aid, and U.S.A. for Africa – even if it hasn’t eradicated the root cause of starvation and pollution.

It has encouraged people to join and donate to organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International.

Bob Geldof, Michael Stipe, Peter Gabriel and Sting know they can have an effect - or there’d be little point in trying. It takes chutzpah and self-confidence to put your head over the parapet.

And we can enjoy many classic songs about our imperilled planet. And not necessarily all in English. Greek-born Eurovision winner Vicky Leandros sung “Verlorenes Paradis” (“Forlorn Paradise”) in 1982, saying we are poisoning our rivers, fish and forests. Argentina’s Los Piojos made an even more stark warning with the 2007 CD “Civilisación.”

Sure, there have been some simplistic rants. There are also artists who understand the complexities. As Frank Zappa says in the introduction to “Joe’s Garage,” “environmental laws were not passed to protect our air and water, they were passed to get votes.”

There have also been some of the greatest pieces of music, which are worth

MUSIC

The Beach Boys Courtesy of Brian Wilson Archive hearing.

A short list follows (in no particular order):

Joni Mitchell – “Big Yellow Taxi” One of the first environmental rants, released in 1970, which moves off into personal concerns as Joni’s boyfriend departs in a taxicab.

The Doors – “Ship of Fools” Jim Morrison gets all pessimistic on this 1970 track, telling us “smog will get you pretty soon.” It’s not the only song to mention Los Angles fog: the Beatles did it in “Blue Jay Way.”

The Beach Boys – “Don’t Go Near the Water” The lead-off track on 1971’s “Surf ’s Up” puts a green spin on the Boys’ usual surf, sea and sun agenda.

Marvin Gaye – “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” Gaye’s 1971 lament says blue skies have been replaced by smog, the wind is poisoned and oceans are sullied with oil and radioactivity.

The guitar-feedback live climax to the 1990 “Ragged Glory” studio LP ends with the members of Crazy Horse intoning “Respect Mother Earth and her giving ways, or trade away our children’s days.”

Jack Johnson – “3 R’s” “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” goes the chorus of this 2006 ditty written for the film “Curious George.” The Hawaii surfer and folk singer also helped the clean-up after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Gorillaz – “Plastic Beach.”

The excellent 2010 concept album has the band’s characters getting washed up on a beach covered in non-biodegradable plastic bottles.

Honourable mentions to

Jimmy Cliff – “Save Our Planet Earth,” Melissa Etheridge – “Wake Up,” Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Clear Blue Skies.”

Midnight Oil – “Beds are Burning” The 1987 single by Australia’s Midnight Oil advocates giving desert land back to native people and notes: “How can we dance when our earth is turning/ How do we sleep while our beds are burning?” About two decades later, vocalist Peter Garrett became Australia’s environment minister.

Neil Young – “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)”

More information: mark@markbeech.net; http://www.bloomberg.com/muse/mark-beech/ or http://twitter.com/Mark_Beech Mark Beech is the Bloomberg’s chief rock critic. He is also Europe and Asia team leader of Muse, the arts and culture section of Bloomberg. He is the author of “The A-Z of Names in Rock,” “The Dictionary of Rock & Pop Names” and “Culture Shock” (forthcoming).

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RE-USE ME The Creative Spirit Of Recycling Design

Recycling is, at its core a fundamentally creative act.

It is not merely leaving used plastic in a bin by the kerb for pick-up, or shredding used paper to be dropped off and never thought of again. Creation always involves the reconception and resynthesis of the old, giving it new life. In art, fashion, and design, this spirit is beginning to take hold.

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By Lucia de Nardi

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The act of reclaiming objects, with all their many different backstories, has at its root a desire to create unique objects that are original and irreplaceable guardians of past memories. It might be just a natural reaction to the on-going world economic crisis, or just simply a wish, far removed from any broader rationale, to reinvent the environment we live in with a touch of inimitable individuality, using material resources we already have but that on the surface seem to be no longer of any use to us.

In fact, the idea of designing furniture from various kinds of waste material and of giving new life to unused objects has been slowly forming irrespective of the current crisis and has a raisond’etre just as varied as the backstories and formative journeys of

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Qerat Design

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN the artist-auteurs who design it. Indeed, this new trend has had a strong influence on fashion, design and art.

Fashion bag made with tires and inner tube

by Hell’s Kitchen Marco Lai

It is a search for existing materials and forms in order to give new life to objects that are no longer useful, changing their shape and the way they are used. Industrial waste, refuse, litter, dumped items, architraves, building frames, old discarded flooring, ship planks – the art of recycling can be applied to any sort of item you may happen to come across.

In terms of trends at the moment there are two distinct paths you can take in this process of transformation.

• REINTERPRETATION. For example, an old window frame becomes a mirror frame or a mesh container for screws and bolts is re-conceptualised as a bathroom laundry basket.

• RECONSTRUCTION. This happens when, say, a barrel is taken apart and reassembled to give new life to a seat or a rocking-chair.

The trick is having the skill to see beyond the object itself in order to invent another one. That’s what the design team of Sestini and Corti, a small family business in Val di Chiana, Tuscany do (www.sestiniecorti.it) in their workshop. Forgotten objects and discarded materials are transformed into pieces of light and airy furniture, somewhere between classic and contemporary. They are unique pieces that have a backstory but still are adaptable to

Ecochair “essènt’ial” made of papper and raffia

Qerat Design

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Barrel turned into a rocking

any kind of setting. Thus pine beams from a demolished ceiling create small pieces of bathroom furniture. Cornices and windowframes are turned into mirror and picture frames of every size. Or take your humble wooden shipping pallets. With a slight reworking, they are reborn as original items for the home or the office.

Painted white, or in whatever colour you want, just attach some casters and – hey presto! – they are small coffee-tables for indoors or outdoors. Or they could, with equal ease, be made into seating with big colourful cushions on top. Then again they could turn into tables with that rustic look, resting on trestle supports that are recycled too. And why not go further and make an actual bed, using all the slats from the pallet to come up with a brilliant couch?

Alternatively, you could fix it vertically to a wall to produce some original flowerpot holders. The scope for creativity in this area is limitless.

For example, Essent’ial, also of Italy, ingeniously reuses old sails to create original armchairs and padded bean-bags suitable for indoors or outdoors (www.essent-ial.com). SUSHI on the other hand is a reversible pouffe and is the brilliant idea of Eva Gorgacova, a young Slovak designer working for Recyclaid. The pouffe is original and very comfortable. It’s made from recycled jeans twisted into a shape which recalls, appropriately enough, a sushi roll. Depending on the different designs, it takes between twenty or forty pairs of jeans to create a pouffe. Recyclaid is a label launched in 2005 as a result of the textile recycling business’s desire to take an ethical stand tied in with sustainable development. (www.recyclaid.org)

Pouf made with jeans

by Eva Forgacova

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Or what to say of Belgian company Qerat that uses recycled tyres to create amazing objects. “I like this material,” said Nicholas Beck the creative owner of the company, “because it looks like black leather, and we did not have to kill an animal... The advantage of using old tyres is that they don’t break and can be used for many purposes depending on one’s own creative impulses.” The distressed tyres used in Qerat design come from Turkey and are put into storage near Aleppo in Syria. The workshop is in Damascus. It is this East-meets-West form of dialogue that inspired the unique aesthetics of the Qerat’s design objects. It is Fair Trade, and gives value to the handiwork of many men in Syria, so badly affected by current events. (http://www.qeratdesign.com) Giving a second life to any material has very strong romantic connotations, as well as being ethical. It imbues furniture and accessories with an important history.

Mexican-born, London-based designer Valentina González Wohlers has entered into a beautiful collaboration with Oaxacan artisan Gabriel López creating intriguing one-off handcrafted furniture pieces that bring together the soul of Oaxacan artisans and the universe of San Jose del Pacifico in the most southern part of Mexico. The objects carry a powerful emotional value through their inherent narrative. They re-stage something forgotten, overlooked – dead wood, yet not dead at all. The pieces rescue that natural and nearly decaying product of the forest and convey it

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back to our consciousness through an act of reconstruction, manifested in the artisan-designer synergy. Valentina’s amazing talent lies in the fact that the pieces become, with her creativity, a multifaceted object of sculptural art as well as fully functional furniture that can be used both indoors and out. ( www.valentinagw.com) Reclaiming an object, whether big or small, creates its own special story and I want to tell you mine. Some time ago, I went back to the old carpentry workshop of my dear old grandpa (who, alas, is no longer with us). The artefacts, the objects and tools of his trade had not been disturbed from their places for ages, but they began to “call out” and “talk” to me. So, containers worn down by time and use, the wooden boxes he used to keep his nails in, became CD or jewellery holders. The battered drawer where he kept his screwdrivers and hammers is now my magazine rack. A gnarled rung ladder has acquired a new function as a bathroom towel holder, replacing those ghastly chrome monstrosities that always come loose. Materials worn smooth and weather-beaten from continual use can take on unexpected new forms and identities.

What interests designers is the type of material and the patina obtained from age. Fixing agents are used to preserve rust, discoloration, flaking and oxidisation. The object must be able to tell its story. The material, once it is re-modelled, acquires a versatility it originally did not possess. Used furniture – vintage pieces, ancient and modern – are thus reborn. You just need to look at them with fresh eyes, setting in motion an artistic make-over, which gives

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added value to tables, chairs, bookcases, mirror frames, lamps and armchairs.

The fashion world is not immune to the new recycling trend. “If a caterpillar can turn into a butterfly, some grit can become a pearl, carbon can become a diamond or if the rotten luck of getting a puncture can produce an idea, then an inner tube can all of a sudden turn into a handbag, even a whole collection of handbags” Using this insight as a starting point, the fashion designer Marco Lai has transformed inner tubes, safety belts, old jeans into handbags and accessories (www.hellskitchen.it) Handbags, helmets and items for two-wheeled vehicles, diaries and notepads are created. His mission is the twinning of responsible consumption with environmental sustainability, without, however, compromising creativity and quality.

Reusing materials from the past while not forsaking style fundamentally constitutes the link to our urban space, reconceived and made concrete by commonly used objects that are created with discarded material most difficult to dispose of. The poorest urban materials gain new life. Every piece is unique because it carries with it the history of the thousands of kilometres it has travelled as well as the imagination of the designer who has woven together the art of the craftsman with “urbanware”.

The verb “to recycle” connects the first principles of the concept of optimal use of resources and waste reduction, and has a strong ethical dynamic which encourages people to save – something which in these times of crisis can only be welcomed. Refashioning abandoned objects and looking at refuse in a new light, romantically as well as ecologically, with artistic sensitivity is a vision that can help encourage recycling and reuse, either by modifying them in an original fashion or reconfiguring them with a small perceptive touch, which transforms them into useful and original objects once again.

The wild botched chair

by Valentina Gonzalez Wohlers Tr. by Philip Rham

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A Director’s Guide to Overnight Success in Hollywood: A 10-Step Programme

by Bernadette Rivero

Do you want to make movies, but are finding Hollywood acclaim elusive? Maybe you’re going about it all wrong.

Bernadette Rivero gives us the benefit of her filmmaking experience to ease the way for aspiring directors in ten easy”ish” steps.

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Follow her guidance and you’ll find that overnight success, if you’re dedicated to your art – and are willing to be flexible with your definition of “overnight.”

1. Stay Where You Are.

You want to come to Hollywood.

You have seen the feature films and shorts and television shows and creativity and it all lures you there.

Don’t.

Don’t be one of the thousands upon thousands of directors working at cafés, dishing up coffee, waiting on tables at restaurants, biding time behind the counter at a gym or the cash register at an organic grocery store.

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Don’t spend your weekends wheeling and dealing and convincing friends and strangers to join you in front of and behind the camera, filming things in your spare time, on borrowed equipment, roaming up and down the streets of Echo Park, or Silver Lake, or (worst case scenario) the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. Most especially, don’t stand on that strip of pavement outside Los Angeles International airport – where the planes pass overhead – filming the same tourists on the sidewalk and the same planes passing overhead that Every. Single. Aspiring. Filmmaker. Ever. In. Los. Angeles. Has ever filmed.

2. Bloom Where You Decide To Plant Yourself.

Blossom where you put down roots: the Italian countryside, the outskirts of Buenos Aires, anyplace at all in Sweden, that funky neighbourhood in Mexico City with the crumbling kiosk in the centre of the plaza.

Love the place you are.

Pick up your camera and film the beautiful angles, the ugly angles, the light hitting things just so at The Golden Hour when the sun is setting. Grab footage late at night when everything twinkles. Go inside when it’s high noon. And don’t shy away from those early morning hours when nothing looks good in the rain.

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3. Write. Then Write Some More.

Start writing now, before you know any better. Definitely write before you take classes that teach you how to write screenplays.

Write short stories, long stories, scripts, outlines of scripts, comedy sketches, viral Internet video ideas, melodramatic rantings, dramas - everything and anything you have inside your head and heart.

Eventually you’ll want to get around to taking a screenwriting class. Learn proper formatting in your country of origin. Don’t write in English unless your mother whispered it in your ear growing up. Love the page as much as you love your camera, and write entire feature scripts in your native tongue.

You’re going to need four to five fully-developed screenplays by the time you get to Hollywood. They should all be in the same stylistic vein – so none of this business of “one comedy, one science fiction drama, one romantic melodrama, one horror film, one Western,” unless you have millions of dollars (yours or someone else’s) to burn, plus years to ignite and waste.

Mostly, just fully love and commit to the stories you’re putting down on paper. Try to entertain one single, unknown reader who has never set foot in the place you’re describing in 90 to 118 pages of screenplay.

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4. Make Friends. Lots Of Them.

Enlist everyone you know in your filmmaking career and invite them to play with you on a regular basis.

Film.

All the time.

For fun.

Sometimes for profit.

Mostly, film for the joy of hanging out together; messing around with cameras, lights and editing equipment; eating mediocre (and sometimes good) food on set; and discussing stories that have moved you – whether it’s a film, a good book, or a great conversation you overheard.

Don’t be afraid to get your family members in on the game – brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbours, friends. Make sure that some of them are editors, that others know how to properly apply makeup to on-camera actors, and that at least a few of them know something about CGI and special effects.

Amass a small army of people who love you and will eagerly pitch in to help you for free as you bring great stories to life.

5. Embrace The Advertising Industry.

You’re an Important Filmmaker. You think that Important Filmmakers make films, not commercials.

Swallow your pride. Study the art and history of advertising.

In 79 AD, billboards covered the walls of Pompeii, trumpeting everything from bread to politicians. The ad industry was here before you, and it will be here after you’re gone.

Some of your heroes had (and have) long, storied careers filming television commercials.

Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, as well as Hyundai); Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Chanel); Ridley Scott (Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Apple computers).

Even Federico Fellini shot an ad for Campari liqueur.

6. Become The Top Commercial Director In Your Country of Origin.

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cial production companies of their own on the side.

Actually, look at all of the directors you love and admire. Hint: it’s a lot.

7. Pick A Genre, And Do It Well.

If you want to be successful, you need to specialise in something. You can dabble as you grow, yes, but ultimately, you’re building a body of work that defines you as a commercial director, and then as a director of feature films (or television series, or internet hits, or music videos as the case may be).

Become known as The Director Of Luscious Visual Landscapes, or MINDBOGGLING SPECIAL EFFECTS, or Nuanced Performances From Actors, or Edgy Comedy, or Scary Horror.

Branch out. Pick another genre, too. Get really, really good at them both.

Film everything and anything you can for whatever brands are investing in great advertising. Be OK with filming things you don’t love, too. But always, always, always build that reel. Make it deep and meaningful.

Film other things you love – those short films, those long ones – on the side, using your friends and family and creativity and the cash from your burgeoning commercial directing career.

8. Don’t Be Afraid To Misfire.

Hitchcock had Marnie.

You can’t please everybody all of the time -- but someone, somewhere, will love what you do.

Your first feature film will flop, but your last commercial will win the Palme D’Or at Cannes.

Your commercials will tank, but the funny video you shot with your friends and cat will go viral.

Keep filming.

9. Go Viral.

Here’s the formula: Something you love + a team that loves you + good storytelling + good production values = a better-than-average chance that other people will love it, too.

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good story they can rally around.

If you’ve paid attention to steps 1 through 7 or - even better - lived them out, then you have the tools you need to create a viral hit. The production value portion of this exercise is exceptionally important. Yes, you can film your cat with an iPhone, but if you can’t do it consistently, and show how brilliant you and your team are on a long-term, dependable basis, Hollywood will not come and beat down your door.

And they will come when you least expect it – after, for fun, you’ve filmed a

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If, however, you have your own money to spring for that admittedly very expensive trip, you’re in much better control of who you’ll visit and eventually sign with for representation.

Before you get there, find a mentor. Look for people in the film industry where you currently live, who’ve already been there and done that and know the lie of the land.

Reach out and find trusted friends of friends actually living and working in Hollywood currently, so they can explain the difference between CAA and William Morris, and why you should never sign with anyone whose offices are in Torrance, Tarzana, Inglewood or Orange County. There are fine cultural details – like the difference between a potential manager who will take you to eat at Katsuya versus one who will take you to El Pollo Loco – that require a local.

Once you sign with a big agency, it will seem (at least in the American press, and Hollywood trade publications) that you came out of nowhere and are one of those famed ‘Overnight Successes’. They won’t see the enormous stack of available screenplays that you spent years writing, or the legion of friends and family that helped you get there.

This is the magic of Hollywood; appearances are everything.

Ignore appearances.

Keep filming.

special effects-driven robot attack on your home city in South America, or a science fiction foot race through the alleyways of your downtown.

10. Find Mentors, Then Hold On For Dear Life

After you go viral, that’s when Hollywood (in the form of agents, managers and other complete strangers) will flood your voicemail and inbox. It generally happens somewhere around the 400,000 views mark.

This is when you travel to Hollywood. Especially if one of them is paying.

Bernadette Rivero lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and three small children. She has worked closely with over 60 feature film, commercial, television and viral video directors since moving there. You can find out more about her production company,The Cortez Brothers, by visiting www.CortezBrothers.com DANTEmag n.6

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Malina Pasthira: Sustainable Architecture in Thailand

By Natayada na Songkhla

While last year’s devastating floods may be a receding memory for some, they did leave many in Thailand pondering more seriously on humankind’s effect on the environment and its effect on us. For architect Malina Palasthira, however, such concerns are of everyday, fundamental importance.

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Conversation with an architect, especially in Thailand, can be all about form. Discussion invariably focuses on what a building should look like. Traditional Thai? Modern? Baroque? Tropical Colonial? Art Deco? Tell them what you want and they’ll build it for you.

While it would seem perfectly reasonable to approach designing a building based on how one wants it to look, Malina Palasthira of Thai architectural firm Design Qua Ltd. is more mindful of how a building functions. Is it appropriate for the climate? Does it work with the local topography? Is it a commercial or residential site? If residential, how many people will live in it? And what of the relationship between those residents?

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Over dinner with her husband John Erskine, who is on the thesis committee at the School of Architecture and Design at King Mongkut’s University of Technology, Malina makes clear that effective architecture must always address issues beyond the cosmetic. It must, she maintains, fully take into account intellectual and philosophical matters.

Unfortunately in Thailand, such matters too often give way to surface concerns. Thailand is home to such architectural oddities as the Robot Building and the Elephant Building.While one doesn’t dispute that such edifices have their impact, conceptualising architecture from appearance alone can lead to a skyline that, although definitely interesting, may evince something more cartoonish than majestic. Would anyone call the Elephant Building great? And in that vein, what makes for a great building? Moreover, from a standpoint beyond the merely aesthetic, what makes for architectural success?

This Is the Modern World

Conversation with John and Malina is passionate, stimulating, intelligent, at times challenging but always entertaining. He was brought up in the Washington, DC suburbs of Northern Virginia, studied in New York and then worked in Southern California, where he and Malina met. John’s is a quieter, more measured voice in the discussion, a perfect counterpoint to Malina’s passion and fervour. The daughter of a peripatetic, westernised Thai father and an Italian mother, Malina was brought up in Thailand. Her early years included many trips abroad followed by education and training at the University of London and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked for a number of years in Los Angeles.

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Modernism. Her heroes are Glenn Murcutt, John Lautner, Louis Kahn and Carlo Scarpa. “Modernism,” Malina says, “is not just an aesthetic, but an approach to design. It loosely follows the early ethos ‘form follows function’ [articulated] by Louis Sullivan.”

“Modernist architecture can vary widely,” she continues, “from the minimalist, austere and monumental work of Tadao Ando to the Hollywood whimsy of John Lautner. It’s the cultural expression of early Western industrial society and it has now evolved and adapted to respond to our post-industrial world. It was, and still is, an approach to design and architecture that celebrates and integrates technological innovations into the environment.”

Malina is quick to point out, however, that Modernism isn’t always about being high-tech. Modernism can also be about using old materials in new, creative ways that better reflect the way we live today.

“The branch of Modernism that inspires me most,” explains Malina, “is Critical Regionalism, which has been practised since the beginning of the Modernist movement, in parallel with better known architects like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.” This is a kind of Modernism that respects its immediate natural and cultural context. Even some of Le Corbusier’s better projects can be argued for as Critical Regionalist. Early proponents of this type of Modernism are many of the Scandinavian architects, such as Alvar Aalto and, more recently, people like Sri Lankan Geoffrey Bawa and Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza.

“One of the biggest drawbacks of early Modernist buildings is how they have not held up over time,” Malina continues. “Even the best examples

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of these have aged horribly. This is partly because almost a century ago these pioneer architects were experimenting with completely new materials – steel, glass, concrete, aluminum – that had not been time-tested as materials before. A great example that now looks a bit tired, but was very innovative in 1950 as a prototype of a prefab house for the tropics, is La Maison Tropicale by Jean Prouvé.”

Site Specific

Taste, then, is not the sole factor affecting a building’s longevity. Another factor is the environment and how well construction materials endure. In tropical climates, structures can be affected by heat, humidity, strong ultraviolet rays, insects and many more.

“The sun plus humidity is what kills materials,” notes Malina. “Things expand and contract. The humid, tropical climate in a big city is the most difficult factor. Tropical cities have no wind, and the only way to cool a building down in this climate is with the wind. All the concrete in a city absorbs heat during the day, but in the evening the heat doesn’t dissipate.

It actually gets warmer because of all the heat released from the concrete.

This is called the heat island effect.” And it is, says Malina, something that architects in Thailand must better address.

Given Malina’s eloquence on Modernism and how architecture should consider a specific region and its ecology, it’s not so surprising to know that she and John live in a traditional Thai house they’ve adapted for modern use. The structure features natural materials complemented by sustainabletechnology elements such as rain water capture for domestic use.

“All vernacular architecture,” states Malina, “is an adaptive response to its

surrounding context – the environment, the climate, the materials available.

The design of traditional houses is based on culture, on years and years of trial and error. Traditional Thai architecture is low-tech, but smart.”

Does Malina have any favourite traditional Thai buildings?

It turns out good examples of traditional Thai architecture are not unlike those of the early Modern movement. There aren’t many left. Malina says, “It’s difficult to find houses that are old and well-preserved, but I like Baan Sao Nak in Lampang, which is rustic and beautiful. As for temple compounds, Wat Phrathat Lampang Luang is pretty stunning.”

The ideal architecture for Thailand, Malina feels, is traditional. “I think, before the latter part of the 20th century, we were progressing quite well with traditional architecture. We had real artisans who worked with wood and then – boom – came air conditioning. We got cars and concrete. This combination of concrete and air conditioning killed tradition. Basic elements of tropical architecture – pitched roofs, large overhanging eaves, big windows and elevation on stilts – worked, but as soon as air conditioning came in, these traditional elements disappeared from our buildings. The traditional craftsmen became unemployed and anyone who could pour concrete became a builder.”

Technology like interior climate control gave us the impression that it didn’t matter how a building was designed because it could always be made comfortable. Abandoning traditional designs led to even more heat given off by air conditioning condensers and exacerbated the heat island effect.

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN build a modern, sustainable building in Thailand? Malina is adamant when she tells us, “You can’t fight water, you can’t fight the elements. You might as well work with them.”

Buildings like traditional Thai houses have been adapted over generations for the local climate and those adaptations shouldn’t be dismissed. Peaked roofs make for good drainage, overhanging eaves keep out the sun and rain, large windows allow for good air circulation and elevation on stilts prevents flood waters from entering the house. While some may see such design elements as merely aesthetic, they are also adaptations to the environment that should be respected.

The Postmodern Dilemma

It seems quite obvious that there is a right way and a wrong way to build for Thailand’s climate. How, then, does one explain the buildings there are that seem preoccupied with design elements but that don’t necessarily function,along with the fascination with architecture that doesn’t necessarily work with the local environment?

Malina blames the Postmodernist reaction to Modernist design. “Postwar architecture ruined Modernism,” she says. “After World War Two, they built a lot of Modernist buildings quickly and cheaply. They reduced modernism, took out the details. The Postmodernists, in a reaction to such architecture, sought to design buildings that made references to the architectural vernacular of the past by emphasising the way a building looked. Architectural elements were added to a building’s design so that it looked interesting, but functionality suffered because it became a factor of technology – like air conditioning – as opposed to design.”

For all its paring down of detail, Modernism is about making buildings that work well for the people using them. As Louis Sullivan said, “form follows function”. So when an architect turns away from how a building functions to how a buildings looks, it is, Malina declares, “completely irresponsible urbanistically, because every building in a city, every urban structure, has a responsibility on the street level. Postmodernism is all about making fun of traditional visual references, but it kills people’s experience of the building.”

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zMalina and her husband live in a traditional Thai house, which they have adapted for modern use

While people may enjoy looking at such buildings, they are often unable to relate to them. Indeed, how often does one find oneself approaching a building without being able to find the door?

Malina, who has spent a fair amount of time in Italy, finds that Italian cities are the most people-friendly not because of design elements - which are often aped by Postmodern design - but because of functionality. “The Postmodernists like to use Italian references. They like to do Neo-Classical stuff but lose the ability to relate to people. If you go to Italian cities, they have the best urbanism on the street level. The streets are amazing because the scale is easily related to. There’s the portico that blocks you from the rain or sun. There’s the shops that are there on the ground floor and you live above. It’s the best kind of shophouse. The motifs don’t mean anything when it’s the actual function that is important.”

After a long meal, a bottle of wine and then dessert, we settled into a conversation that touched on working with clients and conceptualising projects. What is Malina’s approach?

“I enjoy taking ideas and suggestions from the client, but going with it further, getting together with the client and having the idea actually grow. And from that, the client’s dream grows. It’s still what the client wants. It’s the way they want to live,” Malina says. “There should be a symbiotic relationship between the client and the architect.”

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“Walking through the doors of Grand Café & Rooms in Plettenberg Bay for the very first time reminds me of my worldly travels. The ‘Grand Dame’ immediately captures an emotion within”.

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his is how Suzette Main, the proprietor of Grand Café, Rooms & Beach felt just over seven years ago when she first ventured into the Grand.

Through the award winning ‘Grand Dame’s ‘ Indian wooden doors, guests enter a world of discreet escapism where a sense of decadence and worldly charm reflects upon its setting over one of Africa’s most beautiful marine bays. Suzette then took the vision of the brand to Camps Bay; the “Miami Mile” of Cape Town, establishing the ‘Shameless Showgirl,’ Grand Café & Room, overlooking a magnificent beach as a grand new destination for ocean side dining in Cape Town. Crimson red roses adorn the tables and copper topped bars, aged candlesticks set the tone; while polished glassware and white crockery decorated with the Grand angel wings, showcase trusted and classic signature dishes.

Grand Room accommodates two guests in true Grand style with 24 hour butler service, concierge, private access, designated parking & probably one of the largest ‘mini bars’ in the world. It offers our signature style King size bed with fine Italian linen from the Hall Collection, an en suite bathroom with a double slipper copper bath and shower and a bespoke vinothèque. Grand Room is also perfect for hosting private dinners and parties.

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Her Grand concept where boho-chic meets retro-romance fit for the worldly traveller, a new trendsetting Grand Café & Beach, the only one of its kind in Africa, was created in late 2009 in Granger Bay, Cape Town, close to the V&A Waterfront and silhouetted by the World Cup 2010 Stadium.

At Grand Café & Beach, the ‘Beach Boy’ exterior of the old warehouse has been retained while a sun-deck and beach area have been extended to the water’s edge; offering a new lifestyle destination for any international and local traveller. During construction, all efforts were taken to ensure that a green approach was maintained, including sustainable timber used in the outside deck, use of textured eco‐friendly paint, enhancement of the original building’s look & feel and even using environmentally sound beach sand.

“What defines the Grand philosophy for me is where grand-chic meets retro-romance fit for the worldly traveller & diner. Revelling in the triumph of authenticity, the Grand has grasped the notion that: no-one knows how much love can be held by humankind”.

“It is an eclectic collection of boho–chic nuances that encourage a free spirited attitude to Café life – a romantic fusion of French and African flair with eccentricity and honesty.”

Africa A grand Rose by any other name - 'Boadicea' A new name in lifestyle shopping !

The name 'Boadicea' was inspired by the mighty Boadicea, a woman of great power and passion – an Empress warrior. The Grand Gallery Boadicea is a lifestyle concept within the Café and Beach brand conceived by two inspiring women, Suzette Main and Jane Lello.

Friends and business partners, both passionate and energetic; Suzette and Jane have embarked on creating a Grand Gallery Boadicea, an extension of the Grand brand, which is an expression of their collective passions for beautiful objects and art sourced throughout their worldly travels.

The theme of the Gallery stems from the Café & Beach concept of a resort feel with a splash of indulgence, while the eye catching merchandise tantalises the diner. Stock purchased in South Africa and abroad rotates with demand, offering a selection of beautiful items available to the Grand Gallery Boadicea.

GRAND CAFÉ & ROOMS: PLETTENBERG BAY concierge@GrandAfrica.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 44 533 3301 GRAND CAFÉ & ROOM: CAMPS BAY CAPE TOWN reservations@GrandAfrica.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 21 438 4253 GRAND CAFÉ & BEACH: GRANGER BAY CAPE TOWN beach@GrandAfrica.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 21 425 0551 SMS: +27 (0) 72 586 2052 GRAND GALLERY BOADICEA: GRANGER BAY CAPE TOWN info@GrandGallery.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 21 425 0164 WWW.GRANDAFRICA.CO.ZA

From an exclusively Grand branded Bath & Body collection to an assortment of French styled soaps and community handmade key rings, to silver candelabras, there is something for all.

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Plastic hell - man-made versus nature! Why we have to start caring to cure. By Elisa T. Keena Both our environment and our own bodies seem ever more under siege from chemicals, plastics, pollution, climate change – the list is extensive. Most of us would do something if we could – to help the planet, to protect ourselves – but often feel overwhelmed and even helpless in the face of this deluge. No one of us can solve the problem through our individual efforts alone, but it can be solved if we all contribute. A good place to start is with our own choices in just a couple of areas: our use of plastics, and our choice to eat sustainably and organically grown food where possible and thereby encourage pioneers of holistic agriculture, such as the biodynamic farmers.

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Our lives are infinitely easier than they were thousands, hundreds, even fifty years ago. In many places we have unlimited, 24-hour access to information, communications, goods, news, anything we need or could possibly want through the internet. We buy disposable items, throw them out and get new ones.

We have the ability to buy seasonal food throughout the year, from all over the world. In the past this was unavailable to us. This food is grown utilising chemicals and pesticides, flown, shipped, or driven thousands of miles to reach our doorstep or that of our local market. The food often arrives in plastic containers or with plastic covering to protect it. We then put in it plastic bags, along with other products when we purchase it (globally over 500 billion bags a year). We drink out of plastic cups and eat off plastic plates when we are out of, and sometimes even when in, our homes. All over the planet these plastics wind up in landfills, incinerated in garbage dumps (spewing toxic chemicals into the air) and littering the waterways and roadways causing death and destruction.

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Large-scale industrial farmers have, in most cases, raped the soil. They mistreat it, ignoring the needs of the earth to produce large and continuous amounts of produce, often at the expense of nutrition and taste. This requires ever-increasing amounts of chemicals, pesticides and inorganic fertilisers – all of which we know contributes to disease in ourselves and the other beings with whom we share this earth. In my opinion, bigger is not better and the best genetic engineer is Nature.

But Mother Nature is being worn down, overloaded with “input” – as are many humans. As a species, the state of our long-term health, the increase in our chronic diseases, is mirroring that of our quintessential Mother – our Mother, who provides our basic needs: air, water, food, shelter and so much more. As we pollute our land and waterways and mismanage our environment, we ultimately see the results reflected in ourselves and the innocent species around us. We have the ability to change this, the ability to decrease our contact with toxic chemicals in our daily life.

I am in no way suggesting that the conveniences that we have should be renounced; just, perhaps, that we should use a little bit more discretion, common sense and responsibility. Everyone, individuals and corporations alike, should try to take just a few moments everyday to make better choices; to make the effort, when we buy or produce food, drinks, and products, to be aware and conscious of our choices and actions. We must acknowledge the effects that our choices have on our well-being, our environment and the long-term health of the planet.

There are many ways we can accomplish this. Two things we can start with are decreasing our plastics use and choosing foods that have been grown using, at minimum, organic standards if not biodynamic standards.

Plastic: Plastic has revolutionised the world we live in. It is found in our cars, computers, phones, planes, trains, cars, office buildings, homes, grocery stores, food containers, children’s toys – the list is endless! Plastic items are inexpensive, accessible, and portable. Plastic can be moulded into many different DANTEmag n.6

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shapes, densities, and objects. What makes it so useful is also what makes it so destructive.

Globally, 300 million tons of plastic is produced each year, only ten percent of it being recycled. We know that certain plastics – their use, misuse and disposal – are poisoning and strangling our world. We know that chemicals in our foods are causing many diseases.

Some plastics are great when used correctly and responsibly. The issue with plastic is that it is here for the duration. It is not going any where. It will be around for thousands of years, quite literally. Recently, there has been more research available and more global noise heard around the use and misuse of plastic, its production and its destruction. We treat it as a disposable product instead of as a re-useable product. Some of its uses cannot be changed, but for others we can greatly reduce, reuse (when safe), and eliminates. In doing so, we decrease the stress on the earth and ourselves.

Plastic originated in the 1800s from bio-derived materials such as egg, milk proteins, animal horn, lye and rubber. In 1870, John Hyatt invented celluloid. Next, Leo Baekeland discovered phenols and formaldehyde which, when heated, solidified into hard plastic, the iconic “Bakelite” in homage to its inventor. In 1930, nylon was created – stockings for all! In 1951, modern plastic was born with the discovery of polyethylene and polypropylene. And

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from then on, “They’re off!” , as they say at the races. The production of plastic grows by nine percent a year. Most kinds are made from crude oil and natural gas. There are growing numbers of plastics that are derived from corn, sugar cane or algae.

In general, crude oil is refined to break down its components into usable building blocks for the manufacture of plastics, fertilisers, pesticides, asphalt and fuels such as petrol, diesel, jet fuel and motor oil. There are a number of steps to refine the oil for making plastic but eventually it is reduced to a white powder known as “fluff ”. This is then combined with additives and fillers, depending on the type of plastic to be manufactured. The mixture is turned into pellets called “nurdels” and shipped to a manufacturer to be moulded into the desired end product.

There has been an increase in the use of biodegradable plastics made from corn, algae and other materials. Although this might be a better choice, these will still take a long, long time to break down in our landfills and should be used with care and responsibility. Biodegradables may be useful in disposable packaging that can’t be separated from organic wastes, such as required by catering or in the agricultural sector.

The plastic product you choose can affect your health and your environment.

Chemicals that are added to them to give them shape can be absorbed by the

human body, resulting in altered hormonal states and other harmful conditions. Plastic material in landfills leeches harmful chemicals into groundwater.

Plastic debris can survive for thousands of years in water. We are repeatedly exposed to chemicals through plastic in air, dust, water, food and use of consumer products.

Studies have found the plastics we use for food storage, baby toys, dummies (pacifiers) and water bottles may contain something called Bisphenol A, or BPA. BPA is a synthetic chemical that interferes with the hormonal system of the body. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found detectable urine levels of BPA in 93% of people tested. The chemical has been linked to obesity, breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes, birth defects and reproductive disorders (see chart). BPA can also wreak havoc on the developing systems of children’s bodies. It is released from plastics that are labelled “microwaveable” when they are heated. [1] Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are found in flame retardant materials, added to furniture cushions, mattresses, carpets and automobiles. They have been linked to brain disorders, and reproductive health issues.

Chemicals that might cause little or no threat to adults can have a severe impact on the long-term health of infants and young children. Exposure to small amounts of certain chemicals commonly found in such plastic items DANTEmag n.6

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Plastics Crude

Raw Material

Oil

Gas

Fertilizers Pesticides Fuels Asphalt

like food and beverage containers, cosmetics and flame retardant materials can lead to the development of prostate cancer, diabetes, obesity, infertility and attention deficit disorder. It was always thought that the “dose makes the poison”, but now attention is being paid to the timing of the dose. Interactions with these chemicals at a young age may “turn on or turn off ” the gene expression for many chronic diseases.

Water bottles that are label 1 (PET, PETE) should not be reused. These types of bottles may leach DHEP (a suspected human carcinogen) into the water. When they are used repeatedly they begin to degrade. Bacteria can get caught on the inside of the plastics resulting in contamination. After prolonged use, they also may leak anti-

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mony, which can cause, at the very least, diarrhea and stomach problems.

PVC (# 3) is toxic. Containers with PVC (#3) can leach carcinogens into the liquids thay are holding. It also produces synthetic carcinogens when incinerated, such as dioxins, which pollute our air and water. Not only do we inhale and digest this from these sources but it seeps into our food chain as well, increasing contamination and exposure. Dioxins bind to fat and accumulate in the body especially in women’s breast milk. Dioxins have been linked to many diseases, including breast, skin, liver, stomach, and brain cancer, and Hodgkins lymphoma. It can also act as a hormone in the body, disrupting the normal patterns, affecting reproductive systems and increasing developmental delay.

COVER Plastic Usage Guide [2], [3]

Type of Plastic

Number

Common Uses

Adverse Health Concerns

Good /Bad Choice

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or PETE)

1

soft drink bottles, peanut butter, ketchup, jars, drinking glasses, plastic bags, toys, food containers

Polyethelene is a suspected human carcinogen.

Not known to leach any chemicals that can disrupt hormones or cause cancer when used correctly.

Good when used as directed One time use best 23% Recycle Rate Easiest plastic to recycle Not resistant to high temperatures so washing in them for re-use can start to degrade plastic and cause it to harbour bacteria

High Density Polyethylene HDPE

2

milk, juice, water jugs, laundry, dish detergent, shampoo, grocery bags

Appears to be safe.

Good Can be recycled into more bottles or bags 27 % recycle rate

(often opaque) Polyvinyl chloride PVC

3

meat wraps, cooking oil bottles, baby bottle teats, shrink wrap, coffee containers, garden hose, blood bags

Can cause cancer, birth defects, BAD genetic changes, chronic Difficult to recycle bronchitis, ulcers, skin disease, vision defects.

Low Density Polyethylene

4

heavy duty bags, bread bags, squeezable bottle plastics, plastic food wrap

Appears to be safe.

Good Less than 1% recycled Can be put through dishwasher.

Polypropylene PP

5

medicine bottles, cereal liners, packing tape, straws

Appears to be safe.

Good 3% recycle rate Hazard in production.

Polystyrene

6

Take-away food containers, disposable cutlery, cups, meat trays, packing peanuts, CD and Video Cases

-

Bad Avoid. May leach styrene, a possible human carcinogen.

Polycarbonate PC

7

baby bottles, water coolers, water bottles, car parts

Low doses of BPA (Bisphenol A) have been linked to cancer, impaired immune function, early-onset puberty, obesity, diabetes, hyperactivity.

BPA dangerous during fetal development.

Caution: Concerns with leaching Bisphenol A which can cause chromosomal damage.

Not all #7 contains BPA Less than 1 % recycled

Polyester

8

bedding, clothing, disposable nappies, food packaging, upholstery

Can cause eye irritation, respiratory tract irritation and acute skin rashes.

Acrylic

9

clothing, blankets, carpets, adhesive, contact lenses, floor waxes, food preparation equipment

Can cause breathing difficulty, vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, weakness, headache and fatigue.

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Recycle Millions of bottles end up in landfills, being incinerated, or creating toxic ecosystems in our oceans. Eighty-six percent of ocean debris is plastic.

Microscopic pieces of plastic have worked their way down into plankton in the deep ocean, to the very bottom of the food chain. Nine percent of fish sampled have plastic in their stomachs. Dolphins, seals, whales, albatrosses, pelicans – to name just a few – can eat pieces of plastic sheeting or bottle caps which they mistake for prey. They also get entangled in discarded fishing nets. Studies on birds called fulmars by Save the North Sea Project found 95% had plastic debris in their stomachs, an average of 40 pieces per bird. Over a million seabirds and marine mammals die each year from plastic ingestion and entanglement. [4] Worldwide the amount of plastic litter ruining the roadways and waterways is apparent. Some countries have started to do something about it. China has stopped stores from providing free plastic bags. Mumbai, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Tanzania, South Africa, Bangladesh, Kenya, Taiwan, and various US cities have banned plastic bags or created fines or taxes on their use. Retail stores and supermarkets are taking money off the total bill if you bring your own bags or are providing cloth bags of their own for re-use. Designers are creating cloth bags out of recycled materials and either selling for charitable purposes or placing your purchases in them. Companies are using less plastic to ship or package their products. Beverage companies are decreasing the amount and type used in bottles. The Plastics Disclosure project has encouraged companies to join and assess their plastic footprint. The first step in making change is to know what you are consuming!

Rules to live by: - Avoid plastics with symbol #3 – PVC Polyvinyl Chloride, #6 Poly-

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- - - - -

- -

-

- - -

styrene or Styrofoam, & #7 – polycarbonate and a wide variety of other plastic resins.

Do NOT microwave food and beverages in plastics EVER. DO NOT Microwave or heat plastic cling wraps.

DO NOT place plastics in the dishwasher.

DO NOT use water bottles, baby bottles, or children’s cups for hot liquids.

Use glass or, when you must, symbol #1 or # 2 plastics. Follow directions for plastic and RECYCLE. Don’t leave plastic littering the street, the beach, the landfill or the incinerator. When these plastics degrade or burn they release toxic chemicals into our water, food, air and lungs!

Look for BPA-free labels You can reuse #4 plastic food bags when you wash them in warm soap and water. (When any plastic product becomes cloudy it means it has begun to degrade.)

Take cloth bags with you when you shop for groceries, clothes – or any type of shopping, really. It greatly reduces the number of plastic bags that line our waterways, roads, and lakes.

If you must use plastic grocery bags re-use them for carrying other products a few times before recycling.

Buy items that have reduced packaging.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE.

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Biodynamic Farming Dr. Rudolph Steiner developed biodynamic farming in the 1920s. It is a closed system where everything that is used on the farm or the vineyard comes from that particular piece of earth. Everything is important: the plants, the animals, the compost. The grower, the growing, the livestock, and the earth are all interconnected. Today there are thousands of successful farms, vineyards and agriculture operations in various countries that participate in this type of farming. These farms create healthy and balanced ecosystems by working within nature and by having a closed internal system.

They use plants and animals and their by-products, from within the farm itself, to produce healthy soil and stronger plants. The biodynamic farmer is in tune with their piece of the earth. They know and understand the cycles and interrelationship of the earth, the moon and the planets, and how they affect the growth of plants. The farmers time their activity with an eye to the best advantage of the crops they are growing. For example, when is a good time to germinate, plant, water? When is insect activity or fungus growth at its highest? Which compost should be used and when?

Biodynamic farmers learn to read the musical notes of nature by observing the wet and dry areas, how things look in full sun or shade, the state of the soil, the sound of the birds and insects. They compose a symphony out of these observations that nourish the soil and therefore promote vitality in the crops they bring into life.

techniques: non-organic fertilisers, pesticides, etc. It worked well enough, but eventually Mike Benziger noticed the farm was really quiet – not as many birds, not as many insects; the soil looked different, the plants drier. In the 1990s he met Alan York an international expert on biodynamic farming, and they began the transition to a biodynamic vineyard. They planted cover crops, olive trees, plants that attracted beneficial insects and created habitats and wetlands for birds, bees and other animals. They bought sheep, cows and chickens. They now rely on composting made of the cover crops and manure from the cows for fertiliser; the natural predator/ prey relationships for insecticide. They grow the needed herbs for the biodynamic teas that are used throughout the growing season.

Biodynamic principles use what are preparations, or preps – as aids to fertilisation. Two preps – horn manure and horn silica, are used directly in soil preparation (the others are used in composting). Horn manure is aged into humus and then sprayed onto the earth for fertiliser at the appropriate time. Horn silica is used to enhance photosynthesis. Fine quartz crystals are put into cow horns and aged in the earth then sprayed on the leaves of the plants. Again, compost is also a major component of a biodynamic farm.

They grow yarrow, camomile, stinging nettle, valerian, oak bark, horsetail, and dandelion. Each of these, when added to the compost mixture, has a specific metabolic function that provides the plants and soil with the

Benziger Vineyards, a family-owned, -farmed and -managed business located in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California, grows its grapes using biodynamic standards. It wasn’t always that way. The Benziger family – parents Bruno and Helen, and offspring Mike, Chris, Bob, Joe, Erin, and Kathy – migrated from New York in the 1980s and farmed the land using standard growing

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nutrients they need. Jessica La Bounty of Benziger vineyards explained that although initially this might seem like more work, in the long run there is less disease, better growth and a better product. They use the different tea composts at different times of the year for different purposes. Jessica shared that the “owners have a close connection to the land.” For example, if they know an area tends to be wet they will continually check it, then create a tea of horsetail, which is drying, to reduce the risk of moulds.

Everything on the farm goes back into the compost – the cuttings, the stems, the cover crop, the manure.

The farmers plant different crops on a rolling basis in different areas between the vines. They also have vegetable gardens. These crops enhance predator/prey relationships by creating natural habitats. The animals do their part too. The vineyard has sheep that play an important role in removal of overgrown cover crop while providing nutrient rich fertiliser for the soil. As an added bonus, the presence of sheep eliminate the need for mowing and herbicides. The cattle also provide grazing and building blocks for compost, as well as endowing the vineyard with a sense of tranquility.

This is just one example of biodynamic farms and how they are striving to heal the earth while produc-

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Compost Herb Teas

Uses

Yarrow

- Speeds up the breakdown of compost - Essential for healthy balanced soil - Cold remedy

Camomile

- Helps stabilise nitrogen - Stimulates growth - Accumulates calcium, sulphur and potash for regenerating soil and plant growth - Calms the nervous system

Stinging nettle

- - - - -

Valerian

- Regulates activity, temperature of the compost pile - Nature’s Valium – used to calm and relax for thousands of years.

Oak Bark

- Rich in calcium - Protects plants against diseases and fungal attacks

Horsetail

- Antifungal - Contains calcium, potassium, manganese - Contains 15 types of bioflavonoids - Aids in bone and collagen formation – great for skin, hair and nails

Dandelion

- Helps with photosynthesis - Facilitates healthy plant growth - Great diuretic, helps stomach disorders, skin problems, aching joints

Stimulates soil health Able to withstand drought and excessive sunshine Rich in iron Aids in chlorophyll formation Anti-inflammatory – allergies, eczema, arthritis

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ing healthy, vital, growing plants. The Benziger vineyard achieved Demeter Certification (from Demeter International, the Biodynamic certifying body) in 2000 and has continued to earn the certification annually since that time.

The Demeter Certification is a not-for-profit global certification that must be awarded annually to a farm, which ensures they follow biodynamic standards. Benziger Vineyard is also carbon neutral and uses recycled water to decrease water consumption on the vineyard. The Benzigers also started a sustainable farming and organic farming cooperative in their area.

Who in their right mind would choose food, plants or animals, that were commercially farmed when you could choose foods that have been grown with care, fed right, whose soil was healthy, whose grains or grasses were grown in that healthy soil? Plants or animals, including people, are happier when nurtured. The cells in your body work better when given the nutrients that they need. When you eat or drink products made with produce from healthy soil, that don’t use chemicals, that aren’t wrapped in plastics – well, then your body, your immune system, can work with less effort, better and smarter.

[1] National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences NIH-HHS, United States.

“Bisphenol A Fact Sheet”; http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/assets/docs_a_e/bisphenol-a-factsheet.pdf, retrieved July 17, 2012.

[2] Local Authorities International Environmental Organisation (KIMO), Sweden-Northern Europe. “KIMO is collaborating with Plymouth University to reveal the ecological impact of microscopic plastics.” www.fishingforlitter.org/ microplasticresearch.aspx; retrieved July 17, 2012.

[3] State of New Jersey Department of Human Services, Office for Prevention of Developmental Disabilities, New Jersey, USA. “BPA - Bisphenol A - possible effects during fetal development or on newborns.” http://www.nj.gov/

A final thought then: a few simple steps, a few educated choices – heal the world, heal yourself!

humanservices/opmrdd/health/bpa.html; retrieved July 17, 2012.

[4] www.fishingforlitter.org/microplasticresearch.aspx; retrieved August 5, 2012.

Benziger Family Winery Winegrowing and Biodynamics Farming

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American Apocalypse Then and Now

By Mike Hawthorne

When Europeans landed in the Americas, they established a template for the exploitation of the land and the subjugation of its people. That pattern is still playing out with eerie precision, more than five centuries later.

F

For the Taino natives of Hispaniola, the first contact with Europeans was like watching aliens landing from outer space. Were these creatures, with their unknown animals and weapons, gods?

They soon showed just how divine they were. Some burglars simply take what they want and leave. Others smash the place up, shit on the floor and rape and torture the residents to death. Among thieves, this last group are considered unprofessional, immature and probably intoxicated. Almost without exception, this is how the Spanish invaders behaved on entering the Americas, and they did it with the mocking laughter of maniacs. Sure, voices were raised in protest and The Black Legend of Spanish brutality spread, but this did not prevent a single atrocity. A merciless, irresistible force had been unleashed upon the New World.

What was destroyed in Hispaniola? Before 1492, it was a large, well-populated island. The people enjoyed better health and life expectancy than DANTEmag n.6

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most Europeans. Their horticulture was varied and sustainable. Fish, turtles and tree iguanas provided extra protein. They moved their villages every thirty years to allow the soil to recover. The tropical climate made it possible to produce adequate amounts of food without undue effort. One worked to live, not vice versa.

The Spaniards, accustomed to a strict, stratified, medieval class system, saw very little social organisation. There was no servant class, no great disparity between rich and poor. Females could be chiefs.

Outbreaks of violence between the extended families were child’s play compared to the slaughter on the Old World’s battlefields. A single death was a big deal. Salivating at the sight of the women’s bare breasts, the explorers immediately thought of the Garden of Eden.

Columbus saw docile slaves and a quick fortune in their golden ornaments. Thirty-nine Spaniards happily agreed to remain in a little wooden fort called Navidad (Christmas) while Columbus sailed to Cadiz for reinforcements. It took him half a year to come back with an army in seventeen ships.

Somebody should make a film about what happened to the thirtynine isolated pioneers. Not one was alive after six months. It seems, in the midst of safety and plenty, that they managed to destroy themselves down to the last man. They fought each other. Their demands for food, sex and gold from the natives became increasingly outrageous, no doubt backed-up by petulant violence. Predictably, their deaths gave Columbus a perfect excuse to unleash wholesale terror on his return. The Tainos literally became fair game; horsemen pursued them across the landscape and speared DANTEmag n.6

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them for sport. Villages became the personal property of the Spaniards who worked the inhabitants to extinction and then started the African transatlantic slave trade to replace them.

By 1518 the first black slaves joined the dying Tainos in the gold mines.

Smallpox arrived in the same year. Nearby islands had been depopulated.

Natives from the Bahamas were crammed onto vessels that navigated back to Hispaniola by following trails of corpses floating in the wakes of previous ships. The genocide spread to Jamaica and Cuba. The frontier swiftly moved west, to the gold-rich Aztec and Inca empires. The greater Caribbean islands became glorified ranches, producing mainly hides and lard. A complicated racial caste system evolved. Among dozens of classifications, the basic principle was clear; white was good, brown was worse, and black was irredeemable. The only way to rise in the social scale was to breed out the black and brown over generations. Long after the abolition of slavery and over five decades since the ‘Black is Beautiful’ slogans of the 1960s, this pecking order persists throughout the Americas.

The lowest of the low slaved in hellish silver mines on the mainland and, increasingly, on sugar plantations. On Hispaniola, in today’s Dominican Republic, Haitians cut cane in appalling conditions to this day. Haiti itself dramatically demonstrates the effects of deforestation and erosion, but this does not stop illegal logging and soil depletion by thirsty sugar fields on DANTEmag n.6

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the Dominican side.

Half a millennium of slavery and bestial dictatorships has left the population of Hispaniola mired in grinding poverty. Most people, on both sides of the island, want to migrate to the US. Even as “illegals”, they dream of living among the winners in the current imperial heartland. With Obama in the White House, they might fondly imagine they are entering an enlightened democracy, a land of opportunity. Those who don’t have to keep their heads down for fear of being deported will have to remain calm while being frisked for drugs in the ghettos. Men like Dick Cheney, who hoped to profit from Halliburton’s plundering expedition in Iraq, have invested millions in private prisons. They need bodies to fill them, Black and Latino bodies. The police and District Attorneys know the colour of the harvest on the inner city pavements. There are still fortunes to be made from men in chains, especially those who transport themselves from the ruined corners of the Earth.

It seems we learn very little from our collective experience. After the bloodiest century in human history, the drums are beating again. The United States, with massive military bases spread across the globe, set the pace. They refuse to acknowledge environmental dangers. Even hurricane Katrina was an opportunity for private profiteering. The Wars on Terror and on Drugs, which will never be won, are endless moneymaking opportunities. Goldman Sachs speculators talk of ‘blood in the water’, of ‘raping and pillaging’ struggling economies in an atmosphere of greed and fear.

In this climate, ignorance is an advantage. It makes you more ruthless. Columbus, who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, would feel at home.

When will we understand that this feeding frenzy is not necessarily the way it has to be, and develop less downright evil strategies for coexisting with nature and each other? Would it be asking too much to imagine good, harmonious solutions? Yes, it is THEM and US. THEY won’t help, so WE had better apply ourselves to the task.

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Combining luxury and sophistication while enjoying the astounding views of the Mediterranean Sea, Mövenpick Hotel & Resort Beirut is the ideal retreat for all those seeking excitement and serenity.

The hotel offers upscale accommodations and recreational facilities and promotes a wide range of activities and leisure pursuits for business travellers and holiday-seekers alike.

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Mövenpick Hotel & Resort Beirut Général de Gaulle Avenue Raoucheh 2038 6908, Beirut - Lebanon Phone +961 1 869 666, Fax +961 1 809 326 hotel.beirut@moevenpick.com

www.moevenpick-hotels.com

Mediterranean escape

extensive resort facilities.

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My Country ‘Tis of Thee:

Election Blues and Patriots’ Angst

America’s gone AWOLa Native Son’s lament from exile.

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By Chris Kline

N

Nine months after I was born, JFK was assassinated in Dallas.

I have no memory of my own of that, but I clearly remember my father weeping openly when both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. also fell to cowards’ bullets. Check Point Charlie.

Apollo 11 and Armstrong’s footsteps on the moon. Che Guevara, Christ-like in his death pose. The Newark Riots. The Tlatelolco massacre. The Black Power Salutes in the Mexico City Olympic stadium. Bloodied students standing before the Russian tanks in Prague. Ho Chi Minh. The Tet offensive. A VC suspect summarily executed by pistol shot to the head in the streets of Saigon, The Yom Kippur War, American POW’s coming home, The Olympic siege in Munich. Nixon in China, Watergate, Franco’s death - they are all iconic images from my childhood, epic page turnings of a tumultuous age in both American and global history, seared in memory.

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I am, of course, a baby boomer, a few months shy of being a half a century old. I am a lifelong journalist, a foreign correspondent, war reporter and world traveller. I am an American. As I started to grow up and develop a political and civic consciousness, my modern awareness of the Presidency, the meaning of the White House in our national life, and its impact on the world began with Nixon. But a sense of heritage of America’s political tradition, indeed the larger story of America from its very inception, had been inculcated in me at an even earlier age.

Mine is a family that traces its origins on the North American continent to the 1640s. Throughout the evolution of America my family has consistently helped to write the story of the nation, notably as citizen-soldiers, diplomats, educators, politicians, intellectuals, in a host of fields across the spectrum of human endeavour. From architecture, to psychology, to aviation, we are present, making our contribution in shaping the narrative of our country.

Through the peculiarities of upbringing, class, geography and the inherent mobility of so many American families across generations, mine is a clan that is at once rooted in New England, the Deep South and the American West. I couldn’t feel more American in this respect. My American tribe wore both blue and grey during the Civil War, just as in political life we have been both Democrats and Republicans. From the Revolution itself, through abolition, to the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, two World Wars, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam and beyond, in the great debates and crises our nation has faced, our voices spoke out. We were neither silent nor passive.

I was taught that it was a great privilege to be an American and that to live in

a representative democracy was not merely a gift, but an active and reciprocal contract, a responsibility, a duty – just as JFK once implored us to be.

Much of my family tradition has been in public service and I always understood that I had to do my bit too; I’ve tried my best to do that as a journalist. That we answered the call in all of America’s wars I am sure influenced me directly to witness Iraq and Afghanistan, at least as a correspondent. As there are Afghans and Iraqis I will never forget, so too there are GIs that remain dear to me, men and women. There are too many I met that I found were living rough on the street when I came back. They didn’t have the luxury to debate foreign policy. They just had to go.

I am unabashedly a patriot, but I was also taught that righteous dissent was the core of that love of country, not blind obedience. And while they are not exclusively American virtues, I have been informed from an early age that courage, honour, fairness, liberty, justice and upholding the truth were sacrosanct cornerstones of the American ideal. Though we sprang from privilege, I was also weaned on egalitarian values, the very core of anything like distinct American democratic belief, if such a thing ever existed. My late uncle often quoted an adage of my grandfather’s: “Belong to an aristocracy, not of wealth and privilege, but of the spirit.” It has guided me since I first heard it as a teenager.

But I look at America now from afar, as I find myself in temporary exile, and I cannot in all honesty state that I fully recognise the country I grew up in. Let me clarify that my love of country is not so blinkered that I fail to recognise that an upstart, rebellious republic matured into the world’s most powerful and often ferociously rapacious empire. I do not whitewash the

Presidential sculpture at Mount Rushmore National Monument, South Dakota.

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American apartheid (and I can’t because my family once owned slaves). I do not overlook the genocide of our Native American population, the outright theft of half of Mexico’s landmass (especially when my direct ancestor Nicholas P. Trist drafted the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ceded half of Mexico to the US). I cannot turn away from a bloody imperialist legacy stretching from Cuba and Haiti to Vietnam and Iraq, nor a legacy of toppling other governments from Guatemala and Chile to Iran and Indonesia, and a disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East from 1945 to the present day.

diversity still leaves me in awe. This is the America I love and it is nothing less than greatness I behold.

Rather I want to still consider America as work in progress. I celebrate the United States that spawned the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence; the America of Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, the America that saved the day in two World Wars; and the America that in its less than three hundred years of existence, especially in the last century, arguably contributed positively – and disproportionately to its numbers – to more human advancement in a short span of time than any other civilisation or culture, at virtually any juncture in history. From the United Nations to jazz and rock ‘n roll, to space travel, to medicine, literature, art in all its forms, science and so many concepts of human liberation and empowerment (including, ironically enough, fundamental modern precepts of human rights and the foundation of international law), this creative genius of America, a genius owed to America’s unparallelled

My country is more sharply divided than at any other moment since the Civil War. It is clear both our political and economic system is deeply corrupt and in dire need of reform. The very notion of American socioeconomic justice is sorely lacking in tangible practice. Corporate power, in all of its profound abuse and arrogance, has been revealed. It is an even more pernicious and all-powerful beast, trampling on the will of the majority, than we even dared suspect. Wall Street has been called into account and it has answered with a swinging nightstick and tear gas. Bipartisanship has virtually vanished from the halls of Congress. There does not seem to exist

And as America goes to vote, while I make no bones about casting my vote firmly for Barack Obama, I do so with a tired sigh rather than an enthusiastic hurrah. I don’t even want to say “Mitt Romney” and even less so “Tea Party.” That in turn prompts me to remember the intractable mess left by Bush Jr., which still feels like a hit and run car crash on the nation and the planet, for which nobody was prosecuted somehow.

Capitol Building in Washington DC

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Mitt Romney Republican Presidential candidate 2012

any longer the concept of a loyal opposition working towards the common good. Political and moral credibility is the triumph of spin over substance, telegenic good looks over gravitas, and clever, simplistic sound bites over cogent thought and genuine debate. Money calls the elections, not the will of the people. The once great temple of American journalism is a weak, emasculated ghost, or a jingoistic carnival barker - at least on the air waves.

Anyway, Americans don’t read newspapers anymore, not many of them do, anyway. In fact, vast swathes of the population seem to have entirely stopped thinking and surrendered their cogitative functions to fear-mongering demagogues (who, not incidentally, are also on six figure corporate salaries).

All those things we supposedly were on our way to overcoming – homophobia, racism, sexism – seem as virulent as ever. The hope of a more equitable health care system has zealots frothing at the mouth over something they DANTEmag n.6

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decry as creeping Marxism. It is so irrational it barely warrants a response.

And - how else to put it? -there is hatred in the air, hatred of the other America we do not perceive as speaking for us, a clear sense of us and them, not one people, one nation, not e pluribus unum as it so hopefully states on our coinage. We are a house divided, with the most bloody-minded among us calling for violence. And for all the growing legions of the unemployed, the poor and homeless, we remain the wealthiest country on earth. And yet – staggeringly – nearly one in five American children face hunger. Will we qualify as the First World for much longer? You want to see the Third World, go to Detroit.

But it doesn’t end there. Perhaps what sickens the heart the most is how we have morphed into uber-militarised, uber-security state - Fortress America.

The draconian, de facto police state that George W. Bush’s administration codified into law (while doing almost nothing to actually secure our na-

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Barack Obama

tion, beyond embarking on a kamikaze hayride to Iraq), a series of sedition, counter-terrorism and national security statutes that all but do away with the Constitutional freedoms, civil and human rights, the very things that define us as free American citizens, are not only still in the books, they’ve been strengthened under the Obama White House. Americans can be spied upon, arrested, tortured, held incommunicado, without trial or representation, indefinitely, indeed even killed without any explanation or recourse. It is now legal to do these things. So do we even live in America any longer?

And if we justify these measures to ensure our democratic freedoms, isn’t it too late? Why did we invade Iraq - which according to the British medical journal the Lancet is a conflict that has now caused well over a million dead - and abandon Afghanistan where the true enemy lay, an act which we will soon reprise in the closing act in South Asia. But if we are short-sighted in the Hindu Kush, our ongoing inept response to the Arab Uprising, which we do not remotely comprehend and seem powerless to help steer towards

democratic results, is as clear an indicator as any of a foreign policy that one British pundit labelled “autistic.” Perhaps we’ve been in bed with Arab dictatorships for so long, we don’t know how to contend with democracy. Hillary Clinton would like to be Metternich, Kissinger, Churchill and Hamarskjold all rolled into one, but she will not be remembered in history as one of the great diplomats of our age. She’s out of key, and that makes perfect sense, because our global compass bearing is also spinning wildly.

I long for a nation that is brave, wise, strong and even-handed to its own people, its allies and the world: a force for good. I dream of an America that is again a gifted and inspired visionary, an innovator. But for the moment all I see is an ailing and crumbling empire in a slow state of decline, unable to shed either its hubris or its obsolete perspectives, failing utterly to keep step with history. I wish it weren’t so. I am an American, a proud American and I am waiting for my country – that I love so much – to show up again.

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www.uffix.com

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Germany’s Green Tech: The Rise - and Fall? - of an Industry

Imagine no regrets for wasting too much electricity, as it all comes from clean, sustainable sources and not from CO2emitting dirty power plants or risky nuclear power stations. Picture electric cars that source their power from a clean energy supply.

This all seemed like utopia only ten years ago. But it has started in Germany. Without a doubt Germany is the country in the world that has turned the development of green or sustainable energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass into a success story. But that success is under threat.

By Sebastian M Zank. CFA

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Green technologies such as photovoltaic power panels and wind turbines remained a tiny niche market in Germany before 2004, applied mainly by environmentalists and other eco-minded idealists. Then the German government instituted compelling investment incentives that quickly widened the investment circle for renewable energy systems.

Because most renewable energy sources show much higher production costs per generated kilowatt-hour compared to conventional energy produced from nuclear, coal or gas-fired power plants, investors needed incentives to put their capital in cleaner energy sources. By guaranteeing the sale of each generated kilowatt-hour at a fixed price, the government offered investment security, thereby providing attractive returns on invested capital. No doubt this is the kind of state-directed economic support that props up inferior energy sources when it comes to

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Wind farm in Germany

Office in Cologne first EU green building

Solar panels

costs and efficiency. However, the system worked perfectly well in stimulating the transition of the renewable industry from a niche to a mass market.

In fact, many countries followed Germany’s regulatory approach and a quiet, green industrial revolution – or better said, evolution – got started.

Windmill and solar-panel factories sprang up like mushrooms. Industry clusters like the so-called “solar valley” in eastern Germany quickly emerged. Efficiency records were broken every few weeks as manufacturers and German engineering companies teamed up. Production costs plummeted dramatically as a result of mass production and increased competition among the industry players. The whole industry – in which roughly 200,000 people worked at peak times – became the favourite of German politicians. New wind farms DANTEmag n.6

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(on- and off-shore), solar panels (on roof tops and in large ground-mounted solar parks) blossomed throughout the country. Fields grew corn or wheat to be used in biogas/biomass power plants.

The Germans were not the only ones who seemed to be in favour of this new industry. Compelling profits and the prospect of a worldwide shift from conventional to renewable energy power attracted completely new players. New Chinese ventures, largely bolstered by government loans, arose.

Even industrial conglomerates discovered the new business opportunity and invested in their own production facilities. And the new investment boom quickly benefited from steadily decreasing production costs for renewable

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green energy sources., so much so they approached competitiveness with conventional energy sources. Nearly everyone seemed to be convinced about green technologies – private households, financial investors and utilities.

should come from these sources. Consequently, the prospects for the industry should be extremely bright in view of the country’s long-term targets.

However, the impression that the sector is booming is completely mistaken.

As a direct consequence of these two factors, installation volumes of renewable energy systems hit new records year after year, led by the German market, where roughly 17% of total electricity consumption comes from these sources. This is almost as much as once came from the nuclear power plants Germany had before it decided to finally decommission them. And the country is aiming much higher. By 2020 it intends to hit a figure of 35%.

50% by 2030, and by 2050, 80% of the country’s electricity production

The industry – in particular in Germany – has hit rock bottom. The climate for new investments in wind turbines, solar panels and biomass-fired power systems is worse than ever. How can that be after Germany became the only country worldwide to refrain completely from nuclear energy after the catastrophe at Fukushima? After the country seemed to pursue a strict path towards a so-called energy transition from dirty and risky energy sources DANTEmag n.6

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to sustainability? How did the political support stop so abruptly just at a moment when the industry had almost reached grid parity – the so-called competitiveness with conventional energy sources?

industry is following a similar pattern to that of the semiconductor industry back in the 80s when American, European and Taiwanese companies fought a battle to the death.

The German green-tech industry has been hit by a coincidental convergence of deteriorating political support and a clash among the industrial competitors. What, in the beginning, seemed to have excellent credentials from a liberal economic point of view has come with disastrous consequences for the whole industry. The quick ramp-up of production capacities around the globe, with Germany and China as the two leaders, has resulted in vast overcapacities. The industry has grown much too fast, mostly as a result of government incentives. Now what was once a quite mature industry price competition has degenerated into all out war. While the big players such as the early movers and the big conglomerates have the capacity to weather the storm, most of the smaller ventures struggle to survive. In particular the German pioneers of the industry are in deep trouble and are unable to cope with the ongoing pricing pressure any longer. Many German companies have had to file for bankruptcy in recent months. The game is being played at the harshest levels, with the most powerful competitors coming from China. Chinese companies have flooded the market with products at dumping prices. Consequently, even the big Chinese struggle with profitability. However, it seems that these companies might have the longer staying power, as they are on the whole being supported by the Chinese authorities through cheap corporate loans and other subsidies. The consolidation of the

Faced with this deep crisis even German politicians are barely supporting their own industry anymore. Only a year ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared: “We want to end the use of nuclear energy and reach the age of renewable energy as quickly as possible.� Since then, however, there has been a complete repositioning. Costs for renewable energy power have unexpectedly exploded. Installation volumes have increased so rapidly that the existing electricity grids face problems of integrating the produced energy without risking blackouts. Thus after years of massive expansion and overachievement of renewable energy targets, the government is scaling back subsidies and is even trying to limit volumes that are eligible for government support. Renewable energies have been taken off the agenda under this current government.

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Although renewable energies are available to almost everybody due to the steep cost decrease over the past few years, the technology has become a luxury problem. There are now far more immediately compelling issues for Germany and the European countries than fighting climate change with renewable energy. Political parties have pointed out, correctly, that their costbenefit ratio in Germany and Central Europe can hardly be justified. And the trade-off between the costs and the benefits of investing in renewable

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Solar-powered farm

energy only applies to the Chinese companies who find themselves the main beneficiaries from Europe’s solo run of fighting climate change by switching to Renewable Energy technologies. It seems the German government has already given up on supporting the industry, as it has had to acknowledge the German clean tech industry has lost its battle with the Chinese and only a few jobs can be preserved in Research and Development and the installation services.

So where is the German green tech industry heading? Will Germany have to leave the field to low-cost countries like China, whose companies have not only adapted, but also refined German technology? The country has to adhere to its plans to boost its proportion of renewable energy use in any case, in order not to lose credibility in the proclaimed switch to sustainable energy sources. But will the world’s leader in exports do so with technology that has been imported from low-cost countries – one of which it has actually helped to become the world leader by exporting its engineering expertise? Import duties or local content requirements, as imposed by the US government for wind turbines and solar panels will barely help since such measures only safeguard domestic production for a short period. The country can hardly fight its cost inferiority in the long term. So it would seem that Germany has started a revolution in the renewable energy industry but its evolution will be realised elsewhere.

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The Nukleus Story

By Matthias Gelber It is more apparent than ever that our lifestyles today, particularly in the West, are environmentally unsustainable. But “sustainability” seems to be a word that slips easily past one’s lips. What does it even mean? Is it even possible to achieve it? The utter inaction of governments would lead one to think not. But it is actually a simple concept and there are companies out there – though right now there may be only a few – who are well on the way to achieving it. Maylasia’s Nukleus is one of them.

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Today’s market place is flush with brands. It seems that everyone and everything is branded. Does the world really need more brands?

Before we answer that question, we first need to consider a different one: What are the most critical issues the world is facing today?

Sustainability immediately comes to my mind. Of course, not everyone sees it this way. Writing this article has coincided with the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, though the conference looks like it is far from delivering what we need. The writer George Monbiot says the Rio Conference is “perhaps the greatest DANTEmag n.6

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failure of collective [political] leadership since the First World War.” He may not be too far off the mark. The evidence: only one G8 leader - François Hollande of France -showed up. Business leaders, on the other hand, attended. Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever, was there and was vocal. (Unilever is known for its award-winning “Sustainable Living Plan”.) So was Jochen Zeitz, the CEO of Puma, who talked about his company’s revolutionary environmental profit and loss accounting.

Sustainability - it’s become a very big buzzword. Politicians use it. Business people use it. Even schoolchildren use it. But what is it, actually? Put simply, it’s about satisfying our present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy theirs, as defined by the Brundtland Commission in 1987. Our very basic needs - food and water - are supplied by Mother Nature. If we don’t take good care of her, we jeopardise the future of humanity.

Sadly, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) informs us that we are not living sustainably. According to the 2012 edition of its Living Planet Report, WWF estimates that we are using 1.5 planets to support our current lifestyles. This means we are working Mother Nature very, very hard. And if DANTEmag n.6

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we don’t change, we will need two planets by 2030. As far as I know, we only have one! So what should we be doing?

There is one thing all of us can and should do: we can consume sustainably.

Making the right consumer choices has never been more important than it is right now. As consumers, we must realise that everything we do impacts the planet in one way or another. For this reason, every single act of ours counts!

Here’s where businesses can make a difference. They can provide consumers with smart, sustainable options. And this will often entail the creation of new brands with new ways of doing things.

So we ask again: Does the world need more brands? The short answer is “yes” - but specifically, the world needs brands that offer genuinely sustainable solutions.

Let’s consider a hypothetical: using the finest eco-friendly materials in the world, a conventional clothing company creates a new clothing line. It then makes a decent-sized donation to a reputable non-governmental organisa-

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tion involved in environmental conservation. Finally, it declares to the world it is a sustainable clothing company because of its actions. But do its actions genuinely contribute to sustainability?

To be sure, there are positives in the aforesaid scenario. The right materials are used, and the contribution to the NGO is admirable. The changes, however, aren’t broad or deep enough. Take the manufacturing process, for instance. The manufacturing of clothing can be chemically intensive, and some of the chemicals in common use are detrimental to health and the environment. But the owner of the hypothetical company didn’t introduce any change to its conventional operations. So how can it claim to be genuinely sustainable?

The fact of the matter is this: Companies that are genuinely sustainable have a holistic view of sustainability. They know that it ought to be embedded in all that they do. It should pervade their entire value chain, beginning with design and ending with product disposal, including every stage in between.

Unfortunately, our hypothetical situation isn’t all that hypothetical. As a matter of fact, it’s quite prevalent and cuts across industries and national

boundaries. Some companies make this mistake out of ignorance; this is somewhat forgivable but should be corrected. Others, however, commit the error deliberately in order to gain some marketing mileage. This sort of behaviour is called “greenwashing” and The Oxford Dictionary defines thus: “Disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public image.”

But all is not gloom and doom. There are bright spots here and there and I’d like to tell you a story about one such spot: Nukleus.

Nukleus is an international brand for men’s and women’s underwear and basics. It may not be a household name yet in Europe, but in Malaysia (where it is based), and in neighbouring countries, it is widely seen as the leader in the sustainable clothing sector. And it is actually great news that we see this leadership coming from South East Asia, where future growth in consumption will mainly take place.

In the very early days, Nukleus nearly made the same mistake as our hypothetical clothing company - it considered doing the material-and-donation routine. But to its credit, Nukleus had the humility to consult the experts, DANTEmag n.6

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WWF Malaysia, who have to be credited with examining the issue in a holistic way.

responsible conditions, coupled with detailed attention to the procedures in the supply chain.

According to C.W. Tan, the founder and CEO of Nukleus, the discussions with WWF Malaysia “sparked a paradigm shift in [their] thinking about sustainability.” He and his team learned that it is an end-to-end concept and every step along the way has environmental implications. The shift was, in fact, so great that they had to go back to the drawing board and redo virtually everything. That, in a nutshell, is how Nukleus was born.

On top of that, all their core components are certified Oeko-Tex Standard 100, the world’s highest standard for human ecological safety. This is a courageous and principled move. European consumers are generally familiar with the standard, but very few in Asia have heard of it. Furthermore, obtaining certification adds to the cost of business. Many businesses would have shied away from doing something with such uncertain returns. Not Nukleus. It chose to pursue certification. Tan tells me: “I have to do what is best for the consumer. I have to address the issue of unsafe chemicals through the Oeko-Tex Standard 100. Besides, what is good for humans is generally good for the environment.”

Something else came into being as a result of those discussions. Nukleus became a co-brand partner of WWF in Malaysia and Hong Kong and is contributing a part of its proceeds to aid their conservation work. This relationship is not only philanthropic but also educational in nature: WWF enlightens Nukleus on sustainability and Nukleus puts the learning into action.

The two also work together to engage and collaborate with key stakeholders in fostering a sustainable future.

Today, all Nukleus products are made from the finest eco-friendly materials: GOTS-certified organic cotton yarn, and Tencel and Modal from Austria’s Lenzing Group. (GOTS, or the Global Organic Textile Standard, is the world’s leading textile processing standard for organic fibres.) Nukleus products are also manufactured under environmentally friendly and socially DANTEmag n.6

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Even Nukleus’ packaging has not escaped attention. Consumers might ask, “What’s the big deal about packaging? It’s just a box!” But in the eyes of Nukleus, a box isn’t just a box. Boxes are made from paper, paper comes from trees, and trees are a vital part of the environment. Hence, the kind of box one uses for one’s packaging has environmental implications. In the case of Nukleus, it has decided to use FSC-certified paper for its packaging.

The FSC, or Forest Stewardship Council, is a globally trusted organisation that promotes responsible forest management (e.g. appropriate harvesting rates and techniques, non-chemical methods of pest management, etc.).

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Many independent individuals and organisations - Greenpeace, WWF and renowned environmentalist Jared Diamond, among other - have endorsed this approach. In addition, vegetable-based ink is used in printing the boxes.

Vegetables are renewable and therefore sustainable. Nukleus consumers are also strongly encouraged to reuse or recycle the boxes.

Moreover, Nukleus is now reaping the reards of its sustainability initiative.

Its turnover in 2011 is more than three times greater than 2010, the year the brand was launched. It’s enjoying rapid expansion in its domestic retail network - from less than 10 outlets in 2010 to more than 50 at the time of writing. Things are also going well overseas. Nukleus is now available at 11 high-end department stores in neighbouring Indonesia. It’s been present in Hong Kong since the fourth quarter of 2011. And it will have a presence in Thailand and Singapore by the fourth quarter of 2012. Tan is bullish about the prospects for Nukleus. “We should be able to enter more overseas markets in the foreseeable future,” he says.

fully, its example will inspire other SMEs to follow suit.

Second, get started. The road to sustainability is a long one. And, yes, the journey can be tough. But don’t let that scare you. There’s an old saying: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Just start. And in my book, a small starter is better than a non-starter, anytime. If your company hasn’t yet started, start now.

Third, get greener over time. You can start small but you cannot stay small, in terms of greenness. Consider Nukleus. It is by no means 100% sustainable. But it’s aware that there’s still room for improvement, and it’s doing something about it. The truth is, there are very few (if any) companies in this world that are 100% sustainable. Sustainability, as mentioned, is a faraway destination. Some companies may be closer to the end of their journeys, while others have some way to go. But here’s the key point: businesses should persevere and press on towards that goal - because every green step you make contributes to sustainability.

So what can businesses learn from the Nukleus story? I suggest three things.

First, sustainability is something every company should strive for. Some small-to-medium sized enterprises (or SMEs) tell me sustainability is a thing for the big boys. But that’s not true. Size does not matter. Nukleus is a small company but it didn’t use its size as an excuse to avoid going green. Hope-

And finally over to you the consumer! You can help with judicious use of your purchasing power. Are you LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) already? What a wonderful world it would be if we all bought only what is good for humans and the planet. Products that destroy would not make money any more. The choice is yours – YOU are the consumer!

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1 Piccadilly Arcade , London W1J 9EN tel +44 (0) 207 493 1975 Fax + 44 (0) 20 7 4938410 london@santamarianovella.co.uk www.santamarianovella.co.uk DANTEmag n.6

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Window of the soul

The Unlikely Abbot

By Bee van Zuylen

Pulling back from the consumerist culture in which we’re embedded can seem like a daunting task on the best of days.

But probably none of us will be called on to do such a radical unhooking as Nicholas Vreeland has done, scion of an elite family and glamorous social photographer turned Tibetan Buddhist monk – and now Abbot of a monastery in India. Perhaps our own small withdrawals from the consumer lifestyle might not be so tough to effect after all...

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Window of the soul

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and Nicholas Vreeland after the investiture, along with his father Frederick Vreeland, his brother Alexander, and Richard Gere.

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I first met Nicholas Vreeland in 1971 against a backdrop of glamour and extravagance in Gstaad’s Palace Hotel. At the time, if anyone had told me I would be writing an article about the man I had met that night, not for a second would I have envisaged creating the piece that you’re about to read. Perhaps, if I had been asked to venture a guess, my imagination would have taken me along a path like the one we travel when listening to “Where Do You Go To My Lovely?” It would not be difficult to imagine Nicholas Vreeland - or “Nicky,” as he’s known – the talented and charismatic social photographer, continuing his days (as the song goes) snapping photographs of the likes of such characters as the Agha Khan in such spots as St Moritz.

However, as glamorous as an article of that ilk might seem, the story Nicky unravelled to me is immeasurably more fascinating and surprising.

The Nicholas Vreeland who recently invited me into his home on a beautiful tree-lined street in Manhattan is now the Abbot of the Rato monastery for Tibetan Buddhist monks in India. While there are many who hold the DANTEmag n.6

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Nicky is taken to the Abbot’s quarter

The monastery’s officials lead Nicky to the temple Nicky making offerings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama

esteemed title of Abbot, Nicky is the only Western-born Buddhist monk in the world to have been appointed to that rank. He was given the responsiblity for the Rato monastery by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama himself.

Before becoming a full-time Buddhist monk in 1985, Nicky’s life was as far from that of a simple monk as could be imagined. Son of Ambassador Frederick Vreeland and grandson of the fashion icon, Diana Vreeland, Nicky travelled the world from a young age. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, he has lived in Germany, Morocco, Italy, Paris, New York and India. He is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Italian and now Tibetan. Nicky studied at the film school at NYU and worked with Richard Avedon in his studio.

His photography work took him to India where he lugged around a 5x7 Deardorff camera and recorded elegant photos of Maharajahs and Tibetan Rinpoches. As well as being the only Westerner to have been appointed to a Holy title by the Dalai Lama, he is proud to have been given the opportunity to photograph His Holiness’s portrait. Nicky studied under the tutelage of Khyongla Rato Rinpoche at the Tibet Center in New Jersey, where he still studies now.

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resulted in the Dalai Lama having to flee to India. They exiled themselves with the intention of returning to Tibet. However, after it became clear that the reality of the political situation would not allow for such a return, the Indian government recognised the Tibetans had to be accommodated.

Thousands of Tibetans reside throughout ten villages within four large settlements, two of them large monastic communities. Nicky splits his time between the monastery in India and his home in Manhattan. Every time he needs to travel between the two, he must raise the necessary funds to do so.

As a monk, he does not hold worldly possessions.

In 1985, when the ceremony took place, his hair was cut, he renounced his worldly possessions and goods, and he received the name Thub Ten Lhundup. From that moment, he was a full time monk. “You arrive with what you can carry so you don’t own anything,” he explains. “You get to the monastery and study. The only way they can make it in life is to study.” Although he had studied before becoming a full-time monk in India, he admitted to me that he immersed himself in the life of the monastery without knowing how to speak a word of Tibetan. He had to begin the tedious struggle of “picking up key phrases and terms and ‘fiddling’ with them in order to learn the language” with only a few weeks to do so before he had to begin debating with the other monks.

Window of the soul

Upon having made three prostrations before the image of the Buddha, Nicky prays

Having made prostrations at the door of the temple, Nicky walks down a central row of monks

Nicky about to sit on abbot’s throne

“You change your clothes, you change your attitude, but you don’t lose your identity.”

Nicky assures me. “I’m still Nicky Vreeland.” The robes Nicky wears, he wears every day. There is no day for “civilian clothes.” He tells how important the robes are to the identity of a monk. Not only do they remind other people of who a monk is, but they remind the monk as well. For Nicky, the robes reinforce his identity as a monk and remind him who he is. It is fascinating to hold these two visions of him in my mind. The two lives do not have to be separate. Nicky Vreeland has transformed into the Abbot Thub Ten Lhundup; the two identities are not separate entities. But I still had to ask him, “Can you maintain your talent as a photographer – that intrinsic calling within you – in the life you lead today? Or must it be put to one side?”

Nicky responded: “In our western culture the artist wishes to express himself or herself. To express oneself one has to go beyond a sense of self. As long as you are self-conscious in the process of creating, you aren’t going to give yourself to the process of creating. The ego will still be predominant. You have to immerse yourself in the process and go beyond that ego feeling.

The spiritual process is one of going beyond the ego. As long as you have a sense of self, you are able to relate to others in respect to yourself. You are the centre of the universe.

What you are working at is relinquishing that position and having others be the centre of the universe. Working towards that is probably in conflict with working to express yourself as a photographer” Although he has renounced that aspect of his life and vocation, it has still managed to become a part of the life Nicky holds in India. Of course, he doesn’t wander around the monastery snapping photos here and there. He

tells me that would be somewhat inappropriate. Still the two – his life as a photographer and his life as a monk – have merged in a more organic way, leading to a rather extraordinary accomplishment.

In 2008 it was deemed necessary to build a new monastic campus for the monks. The decision was set, the contracts were signed, and the monastery was to be constructed. But, alas, it seems even the Buddhist monks were not given a clean break of luck in the credit crunch of 2008. The backers for the planned monastery all withdrew as soon as trouble in the banking world arose. Nicky and his community were left stranded until it was suggested that Nicky might hold an exhibition of his photographs to raise the money.

Nicky was told to bring fifty or sixty of his pieces to Paris where twenty of them were chosen to be shown. Nicky held exhibitions in Milan, Paris, Chicago, Bombay and New Delhi where they were a great success and received a great deal of attention – enough, in fact, to fund the construction of the monastery. Nicky is now “responsible for the place.”

When I suggest that perhaps Nicky should do more exhibitions, he calms me down and reminds me that this is not his purpose any more. He reminds me that everything he does is not for him but for others, for a virtuous purpose.

“You can say that whatever you are doing is motivated by a virtuous desire,” he explains, “but you have to maintain a virtuous attitude while you are doing the thing. You have to wake up in the morning and moment by moment say that I am going to devote my day, and all that I do today, to the service of others. You have to cultivate the attitude DANTEmag n.6

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Window of the soul

Monks offer white scarves.

Lunch is served at the monastery

and maintain it.” So, unless any more monasteries are in need of funding, we won’t be seeing Nicky’s work on exhibition any time soon.

Back at the monastery, Nicky is now, as he says, “responsible for the place” and that includes the momentous task of bridging the gap between East and West. Nicky relates the words of His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, when he made Nicky the abbot: “The monastery can run itself. You can watch over it and run it but you have to concentrate on bringing the East and West together. You were born in the West and trained in our monastic system and I think it’s important that we bring Western ideas into the monastic system. Speak up when you have something to say”.

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So after having spent three hours in Nicky’s company – three hours in which it felt like I had ingested a lifetime of knowledge, inspiration and wisdom – it is time I took my leave. As I stand up to go, he offers me one last string of words, glistening with wisdom. They have been wrapped around my mind since I left his home, and I leave you with them now.

“Most people we never see again. There is a reason we have bumped into each other again. All of these things happen for a reason. They are created by us and our past actions.

Window of the soul

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Khyongla Rato Rinpoche as Nicky receives His Holiness’s blessing and the bestowal of the Abbotship of Rato Monastery

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and Nicky after the investiture

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Secret Islands Of The Caribbean

By Neil Geraghty

The indigenous Guna people in Panama have banned foreign land ownership.

After a long struggle, they have carved out a homeland for themselves, where they jealously guard their prerogatives.

The result is a resort-free tropical paradise, and a travel experience that can be found nowhere else.

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The San Blas islands are the Caribbean equivalent of the Maldives but who, in all honesty, has ever heard of them?

Search Google Maps and zoom in on the remote northeastern Panamanian coastline and all you’ll find is a handful of islands with lazily-drawn, straight shorelines. You’d never guess that an entire archipelago of nearly 400 idyllic cays lies strung like a coral necklace all the way to the Colombian border. The islands are a Robinson-Crusoe cliché. Leaning coconut palms cast shadows on powdery white beaches while lobster fishermen in dugout canoes paddle along reefs in shallow, opalescent lagoons. This could be luxury honeymoon heaven, but it isn’t.

International hotel chains have hungrily eyed these pristine islands for decades but on every occasion that they’ve attempted to develop the islands, the indigenous Guna people have resisted their fistfuls of dollars.

A glance at the Guna’s history explains this reticence. From the day Spanish Conquistadors first set foot on the Guna’s ancestral homelands in Colombia,

Korkidup Isla Pelicano

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Carti Sugdup

Guna Girls - photo Bruce Taylor

An Indian without land is a dead Indian their land was plundered by prospectors in search of gold, rubber and any other lucrative commodities they could get their hands on.

Centuries of violent confrontation ensued, and in 1870, the Colombian government was forced to grant the Guna a semi-autonomous comarca (indigenous homeland) which guaranteed their land rights. When Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, its cash-strapped government reneged on the treaty and granted land concessions to outsiders. Once again this led to armed insurrection, and in 1925 the Guna rose up en masse and declared independence. Mediation by the United States led to the creation of the Guna Yala – a virtually independent nation within Panama, which today is the envy of indigenous people throughout Latin America. Governed by a council of elders, the Guna strictly forbid foreign ownership of land. Bar the odd cruise liner dropping anchor offshore, tourism development remains firmly in the hands of the Guna themselves.

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adventure in itself. At six in the morning I found myself in a Toyota 4x4, speeding along the Pan American highway on Panama City’s spectacular ocean drive, the Corredor Sur. The sun was just rising over the Pacific Ocean and flocks of hungry pelicans were swooping low over the waves in search of their first catch of the day.

Ahead of us flashes of orange sunlight sparkled in the windows of futuristic skyscrapers lining the Costa del Este, Panama City’s latest property hotspot. Panama City has long been a favourite location for property speculators, and as we sped past I couldn’t help wondering how many millions of dollars of floundering banks’ assets were tied up in these breathtaking white elephants.

As soon as you leave the Costa del Este, Panama City quickly dissolves into the usual ramshackle muddle of Latin American suburban life. Entire local economies depend on the Pan American Highway, which is lined with dusty garages and rickety stalls piled high with mouth-watering fruit displays. Local women are a godsend for hungry lorry drivers and the highway is lined with

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Local woman with nosering

Leg bands Carti Sugdub makeshift fondas (inns) bearing their owners’ names. We’d all missed breakfast so were glad when our driver drew up at Fonda Alicia, which was doing a brisk trade in steaming plates of huevos rancheros for a group of tattooed labourers.

The coffee in these roadside fondas is universally good, and revived by some velvety smooth cafes con leche we left the Pan American Highway and headed inland towards the verdant foothills of the San Blas Mountains.

Our driver was in a good mood and decided to treat us to some of his favourite music CDs, mostly compilations of impassioned Latin rock songs. I was particularly moved by a despairing rock chick who’d recently been dumped by her boyfriend and proceeded to wreak revenge by hurling basketballs at her ex-boyfriends, hitting them all painfully where it hurts. The newly asphalted El Llano-to-Cartí road that links the Pan American Highway to the Caribbean has revolutionised access to the Guna Yala – in theory that is. The rainy season had arrived early and as we ascended higher into the mountains the road’s vulnerability was all too plain to see. Alarming landslides had swept away whole chunks of road while in the valleys bright red ponds had accumulated, totally submerging the road’s surface. Careering through these mini-lakes was thrilling, but as we headed higher into the San Blas cloud forest the road turned into a terrifying ride of sharp angles and sudden swerves worthy of the Monte

Mola needlework.

Carlo Grand Prix. It was all too much for one of our group, an elfin faced Spanish girl, who called out for our driver to stop and headed to the side of the road for a lengthy bout of vomiting.

At the tiny village of Nusugandi we entered Guna Yala territory. I was surprised at the strictness of the border controls. A fearsome-looking woman dressed from top to toe in army camouflage swaggered towards our jeep, a rifle slung menacingly over her shoulder. One by one, she slowly scrutinised DANTEmag n.6

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our faces through the jeep’s windows as she suspiciously checked each of our passports. I dearly wanted to ask for a passport stamp, but somehow felt that this was not a lady to be trifled with. Eventually she waved us on and we began our descent to the coast. Soon magnificent panoramas of the San Blas islands came into view, framed by anvil-shaped storm clouds scurrying in from the Caribbean.

The first heavy drops of warm tropical rain were just beginning to fall as we arrived in the bustling port village of Barsukum. The jetties were a hive of activity as Guna women laden with sacks of produce jumped into outboard riggers, trying to set out before the heavens burst. The traditional costumes of Guna women have become proudly-worn symbols of indigenous culture.

In the worsening light, the vivid colours and patterns shone out with extra vibrancy. Around their heads, the women tie scarlet and gold scarves while many older women still wear golden nose rings. The most striking features of the costumes are the molas, richly embroidered bands of cloth stitched onto the waists of puff sleeved blouses. These are covered in striking geometric patterns which have an ancient lineage dating back to ancestral body paint designs. To complete the outfits, the women wear colourful wrap-around skirts

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and dozens of bands of beads wrapped tightly around their arms and legs. Not surprisingly, on the morning of our arrival the ladies were anxious to avoid getting their gorgeous apparel spoilt by sea water. As the boats sped out into the choppy waters, they nervously clutched expansive plastic sheets up to their chins.

Staying in the Guna Yala involves sleeping in simple wooden cabanas and spending lots of time idling around on dazzlingly beautiful beaches. As we arrived on Aguja island, which seemed to consist of about fifty coconut palms and a handful of huts, an elderly American couple were sprawled out in deckchairs on the beach optimistically hoping that the sun would come out.

Following a simple lunch of rice, plantains and tasty barbequed fish, we headed off to Carti Sugdub one of a handful of densely populated islands where the majority of the Guna live. The narrow streets were a hive of activity. Our visit coincided with a gathering of caciques (chiefs) and the village was gearing up for an evening of celebrations. The Guna live highly communal lives and most of the open plan bamboo and thatched houses had their doors wide open, offering tantalising glimpses of village life. Wandering down the narrow alleyways we spotted angelic-faced children swinging in hammocks, enjoying the cool

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Guna Yala island

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Lobster fisherman

sea breezes while their grandmothers sat at wooden tables, diligently stitching intricate molas.

When visiting Guna communities, it’s important to respect local sensibilities concerning photography and filming. Many still believe that if their image is captured, part of their soul will be lost. As we walked along, many women cast their heads down and covered their faces. Others were happy to be photographed, but it’s customary to ask permission first, and always offer a dollar for the privilege. At the village square, some men were more forthright and asked us crossly to put our cameras away. Crowds had gathered for a dance display by local teenagers. Along one side of the square, a group of girls wearing dazzling emerald and scarlet dresses were lined up. On the other side a group of boys in baseball caps and baggy shorts faced them. Some of the boys were carrying giant pan pipes, and with a hop and skip they launched into a cheerful staccato tune. Slowly they increased the tempo. As the girls gracefully twirled around, the boys, still playing their pan pipes, began leaping and spinning in an extraordinary display of athletic and musical prowess.

The following day was one of those classic Caribbean days of crystal clear skies and sparkling seas. One of the great pleasures of the Guna Yala is jumping into a boat and sailing off into the archipelago to discover your perfect tropical island. Many of these are occupied by just one family who, for a small charge of one or two dollars, allow visitors to laze around all day on the pristine beaches DANTEmag n.6

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and snorkel around the colourful reefs - diving is forbidden in the Guna Yala.

It’s a small price to pay for a slice of paradise. At Ansuelo Island, the previous day’s storm had left exquisite pink-lipped Queen conches strewn on the sand, while just offshore shoals of butterfly and angel fish were curiously probing a piece of driftwood caught on the reef. In the lagoon, a father was patiently teaching his daughter how to canoe while the mother looked on proudly from the veranda of their wooden hut. After a swim around the island I flopped into a rectangular hammock slung between two palm trees. It was the most comfortable one I’d ever snoozed in. After half an hour or so, the father came over to collect my visitor’s dollar and ask me if I’d like a coconut drink. I felt glad that international tourism interests had made so few inroads in developing the Guna Yala; it would be impossible for these tiny fragile islands to sustain any significant development. Lying in my hammock, sipping a coconut as a guest of a local family, I felt that this was about as close to ecotourism as I was ever likely to get.

Fact Box: For more information on the Guna Yala visit www.visitcentroamerica.com www.visitpanama.com

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Carti Sugdup woman

Guna girl and piglet

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Mexico’s Eco-tourism Quest: In Search of a Gentle Shark By Massimo Gava A gentle shark seems a laughable contradiction in terms – the stuff of sketch comedy routines. But the whale shark pretty much qualifies. And it’s doing about as well as you’d expect, in today’s tough marine environment – that is to say, not very well at all. But Mexico, in partnership with a number of agencies, is working to preserve and protect this very ancient and vulnerable creature.

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Sir Richard Branson swimming with whale sharks off the coast of Mexico.

Courtesy Shawn Heinrichs for Wildaid

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Do Hemingway’s blood-soaked tales of deep sea fishing leave you cold? Can’t stand to see dolphins reduced to cheap party tricks in tacky man-made sea parks? Genuinely feel concern over the desperate need for marine conservation?

Do you agree with former US President George W. Bush’s wisdom: “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” ? Still want to sip the perfect margarita, be serenaded by mariachis, and eat your ceviche with a clear conscience, while helping the environment and undertaking an eco-tourism adventure that will stay etched in memory forever? Then swimming with the epic whale shark in the Caribbean waters off Cancún, Mexico may just be the ticket for you.

And don’t let the name put you off. It is indeed a shark, belonging to a species some 60 million years old, so it’s also a dinosaur. It is a vegetarian on the whole, feeding off algae and plankton, though it has been observed swallowing whole schools of fish on occasion. It is most certainly not the man-eating

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variety of shark Peter Benchley first terrorised us with in the book Jaws, and later immortalised on film – causing successive generations of movie goers to be paralysed by the thought of ever swimming in the sea.

In fact, the whale shark is a highly docile – one could even say friendly – fish. It is the largest fish in existence, with the biggest found thus far measuring nearly thirteen metres long and weighing some twenty-one-and-half metric tons. That’s why it is named after its mammal counterpart and rival for biggest living creature swimming in the sea – the whale.

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Whale sharks are actually so docile that humans can swim with them. Younger whale sharks have repeatedly been observed actually playing with swimmers.

The problem is that since they habitually swim so close to the surface, they are easy prey for fishermen. They are now increasingly at risk from commercial fishing in all the tropical seas that are their natural waters, from Central America to Southeast Asia.

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But Mexico, together with a host of international NGOs, is helping to lead the way in preserving the majestic whale shark for future generations and conserving the natural order of the aquatic ecosystem. Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where the waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico meet, has long been one of the corners of the globe where whale sharks proliferate.

“Mexico regards the abundance of whale sharks in its waters as part of its natural patrimony and is keen to defend the species by raising greater awareness through the promotion of responsible eco-tourism,” said Manuel Diaz Cebrian, the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia Regional Director of the Mexican Tourist Board. “For this reason,” he says, “recently the Mexican government, in partnership with the Travel Foundation, has devised a guidebook of suggested rules and regulations for swimmers and divers to be enforced not just in Mexican waters but, it is hoped, worldwide.”

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Sir Richard Branson swimming with whale sharks off the coast of Mexico.

Courtesy David Dyson

mercial fishing of the species is not only good for the environment but seems to make economic sense. Globally, the whale shark industry generates only some 47 million dollars in revenue, where the gentle giants are fished primarily for shark fin soup. By contrast, the carefully managed preservation of a just a single whale shark over the course of its lifetime is worth an estimated 2.09 million dollars in eco-tourist revenue, according to marine biologists and conservationists.

As the whale shark gains greater prominence as an endangered species worth safeguarding, one of the most recent advocates for its preservation has been British tycoon Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin commercial empire. A host of Virgin companies are now partnered with the NGO Wildaid to encourage more responsible eco-tourism in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

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is home to a wide array of specialised tour companies that will take you on your own sea safari. So if you’re seeking that once-in-a-lifetime experience with one of the wonders of the sea, pack your bags and head to the Isla Contoy National Park in Cancún. Try to plan your trip anytime between May and September, when whole schools of whale sharks gather to feed.

Your dollars will not only boost the local economy, they will help raise awareness and allow greater resources to be used to protect a spectacularly beautiful creature that the Vietnamese have, since time immemorial, referred to as Ca Ong or Sir Fish. Sir Fish needs your help and support..

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Scuba-divers swimming close to a whale shark

Virgin Atlantic flies twice weekly from London Gatwick to CancĂşn.

For further information visit: www.virginatlantic.com.

Virgin Holidays is a member of ABTA and is ATOL protected.

For further information visit: www.virginholidays.co.uk.

For further information visit: www.visitmexico.com.

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Superfoods to the Rescue?

It happens almost like clockwork – the touting of the latest Superfood! It seems that one surges into fashion, fades away, and is promptly replaced by the next. Are these foods so heroic?

Now chia is the new kid on the block. Will it save the day? Solve all our nutritional problems? Save us from ourselves? Maybe… maybe not…. Chef of celebrities Marco Pernini does some due diligence.

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Oh, Mamma mia! Here we go again with the latest “super food in town.” It’s called chia and – what a surprise – it comes from America. Boo hoo!

I don’t want to sound like a nonbeliever, but the hype American health advisers surround such things with always gets to me. I always ask myself, is this another marketing method to yet again entice gullible people to spend lots and lots of money on superpriced “superfood”? Or is it really worth it?

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Take goji berries. When they first arrived in the shops, they were the best things you could eat. If you didn’t have them in your cupboard, chances were that you were unhealthy and would probably age rapidly when you reached forty-five years, six months and three days of age. If you did include them in your diet, you’d live forever and maybe grow wings. I’m still waiting for mine to grow by the way – not that I ate them often. Not only were they overpriced, they didn’t taste very nice either.

But just to be magnanimous, I have done some research on this latest sensational superfood.

Spirulina

This blue-green algae is packed full of iron and vitamin B12, which are great for maintaining energy levels and fighting fatigue. This tiny aquatic plant is packed, ounce for ounce, with more Vitamin A than carrots and is a rich source of phytochemicals, which are said to help reduce menopausal symptoms and osteoporosis, and to reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer.

Chia was a staple food item for the Aztecs and the Mayans in pre-Columbian times. After the Spanish conquest, the Spanish banned the seeds because of their close associations with certain Aztec religions rituals. Today chia’s health benefits are being rediscovered.

According to Dr. Jack Bukowski, of the non-profit Nutritional Science Research Institute in the US: “[Chia] has a nutritional content that is really quite remarkable for a single food.”1 Bukowski continues that chia: • has a high level of calcium.

• is rich in omega 3 fatty acids.

• is high in fibre.

• contains iron and magnesium.

• is a powerful antioxidant.

I don’t want to sound bitter about these new grains, or superfoods, or whatever. I think that a reasonable weekly intake won’t kill you. In fact chia could be good for you. But don’t have excessive expectations, because, like the fashion-pack of the health food industry, superfood fads come and go, like catwalk trends.

To demonstrate, let’s take a look at the whole list of new superfoods I have read about so far this year.

Jerusalem Artichokes

Artichokes are a rich source of iron and antioxidants.

The Jerusalem variety has the highest levels of iron, helping to beat fatigue, aid concentration and maintain a healthy metabolism.

Black Garlic

Black garlic is aged for a month in a fermentation process under high heat (hence its darker colour) and tastes sweeter than normal garlic. It doesn’t leave a pungent taste in your mouth. It contains twice as many antioxidants than traditional raw garlic and has levels of S-Allylcysteine, a natural compound that has been proven to help prevent cancer.

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Hemp Seeds

Hemp seeds are an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids, which help fight inflammation and joint pain, improve metabolism, and keep the heart healthy. They also contain a more digestible form of protein than milk and eggs. Eat them raw in salads or grind them with a pestle and mortar and sprinkle them over baked goods or cereals. Hemp seeds can also be found in an oil form which can be used for cooking or a salad dressing.

Kukicha Twig Tea

The “twig tea” is made of the stems and stalk of the Kukicha plant and is a herbal remedy used for reducing bloated stomachs and boosting the immune system with its high levels of disease-beating antioxidants.

Typically found in tea form, it is low in caffeine, which helps keep blood pressure levels down.

Adzuki Beans

Adzuki beans contain more protein and less fat than any other pulse. They also contain high levels of potassium, which helps lower the risk of strokes and high blood pressure; fibre for good digestion; and zinc, which protects the body from inflammation of the joints and helps maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

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Ghee Butter

Although notoriously high in fat, this clarified butter used in Indian cooking is thought to improve memory, digestion, and boost the immune system. Ghee is made by simmering unsalted butter in a pot until all the water has boiled.

It is the milk solids that settle to the bottom of the pot and is best enjoyed in moderation.

Fenugreek

Commonly used in Indian cuisine, fenugreek is used as both a herb and a spice and is said to be good for reducing cholesterol, relieving the symptoms of diabetes and soothing menstrual cramps and menopausal symptoms.

Cupuaçu

This creamy-fleshed fruit, which is part of the cocoa family, is being billed as the new “super fruit” with its high levels of antioxidants. It can be found in health juices or in a pill. It is a rich source of vitamins B1, B2, B3, fatty acids and at least nine antioxidants (including vitamins A and C). The fruit has a similar effect on the body as caffeine without the caffeine content, so it energises the body in a natural way. You don’t have to eat it to reap the benefits as it can be found in face and body creams too.

Chia Seeds

As we’ve discussed, these tiny brown seeds are the latest nutritional super hero. They are great for maintaining healthy energy levels. They are also said to lower blood pressure and the risk of inflammation, as well as helping slow down premature aging by reducing the risk of free-radical damage to the skin. Sprinkle chia seeds on salads, including them in your dipping sauces, throw them in stews, or heat them up until they go soft and gel-like, then use it as a spread for sandwiches or include in baking recipes.

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Of course, if you want to incorporate chia into your diet (or any of the new superfood mentioned above) I suggest you do some research on where the seeds or the fruit come from to make sure they are grown with highest organic standards. Chia seeds grown with pesticides, like any other fruit or vegetable, are not fit for human consumption.

But whichever new superfood you decide to embrace in your diet, let’s not forget we are surrounded by examples we take for granted every day. For example blueberries contain moderate to rich concentrations of anthocyanins, vitamin C, manganese, dietary fibre, pterostilbenephyto-chemicals and have a low calorie content. All fresh fruit – bananas, pineapples and all fresh vegetables – broccoli, spinach, potatoes and avocado (I love avocados!) these are all superfoods we’ve been eating for ages. They may not be so new, but please don’t put out my favourite vegetables by dumping them for a new seed in town.

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NonnoPanda TALES

Nonno Panda and ... a Goblin an Elf and a Fairy

One day, wandering along life’s path, I got lost in a dark jungle and, unable to find the right way, I bumped into two strange creatures … an Elf and a Goblin. When they saw me, big panda that I am, they ran back into their holes.

Being a peaceful and endangered species, I did not think I could frighten a soul in nature’s kingdom. But obviously I was wrong. After a while, they very timidly tried to approach each other, while maintaining eye contact. They spoke, but the sounds of their own voices scared them and they rushed back into their holes.

What strange creatures, I thought. But, just as I had aroused their curiosity, they had aroused mine, so I decided to stay and see what other peculiarities they might show me.

Soon the Elf emerged, poking just his head out and then so did the Goblin.

I sat still, not making a sound. They both looked at me, puzzled. But, no questions had been asked and so, seeing that I posed them no threat, they got used to my being there. Meanwhile, they started to make friends at a distance – still from the safety of their holes, though.

“Oh! It’s you. You scared me,” the Goblin said. “I thought you were a Human.”

“You scared me too,” replied the Elf. “I thought you were one, too” “My father sent me” said the Goblin, “to see what the hell these Human scoundrels were getting up to. We haven’t heard them for such a long time and my father suspects they’re up to no good.”

“I think you’re going to be disappointed,” replied the Elf. “Why?” asked the Goblin.

“They’re all dead,” said the Elf smiling, as if already knowing the answer to the riddle.

“What?!!?” cried the Goblin, hardly containing his shock.

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My shock, too!

“All dead,” continued the Elf, stretching a little.

“How?” said the Goblin frowning. “Hang on, you’re having me on, aren’t you?”

“All I know is that the Human race is extinct,” the Elf said with an even bigger smile on his face.

I gulped but let them carry on.

“Holy Nature! That’s breaking news!” said the Goblin.

“Ha, Ha,” the Elf burst out laughing. “You fool! Do you think we need to have “the news”, now the Humans are all dead?”

The Goblin looked down and said softly, “Yes, you’re right, but if there’s no news, how will we know what’s happening in the world?”

“What are you talking about?” asked the Elf. “Well, to know if the Sun’s risen or set. If it’s going to be cold or going to be hot. If it’s rained somewhere, or even snowed. If the wind’s still blowing. How will we know all that?” asked the Goblin.

The Elf tried to comfort him.

“I believe that Fortune will withdraw into the wings. She’ll just see how things are, without poking her nose in. There won’t be any more kingdoms and empires that blow up and burst like soap bubbles. Nobody will fight wars because there’ll be nothing to fight over.”

“Holy potato!” said the Goblin turning away from the Elf. “How will we know what day it is? How will we know if the Moon is waxing or waning?”

The Elf replied, “How ingenuous you are, my dear. Do you really think the Moon doesn’t know what to do? It will carry on gradually revealing itself like it normally does, a little bit at a time.” And he did a mime to cheer up the Goblin. “A thumbnail, a toenail, half moon. Two thumbnails, two toenails, full moon. Then slowly it will fade away – a thumbnail, a toenail, half moon - finally disappearing again.”

The Elf ’s ridiculous show made the Goblin smile.

“That’s the Moon’s little game. No different from what women would do to draw men into their lovers web.”

This slightly original take on things nearly made me laugh, but I held back so they wouldn’t run back into their holes.

“But what about the Days of the Week? They won’t have names anymore,” said the

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Goblin.

“It won’t be that bad, you’ll see!” replied the Elf, who seemed to have an answer for everything. “Do you think that just because you can’t call them by a name they won’t exist anymore? Don’t be so unimaginative. I honestly don’t think it’ll make much difference.”

“What are you on about?! It sounds like you’re saying there’s nothing to worry about,” said the Goblin, becoming rather anxious, as the idea of the Humans’ disappearance began to sink in. “How will we know how many Years have gone by since we were born? How…” “But that’s a plus, isn’t it!”, interrupted the Elf. “We can make ourselves out to be younger than we are. The Humans did it all the time. Then they wrote down the dates so they couldn’t lie anymore.

There was always a record of it stored somewhere. Whereas not measuring the time passed, we won’t have to think about it anymore.”

“You’re right,” said the Goblin. “We could grow old without knowing it. Hurray!”

The thought of that made him so happy he began skipping about, and I have to say I would have done the same, if my old legs had allowed me.

“Age won’t exist anymore,” said the Elf jumping from one rock to another. “Or ageism! Those wretched people who see old age as a parking lot, where you’re just waiting to pass away.”

He shot me a brief glance, then carried on.

“They think of our youth as the high point of life. They don’t take experience into account. So if an old person -” the Elf glanced at me again, “seemed younger than a young person, and didn’t behave like an old person was supposed to , he’d be regarded as ridiculous.”

“It’s true. They just focus on outward appearances. Oh! What fools!” The Goblin stopped skipping. “How did they become extinct?”

I had been asking myself that question. Not surprisingly the Elf had an answer.

“It started like this.” he said, settling himself down on a rock. “Some of them from fighting wars over religious arguments and then others tore themselves apart in exchanges they called business. And then some others - quite a lot actually - out of tune with what they saw as their lives, died by their own hand, or from drugs, prescription medicines they took to get some relief from the pain.

Others were just bone idle, one of their main vices while lots racked their brains over computers and a maze of technology. In the end, they were poisoned by the products they had made themselves.”

“Still, I can’t believe everything could just collapse like that,” said the Goblin.

“That’s shouldn’t come as a surprise,” said the Elf, trying to cheer him up.

“You’ve been around since the beginning so you should remember this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Many animals that existed in the old days are now just fossils. Those beasts didn’t use as many tricks but they ended up the same way.”

“If it really happened like you say, I’d love for one or two of those bigheads to come back here and see how everything is carrying on as it did before, without them.”

This idea excited the Goblin and he grabbed the Elf ’s hand and they started to dance, crying out louder and louder.

“They believed the world was made just for them,” said the Goblin.

What kind of bamboo leaves had I eaten? Maybe GM ones? The two of them were unfazed by my presence by now. The Goblin even gave me a smile.

It was only when the Elf said, “Humans didn’t understand the world was made for Elves” that the Goblin stopped playing their game.

The Goblin said, “Do you believe that?”

“Of course,” replied the Elf. “But everybody knows the world is made for Goblins,” said the Goblin.

“Oh! That’s rich!” said the Elf, squaring up for a fight. “For Goblins, eh? That live underground. The Sun, the Moon, the Sea, and the Countryside ... what’s that to a Goblin?”

The Goblin got closer and, facing the Elf, replied, “For that matter, what does an Elf care about gold and silver mines, and the rest of the Earth below?”

Just as I thought I might have to intervene, a voice out of nowhere said, “What are you doing?” And there apeared a beautiful creature.

The Elf went up to her, “Can’t you tell? We’re arguing.”

“What about?” she asked.

The Goblin came up behind the Elf and added “I said the world was made for Elves and he said it was made for Goblins.”

“But who are you? A human?” They both asked, almost at the same time.

“A Human, ha ha ha…!” She laughed. “I am a product of man’s imagination, an illusion that became real. Exactly like you, my friends. Here you are, squabbling over stupid things, just like the Humans used to do.”

“Then you must be a fairy,” said the Goblin.

“Of course I’m a Fairy!” said the beautiful creature.

“Oh! A Fairy!,” the two of them repeated together as if they’d just discovered who she was.

The Goblin got closer, “You’re right, Fairy, we let ourselves get carried away. That’s weird we did that.”

“It’s not so strange,” said the Fairy, “the Humans were like that too. They argued all the time, and without realising which things were really worth arguing about and fighting for. That’s how they forgot their feelings.”

“Oh yes,” said the Goblin, “I know what the Humans would say. They took over our earth, digging with mechanical arms, waking us with huge bangs, extracting our stuff, because they thought it belonged to them. Nature had hidden it from them almost as a joke, just to see if they were clever enough to find it.”

I had to admit that they had a point.

“Yes, and that’s not all!” added the Elf. “They thought the things of this world had no other use but to serve them. They didn’t realise everything relied on each other, and was of use to something else. The history of mankind became the history of the World. How is it they didn’t realise they were turning the World upside down?”

The Fairy said, “Many saw their habitats disappear just because they were of no use to the Humans.” “ They didn’t understand they were harming themselves,” added the Goblin.

“How could they have got so blind?” asked the Elf. “You know their expression: “The blind leading the blind.” Well they obviously made a virtue out of it,” said the Fairy.

She had a point.

The Goblin said, “All the fruits of the earth had been given to them. But they worked at trying to create new things but never noticed they were just creating illusions.”

“Or perhaps they pretended not to notice,” the Elf added.

“I’ll tell you a story,” said the Goblin, sitting down on a rock.

“Once, when there were still the Humans, I saw some women queuing at the local water fountain with pitchers on their heads. They were complaining. The weight of the full pitchers gave them a headache.

A few years later, in the same country, I saw they’d rigged it so that the water ran directly to their homes. But the headaches hadn’t gone away. Before the water got to their homes it had to be processed.

They used chemicals, which caused these headaches. A few years later, the same women DANTEmag n.6

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from the water queue, were queueing up at a “supermarket.”

That’s a big shop that sold everything - where you could buy from looking at a photo, and sometimes even things you didn’t need but just because they were on sale.

The women complained the water at home was polluted and undrinkable. They were edgy because they had to wait to fill up various containers. Hence their headaches.”

The Elf was laughing. “It’s true. The Humans were complaining about the distance they walked to their village. At first they had animals to carry them to make things easier . Then, to reduce the time it took even more, they used “cars.” They depended so much on these cars that there were so many they couldn’t move anymore in towns. They found they could get around more quickly on foot, so they went back to walking!”

The Fairy said, “They created a new illusion. Having this thing would make them luckier or cleverer or more beautiful or even more intelligent.

The Human thought that by owning something others didn’t have, he would be better than them. I, more than any of you perhaps, was a creation of their dreams. Dreams that helped them get through the night, their rest from the daily grind. My role was to suggest situations and ideas to them, which I’d gleaned from their hidden desires.

I made these real during the hours they were free to think without constraints. They woke up in the morning able to face the day ahead with greater calm and enthusiasm. Others wanted to realise their dreams straightaway because they saw things in a different light.

They made themselves think that everything was possible where there was a will to do it.

Then they announced that the Humans lost a third of their life in sleep. If they managed to overcome that need, they’d be able to do more, so they started not to sleep, to suffer insomnia. They couldn’t relax anymore. They believed in nothing, unless it was verifiable by the waste paper ” money,” or the solid plastic paper called something else.”

The Goblin said, “Like those who went to school and studied books to learn how to live. Everybody was clever but could only talk about others who they thought were cleverer than they were, those who had read more books.”

“They no longer had a sense or a measure of things,” said the Elf. “Everything was topsy-turvy. The Humans became confused. They no longer followed their natural rhythms; they lost any real contact they’d had between themselves.”

“Perhaps you mean that they didn’t talk to each other anymore,” said the Goblin.

“They talked to each other but they didn’t listen to each other,” replied the Elf. “Their illusions overwhelmed and disorientated them. It was a vortex. They knew what they were doing wasn’t helping. Their business was without the exchange of real goods. It was a gamble.

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The lucky ones tended to get luckier and the unlucky ones unluckier.

Instead of correcting it, they went on talking and talking in order to convince themselves it was correct behaviour.”

“Perhaps the problem was the Humans didn’t believe,” said the Goblin.

“But they had things to believe in!” said the Fairy. “If only they looked around. If they’d given in to their feelings, travelled the world like Ulysses.”

“Instead,” said the Elf, “they took a wrong turn. They traded a life of harm for one of deliberate confrontation, challenging the world and each other.”

“You say that,” said the Goblin, “but maybe it was too painful and full of sacrifice.

With their illusions, they didn’t suffer.”

The Fairy replied, “It postponed the pain, but the Humans were never happy. Overturning everything nurtured their aspirations. I believe it was inevitable they chose that path.”

“Ah! They would’ve had to have been Gods to understand that,” said the Goblin.

“They just wanted to distinguish themselves from other animals.”

“But they ended up confirming they were animals like the rest, convinced that the earth revolved around them,” said the Fairy.

“They were under an illusion. And to think they studied the history of ancient civilisations, and attributed their unexplained fall to a lack of technology!”

“I’ll tell you,” said the Elf, “the Humans may have disappeared but the rivers haven’t yet grown tired of flowing, nor the plants of growing. And the sea doesn’t have to be used for traffic. You don’t see it drying up or changing colour. The stars and the planets still come out, the sun and the moon still set. Mother nature seems to be smiling again.”

“I dare say the earth doesn’t seem to miss those wretched people” said the Goblin.

“Well then, dear friend, that’s what you can tell your father,” said the Fairy.

“Sure”, said the Goblin, “I’ll tell my father: that the Humans are dead, but one can still hear the sound of wind that rocks one to sleep; that daylight is more brilliant than ever; that rivers and seas carry on.”

The Fairy said, “There’s no point saying all that. All you need to tell him is that the earth is clean now. He’ll know that’s not an illusion.” Then she smiled.

Just then, the wind started to blow and the branches of the weeping willow waved like an unfolding curtain. Then they were gone. .

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Leviathan

By Chris Kline

T

The Descent into Chaos: How to End Syria’s Bloodbath?

Syrian state television keeps broadcasting that calm has largely been restored and that government troops are firmly in control although fierce fighting is underway in Damascus itself, in Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and indeed in virtually every corner of the country in what can at last be properly described as an all out civil war. Try as they will to impose an information blackout, the Syrian regime has found it impossible to silence the thousands of citizen journalists and members of the rebel Free Syrian Army from daily posting online a steady stream of graphic videos documenting the epic struggle underway to liberate Syria from Basher al Assad’s weakening grip. Credible human rights groups within Syria and outside it now estimate the death toll as approaching or perhaps already exceeding 20,000 – the vast amount of the fallen, civilians.

That number is certain to grow. The world cannot avert its eyes; the Syrian Civil War is in plain sight for those who care to look.

Since the uprising began last March an array of key variables have remained: a steady escalation of the violence and the consistent refusal of Russia and China to enable any meaningful action by the United Nations Security Council are the most glaringly obvious. In practice Kofi Annan’s peace plan is so much crumpled paper. A handful of unarmed blue berets serving as military observers alongside international humanitarian teams have been unable to effect anything other than to be impotent witnesses to the ongoing slaughter. As it is, it’s too dangerous for them even to observe and the mission has now come to an end.

Just as Russia remains Assad’s chief weapons supplier, so too has Iran kept supplying equipment and advice to its troubled client throughout, and now ponders whether it will ultimately see fit to intervene militarily, however remote or reckless and undesirable a decision it would be, given Teheran’s other troubles. Complicating things further, Assad, as a last ditch ploy, has now granted de facto autonomy to the considerable Kurdish minority within his own northeastern borders, so long as they do not embrace the uprising against him. It is a move

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which has alarmed Ankara, now routinely stepping up large scale military exercises near its frontier with Syria where Kurds predominate. If a buffer zone established with Turkish military power seemed all talk before, Turkish military incursion aimed at curbing nationalist Kurdish ambitions is a more tangible reality now.

Moreover, a landbridge linking the Northern Iraqi Kurdish statelet and the predominantly Kurdish areas of Syria would be one step closer to the long-held ambition of the Kurds for their own state, at least in prototype form. The fact that Syrian Kurds have expressed their sympathies to Kurdish separatist PKK rebels, who have been waging an insurgency against Turkey since 1982, is a clear tripwire on the road to an expanded conflict. Iraq has expressed its own warning to Ankara not to make the incursion and in turn Teheran is threatening to honour its defence pact with Syria to counter what it labels potential Turkish agression. Ironically, Teheran is also quietly concerned with Iranian Kurds, seeing the situation in Syria as a potential call to arms. The possibility for a greater Kurdistan, has never seemed closer, but for the Kurds - the largest national group of people on earth lacking their own nation – a state of their own would come at a heavy price.

Tensions also keep spilling over amongst Sunni and Shia Muslims in neighbouring Lebanon. Damascus like Teheran has long been Hezbollah’s patron but why should Hasan Nasrallah seek to provoke a catastrophic fight to match the fate of his waning master? Any move

by Hezbollah would certainly make Israel nervous.

In fact, everyone in the neighbourhood is nervous and the fear reso-

nates all the way to the White House, Number 10 Downing Street and the Elysee Palace. The fear in those far-flung halls is that once Assad’s Alawite dictatorship crumbles, a pogrom of Alawites could ensue by vengeful Sunnis. And how would the sizeable minorities of Christians and Kurds fare (though some among the latter now figure prominently in the Syrian resistance)? The other whispered fear is a disintegrated Syria serving as the tripwire, igniting sectarian hatreds in a greater conflict amongst Sunni and Shia which might engulf the whole region. A fragile Iraq has been in that ugly mood, more or less, for years already. In the worst case scenario, the larger war slowly looming on the horizon could see not only Syria but also Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and ultimately Israel all embroiled in conflict, a Middle Eastern reprise of Sarajevo in 1914, one smaller fire fanning far bigger flames that nobody will know how to extinguish.

In the meantime, the once amateurish FSA looks increasingly professional, ever more competent, confident and lethal on the battlefield and rumours will not fade away that Saudi and Qatari arms are flowing to them, as well as small groups of Western Special Forces soldiers to advise them. The Syrian regime insists on calling the FSA terrorists and agents of Al Qaida. It is a characterisation they recoil from. Certainly a handful of stridently ideological Jihadists are now on the ground, but it is a mistake to regard the Syrian Revolution as anything other than a popular insurgency. Nor can the steady defections from the regular military be ignored, now including some 100 generals and senior officers who have changed sides, as well as the even more glaring defection to the rebels of the Syrian Prime Minister. There is, of course, the worrying notion of Syria’s stockpile of old fashioned but terrifying chemical weapons. Are they even functional? Would Assad dare to use them? And against whom? Are clouds of mustard gas next? It’s unlikely, and the lessons of Iraq’s illusory arsenal of WMDs should be instructive, but that they exist at all offers no comfort.

So what must be done? Moscow and Beijing show no signs of listening to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s stern invocations, appeals that ultimately seem to carry little weight when there is little in the way of substantive action or penalties behind them. Yet military intervention is a prospect that garners little traction anywhere, though one size does not fit all. Should the international community consider a more muscular approach and if so, in what form? The formula thus far is to let the FSA carry the burden with some outside help, to let the Syrians free Syria. But we may soon be at a place of no return, and we know Syria left in unchecked meltdown poses multiple dangers to itself and others. Where are there parallels?

When the escalation of war in the former Yugoslavia threatened to bring the West and Russia potentially to blows, NATO acted resolutely and swiftly, and it was not long from the time the tanks rolled until the Dayton Peace Accords were inked. With NATO stuck in the Hindu Kush and the sobering lessons of Iraq and Libya still resonating, it is not suggested that NATO would or should act alone.

But what of a coalition of NATO, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference under the UN flag – or indeed without it, if Russia and China keep going against history – hammering out a peace treaty for a post-Assad Syria and imposing it as Dayton was, with a force primarily composed of Muslim soldiers, a token but symbolic presence of Russians, Chinese and Iranian troops among them, and Western participation primarily confined to logistics, air power and humanitarian aid? And what if the Saudis and Gulf States helped the West bankroll the operation, with a larger force of civilian police from neutral countries coming behind the soldiers after the belligerents disarm and lay down their weapons?

The last piece is some country willing to host Assad in exile, until he makes a mistake, until the International Criminal Court is free to have him extradited and prosecuted together with the other war criminals in his regime. Key to the plan is devising a blueprint for a post-war secular, democratic, multicultural, multi-religious Syrian state, agreed to by the former combatants and with it, a national tribunal set up with help from international jurists, to oversee even handed postconflict justice.

A pipedream? Sheer fantasy and folly? The West and an albeit grudging Russia, together managed to get Orthodox, Muslim and Catholic Serbs, Bosnians and Croats to stop killing each other, despite their ancient hatreds, and after some 200,000 fresh corpses had littered the Balkans in the worst European war since 1945. Syria needs new ideas and bold, practical and urgent solutions. The UN is paralysed, but Russia, China and the West, despite their current enmity, have sufficient common interests in preventing the Middle East from becoming an even more massive funeral pyre. Nobody gains from the further unravelling of Syria and its myriad array of worst possible outcomes.

We dare not do nothing and what we are doing is not working. Have we forgotten how to horse trade? Where is the great and pragmatic diplomacy our age calls for? It would seem Damascus is not the only place where leadership is lacking.

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EMBASSY mayfair Chef Joël Antunès Launches New Restaurant in Landmark Mayfair Site

E Early November 2011 saw the successful launch of “Kitchen Joel Antunes” at Embassy Mayfair under the watchful eye of the eponymous chef, accompanied by business partners Dan Kapp, Jacobi AnstrutherDANTEmag n.6

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Gough-Calthorpe and Timo Weber, along with Mark Fuller, owner of Embassy Mayfair.

This stylish new restaurant has a 95-seat ground-floor with a 40-seat extended terrace. The newly designed interior by Jacobi and Dan has a mood of understated chic, echoing mid20th century Riviera glamour. A classic French patterned limestone-tile flooring complements the light Carrara marble topped bar while the seating sports leather in shades of duck-egg blue,

burgundy and champagne. A collection of Slim Aarons prints hang alongside contemporary art pieces, including a couple of Tracey Emin neons.

Joël Antunes was born in Volvic, France, and worked in a number of prestigious French kitchens, namely “Ledoyen”, with Paul Bocuse at “L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges”, with Marc Meneau at “L’Esperance”, Michel Troisgros, Jacques Maximin for a decade before moving

to London in 1991. He opened “Les Saveurs”, in Curzon Street, Mayfair, to incredible critical acclaim, gaining a Michelin star in 1994. He then moved to the USA, and launched “Joël” in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1999, which swiftly became one of the most talked-about restaurants in the country. He returned to the UK to open “Brasserie Joël” at the Westminster Park Plaza in March 2010 “Kitchen Joël Antunès” show-

“Kitchen Joël Antunès” is open Monday to Saturday.

29 Old Burlington Street, Mayfair, London W1S 3A.

cases a largely Provençal-based menu. Typical dishes include Jerusalem artichoke velouté with poached eggs and truffles, traditional Niçoise salad, pissaladière comme à Menton, octopus salad with caponata, shrimp piperade with basil, traditional coq au vin, osso bucco gremolata, sweetbreads with porcini, and roast sea bass with lemon.

Desserts feature some classics and also some whimsical offerings, including tarte tatin with vanilla, poached pear with

Reservations number 020-7494 5660. www.embassymayfair.com.

yogurt sorbet, chocolat liegois with nougatine, baked Alaska, and Kit-Kat peanut bar. A wine list of approximately 140 bins concentrate on the major European wine-growing regions.

In addition, coffee and pastries are served from 11am til noon and in the afternoon each day while a light menu is available after official last food orders at 11 p.m. to accompany your late night drinks with a licence until 1.30 am

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