Criticism. Essay. Fiction. Science. Weather.
week:
1As the maps to our official past, monuments and memorials literally set our history in stone. 2Civil War Re-enactments and the Bradley Fighting Vehicles that Love Them. 3One whatever's perspective on
American/Iranian relations 4Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming - Or -
Delaware is the geographical center of Ohio 5This is not about Terri Schiavo.
We promise. 6Stick it to the Gideons. 7California increases its prison population six-fold and strikes a blow for the union man. 8It's not you; it's me... 9What's the Christian Coalition going to do with this one? 10Corporate nonprofit? Isn't that an oxymoron? Jed Emerson doesn't think so. And neither should you. 11You heard it here first:
Michael Jackson, not guilty! 12What's good for GM is good for GM. 13The Quaterly Review continues...
...with 2 Essays from the archives. 14What's that smell?
Saying no to the post-expiration date Nation-State. 15An antidote to the All-Star Break: Life before
the homerun call was on steroids. 16An antidote to the All Star Break: Life before
the homerun call was on steroids (cont.). 17Riding the city at night with a radio. 18Why shampoo really is the key to global economic development. 19Goat meat and digital watches: how to lay down the law without writing down the rules 20The control button is right down there. Next to the Z button. 21Clear Channels and
Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices 22Le Corbusier, meet Dr. Livingstone: using blank spots on the map to plan urban development. 23Sunk before it started raining: how the Army Corps of Engineers dammed Louisiana. 24The Carceral Continuum: I got my diploma from a school called Rikers, knowhatimsayin? 25Hey Betty and Veronica, let's find out
who wrote the Book of Love. 26The quarterly reviews go marching two by two, hurrah! hurrah! 27It's a mosque; it's a church; it's ... a museum! 28We're back for seconds, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. 29The only thing standing between you and free Internet is the Titanic. 30Capitalism: the worst economic system,
except all the others. 31All the cool kids are doing it... 32In America you get food to eat; won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet. 33Q-Tip never wanted Tommy Hilfiger
to be his friend. 34I am what I am not, even if it's only because
that's what people think I am. 35From Good ... to Great! 36Daylight makes these cities shrink. 37¡AGUANTALA! 38A chicken in every pot and
a deed to every garage. 39Celebrate the seasons with the Quarterly Review! 40The jig is up, Mr. Nobel. 41Will the circle be unbroken?
By and by, Lord, by and by. 42There's nothing to figure out, General Turgidson. This man is obviously a psychotic. 43It's the Buddhists and the Communists
in a fight to the death. 44Yes, this Essay is about
Punky Brewster. 45This article isn't just about being a bad friend. 46Something has gone wrong with the bathmat. 47It's more of a suspended state of poverty. 48Politics has always been complicated, I guess. 49The Cuyahoga Daily Mirror, this ain't. 50If Air America couldn't do it
maybe Al Jazeera can. 51Bzz, Bzz. Who's there? A culture of transparency. 52RVs (but no propane) in the R.V. 53Adding ads ad nauseum. 54Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains: Peru's election goes to a runoff. 55The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid;
the second is pleasant and highly paid. 56Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere... 57If versimilitude can be lost, then it must exist. But how can it exist in a world of irreconcilable inconsistencies? 58Certain young, beautiful, economically powerful women please take note. 59Bugs. On drugs. 60Progress. Genuine progress. 61Electricity and music. 62Garcia in; Chavez out. 63I thought globalization was
something we did to them. 64Twenty-three days, 189 bicyles.
Could there be anything better? 65The First Quarterly Review:
Taste it again for the first time. 66An undersized, ill-dribbling twenty-something
feeling jealous. 67Wal*Mart goes organic. Right. 68Stop us before we pollute again. 69Yes, they actually measure that. 70Even the Amish guys are cheating?
Not so fast... 71What Jeffrey Sachs would proclaim if he spent all day sitting on his tuchus. 72Blueberry or coconut infusion? That'll be extra. 73Point being: ride your bike. 74If it's still broke, don't fix it. 75If Judd and Sam can do it,
so can I. 76Grandma Kenya's new cell phone
package totally rules! 77Two bracelets and two necklaces?
That'll be $20 and your manhood. 78What Jeffrey Sachs would proclaim if he spent all day sitting on his tuchus. 79The elusive fall season... 80Kenneth Pollack gets no respect. 81900 is the new 300. 82That's affirmative. Or, at least, it ought to be. 83Where's the outrage? 84Saddam Husseing - not a good person. 85Headaches call for leeches on the temples. 86Less than nine months behind schedule
and OK by me. 87We may not know all the words,
but we know when it's done wrong. 88Nephrons. And Frank Ghery.
You make the call. 89All these activist legislatures are enough to make you miss Samuel Alito. 90See it again, for the 90th time. 91A Seventh Quarter Two-fer. 92The man they called Body Love. 93Five years old is far too old for a federal law. 94Being Very Professional 95Not a single loaf has left the building
for over a decade. 96An Absentee article. 97You're less than nothing.
You're dirt. 98Get down to the basics.
The basic basics. 99You can almost understand
why Britney shaved her head. 100April's coming.
Here's what's in store. 101The coolest thing ever. I think. 102Not only are we going to grow mangoes, but we'll sell them, too. 103Famous for being famous. Just like Paris Hilton, but less trashy. 104Fourth Quarterly Reviews bring spring
showers and 90ways anniversaries. 105There's a new bunny in town. Just in time for Easter.
106Dream small. 107If Hillside won, then I was Truckzilla. 108Disco boys on bicycles.
The Use of Things that Belong to Eternity
Peter Forham
Here's something maybe you never thought about: all those chemicals that industrial farmers use to grow our food have to come from somewhere. It's not like DDT grows on trees (in fact, that would be totally absurd). But that's not really what I'm talking about. On that level we all know that DOW Chemical Company has massive, man-eating vats that churn out deadly chemicals on a twenty four hour a day basis. What I mean is that there is a chemical store that you can just go to and buy your eight million pounds of parathion, or whatever else you need. As it turns out, these stores get really dirty -- and not just like there's mud on the floor, but cosmically dirty. The real contaminant here is a class of chemicals called organochlorides. You might remember them from such environmental disasters as DDT and dieldrin. Like many other chemical pesticides, though, the early childhood of the organochlorides was a blissful one. Videos of life in the 1950's are full of children dancing in the wake of trucks spraying DDT, literally playing in this shower of chemical pesticide. The man who discovered the insect-killing properties of DDT and started the modern practice of chemically-mediated pest control actually was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1939.
However, organochlorides have proven to be highly resistant to breakdown, highly dispersible, and highly soluble in fat. These characteristics are important for several reasons: first, the chemicals remain active for a long time -- way longer than we really want them to; second, they can travel extreme distances -- organochlorides have been discovered at both the north and south poles, where I promise that nobody was trying to keep insect pests away from anything; and third, massive quantities of them can accumulate in animal tissue -- quantities much, much higher than ambient levels of the chemical. The upshot, then, is that organochlorides can have global effects that touch all types of animals for lengthy periods of time. This has been especially damaging to top predators because the concentration of organochlorides that they are exposed to is a function of the total exposure of all their prey put together. When animals like eagles and bears and humans breakdown fat stores to be used for energy, these chemicals are mobilized into the bloodstream in much higher quantities than those found in the environment. This can result in chemical interference with various hormonal processes, metabolic processes, and processes of the CNS, as well as the production of essential proteins. In the end, what you get is a whole lot of bald eagles with a whole lot of broken egg shells and no babies.
All of this in the name of killing bugs. Well recently the bugs have started to bite back. Researchers at the University of California Riverside have isolated a microorganism capable of rapidly and efficiently degrading the chemical endosulfan. While these same organochlorides make up the bulk of chemicals that have been banned from use in the United States, a good number of them still see fairly wide application. Have you ever had a squash or a cantaloupe? Chances are whoever grew it doused it with endosulfan. Chances are also that he bought it at one of these chemical stores I was talking about before. And chances are that that chemical store has organochlorides leaking out of every nook and cranny. That's where the bugs come in. These recently isolated bacteria consume and breakdown endosulfan so that they can use its constituent parts for their own purposes, namely as a source of both carbon and energy. All you have to do is unleash these guys on the old abandoned chemical store, or any other area of high organic pollutant concentration, and bing! A clean bill of health.
Discoveries such as this one present a tricky dilemma for the world at large. On the one hand, this story is a boon for the idea that quality of life continually increases through scientific innovation. Using bacteria to rid polluted areas of their contaminants appears to be a safe and natural solution to a very messy problem. Further, these little critters are a case in point for the defenders of biodiversity -- we must protect all organisms, regardless of obvious aesthetic or ecological value, because they may one day surprise us and clean up the whole damn planet.
On the other hand, though, remember this: The practice of using synthetically produced chemical agents to control biological entities has proved to be a messy and dangerous business. The idea that doing the reverse won't turn out to be equally messy and dangerous seems unfounded. Further, the idea that these microorganisms will turn out to be just as dangerous as the chemicals that we use them to destroy seems to have escaped everyone's attention. "Our life of need and work forces us inescapably to use in time things that belong to eternity," said Wendell Berry. The exploitation of one natural entity to control the effects of another, as he pointed out, looks like it could be an endless cycle.