A Ray of Sunshine in Myanmar

It's been quite a long time since I offered an entry in my "Ray of Sunshine" series. To refresh your memory, the earlier stories were about Greg Mortenson, who helps rural communities build schools for girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Dr. Sanduk Ruit, an eye surgeon who brings the gift of sight to thousands of poor people in Nepal.

If you're like me you're probably getting very tired of the daily gloom and doom that dominates the news these days. Conflict and strife, death and destruction, stalemate and stagnation, calamity and chaos -- these seem to be the media's focus most of the time. Something positive and uplifting would be a welcome relief.

Here's a possible candidate. And it's one from a very unlikely arena -- politics.

Her name is Aung San Suu Kyi,  a dynamic and altogether admirable populist leader in Burma (Myanmar) recently elected to Parliament after being held under house arrest by the military-run government for 15 of the last 21 years. She is pro-democracy, committed to peaceful means of bringing about social change, a proponent of compromise and reaching out to opponents, and so far as anyone can tell she is a person of the highest personal integrity, conscience and intelligence.  In short, a rather unusual politician -- particularly by current American standards.

I first became aware of Aung San Suu Kyi when my wife and I traveled to Myanmar early in 2012 (see "Mini-Monks in Myanmar").  Our visit happened to be during the campaigning for open seats in Parliament and Suu Kyi's popularity was evident everywhere we went.  The Burmese people often refer to her as "The Lady," a term of great respect and affection.  They clearly hold her in very high esteem and reverence for her years of sacrifice for the cause of bringing democracy to her country.

Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948. Suu Kyi's father was instrumental in that struggle and likely would have been a very prominent leader in the new government if he had not been assassinated by political rivals in 1947 when Suu Kyi was 2 years old. The fledgling government was democratic and representative, but had great difficulty dealing with conflicts between competing political and ethnic groups. The military took over in 1958 to stabilize the country and establish central control, but peace imposed from the barrel of a gun is notoriously unstable and when hostile factions are forced to coexist lethal pressure explodes when the force is removed.  Several attempts over the years to return to elected government resulted in chaos and the reimposition of military rule with an increasingly corrupt, cruel, and authoritarian leadership that has shown itself to be insensitive to the plight of the average citizen.  By the way, it was the military government that changed the name of the country to Myanmar.  For this reason Aung San Suu Kyi prefers to use the older name Burma.

In 1990 the military held the country's first election in 30 years, and although it tried to squelch the pro-democratic party of which Aung San Suu Kyi was a member by placing her and several other party leaders under house arrest, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the party candidates.  The military was of course displeased with the results and barred the winners from taking office.  After five years of continued suppression Suu Kyi was released from house arrest but not allowed to travel outside of Yangon.  Even with this restriction her popularity grew, threatening the regime's control.  In 2000 she was detained again and spent the next decade, except for a brief period in 2002-2003, under house arrest.

In 2010 the military held a referendum on a new constitution -- this one carefully crafted to contain provisions ensuring their continued power even in an elected government.  The referendum was held in the terrible aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in which the military barred foreign relief workers or even foreign planes to deliver aid.  At the time voting took place nearly 2.5 million people were still either homeless or in need of food and medical assistance.  Despite this the government claimed that 98% of the electorate voted and -- surprise -- the constitution was approved by 92%.  Feeling confident their power was secured,  Aung San Suu Kyi was finally released from custody and allowed to run for office, which she won by an overwhelming margin.  It remains to be seen how effective she can be in the restrictive governmental structure, but at least her voice can now be heard and she can exert legitimate influence on shaping Myanmar's future.

Her new freedom has also allowed her to travel internationally and to address audiences world-wide. And to hear her speak about her political and personal philosophy is a delight. She is articulate, rational, soft-spoken, compassionate even toward her opponents, and willing to admit when she is wrong.  Quite a contrast to the rancorous, sloganistic, dogmatic and mean-spirited political dialogue that characterizes most of our current crop of politicians and faux-news commentary. We would do well in the U.S. to follow her example. (If you want a quick taste of Aung San Suu Kyi's views and her personality, I recommend a recent 30-minute interview on our local PBS station show, Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox.)

I'll close with a few quotes that I think illustrate why I think she is indeed a ray of sunshine:

"Often the other side of the coin of intolerance is insecurity. Insecure people tend to be intolerant, and their intolerance unleashes forces that threaten the security of others. And where there is no security there can be no lasting peace. "  (Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing 1991) 

"A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity."   (Acceptance message for the 1990 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought)

"To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people."  (Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 2012)

TechnoWoes

Tech'no'woe, n.
1. a term invented by the author of Snow Crash to denote grievous distress, affliction, or trouble arising from difficulties with information technology devices.
2. a state of frustration and exasperation from trying to deal with too many @#%$! electronic gizmos and gadgets
3. a glitch, problem or failure of software or hardware that results in much wasted time, effort and emotional energy to solve or remedy.

I am not a Luddite.  I am not a technophobe.  I do not shun modern technology, as evidenced by my cell phone, Ipod Nano, two Ipod Touches, one Ipad, one laptop, two desktop computers, a wireless home network, two GPSr's, a flatscreen HD tv interfaced with a home theater sound system and dvr, wireless home alarm system, even a battery-operated corkscrew. And I'm pretty savvy at maintaining my tech arsenal and keeping its software and hardware up to date.

I enjoy using these devices -- they're useful, entertaining, informative, and they generally enrich my life. Indeed, it is hard to imagine doing without them.  My life would be much more difficult and tasks would be much more time-consuming.  No "Googling" a topic to get instant answers to almost any question, no mobile access to the thousands of tunes in my music collection, no online banking or computer-assisted financial record keeping and financial planning, no watching t.v. shows at my convenience and without commercials, no quick exchanges of messages with friends and family, no talking on a cell phone at the beach, an airport bathroom or a supermarket queue!  How primitive life was in the ancient past of  20-30 years ago, before we had these devices!  How did we do it?

Now the big HOWEVER.  As wonderful as all this technology is, my experiences with it are sometimes frustrating, exasperating, and a huge waste of time. This is partly due to the sheer number of devices, so that one or more of them always seems to have a problem at any given time. Another reason is that their underlying workings have become increasingly complex and opaque, making the causes and cures of glitches much more difficult to figure out.  I've nicknamed these technical failures "technowoes."  Here are a few recent examples:

The Forced Upgrade That Shortened My Life By Two Days

For many years I've relied on a certain well-known financial program to keep track of my money and to help me plan for retirement spending.  The great thing about this software is that with a touch of a button it will update the value of my portfolio, give me a current net worth value, and project my financial balances into the future given current spending levels.  As a retiree I find this is really helpful for budgeting and financial decision-making.

The software company upgrades the program every year or so but the newer versions generally don't have a huge advantage over the current one so I don't automatically purchase the upgrade.  However, after a few revisions the company withdraws support of the one feature I find essential -- the portfolio update -- and makes it available only in the newest edition.  Cha-ching! Forced upgrade.

I recently shelled out the money for the new version and installed it on one of my computers.  The installation seemed to go smoothly enough at first, with no cryptic error messages or system crashes. But then... technowoe.  As part of the upgrading process my old data file was converted to a new format.  When I ran the new program my balances were now wrong for several investments, obviously a major snafu.  Puzzled, I proceeded to spend many hours comparing the old and new data to see where the problem was, re-installed the new program several times, and in general pulled every trick I had in my Geek-wannabe repertoire.  I finally solved the problem in a way I'll talk about later.  But in the meantime this piece of technology that I relied heavily on was a major pain in the rear.

The "Free" Security Program That Actually Cost a Lot of Antacid

My old employer, Miami University, wisely furnished students and faculty with a fairly good anti-virus program that included regular updates provided at no cost through its site license.  As a retiree I was able to continue using the program and its update service.

Recently, however, university budget cuts led to the (unwise, imho) elimination of this service, with the somewhat lame recommendation that users switch instead to Microsoft Essentials -- a mediocre replacement that is free to anyone with a Windows PC.  Being the paranoid fellow that I am, I searched for a better (but still free) program by going to several authoritative sources that compare and evaluate software. I settled on one and installed it without major problems.

For a couple of weeks everything seemed to be fine, including the automatic updating feature (a crucial aspect for any anti-virus software).  Then the problems started.  One of my computers would suddenly freeze and it wasn't apparent why.  This of course required rebooting the system, a time-consuming procedure akin to watching paint dry or grass grow. A day or two would go by and then this would happen again, always without warning and without any obvious cause.  Since the last change to the computer was installing the anti-virus program I began to suspect it was the culprit, though why it would crash my system was a mystery.  I finally determined that the software was indeed the likely problem in a way I'll discuss later.  I selected another anti-virus program that so far has worked fine.  Difficulty solved, but with a lot of wasted time and frustration...and technowoe.

The Acceleration of Obsolescence

Back in the good old days (maybe 5-10 years ago) if you bought a new techno-toy you could expect several years of service before (1) it physically crapped out, (2) its lack of features compared to newer models made it either embarrassingly inferior or (3) the increased demands of new software outstripped the device's resources.

Not now.

Case in point is the blindingly fast obsolescence of my Apple products.  When the IPOD Touch first came out I was very intrigued with it but didn't buy one right away.  I'm not what the marketing gurus call a "First Adopter" -- I wait to see what the final verdict on new techno-toys will be and for the bugs to be worked out of the first round of devices. When the 2nd generation Touches came out I was ready, and bought one in March of '09.  This was my second Apple product and it won me over immediately, especially because of its usefulness during the considerable traveling that my wife and I do -- maps, email, destination info, itinerary details, etc.

Less than three years passed before its features and performance were so inferior to the newest version that in January of '12 I shelled out for a 4th generation model.  Among the must-have features were a front and rear-facing camera capable of stills and movies, and the ability to sync information with our other Apple product, an Ipad.  But my original 2nd generation Itouch is too decrepit and old to allow syncing -- in less than three years it went from wondrous techno-toy to techno-brick. The late Steve Jobs was truly a marketing genius.....

The Recursive Cure for Some TechnoWoes

I mentioned above that I was eventually able to solve my problems with the financial program update and the new anti-virus software.  I did this by using technology to overcome technological problems, namely by Googling or Binging my symptoms.  (The obsolescence of my Apple product was solved more crassly -- by spending money.)

Using a search engine to look for solutions to technowoes almost always leads to the revelation that no matter how unusual or odd you think your difficultly is there are others who have had the same or similar problems.  It also reveals something that has been true of the internet since it began -- there are many very smart people out there who are willing to share their knowledge and help you solve your problem. This sense of community and mutual support was at one time the hallmark of the "net," and it is very gratifying to find that there is a remnant of it in today's commercialized, socialized and politicized cyberspace.

The online repositories of technical wisdom used to be in various "USENET Groups" which were topical forums where people posted questions and others offered answers. Although the information you needed was probably there in the forum somewhere, in the early days there was no easy way to search previous discussions -- you simply had to look through the old postings or consult a FAQ that tried to summarize the most common questions and answers. These open forums still exist, of course, as do company-sponsored support forums.  But now searching for key words or for the entire wording of an error message is almost absurdly easy with search engines like Google and Bing.  The value and usefulness of this information is dramatically increased by its retrievability.  In fact, try to imagine the internet/WWW without search engines -- I doubt very much that its growth and infiltration of our lives would have been nearly as dramatic as it has been.

I should add that using technology to fix technological problems may still require a bit of Geekiness.  The information provided online often requires translation into ordinary language and sometimes involves arcane actions, like issuing "command line commands," or using REGEDIT. Of course, an alternative is to use a company's  customer support service. However, I phone tech support only as a last resort because it usually involves even more wasted time waiting for the call to go through, then struggling though a long frustrating session trying to understand the guy on the other end with a thick accent who claims his name is "Bob" or "Eric."

Technowoe is probably with us to stay.  It's part the price we pay for living in a wondrously technological era, and overall probably worth it.

But there are times when I yearn for the days of fewer gadgets and fewer problems.  Pass me my slide rule and typewriter, please.

Bad Consequences of Doing Good

Most of us subscribe to a form of Karmic causality theory that boils down to the idea that doing "good" things will benefit ourselves and others, whereas "bad" deeds will not only hurt others but also will come back to bite us. Of course, defining what is good or bad is a bit tricky, as the mountain of philosophical treatises on the subject will attest.  But in day-to-day living we seldom analyze our potential actions and their consequences with philosophical rigor, and instead rely on the "I-know-it-when-I-see-it" approach.  This works pretty well most of the time, but there are occasions when doing "good" has unintended and unanticipated negative consequences.  Here are a couple of examples (please offer your own if you wish):

Hijacking on the Hybrid Highway

Driving a car that gets high gas mileage is good.  Using less fuel saves us money and also lowers the negative environmental impacts from producing and burning fossil fuel.  There are other benefits as well, from lessening health problems associated with air pollution to strengthening our geopolitical position through the reduction of our dependence on foreign oil.

Technology has steadily improved the gas mileage of the average internal combustion engine, and has led to the development of hybrid and all-electric cars that use much less gasoline or none at all. Hybrid cars in particular have become increasingly popular even though they tend to be more expensive than comparable gasoline-only models.  To many people's credit, they are willing to spend more to do the "right" thing.

So what could be bad about this?

Well, most states fund their highway construction and maintenance through taxes on gasoline.  As consumption drops, so does the revenue needed to fix old roads and build new ones. High mileage vehicles, particularly hybrids and all-electrics, use less gasoline but contribute as much wear and tear on highways as other vehicles. In a recent USA Today article, Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton says of hybrid and electric vehicles: "The good news is they use less gas. The bad news is they have the same impact as a regular gasoline-powered car, yet provide little or no money for highway maintenance."

A number of states, including Virginia, are coping with this by assessing a yearly fee on hybrids and all-electrics.  In February, Washington joined Virginia and imposed a $100 registration fee for all-electric cars.  Similar legislation is pending in Texas, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Arizona.

It can be argued that this approach really isn't fair, because it seems to discourage "green" behavior, and the mileage gap between hybrids and regular cars has become smaller.  Regardless, states have to come up with some way of  funding highways, perhaps by moving to a usage tax that would apply equally to all vehicles -- you pay according to how many miles you drive, not how much gasoline you use.  Note that going to such a system would remove some of the incentive to own a high-mileage car unless the cost of fuel stays high.  Of course, the ultimate solution may be to reduce the reliance on automobiles altogether. Good luck with that in the USA.

Garbage is Good

Norway is one of the world's top ten exporters of oil and gas. It has abundant reserves of coal.  One thing it doesn't have though, is enough garbage.

Norway is like most northern European countries that are extremely serious about recycling and waste reduction and so the amount of garbage has fallen dramatically in recent years. This is definitely a good thing, right?  Less material going to landfills, reduced need for raw materials, less negative impact on the environment, etc., etc.  Also, these countries have highly developed methods of reducing their dependence on fossil fuels by burning garbage to produce energy -- definitely another good thing.  For example, in Oslo about half the city and most of the schools are heated with energy from garbage (NYT, 4/30/13).

However, all this green behavior has resulted in a shortage of garbage for energy production.  According to a recent NYT article, northern Europeans generate only about 150 million tons of garbage per year, but the incinerating plants can handle more than 700 million tons.

The solution?  Import garbage.  Norway and other garbage-burning countries are shipping garbage from those with abundant supplies.  Sometimes this is a win-win situation.  For example, Naples paid towns in Germany and the Netherlands to accept garbage, helping to defuse a Neapolitan garbage crisis (NYT, 4/30/13.  However, note the problem here.  In the long run this may lower the incentive to reduce garbage production because communities can (a) turn it into energy or (b) sell it or give it to those who do.


The late author Michael Crichton was very fond of exploring the unintended and often very negative consequences of well-intentioned human behavior.  Usually these bad consequences occurred despite careful planning and analysis -- think Jurassic Park or The Andromeda Strain.  Crichton was very good at portraying humans as stunningly and fatally flawed yet arrogantly confident in their planning and in their assessment of the probability of bad things happening from doing good. 

The lesson here is certainly not that we shouldn't try to do the right thing as we understand it, given the facts we have at hand.  Maybe, though we should be a little more humble in touting our "good" deeds as not having a downside.

Business Math + Banker's Math II: The Shoe That Didn't Drop

In my first installment in this series I recounted how Budget Rental Car padded their CEO's bonus by adding 4% to my rental bill in Italy for a foreign currency conversion charge, even though I thought I was avoiding it by using my Capital One credit card.  Apparently I had agreed to this fee when I signed my contract in Italy, though I don't recall reading it there and unfortunately I've misplaced the contract and can't check the exact wording.

I contacted Budget's Customer Service and asked how I could avoid this in the future, particularly since I had reserved two more foreign rentals, this time in Chile.  I'll let you go to the first blog the read the email exchange that ensued in which I received confusing and contradictory advice, ending with the rather astonishing admission that there is no universal policy about this fee:

Budget: Thank you for contacting Budget. Budget locations in Italy and in Chile are independently owned franchise locations and may have different policies in place which deviates from standard policy. As advised, renters are to make their currency request [my emphasis] at the beginning of the rental. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

As I pointed out previously the problem with "making a currency request" is that in one Budget email I was advised to request that the charge be in local currency, and in another email told to request that it be in U.S. dollars.

I gave it one last shot by contacting the Customer Service people in Chile directly:

Me:  My wife and I have reserved Budget cars in two locations for our upcoming trip to Chile:  Santiago (#xxx192US3) and Puerto Montt (#xxxxx5US1). I would like to avoid any currency conversion charges for these two rentals by Budget.  My credit card does not assess these and I would like to take advantage of this feature.

 How can I be certain that Budget will not assess me currency conversion charges?

 After considerable delay I received the following reply:

Budget Chile:  Dear Mr. Richard Sherman: According your request, inform you that is difficult for us confirm that you will not have any currency conversion charges, because we do not have any control over foreign banks, also our values and charges are systematized, maybe you could leave the guarantee with your credit card and pay of lease in cash.

 Everybody clear?

My interpretation of Budget Chile's email is that either (a) they were being deliberately unhelpful and if I wanted to avoid the Budget charge I would have to obtain wads of Chilean Pesos to pay the final bill, or (b) they had no idea what I was talking about because they never levied conversion fees themselves, unlike the Budget folks in Italy.

I went ahead with these rentals last month when we visited Chile, mainly because Budget's rates were very competitive and because I felt prepared to do battle over this.  Each time we picked up our car I asked the agent if there would be any additional charge for converting Pesos to Dollars, and I asked the same question again when we returned the cars.  All four times the answer was "no."

Of course, the proof is in the credit card statement, and so I have been waiting to see what the final charge amounts would be, as compared to the official exchange rates. The answer is now in, and to be "fair and balanced" (I can't believe I just said that), I have to report that Budget Chile did NOT add a conversion charge!

The lesson here is to travel to Chile and avoid Italy.  No, wait -- that's not it.  The lesson is that we consumers have to be constantly vigilant about business and banking practices in order to avoid unnecessary and unjustified charges.  And we can't become complacent just because we think we are prepared, like my use of a fee-free credit card. This becomes really difficult when you're in a foreign country and foggy from jet lag, but that's when you're most vulnerable.

Confusion, complacency and lack of information are a banker/businessman's best friends.

Lava Love: Geezers Gone Wild!

The airport in Kailua Kona, Hawai'i is built on top of a lava flow barely 200 years old.  Landing here is sometimes a jarring experience for tourists expecting waterfalls and rainforest because the landscape is instead a stark lava desert that looks a lot like dark brownie batter.  Of course we have waterfalls and rainforests too, but they are elsewhere on the island.

I live on the side of Hualalai volcano, one of five volcanoes that make up the mass of the island of Hawai'i (note, Waikiki and Honolulu are on a different island, not here).  Three of these are "active" volcanoes, meaning they are either erupting now (Kilauea, about 90 miles from my house), or are bound to erupt again in the future (Mauna Loa and Hualalai).  One of the remaining two is likely extinct (Mauna Kea, which has many world-class telescopes on its summit) and the other is quite dead (Kohala).

In short, there is a lot of lava around.

Most people assume that volcanoes erupt at their summit, often explosively, and lava flows down the sides in waves that gradually build the cone higher and higher as the lava cools.  But like many of our assumptions about lava, this one is very oversimplified.  For instance, another major way that Hawaiian volcanoes grow is by swelling from the inside as magma forces its way into cracks and crevices on its way to the surface.  Kind of like a pimple as it gets ready to "erupt" except that lava pimples are permanent and don't go away afterwards.

Another way is even more interesting, at least to a lava lover like me.  If a volcano erupts for a long enough period of time, it develops lava tubes, or conduits, through which the lava can flow for miles before being deposited on the flanks of the volcano.  The lava first forms channels, like stream beds or river beds, except that the force at work is thermal erosion, not water erosion -- the new lava melts its way into the older surface.  As the lava ebbs and flows in these channels the cooling sides get higher and higher and eventually close over the top, making an insulated route for lava to travel great distances before breaking out and coating the landscape.  The tubes can form a complex system in which they take different routes for a ways, then come together and diverge again, and each main tube can have many smaller side tubes. Also, newer flows can create tubes that enter older ones at a higher level making multi-tiered systems that resemble complex highway intersections.

When an eruption stops completely the lava in the tubes drains away, leaving empty conduits that can be as big as subway tunnels.  The cooling lava contracts and sometimes crumbles, collapsing the tube at its weakest points.  But long portions often remain intact.  For instance, the southern part of our island hosts one of the longest intact tube systems in the world, with over 32 miles of interconnecting underground conduits.  Shorter sections of tubes can be found in nearly all parts of the island.

To a near-geezer like me who wants to prove he is still young enough to do stupid and slightly dangerous things, these old tubes are irresistible.  For the past several years my hiking buddy from Oregon (also a near-geezer) and I have been exploring old lava flows and investigating the tubes that we can find.  Many of the tubes and openings are undocumented and unmapped and they aren't described in any guidebook.  They are also very difficult to find because the openings become hidden by vegetation or are in remote areas.  We've learned that some of the most unpromising-looking landscape can hold geological treasures, and we've become pretty good at reading the subtle clues in the terrain that may lead us to a great tube adventure.  It is terrifically rewarding to come across an opening and think that we used our wits (well, what's left of them) to locate it.  Very ego-boosting for near-geezers.

And getting inside is nearly always an awe-inspiring experience.  We're walking in the island's arteries, where 2000 degree molten rock once flowed and seeing the products of an unfathomably powerful geologic process from the inside!  Wow!

As lava flows through channels and tubes it spatters, splashes, and splatters, producing a limitless variety of fascinating swirls, drips, and globs that freeze in place as the lava cools.  [See my photos at the end of this blog for examples.] Some of these structures are extremely complex and delicate.  For example, the air movement that accompanies the flowing lava can produce a long drip that is needle-sharp and cools horizontally.  Gusts of air can also whip a long drip and stick the tip upward to form a loop or even a knot.  Some other features are

• lavacicles -- vertical stalactites from the ceiling of tubes.  These aren't formed by dripping water, though, but by the remelting of the ceiling as newer lava flows in the tube or by overhead intrusion of lava from a new surface flow over the old tube.
• stalagmites -- pillars of lava on the floor of a tube formed from lava dripping from the ceiling.  The heat in this case may come from new lava flowing over the top of the tube.
• bathtub rings -- newer lava flowing through a tube often leaves a "high lava" mark when it drains away.  Sometimes these are so thick they form benches along the tube walls.

I want to be clear that we are very respectful of the formations we find and try to be careful not to damage them.  And we never intentionally break off any of the features.

As rewarding as this activity is, there are also costs.  Hiking across a lava flow is a bit like using one of those balance boards at the gym -- the surface is uneven, unstable, and very unfriendly to aging muscles.  Moving through a tube sometimes requires a "duck-walk" strategy that aging knees really don't like at all.  And lava is really, really, really sharp.  Barely brushing against it can produce prodigious amounts of blood from delicate old skin.  Did I mention that "lava love" might be considered a bit stupid?

Complex drip patterns on side of a channel.

Look at how sharp and delicate this drip is!

A unique double-tipped drip.

Drip with tip stuck upwards. Hiking stick handle for scale.

Lavacicles

Figure this one out!!

Complex knobby drips with spatter on them.

More delicate complexity. Hiking stick for scale.

Alien hieroglyphs on side of tube.

Lava stalagmites deep inside a tube.

Great example of lavacicles.

Sharp lavacicles on ceiling -- don't bump your head!

Fabulous Synthetic Poop!

Last year I wrote about important scientific breakthroughs being made in understanding our microbiomes, the collection of trillions of bacteria that live on and in our bodies  -- see How About A Fecal Transplant?

One conclusion from this research is that our general cultural attitude that "the only good microbe is a dead microbe" is emphatically wrong.  We are very dependent for our health and well-being on these little critters, and in fact we can't exist without them.

The bacteria that colonize our guts are particularly noteworthy -- they enable us to digest food, synthesize certain vitamins, and fight off many infectious diseases. Normally the thousands of bacterial strains in our intestines form a complex ecological community in which competition among them is in balance. Of course, certain intestinal bacteria are quite harmful to us if they overwhelm the good guys, which can happen because of changes in diet, physical trauma, encounters with environmental toxins, or illness that weakens the immune system. One example is Clostridium Difficile, a strain of bacteria which can cause chronic severe diarrhea and other intestinal problems and is linked to 14,000 deaths each year in the United States. It is notoriously hard to treat.

In the past we have responded to Clostridium Difficile and other intestinal infections with a "nuke'm all" strategy of giving patients broad-spectrum antibiotics that kill both bad and good bacteria, not unlike a gardener spraying the entire garden with herbicide to get rid of weeds.  This has two unfortunate consequences.  First, the harmful bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics, requiring ever more powerful forms of treatments.  Second, wiping out the good bacteria destroys the normal ecological balance in the microbiome that can help keep the bad bacteria in check.

One very promising approach to these problems has been the fecal transplant, an "interesting" procedure in which the stool from a healthy donor is implanted in the intestinal tract of a patient with a bacterial infection, for example through fecal suppositories. The idea is that the healthy stool contains the complex collection of microbes needed to restart a depleted microbiome in another person. Despite what researcher Dr. Alexander Khoruts calls the "ick" factor, the procedure seems to work, particularly in Clostridium Difficile infections.

And now the really good news for those of us who have trouble with the concept of fecal suppositories, or in general with the idea that somebody else's poop can be good for us. A group of British and Canadian researchers reported just this month in the journal Microbiome that they have developed a successful new procedure that removes much of the "ickiness."  Their report has a catchy title:

"Stool substitute transplant therapy for the eradication of Clostridium difficile infection: ‘RePOOPulating’ the gut."

Who says scientists don't have a sense of humor?

The procedure is to take poop from a healthy donor, but instead of transplanting it directly to a recipient (thence the "ickiness), the bacteria in the poop are cultured in a laboratory and about 30 of the purified beneficial strains are combined to make "synthetic poop" that contains the bacteria but not the "ick."  The researchers call this material "RePOOPulate." Seriously.

The RePoopulate procedure has the advantage of allowing a high degree of control over the kinds and numbers of bacteria in the transplant.  This means the exact same treatment can be re-administered if necessary, and it also reduces the chances of inadvertently transferring diseases from the donor.  And once the bacteria have been cultured new RePoopulate can be concocted without a new poop donor.

This seems like a great advance to me, and you really have to give the researchers credit.  There is, however, just one teensy problem left to work on.  The transplant is performed during a colonoscopy.  For those unfamiliar with this procedure, see Dave Barry's famous essay on the subject.

Of course, I suspect if you are someone suffering from a Clostridium difficile infection you wouldn't think twice if a colonoscopy would end your suffering.

As for myself, I'm still hoping for a synthetic poop pill.
____________________________________
Additional links for the scatologically inclined:

"How About A Fecal Transplant?"  My blog last year on this general topic.
"Stool substitute transplant therapy...."  The Microbiome journal article on synthetic poop.
"Artificial Poop Transplant May Fight Bacterial Infection:"  A somewhat more readable article in LiveScience about the procedure.
 "Microbes For Breakfast"  My previous blog on why eating microbes is good for you.

Taste Buds Are Wasted On The Young!

We were at Redd, a highly-touted restaurant in the Napa Valley north of San Francisco.  We hadn't planned to eat there -- usually it takes a reservation weeks in advance -- but the personnel at a nearby wine-tasting establishment suggested we try the restaurant's bar, which serves wonderful appetizers and doesn't require a reservation.  When we arrived we found to our surprise there was an unexpected open table in the main restaurant,  and we opted for that instead.

Good choice.

Early in the meal the waiter brought a special appetizer, complements of the chef. He described it as "yellowfin tuna tatar with asian pear, avocado, chili oil, fried rice, and cilantro."

Hmmm... "Tatar," of course means "ground up and raw." For most of my life the idea of eating raw tuna would have been acceptable only if I was stranded on a desert island and near death from starvation. Since moving to Hawai'i (which is most definitely not a desert island) and having access to excellent fresh seafood, I've found that certain types (not all) of raw or lightly cooked seafood have a texture and flavor that is amazingly tasty. But it isn't just the flavor of the fish that I've come to appreciate, it's also the subtle, complex and surprisingly unique flavors and textures that a talented chef can create in the total preparation of spices, sauces and other ingredients -- in this case the fried rice (actually more like puffed), the pear and avocado, and the chili oil and cilantro.  This appetizer had it all -- delicious!!

By the way, the rest of our meal at Redd was equally subtle, complex, and just as likely as raw fish to be something I would have shunned in earlier years:  chestnut soup with roasted apples and brown butter, a beet salad with gulf shrimp, pomegranate seeds, fennel, watercress and yucca chips, and a main dish of rare Sonoma duck breast with cranberry spaetzle, sunchoke, spinach, and duck consomme.  All terrific!

In my youth I had strong and rather simple taste preferences.  If it was salty, greasy, and over-cooked I liked it (well, except for liver & onions, but that's another blog).  My mother, who did most of the cooking in our family, was raised on a Midwestern farm and learned to prepare simple, straightforward, and very satisfying dishes like pot roast, pork chops, fried chicken, and baked ham.  Slightly more exotic were her tuna casserole, macaroni & cheese, meatloaf, spaghetti & meatballs, and Swiss steak.  The only fish dishes I can remember were pan fried trout and baked fish sticks, neither of which I liked.  Since we couldn't afford to eat at restaurants very often this was my culinary world for many years.

It wasn't really until my wife and I began traveling abroad, which we started doing shortly after we were married and have continued ever since, that I was exposed to different and more complex food.  These travels also introduced us to cultures where the preparation, presentation, and enjoyment of food was a highly developed norm, like Italy and France.  About the same time we joined a "gourmet" dinner group that met several times a year.  Each dinner menu was chosen by a committee and different dishes were assigned to different members for preparation.  The result was a combined meal that would have been very difficult for any single person to produce, and it offered us the chance to sample a number of dishes we would not have attempted for ourselves.  It also produced social pressure to at least taste foods I never would have tried on my own. As our experience grew my wife became an adventurous and accomplished cook and her enjoyment of preparing a wide range of dishes means that we eat very, very well at home these days.  I pay for her efforts by being the clean-up crew.

Another contributing factor to my willingness to seek out new dishes is that my wife and I never order the same thing in a restaurant.  We pick things from the menu that we will share, and usually we look for interesting items on the appetizer menu.  For instance, we might have two or three appetizers and one main course.  That way we get to try more things and compare our reactions.

So over the years my appreciation for well-prepared, creative, subtle and complex food has grown stronger and stronger. It was a slow process with many dead-ends, disappointments and sometimes unfinished dishes.  But frankly I'm glad it took so long because now I think I value good food even more and don't take it for granted.  An illustration of my evolution is that one of my favorite recent movies is the 2007 Disney animated film Ratatouille, in which a Paris rat (yes, RAT) dreams of becoming a world-class chef.  His family naturally doesn't understand his odd appreciation for food that isn't garbage.  One scene I particularly like occurs early in the movie, when the main character (Remy) tries to explain to one of his brothers the magic of food and flavor.  Different flavors can be wonderful when tasted separately, he points out, but when they are combined in just the right way they produce something greater and infinitely more enjoyable than any single ingredient.  His brother nods in feigned understanding and then returns to eating his garbage.

I need to make it clear that there are limits to my culinary explorations. First, I'm not eager to try anything just because it's different or exotic or I've never eaten it before.  My threshold for organ meats, for example, is very, very high.  And just because someone exclaims how good something is isn't enough -- some people will eat ANYthing.  Second, I'm too cheap to ever enjoy a $200+ meal -- my palate can't possibly be refined enough to consider that worthwhile.  In fact, some of the best food I've had has been at rather modest places.  For instance, another meal we enjoyed beside the one at Redd on our California trip was in a small family-run restaurant that served some of the best Mexican food I've ever tasted -- total cost $10.  Third, I choose not to eat certain kinds of food for philosophical reasons -- see my blog on The Reluctant Carnivore Diet.

According to the NIMH's Medline, when we are young have about 9,000 taste buds on our tongues that detect flavors.  Unfortunately this number decreases after age 40-50 for women and 50-60 for men, and those taste buds that remain atrophy.  Sensitivity to the four tastes -- salty, sweet, bitter and sour -- often decreases beginning around age 60.  The exact reason for this decline isn't known: "Studies about the cause of decreased sense of taste and smell with aging have conflicting results. Some studies have indicated that normal aging by itself produces very little change in taste and smell. Rather, changes may be related to diseases, smoking, and environmental exposures over a lifetime."  To the best of my knowledge, there isn't anything you can do to stave off this decline.

So the sad fact is that I now have the experience and appreciation for good food that has taken me most of my adult life to acquire, yet my tasting equipment may be wearing out!  This isn't certain -- the loss of taste buds may not get to the point of interfering with my enjoyment of eating, but the possibility isn't pleasant to consider.

When I was young I may have had 9,000 taste buds but I really didn't know enough to put them to good use. As I now begin to lose them, for me the conclusion is clear:  Taste buds are wasted on the young!