MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010 Copyright © 2010 The New York Times
Supplemento al numero
odierno de la Repubblica
Sped. abb. postale art. 1
legge 46/04 del 27/02/2004 — Roma
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates
BACK IN 2007, WHEN the govern-
ment here announced its plan for
“the world’s first zero-carbon city”
on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, many West-
erners dismissed it as a gimmick — a fad-
dish follow-up to neighboring
Dubai’s 828-meter-high tower
in the desert and archipelago
of man-made islands in the
shape of palm trees.
The city, called Masdar, would be a per-
fect square, about a kilometer and a half on
each side, raised on a 7-meter-high base to
capture desert breezes. Beneath its laby-
rinth of pedestrian streets, a fleet of driver-
less electric cars would navigate silently
through dimly lit tunnels. The project
conjured both a walled medieval fortress
and an upgraded version of Tomorrowland
at Disney World.
Well, those early assessments turned out
to be wrong. By late September, as people
began moving into the first section of the
project to be completed — a 1.4-hectare
zone surrounding a sustainability-oriented
research institute — it was clear that
Masdar is something more daring and more
noxious.
The place blends high-tech design and
ancient construction practices into an
intriguing model for a sustainable com-
munity, but it also reflects the gated-com-
munity mentality that has been spreading
like a cancer around the globe. Its utopian
purity, and its isolation from the life of the
real city next door, are grounded in the
belief that the only way to create a truly
harmonious community is to cut it off from
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — Prompted by
fears of digital-era plotters, gov-
ernments around the world are
taking steps to implement new
security regulations for the Inter-
net.
In the United States, officials
want all services that enable com-
munications — including encrypt-
ed e-mail transmitters like Black-
Berry, social networking Web sites
like Facebook and software that
allows “peer to peer” messaging
like Skype — to be technically ca-
pable of complying if served with a
wiretap order. The mandate would
include being able to intercept and
unscramble encrypted messages.
The proposed legislation raises
fresh questions about how to bal-
ance security needs with pro-
tecting privacy and fostering in-
novation. And because security
services around the world face the
same problem, the American bill
could set an example that is copied
globally.
In India, government authorities
are well beyond the proposal stage.
Officials are already demanding
that network operators give them
the ability to monitor and decrypt
digital messages, whenever the
Home Ministry deems the eaves-
dropping to be vital to national
security.
The most inflammatory part of
the effort has been India’s threat
to block encrypted BlackBerry
services, widely used by corpo-
rations, unless phone companies
provide access to the data in a
readable format. But Indian offi-
cials have also said they will seek
WhenSecurityTrumpsPrivacy
DUNCAN CHARD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Carbon-free Masdar rises squarely from the Abu Dhabi desert to catch cooling breezes. The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.
NICOLAI
OUROUSSOFF
ESSAY
Con tin ued on Page 1V
Seeking a Desert UtopiaIn Arabian sands, a
green vision is lofty but
socially questionable.
INTELLIGENCE: America feels the ground shift, Page II.
Con tin ued on Page 1V
Fourteen years ago, a little-known
American author of two novels that
slipped into obscurity too quickly
for his liking published an essay
that did not suffer the same fate. In
it, he lamented
that his time was
so indifferent
to literature
that Time, the
magazine, would
never put a
serious American
novelist on its
cover.
But it wasn’t just literary
fiction that seemed bound for the
cultural scrap heap. A decade
later newspapers and magazines
throughout America began dropping
coverage of books altogether,
allotting the vacated space to gaming
and other trendy technology.
Books, it seemed, were no longer
news. Then, of course, the recession
hit, many of those book-spurning
publications went out of business
as well, and it seemed for a while
that the printed word was itself
threatened with extinction.
Today, newspapers and magazines
remain mired in the bleak outskirts
of obsolescence. But books have a
happier story to tell. Books suddenly
are generating more buzz than they
have in a long while.
First, there is the author of
that pessimistic essay, Jonathan
Franzen. You may have heard of him
by now: he appeared on the cover of
Time in August.
And the release of his latest
novel was so well orchestrated
you might have mistaken it for a
new Apple gizmo or video game.
But the hype failed to diminish its
cultural stature. In The Times,
it was proclaimed an American
masterpiece, and reviews elsewhere
were just about as ecstatic. A literary
novel became the season’s cultural
event.
But it was a season that already
had seen Chelsea Handler, the
immodest host of an American
cable TV show with a very modest
audience, use the astounding
success of a scurrilous new book to
shoot to a new prominence, earning
her a profile in The Times and the
host’s spot at the MTV awards.
And it was with a book that Tony
Blair, the former British prime
minister, thrust himself back into
the international limelight. As The
Times reported, his book stirred up
virulent protests but also sold “as
if he were the most popular person
alive.”
Even on the technology front, the
talk of the season was mostly about
books — electronic books, thanks
to the Kindle and, even more, to the
iPad. As The Times reported, iPad
users especially liked the fact that its
touch screen let them turn pages as if
it were a real book.
But an even more ironic triumph
for the book lies in this: a former chief
technology officer for Microsoft, a
physicist and chef who researched
high-tech cooking, chose to release
his findings not on a Web site or as an
e-book, but as type printed on dead
trees. A forest of dead trees: Nathan
Myhrvold’s “Modernist Cuisine”
will run to 2,500 pages over six
volumes and sell for $625. According
to The Times, gastronomes “greeted
with a collective sigh” recent news
of another delay in the book’s
publication. A chef predicted it will be
“the cookbook to end all cookbooks.”
And perhaps that is what it will
take to truly kill off books: not a
flashy alternative medium, but a
book so good it will make all others
redundant. Mr. Franzen, never short
of ambition, may already be hard at
work on the project.
CARLOS CUNHA
A Lot of Life Left in Gutenberg’s Legacy
For comments, write [email protected].
IIIWORLD TRENDS
Cracking down on
abortion in Mexico. VIIEDUCATION
A Cairo school where
learning is not rote. VISCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Egyptian desert
yields an ancient site.
LENS
Repubblica NewYork
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O P I N I O N & C O M M E N TA R Y
II MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010
Direttore responsabile: Ezio Mauro
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Supplemento a cura di: Alix Van Buren,
Francesco Malgaroli
Missed Goals on Delivering AidTen years ago, leaders of rich and
poor countries pledged to build a bet-
ter world by 2015. Among their vital
goals: halving extreme poverty and
hunger from 1990 levels, reducing by
two-thirds the child-mortality rate
and slashing maternal mortality by
three-quarters and achieving univer-
sal primary education.
As they gathered at the United Na-
tions the week of September 18, world
leaders had to admit that their prog-
ress “falls far short of what is needed”
to meet those targets by the deadline.
The global recession set many coun-
tries back. But rich nations — includ-
ing the United States — have not con-
tributed the money needed to make
this a reality.
The best way we can see of turning
this around is for wealthy nations to
make a generous and concrete pledge
of aid for the next five years — and
then deliver. The 0.7 percent of gross
domestic product endorsed by world
leaders in 2002 is a good place to start.
Unfortunately, the United States and
many others, including Italy, Germa-
ny and Japan, fall far short of that.
It was disappointing that President
Obama made no hard commitment
to increase development aid when he
addressed the United Nations confer-
ence on September 22. The legalistic
claims by some of his aides that the
United States never really signed on
to hard aid targets sends precisely the
wrong message. If Washington isn’t
willing to fully ante up, there is little
hope others will.
Still there was a lot in Mr. Obama’s
speech that made good sense to us.
He made a compelling case for why
foreign aid is an essential component
of an effective national security strat-
egy. And he outlined a promising new
policy to bring coherence to the often
incoherent American foreign aid and
development system.
He said the United States would still
be a major donor but would put new
emphasis on using all of its tools — in-
cluding trade and export credits — to
help poor countries get to the point
where they don’t need assistance. He
also, rightly, promised to hold recipient
countries accountable for improving
governance and combating corruption
and to be “more selective and focus our
efforts where we have the best part-
ners and where we can have the great-
est impact.” That, too, is essential.
The meager progress on the so-
called Millennium Development Goals
underscores why more effective aid is
so important but also why more money
is needed.
The best news is that the share of
people living on less than $1.25 a day
seems on track to meet the goal of
halving the extreme poverty rate. But
most of those gains have occurred in
China and other East Asian countries.
Poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa
remain way too high. The world is far
behind on many other goals.
Between 1990 and 2008, the mortal-
ity rate of children under 5 in devel-
oping countries declined only from
10 percent to 7.2 percent — far from
the target of a two-thirds reduction
by 2015. Maternal mortality declined
only from 480 deaths per 100,000 live
births in 1990 to 450 deaths in 2005. The
2015 goal is closer to 120. Enrollment in
primary education reached 89 percent
in 2008, up from 80 percent in 1991.
Nobody can know how much money
is needed to meet these and other ur-
gent development goals. But, in 2002,
rich donor countries agreed that con-
tributions of 0.7 percent of their gross
domestic product was politically fea-
sible. Today, only Denmark, Sweden,
Norway, Luxembourg and the Neth-
erlands have met the goal. In 2009, the
United States channeled 0.2 percent of
its G.D.P. to aid. On average, develop-
ment assistance amounted to only 0.31
percent of G.D.P. of developed nations
last year.
On September 22, world leaders
again urged developed countries to
meet this aid target by 2015. Talk is
cheap. They have to deliver.
Anger is sweeping America. True,
this white-hot rage is a minority phe-
nomenon, not something that charac-
terizes most American citizens. But
the angry minority is angry indeed,
consisting of people who feel that
things to which they are entitled are
being taken away. And they’re out for
revenge.
No, I’m not talking about the Tea
Partiers. I’m talking about the rich.
These are terrible times for many
people in the United States. Pov-
erty, especially acute poverty, has
soared in the economic slump; mil-
lions of people have lost their homes.
Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off
50-somethings fear that they’ll never
work again.
Yet if you want to find real political
rage — the kind of rage that makes
people compare President Obama
to Hitler, or accuse him of treason —
you won’t find it among these suffer-
ing Americans. You’ll find it instead
among the very privileged, people
who don’t have to worry about losing
their jobs, their homes, or their health
insurance, but who are outraged, out-
raged, at the thought of paying mod-
estly higher taxes.
The rage of the rich has been build-
ing ever since Mr. Obama took office.
At first, however, it was largely con-
fined to Wall Street. Thus when New
York magazine published an article
titled “The Wail Of the 1%,” it was
talking about financial power bro-
kers whose firms had been bailed out
with taxpayer funds, but were furious
at suggestions that the price of these
bailouts should include temporary
limits on bonuses. When the billion-
aire Stephen Schwarzman compared
an Obama proposal to the Nazi inva-
sion of Poland, the proposal in ques-
tion would have closed a tax loophole
that specifically benefits fund manag-
ers like him.
Now, however, as decision time
looms for the fate of the Bush tax cuts
— will top tax rates go back to Clinton-
era levels? — the rage of the rich has
broadened, and also in some ways
changed its character.
For one thing, craziness has gone
mainstream. It’s one thing when a bil-
lionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s
another when Forbes magazine runs a
cover story alleging that the president
of the United States is deliberately try-
ing to bring America down as part of
his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda,
that “the U.S. is being ruled according
to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the
1950s.” When it comes to defending the
interests of the rich, it seems, the nor-
mal rules of civilized (and rational)
discourse no longer apply.
At the same time, self-pity among
the privileged has become acceptable,
even fashionable.
Tax-cut advocates used to pretend
that they were mainly concerned
about helping typical American fami-
lies. Even tax breaks for the rich were
justified in terms of trickle-down eco-
nomics, the claim that lower taxes
at the top would make the economy
stronger for everyone.
These days, however, tax-cutters
are hardly even trying to make the
trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans
are pushing the line that raising taxes
at the top would hurt small business-
es, but their hearts don’t really seem
in it. Instead, it has become common
to hear vehement denials that people
making $400,000 or $500,000 a year
are rich. I mean, look at the expenses
of people in that income class — the
property taxes they have to pay on
their expensive houses, the cost of
sending their kids to elite private
schools, and so on. Why, they can
barely make ends meet.
And among the undeniably rich, a
belligerent sense of entitlement has
taken hold: it’s their money, and they
have the right to keep it. “Taxes are
what we pay for civilized society,” said
Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was
a long time ago.
The spectacle of high-income Amer-
icans, the world’s luckiest people, wal-
lowing in self-pity and self-righteous-
ness would be funny, except for one
thing: they may well get their way.
Never mind the $700 billion price tag
for extending the high-end tax breaks:
virtually all Republicans and some
Democrats are rushing to the aid of
the oppressed affluent.
You see, the rich are different from
you and me: they have more influence.
It’s partly a matter of campaign contri-
butions, but it’s also a matter of social
pressure, since politicians spend a lot
of time hanging out with the wealthy.
So when the rich face the prospect of
paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their
income in taxes, politicians feel their
pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s
clear, than they feel the pain of fami-
lies who are losing their jobs, their
houses, and their hopes.
And when the tax fight is over, one
way or another, you can be sure that
the people currently defending the
incomes of the elite will go back to de-
manding cuts in Social Security and
aid to the unemployed. America must
make hard choices, they’ll say; we all
have to be willing to make sacrifices.
But when they say “we,” they mean
“you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.
E D I T O R I A L S O F T H E T I M E S
PAUL KRUGMAN
The Angry Rich
LONDON
One of the characteristics of the
uncertain global economic recov-
ery is that it has been accentuating
inequality within nations even as it
is cutting inequality between them.
Wall Street has done better than the
American middle class. At the same
time, the United States as a whole has
seen emergent powers race ahead as
it struggles.
Neither of these developments
bodes well for America but it could
navigate the troubles better if it
showed greater receptiveness to a
changed world.
Take Latin America. The econo-
mies grouped under the BRIC acro-
nym — Brazil, Russian, India and
China — have all used the crisis to
demonstrate their new resilience as
well as their reduced dependency on
the American economy. But Brazil
has been a standout. Its 11 percent
growth rate in the year to March
2010 may not be sustainable but is a
reminder of the Lula miracle.
Perhaps any power that has en-
joyed a spell of near hegemony and
finds itself at war will, ostrich-like,
refuse to accept the emergence of
another behemoth in its hemisphere.
Still, the United States would do well
to look south for political as well as
economic inspiration. It has failed to
do so.
One small example: at a recent
meeting of the Washington-based
Inter-American Development Bank,
Brazil and other South American na-
tions sent ministers to attend. China,
with a close eye on the mineral wealth
of Latin America, sent the president
of its Central Bank. All the United
States could muster was an assistant
secretary.
“To tell you the truth we’re not that
unhappy about U.S. distraction,” one
senior South American banker told
me. “We’re looking instead to China
and Asia whose interest in the region
is huge. There’s still a U.S. tendency
to say, ‘This is what you should do.’
Today nobody listens.”
The fact that United States free-
trade deals with Colombia and Pana-
ma still stand unratified sends a clear
message of American indifference.
On the political front, I thought the
contemptuous American dismissal
of a Brazilian-Turkish deal with Iran
to get low-enriched uranium out the
country and so provide a breathing
space for dialogue was another mis-
take. The accord was not perfect but
nor was it different in its essence from
one the United States proposed earli-
er, though the Americans complained
that Iran had doubled the amount of
uranium it enriched and altered the
terms of the original deal.
Here was a historic opportunity
for America to say it sees the power
shifts in the world and appreciates
the efforts and emergent sense of
responsibility of the developing pow-
ers. Instead Big Brother’s curt mes-
sage was: don’t think for a second you
can tackle the big issues. And here we
are, locked into another sterile cycle
of sanctions on Iran.
I said the “Lula miracle.” President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who steps
down at the end of December after
eight extraordinary years, has dem-
onstrated precisely the popular touch
that President Barack Obama has
been unable to communicate. Lula is
right to declare that “Brazil, Russia,
India and China have a fundamental
role in creating a new international
order.”
America and Obama would do
much better to foster that process
and so shape it than to be blind to it or
dismissive. This will involve a funda-
mental reorientation of United States
foreign policy.
The Lula-Obama contrast is puz-
zling in some ways. Both are outsid-
ers. Both break the mold. Both were
seen as change agents. So why has
Lula proved so much more effec-
tive?
There was some luck of course: the
Brazilian leader rode the commodi-
ties boom of the past decade. But per-
haps it’s above all because a popular
touch has to be rooted in experience.
Lula, one of eight children, from the
impoverished far north of Brazil, a
former steelworker who left school
very early, has struggled every step
of the way. Obama incarnated hope
in a divided America, but in the end
he is a man framed by elite schools
and institutions as much as by his ex-
perience as an African-American or
community worker. Finding the right
tone for a nation trying to dig out from
difficulty has eluded him.
The verdict is in. Brazil, long the
most divided of societies, has gone
some way toward easing inequality
as the United States has moved in the
opposite direction. It has also closed
the gap on developed-world econo-
mies and could well be the world’s
fifth largest economy by 2025.
Send comments [email protected]
INTELLIGENCE/ROGER COHEN
New Power
In a World
Of Change
JAMIL BITTAR/REUTERS
America could learn from Brazil, which, under President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva, center, has seen 11 percent economic growth this year.
Repubblica NewYork
W O R L D T R E N D S
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010 III
Alber ElbazArtistic Director, Lanvin
Angela AhrendtsCEO, Burberry
Christopher BaileyChief Creative Officer, Burberry
Diego Della VallePresident & CEO, Tod’s S.p.A.
Orsola de Castro Ethical Fashion Designer
From Somewhere
Rita CliftonChairman, Interbrand London
Jeremy HackettCo-Founder, Hackett London
Tommy HilfigerDesigner
Anders Sundt JensenVice President, Brand Communication
Mercedes-Benz Cars
Carlos JereissatiPresident & CEO, Iguatemi
David LaurenSVP, Polo Ralph Lauren
Mary-Adair MacaireCEO, Pringle of Scotland
Karl Lagerfeld Designer
Patrizio di MarcoPresident & CEO, Gucci
Rosita, Angela & Margherita Missoni
Michele NorsaCEO & Group Managing Director
Salvatore Ferragamo Italia S.p.A.
Matteo Marzotto Chairman, Vionnet S.p.A.
Michele ScannaviniPresident, Coty Prestige
Stanislas de QuercizePresident & CEO, Van Cleef & Arpels
Paul SmithDesigner
Stephen WebsterCreative Director, Stephen Webster
& Garrard
Alannah WestonCreative Director, Selfridges
Kim WinserChairman, Agent Provocateur
& Senior Advisor, 3i
Jennifer WooPresident, Lane Crawford
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By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
and YASIR GHAZI
BAGHDAD — More than six months
ago, millions of Iraqis cast aside fears
about bombs and bullets to vote. But
the people they elected have yet to
agree on a leader and start work.
“I’m representing the Iraqi people,
but it doesn’t feel like it,” said Kadhim
Jwad, a Sadrist elected to represent
Babil Province in the country’s south.
“I’m at the boiling point. I’m tired and
annoyed all the time. There’s lots of
pressure on me. This is more than I
can take.”
Some of the idled elected officials
have sought out less chaotic places
with better weather and less blood-
shed, staying in nice hotels or private
homes with chlorinated swimming
pools in Jordan, Syria, Iran or Dubai.
A few have sat home and stewed.
The energy and optimism with which
these would-be reformers rode into
Baghdad after the March 7 election
have all but vanished.
Ayad Samarrai, the speaker of
Iraq’s last functioning Parliament —
a body whose trademark lassitude led
the public to vote good members out of
office in March (though Mr. Samarrai
was re-elected) — said feelings of mel-
ancholy were not uncommon among
his colleagues.
“Not having a session has created
a state of psychological emptiness”
among those elected, he said. “They
feel useless. They were ready to par-
ticipate. They were ambitious, ready
to make change. And of course, that
motivation has now been stopped en-
tirely.”
A salve for their ennui, however, has
been their compensation: salaries of
about $11,050 a month each, which in-
clude a housing allowance; a fleet of
three brand-new armored sport util-
ity vehicles and a 30-member secu-
rity detail for their use; freshly issued
diplomatic passports, which allow for
worry-free international travel; and
government payments into pension
plans that will yield 80 percent of their
salaries.
In the meantime, one in four Iraqis
are estimated to live below the pover-
ty line. Leila Hassan, a newly elected
member, said, “I get embarrassed
when people ask me ‘What’s going
on?’ and when I go out, I feel shy be-
cause I’m worried people will blame
me.”
Ms. Hassan, from the Kurdish Alli-
ance party, said she had tried to stay
engaged, but now often gives in to
boredom.
“In my spare time, well, I’m not mar-
ried and my mother takes care of me,”
the 30-year-old said. “She cooks and
cleans the house, so I have nothing to
do. I have spent a lot of time reading
books.”
Ms. Hassan said she had also taken
courses on democracy with other
women elected to Parliament, which
has taken them to the United States
and Lebanon.
“We have agreed to serve as a lobby
on women’s issues inside Parliament,”
she said. “We expected that we would
meet each other during a session, so
it’s funny it happened outside Iraq.”
Mahmoud Othman, also a member
of the Kurdish Alliance, said he had
been showing up at Parliament in spite
of himself.
“I keep coming to the building, but
I am all alone,” he said. “I find no one.
Sometimes, there are journalists so I
do an interview with them, and some-
times I see friends here, but nothing
very useful.”
He said he had spent all but one
month of the break in Baghdad, a city
he says compares poorly to Erbil, the
capital of the semi-autonomous Kurd-
ish region.
“Baghdad? What’s there in Bagh-
dad?” he said. “There’s nothing to do
in Baghdad. I’m sitting at home most of
the time with my wife, chatting, bond-
ing. This has been a great opportunity
for me to spend more time with her.”
Fatah al-Ashikh, a member of the
Iraqiya political slate, who represents
Baghdad, said the hiatus had given
him the chance to work on his doctor-
ate in media studies.
“I am using this useless time to do
something that will help me in the fu-
ture,” he said.
He has also broken in his new official
passport.
“During Ramadan, I went to Syria
and spent most of the month there,” he
said. “I was running from the heat of
Iraq and all the electrical blackouts.”
Mr. Ashikh also organized a rally
protesting a Florida pastor’s threat
in September to burn copies of the Ko-
ran, and said he had visited the sites of
recent bombings around the country .
Unadim Kana, an independent from
Nineveh Province, said he would hap-
pily give up the travel to get to work.
“We have lost seven months of pos-
sibility,” he said.
By ELISABETH MALKIN
GUANAJUATO, Mexico — Here in the state of
Guanajuato, where Roman Catholic conserva-
tives have controlled government for more than
15 years, it is standard procedure to investigate
suspected cases of abortion. Often this involves
the prosecutor’s office interrogating women
while they are still in the hospital.
But Guanajuato is no anomaly, women’s rights
advocates and some health officials say, since
a broad move to enforce antiabortion laws has
gained momentum in other parts of Mexico.
One reason is a backlash against Mexico
City’s decision three years ago to permit legal
abortion to any woman in the first 12 weeks of
pregnancy. After the Supreme Court upheld
that law in 2008, 17 states passed constitutional
amendments declaring that life begins at con-
ception, even though abortion was already ille-
gal everywhere but Mexico City, except in cases
of rape or to save a mother’s life.
“It is a political response,” said Pedro Sala-
zar, a legal scholar at the Institute of Legal Re-
search of the National Autonomous University
of Mexico. “This is a well-coordinated initiative.
It’s not a spontaneous decision.”
Lawyers contend that rather than tighten-
ing existing antiabortion legislation, the state
amendments are aimed at preventing future
state governments from possibly legalizing
abortion.
The enforcement of the antiabortion law here
in Guanajuato has created what critics call a cli-
mate in which any pregnancy that does not end
with a healthy baby raises suspicions.
The fear of being investigated means that
even some women who want to be pregnant
but have complications or lose the baby “have
to think twice about going to a hospital,” said
Nadine Goodman, who runs a school for mid-
wives in the Guanajuato town of San Miguel de
Allende.
Dr. Luis Alberto Villanueva, adjunct director
of maternal health for Mexico’s Health Minis-
try, said he was concerned that antiabortion en-
forcement could scare many women around the
country away from seeking health care.
“The intentional search for ‘proof’ in women
with bleeding in the first half of pregnancy di-
verts health workers from their task,” he said,
“and drives women away from medical facili-
ties.” He added that poor women were particu-
larly vulnerable.
State prosecutors here in Guanajuato have
opened 166 investigations for abortion in 10
years, according to women’s health advocates.
Most of them do not reach a judge, but nine
women have been convicted for having abor-
tions.
They were sentenced to jail, but paid a bond to
finish their sentences on parole.
In the gulf state of Veracruz, the state wom-
en’s institute found this year that eight women
serving sentences for homicide — killing their
babies after they had been born alive — had
either had abortions, which has a much lighter
penalty, or had miscarriages or stillbirths. They
have since been released, according to the insti-
tute’s departing director.
Eight women in Guanajuato have also been
jailed on homicide charges in recent years, stir-
ring a debate over whether the authorities have
used the crime as a way to pursue tougher sen-
tences against women who had had abortions, or
perhaps simply lost a baby during pregnancy.
When the cases were publicized this summer
after one woman was released on appeal, the
national news media descended on Guanajuato
and the women gave jailhouse interviews. Some
contended that they had been forced to sign
confessions after they gave birth to babies who
were stillborn or premature.
“The women went into labor alone,’’ said
Javier Cruz Angulo, a lawyer who runs the legal
clinic at CIDE, a Mexico City university, which
won the first appeal. “There were no health ser-
vices.’’
The cases created such a furor that the State
Congress changed the women’s sentences and
applied them retroactively. In September, the
women, who had been serving terms of 25 to 30
years, were freed but not absolved.
By ADAM NOSSITER
COTONOU, Benin — This is not
about secretive mutterings in the
dead of night or freakish eccentrics,
explained Dah Aligbonon Akpochi-
hala, an eminent voodoo priest who
has taken to the airwaves to preach
the messages of faith, fidelity and
obedience integral to his religion. It
is about bringing a younger genera-
tion on board.
“Voodoo is sabotaged, demon-
ized, as if there was nothing good in
it,” Mr. Aligbonon said.
Mr. Aligbonon maintains his
modest cinder-block temple on a
busy street in this bustling capital.
The temple offers spiritual con-
sultation and ceremonies to Mami
Wata (a water divinity) — along
with photocopying, binding ser-
vices and CDs in the Fon language
of Mr. Aligbonon’s television and
radio broadcasts.
Benin claims to have given birth
to the voodoo religion. And under-
neath the Christian and Muslim
surface, the old-time faith for voo-
doo persists for many here, experts
say.
Nocturnal visits to féticheurs,
or priests, after having attended,
say, Catholic Mass or prayers at
the mosque are hardly uncommon,
says Félix Iroko of the Université
d’Abomey-Calavi, a historian.
“The double practice persists,
even among university people,”
says Mr. Iroko.
An unjustified stigma still comes
with voodoo practice, Mr. Alig-
bonon said. “Voodoo is not the devil,
and still less Satan,” he writes em-
phatically in one of the pamphlets
for sale in his storefront, a detailed
guide to the religion’s principal di-
vinities. Voodoo is “based on natu-
ral law” and existed before Buddha,
Christ and Muhammad, he says.
Fragments of the philosophy —
“If you respect nature, nature will
protect you,” but “if I do evil against
someone, that diminishes my force”
— are dispensed in Mr. Aligbonon’s
broadcasts. The aim, in his telling,
is to bring voodoo and associated
teachings out of the closet and up
to date.
“When Aligbonon comes on the
radio, nobody sleeps,” he said.
“The people are hungry for my
broadcasts. Whenever I come on, I
get hundreds of phone calls after-
wards. People have said to me that I
am an awakener of consciences.”
Mr. Iroko said that the soft-spo-
ken Mr. Aligbonon has a larger fol-
lowing than other voodoo priests.
He can express himself easily in
French, Mr. Iroko said, helping him
move between two worlds — that
of traditional practitioners and of
academics.
Mr. Aligbonon also belongs to
the upper reaches of Beninois aris-
tocracy. He is a direct descendant
of the 13th-century princess Alig-
bonon, who in legend is said to have
mated with a panther to found a his-
toric clan at the origin of one of the
great African kingdoms, Danhomè.
It later became the French colony of
Dahomey, as the country was called
until its name was changed to Benin
by the military dictatorship in 1975.
“In Benin, there is not a king who
is above me,” said Mr. Aligbonon
quietly. “Even priests from Italy
come to see me.”
ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Yolanda Martínez was charged with
homicide under Guanajuato’s strict
antiabortion laws.
COTONOU JOURNAL
Voodoo Priest
Seeks Out
A New Flock
Iraq Officials’ Long Vacation Continues
Reformist zeal wanes as a Baghdad deadlockpersists.
Mexican States Enforce Strict Abortion
Repubblica NewYork
W O R L D T R E N D S
IV MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010
greater access to encrypted data sent
over Gmail, Skype and other virtual
private networks.
The government has also clamped
down on the importation of foreign
telecommunications equipment, say-
ing it wants to ensure that it does not
contain malicious software or secret
trap doors that could be used by for-
eign spies.
During the Mumbai attacks, said
Gopal Krishna Pillai, the secretary of
India’s Home Ministry, officials could
not gain access to some of the com-
munications between the terrorists
and their handlers. Other countries,
including the United Arab Emirates
and Indonesia, are trying to impose
measures similar to India’s.
Critics say India’s actions could
make foreigners think twice about
doing business there.
“If there is any risk to that data,
those companies will look elsewhere,”
said Peter Sutherland, a former Ca-
nadian ambassador to India who now
consults for North American compa-
nies doing business there.
James X. Dempsey, vice presi-
dent of the Center for Democracy
and Technology, an Internet policy
group, said the American proposal
had “huge implications” and chal-
lenged “fundamental elements of the
Internet revolution” — including its
decentralized design.
“They basically want to turn back
the clock ” on the Web, he said.
But officials contend that impos-
ing such a mandate is reasonable and
necessary to prevent the erosion of
their investigative powers.
“We’re talking about lawfully au-
thorized intercepts,” said Valerie E.
Caproni, general counsel for the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation. “We’re
not talking expanding authority.”
In India, critics say that the govern-
ment’s security efforts, which they
describe as clumsy, may do little to
protect the country, even as they in-
trude on the privacy of companies and
citizens alike.
“This will shift users to less vis-
ible and known platforms,” said Ajay
Shah, a Mumbai-based economist.
“Terrorists will make merry doing
crypto anyway. A zillion tools for this
are freely available.”
American officials want a law that
will apply broadly, including firms that
operate from servers abroad, like Re-
search in Motion, the Canadian maker
of the BlackBerry. In recent months,
R.I.M. has come into conflict with the
governments of India and Dubai over
their inability to conduct surveillance
of messages sent via its encrypted ser-
vice.
Countries such as Dubai have
sought leverage by threatening to
block BlackBerry data from their net-
works. Several privacy and technol-
ogy advocates argued that requiring
interception capabilities would create
holes that would inevitably be exploit-
ed by hackers.
Steven M. Bellovin, a Columbia Uni-
versity computer science professor,
noted that in 2005 in Greece. hackers
took advantage of a legally mandated
wiretap function to spy on top officials’
phones .
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,”
he said. “If they start building in all
these back doors, they will be ex-
ploited.”
WhenSecurityTrumpsPrivacy
Con tin ued from Page I
the world at large.
The city’s designer, Foster &
Partners, a firm known for feats of
technological wizardry, has worked
in an alluring social vision, in which
local tradition and the drive toward
modernization are no longer in con-
flict.
Norman Foster, the principal part-
ner, said he began with a meticulous
study of old Arab settlements, in-
cluding the ancient citadel of Aleppo
in Syria and the mud-brick apart-
ment towers of Shibam in Yemen,
which date from the 16th century.
“The point,” he said, “was to go back
and understand the fundamentals,”
how these communities had been
made livable in a region where the
air can feel as hot as 65 degrees Cel-
sius.
Among the findings his office
made was that settlements were
often built on high ground, not only
for defensive reasons but also to take
advantage of the stronger winds.
Some also used tall, hollow “wind
towers” to funnel air down to street
level. And the narrowness of the
streets — which were almost always
at an angle to the sun’s east-west
trajectory, to maximize shade — ac-
celerated airflow through the city.
Mr. Foster’s team estimated that
by combining such approaches, they
could make Masdar feel as much as
nearly 50 percent cooler. In so do-
ing, they could more than halve the
amount of electricity needed to run
the city. Of the power that is used, 90
percent is expected to be solar, and
the rest generated by incinerating
waste (which produces far less car-
bon than piling it up in dumps).
Masdar is 30 kilometers from
downtown Abu Dhabi. You follow
a narrow road past an oil refinery
and through desolate patches of
desert before reaching the blank
concrete wall of Masdar and find the
city looming overhead. From there
a road tunnels through the base to
a garage just underneath the city’s
edge.
Stepping out of this space into
one of the “Personal Rapid Transit”
stations brings to mind the sets de-
signed by Harry Lange for “2001: A
Space Odyssey.” You are in a large,
dark hall facing a row of white, pod-
shaped cars lined up in rectangular
glass bays. Daylight spills down a
rough concrete wall behind them,
hinting at the life above.
The first 13 futuristic electric cars
of a proposed fleet of hundreds were
being tested the day I visited, but as
soon as the system is up, within a few
weeks, a user will be able to step into
a car and choose a destination on an
LCD screen. The car will then silent-
ly pull into traffic, seeming to drive
itself through a network of routes
below the city’s raised ground level.
There are no cables or rails.
It’s only as people arrive at their
destination that they will become
aware of the degree to which ev-
erything has been engineered for
high-function, low-consumption
performance. The station’s elevators
have been tucked discreetly out of
sight to encourage use of a concrete
staircase that corkscrews to the
surface. And on reaching the streets
— which were pretty breezy the day I
visited — the only way to get around
is on foot.
The buildings that have gone up
so far come in two styles. Labora-
tories devoted to developing new
forms of sustainable energy and
affiliated with the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology are housed
in big concrete structures that are
clad in pillowlike panels of ethylene-
tetrafluoroethylene, a super-strong
translucent plastic that has become
fashionable in contemporary ar-
chitecture circles for its sleek look
and durability. Inside, big open floor
slabs are designed for maximum
flexibility.
The residential buildings, which
for now will mostly house profes-
sors, students and their families,
use a more traditional architectural
vocabulary. An undulating facade
of concrete latticework is based on
the mashrabiya screens common in
the region. The latticework blocks
direct sunlight and screens interiors
from view, while the curves make
for angled views to the outside, so
that apartment dwellers never look
directly into the windows of facing
buildings. Like many Middle East-
ern university campuses, the neigh-
borhood is segregated by sex, with
women and families living at one end
and single men at the other. Each end
has a small public plaza, which acts
as its social heart.
Mr. Foster’s most radical move
was the way he dealt with one of
the most vexing urban design chal-
lenges of the past century: what to
do with the car. Not only did he close
Masdar entirely to combustion-
engine vehicles, he buried their re-
placement — his network of electric
cars — underneath the city. Tradi-
tional cars are stopped at the edges.
Still, one wonders, despite the
technical brilliance and the sensitiv-
ity to local norms, how Masdar can
ever attain the richness and texture
of a real city. Eventually, a light-rail
system will connect it to Abu Dhabi,
and street life will undoubtedly get
livelier as the daytime population
grows to a projected 90,000. Mr.
Foster said the city was intended to
house a cross-section of society, from
students to service workers. “It is not
about social exclusion,” he added.
And yet Masdar seems like the
fulfillment of that idea. Ever since
the notion that thoughtful planning
could improve the lot of humankind
died out, sometime in the 1970s,
both the megarich and the educated
middle classes have increasingly
found solace by walling themselves
off inside a variety of mini-utopias.
This has involved not only the pro-
liferation of suburban gated commu-
nities, but also the transformation
of city centers in places like Paris
and New York into playgrounds for
tourists and the rich. Masdar is the
culmination of this trend: a self-
sufficient society, lifted on a pedestal
and outside the reach of most of the
world’s citizens.
Con tin ued from Page I
Green Utopia Rises From Arabian Sands
A futuristic city usesancient methods ofcooling heated air.
Vikas Bajaj contributed reporting from New Delhi, and Ian Austen con-tributed reporting from Ottawa.
Repubblica NewYork
B U S I N E S S T R AV E L
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010 V
By TANYA MOHN
Airports in Germany have come up
with an unusual approach to moni-
toring air quality. The Düsseldorf In-
ternational Airport and seven other
airports are using bees as “biodetec-
tives,” their honey regularly tested for
toxins.
“Air quality at and around the air-
port is excellent,” said Peter Nengelk-
en, the airport’s community liaison.
The first batch of this year’s harvest-
ed honey from some 200,000 bees was
tested in early June, he said, and indi-
cated toxins far below official limits.
Beekeepers from the local neighbor-
hood club keep the bees. The honey,
“Düsseldorf Natural,” is given away
as gifts.
Could bees be modern-day sentinels
like the canaries once used in coal
mines?
Assessing environmental health
using bees as “terrestrial bioindica-
tors” is a fairly new undertaking, said
Jamie Ellis, assistant professor of en-
tomology at the Honey Bee Research
and Extension Laboratory, Univer-
sity of Florida in Gainesville. “We all
believe it can be done, but translating
the results into real-world solutions or
answers may be a little premature.”
Not surprisingly, Nancy Young, vice
president of environmental affairs
at the Air Transport Association
of America, an airline trade group,
defended the air quality at airports.
“Airports are not significant
contributors” to local air pollution,
she said, adding that aviation
emissions represent “less than 1
percent of the nation’s inventory and
typically only a few percentage points
in any given metropolitan area with a
major airport.” She said the United
States had improved the air quality
at its airports through more stringent
standards .
Internationally, there have been
similar improvements, said Steven
Lott, a spokesman for the International
Air Transport Association. Since the
1960s, carbon monoxide, unburned
hydrocarbons, smoke and nitrogen-
oxide emissions have been substantially
reduced, he said.
Still, some are not persuaded that
air quality at airports has improved.
“It’s way worse than people think,”
said Debi Wagner, of Citizens Aviation
Watch USA.
Some emissions are not adequately
sampled and measured, Ms. Wagner
said, and others are not monitored at
all.
Recent studies also raise questions
about the quality of air at small
general aviation airports. Most large
airports are farther from residential
communities, .
“There were issues for ultrafine
particles and lead,” said Philip Fine, an
atmospheric measurements manager
in Southern California.
Research suggests ultrafine particles
could pose a serious risk because they
pass through cell walls easily. The
particles come primarily from jet
aircraft.
Emanuel Fleuti, head of environment
services for Zurich Airport, said there
were concerns in Europe as well.
Meanwhile, he said, he is confident
about the biomonitoring work the
German airports are doing with bees.
“If you look at the honey, it’s
perfectly fine,” Mr. Fleuti said.
LONG BEACH, California — Long
rumored and joked about, the so-called
stand-up airplane seat was unveiled
at the Aircraft Interiors Expo Ameri-
cas trade show in mid-September. The
SkyRider was the most
talked about event of the
show.
“Like riding a horse,”
said Dominique Menoud,
the director general of Av-
iointeriors, the Italian air-
craft seat manufacturer,
after I had slid into the company’s new
contraption. “It is very comfortable, no?”
“No,” I replied, though Mr. Menoud
seemed to take that as an assent.
It was definitely not comfortable,
although the seat is being promoted as
resembling a horse saddle. I have ridden
many a horse, and the SkyRider is noth-
ing like being in the saddle. Sitting in one
was more like being wedged, legs braced,
on a stationary bicycle.
The seat is being marketed mostly
for shorter haul flights of two hours or
so. But Mr. Menoud said that the seats
could also be used on flights up to four
hours.
Aviointeriors said the seat allowed
for a new basic class of seating with a
“much reduced seat pitch.” Most coach
seats have about 75 or 82 centimeters
of pitch, the industry definition of the
distance between one point in a seat
and the same point in the seat ahead. A
few discount airlines have seats with 71
centimeters of pitch, but the SkyRider is
intended to have 58 or less.
Before a seat like the SkyRider would
actually turn up on airplanes, there
remain various hurdles — chief among
them safety concerns about emergency
evacuations from planes with passen-
gers crammed into such tight spaces.
But experts in cabin interior engineer-
ing from the major aircraft manufactur-
ers, Boeing and Airbus, discussed the
stand-up seat at the show and, while
both were skeptical, neither dismissed
the idea.
Have any airlines signed up? “No,
but we are in discussions right now, and
there is a lot of interest from carriers
around the world,” Mr. Menoud said. He
would not identify which airlines his com-
pany has been talking to, but said two are
in the United States.
Before the trade show, Ryanair, the
European discount carrier, had said it
hoped to win regulatory approval to put
rows of stand-up seats, with the cheap-
est fares, in rear sections of its planes.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief execu-
tive, recently said on British television
said the airline was thinking of taking
out some existing seats to install “the
equivalent of 10 rows of standing area.”
In the United States, the somewhat
brash discount carrier Spirit Airlines
would seem another likely suspect,
but Spirit declined to comment when I
asked.
What is the SkyRider like? Well, it’s a
tight fit. You sidle in and perch on a little
pitched seat. The “passenger’s body,”
as Aviointeriors describes it, assumes
“a comfortable, dynamic, upright and
healthy position.” My impression was
like being strapped into an amusement
park thrill ride.
Even in a semistanding position, belted
in against a tall seat back, you have scant
room to maneuver. And because the
seats are high, you would have a tough
job in a crash vaulting over the SkyRider
in front.
Aviointeriors says the SkyRider has
undergone extensive testing and will
meet all regulatory safety standards.
The seat is being promoted as an option
for airlines that might want to more
profitably use space in any given air-
plane. A Boeing 737, for example, could
be configured with 16 business-class
seats, 66 standard coach seats and 98
SkyRiders, Aviointeriors says.
“The concept is to allow for an extra
class of seating” with very low fares, Mr.
Menoud said. Of course, there are things
some of us won’t do, even for a cheap
fare. But the market potential is there.
“Clearly, there are a lot of potential
barriers even before they could get to
the point of installing this type of seat,
but there’s something to be said about
carriers being able to put more custom-
ers into smaller spaces and being able
to offer rock-bottom prices,” said Bryan
Saltzburg, the general manager of
TripAdvisor flight search. “There is a
segment of the market that this seat will
cater to.”
By JULIE WEED
How can families spend time
together that normally would
be consumed by work, and even
turn the experience into an ad-
venture and save money dur-
ing these recessionary times?
They can combine a business
trip with a family vacation.
According to a 2008 study by
Egencia, the corporate travel
arm of Expedia, 59 percent of
business travelers have had
friends or family join them on
a trip.
Andy Palmer, a co-founder
of Vertica Systems and global
head of software engineering
at the Novartis Institutes for
BioMedical Research in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, com-
bines business travel with fami-
ly time whenever he can. He has
taken his wife to Sweden and
his daughter to Disney World.
One year Mr. Palmer took his
son out of school for 10 days to
accompany him on a business
trip to Idaho and Utah. They fit
in some time for fly-fishing.
“I hate traveling away from
my family,” said Mr. Palmer,
who lives in New Castle, New
Hampshire. “So having any of
them with me is a million per-
cent better.”
Last spring Mr. Palmer’s
wife, Amy, and their four chil-
dren accompanied him to the
Novartis headquarters in Ba-
sel, Switzerland. His family “ate
and toured” while he worked
during the day, and they all re-
grouped to dine together in the
evening.
The children appreciated
seeing where their father had to
go so frequently, Mrs. Palmer
said.
“He wasn’t calling from a
black hole after that — they
could imagine the setting where
he was,” she said.
Lois Howes, who works at
Superior Travel, in Freeport,
New York, recently helped trav-
elers going to Istanbul, Seattle
and Savannah, Georgia, extend
their work trips for some sight-
seeing.
“I had a couple of married
teachers from New York going
to a convention in Seattle this
summer and I booked them on
an Alaska cruise,” she said. “If
their work hadn’t paid for their
airfare to get out west, they
couldn’t have afforded it.”
When Mary Sorensen of Seat-
tle discovered that her husband,
Stan, would be taking a busi-
ness trip to Paris during spring
break, she rented an apartment
there for 10 days.
“We took the opportunity to
transport our life to France,”
she said. “Every day we fixed
Dad breakfast in the morning
and sent him to work.”
After breakfast, Ms. Sorens-
en and her sons, 11 and 9, would
explore. Along with visits to the
Louvre and Notre Dame, they
went to a bakery every day to
practice their French. “The
boys had a wonderful taste of
what it was like to live in anoth-
er city,” she said.
Experienced business travel-
ers advise checking with a man-
ager before bringing family on
a trip. Companies are generally
fine with the idea as long as em-
ployees don’t put family costs
on their expense accounts and
meet their professional require-
ments.
Mixing business and person-
al travel requires extra plan-
ning. When Mr. Palmer took
his daughter Morgan on a trip
to Disney World in Florida, he
made sure his aunt, who lived
in Orlando, could care for her
while he worked.
A few years later, his daugh-
ter accompanied Mr. Palmer
on business trips to three states
so she could visit colleges. Mr.
Palmer scheduled meetings
around campus tour times.
As travelers who combine
business with vacations try to
fulfill different objectives, there
can be tension. Expectations
should be set before departure,
including each day’s business
obligations, and when there will
be time for recreation.
Some business travelers have
their families join them at the
end of a trip and extend their
time a few more days.
Even when parents aren’t
away on business, the line be-
tween work and family often
blurs, Mrs. Palmer said, point-
ing out how some people work
on the computer at home instead
of playing with their children.
“This helps us claim some of
that time back,” she said.
ANDREAS WIESE/
DÜSSELDORF INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Düsseldorf airport’s bees are
regularly tested for toxins.
MARK RALSTON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
The new SkyRider airplane seat is being promoted as a cheap option for
two-hour flights, but safety concerns remain about the ability to quickly
evacuate a crammed plane in tight quarters.
JOE
SHARKEY
ESSAY
In a seat touted as a saddle, who’s being taken for a ride?
Time for fly-fishing between meetings; saving money too.
Biodetectives miss some forms ofpollution, critics say.
Low Fare,Leg RoomOptional
A Working VacationWith Family Emphasis
German Airports Get Good Air Grades From Bees, Plus Fine Honey
Repubblica NewYork
S C I E N C E & T E C H N O L O GY
VI MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010
By JUSTIN GILLIS
This year’s extreme heat is putting
coral reefs under such severe stress
that scientists fear widespread die-
offs, endangering not only the richest
ecosystems in the ocean but also fish-
eries that feed millions of people.
From Thailand to Texas, corals are
reacting to the heat stress by bleach-
ing, or shedding their color and go-
ing into survival mode. Many have
already died, and more are expected
to do so in coming months. Comput-
er forecasts suggest that corals in
the Caribbean may undergo drastic
bleaching in the next few weeks.
What is unfolding this year is only
the second known global bleaching of
coral reefs. Scientists are holding out
hope that this year will not be as bad,
over all, as 1998, the hottest year on
record, when an estimated 16 percent
of the world’s shallow-water reefs
died.
Scientists say the trouble with the
reefs is linked to climate change. For
years they have warned that corals,
highly sensitive to heat, would serve
as an early indicator of the ecological
distress on the planet caused by the
buildup of greenhouse gases.
“I am significantly depressed
by the whole situation,” said Clive
Wilkinson, director of the Global
Coral Reef Monitoring Network in
Australia .
Coral reefs are made up of millions
of tiny animals, called polyps. The
polyps supply algae with nutrients
and a place to live. The algae in turn
capture sunlight and carbon dioxide
to make sugars that feed the coral
polyps.
The algae give reefs their brilliant
colors; many reef fish sport fantasti-
cal colors and patterns themselves.
According to the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, the
first eight months of 2010 matched
1998 as the hottest January to August
period on record. Coral reefs occupy
a tiny fraction of the ocean, but they
harbor perhaps a quarter of all ma-
rine species. They are the foundation
not only of important fishing indus-
tries but also of tourist economies
worth billions.
In small island nations and on some
coasts of Indonesia and the Philip-
pines, people rely heavily on reef fish
for food. When corals die, the fish are
not immediately doomed, but if the
coral does not recover, the reef can
eventually collapse, scientists say,
leaving the fishery far less produc-
tive.
Research shows that is already
happening in parts of the Caribbean.
Scientists tracking the fate of cor-
als say they have already seen wide-
spread bleaching in Southeast Asia
and the western Pacific, especially
corals in Thailand, parts of Indonesia
and some smaller island nations.
“It is a lot easier for oceans to heat
up above the corals’ thresholds for
bleaching when climate change is
warming the baseline temperatures,”
said C. Mark Eakin, who runs Coral
Reef Watch for the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
Coral bleaching occurs when high
heat and bright sunshine cause the
metabolism of the algae to speed out
of control, and they start creating
toxins. The polyps essentially recoil.
“The algae are spat out,” Dr. Wilkin-
son said.
If temperatures drop, the corals’
few remaining algae can reproduce
and help the polyps recover.
Even on dead reefs, new coral pol-
yps will often take hold. The worst
case is that a reef dies and never re-
covers.
Temperatures have cooled in the
western Pacific, and the immediate
crisis has passed there. In Thailand,
“there are some signs of recovery
in places,” said James True, a biolo-
gist at Prince of Songkla University.
“The concern we have now is that the
bleaching is so widespread that po-
tential source reefs upstream have
been affected,” Dr. True said.
Climate varies considerably from
place to place. Tropical storms and
hurricanes moving through the Atlan-
tic have cooled the water in the north-
ern Caribbean and may have saved
some corals. Farther south, though,
temperatures are still remarkably
high, putting many reefs at risk.
Water temperatures off Australia
are also above normal, and some sci-
entists are worried about the single
most impressive reef on earth. “If
we get a poor monsoon season,” Dr.
Wilkinson said, “I think we’re in for
a serious bleaching on the Great Bar-
rier Reef.”
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Over the last two decades, John
Coleman Darnell and his wife, Debo-
rah, hiked and drove caravan tracks
west of the Nile from the monuments
of Thebes, at present-day Luxor.
These and other desolate roads, beat-
en hard by millennial human and
donkey traffic, only seemed to lead to
nowhere.
In the practice of what they call
desert-road archaeology, the Dar-
nells found ruins where soldiers, mer-
chants and other travelers camped in
the time of the pharaohs. On a lime-
stone cliff at a crossroads, they came
upon a tableau of scenes and symbols,
some of the earliest documentation of
Egyptian history.
The explorations of the Theban
Desert Road Survey, a Yale Univer-
sity project co-directed by the Dar-
nells, called attention to the previ-
ously underappreciated significance
of caravan routes and oasis settle-
ments in Egyptian antiquity.
And in late August, the Egyptian
government announced what may be
the survey’s most spectacular find —
the extensive remains of a settlement
— apparently an administrative,
economic and military center — that
flourished more than 3,500 years ago
in the western desert 177 kilometers
west of Luxor and 483 kilometers
south of Cairo. No such urban cen-
ter so early in history had ever been
found in the desert.
Dr. John Darnell, a professor of
Egyptology at Yale, said that the dis-
covery could rewrite the history of a
little-known period in Egypt’s past
and the role played by desert oases in
the civilization’s revival. The 88-hect-
are site is at Kharga Oasis, a string of
well-watered areas in a 97-kilome-
ter-long, north-south depression in
the limestone plateau that spreads
across the desert. The oasis is at the
terminus of the ancient Girga Road
from Thebes.
A decade ago, the Darnells spotted
hints of an outpost from the time of
Persian rule in the sixth century B.C.
in the vicinity of a temple. “A temple
wouldn’t be where it was if this area
hadn’t been of some strategic impor-
tance,” Ms. Darnell, also trained in
Egyptology, said.
Then she began picking up pieces of
pottery predating the temple. Some
ceramics were imports from the Nile
Valley or as far away as Nubia, south
of Egypt, but many were local prod-
ucts.
Evidence of “really large-scale ce-
ramic production,” Ms. Darnell not-
ed, “is something you wouldn’t find
unless there was a settlement here
with a permanent population, not just
seasonal and temporary.”
In 2005, the Darnells and their
team collected the evidence that they
were on to an important discovery:
remains of mud-brick walls, grind-
stones, baking ovens and heaps of fire
ash and broken bread molds.
Describing the bakery artifacts
that has been collected, as well as
signs of a military garrison, Dr. Dar-
nell said the settlement was “bak-
ing enough bread to feed an army,
literally.” This inspired the name for
the site, Umm Mawagir. The Ara-
bic phrase means “mother of bread
molds.” The team also found traces
of what was probably an administra-
tive building, grain silos, storerooms
and artisan workshops. The inhab-
itants, probably a few thousand
people, presumably grew their own
grain, and the variety of pottery at-
tested to trade relations over a wide
region.
The ruins at a desert crossroads are
another wonder of the ancient world.
“People always marvel at the great
monuments of the Nile Valley and the
incredible architectural feats they
see there,” Dr. Darnell said in the Yale
alumni magazine. “But I think they
should realize how much more work
went into developing Kharga Oasis in
one of the harshest, driest deserts on
Earth.”
Crows Put Tools to Good UseNew Caledonian crows, found in
the South Pacific, are among nature’s
most robust nonhuman tool users.
They are well known for using twigs
to dislodge beetle larvae from tree
trunks.
And there’s a good reason. By forag-
ing for just a few larvae, a crow can sat-
isfy its daily nutritional needs, which
explains the evolutionary advantage
of learning how to use tools, research-
ers report in the journal Science.
Using an infrared video camera,
the researchers studied the crow’s
method of capturing larvae. The crow
uses twigs to poke at a beetle larva un-
til the larva becomes so agitated that it
grabs onto the stick with its mandibles,
at which point the crow yanks out the
twig, having successfully captured its
prey.
“We found that these grubs are very
nutritious, they have very high fat
content and they contribute dispro-
portionately to the diet of these birds,”
said Christian Rutz, a zoologist at Ox-
ford University.
Since crows that are good tool users
have better access to highly nutritious
food, it is beneficial to learn how to use
tools, Dr. Rutz said.
But what remains unknown is why
tool use has evolved in only certain
animal lineages and not others, and
why tool use is generally uncommon
among animals. Next, the research-
ers may study whether the offspring
of particularly skilled tool-using
crows reap benefits, such as a longer
lifespan, improved health or better
reproductive success.
SINDYA N. BHANOO
Plants Grow by ChernobylIn April 1986, a nuclear reactor at
the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine
exploded and sent radioactive par-
ticles flying through the air, infiltrat-
ing the surrounding soil. Despite the
colossal disaster, some plants in the
area seem to be flourishing in the con-
taminated soil.
This ability to adapt has to do with
slight alterations in the plants’ pro-
tein levels, researchers report in the
journal Environmental Science and
Technology.
“If you visit the area, you’d never
think anything bad had happened
there,” said Martin Hajduch, a study
author and a plant geneticist at the
Slovak Academy of Sciences in Slo-
vakia. “Somehow plants were able to
adapt to the radioactivity; we wanted
to understand what kind of molecule
changes were going on.”
He and his colleagues grew flax-
seeds in contaminated soil in the
Chernobyl region and compared them
with flax grown in nonradioactive
soil. They found that there were very
few differences between the plants
— aside from a 5 percent difference in
protein levels. These alterations may
be a defensive mechanism, enabling
the plants to protect themselves from
radiation, the researchers believe.
But the first-generation plants may
not be safe enough for consumption.
“Now I don’t think anybody wants
to eat this,” he said. “But one day, it
may be cultivated and used for agri-
cultural purposes.”
The scientists plan to publish re-
sults from second- and third-genera-
tion plants as well.
SINDYA N. BHANOO
DR. SIMON WALKER
A New Caledonian crow uses a
twig to agitate and capture larvae.
TAKUMA FUJII/UNIVERSITY OF THE RYUKYUS
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Excavations west of Luxor, Egypt, revealed a ruin with grain silos, artisan workshops and ovens.
F I N D I N G S
Reef die-offs could endanger a link in the food chain.
Signs of life on anoasis amid a harsh environment.
A Warning For PlanetIn DeathOf Corals
Desert Roads Lead to Egypt Ruins
Coral reefs are experiencing near
record bleaching; scientists say it
is linked to global warming.
Repubblica NewYork
E D U C AT I O N
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010 VII
By SAM DILLON
LAWTON, Oklahoma — In an
effort to teach the world its lan-
guage and culture, China has sent
about 325 guest teachers to work
for up to three years in American
schools. A parallel effort has sent
about 2,000 American school ad-
ministrators to visit China at Bei-
jing’s expense.
“My life in high school was tor-
ture, just studying, nothing else,”
said Zheng Yue, 27, who is teach-
ing Chinese in Lawton. Like all the
other instructors, she has volun-
teered for the assignment.
“Here students lead more in-
teresting lives. They party, they
drink, they date,” she added.
Several other Chinese teachers
said they had some difficulties
adjusting to American schools
after working in a country where
students leap to attention when a
teacher enters the room.
A Chinese teacher in Wiscon-
sin, Hongmei Zhao, said a few
students sometimes disrupted
classes by speaking English so
rapidly that she could not under-
stand them.
“Then the whole class laughs,”
Ms. Zhao said, though she added
that none of her students had been
disagreeable.
Still, Ms. Zheng said she believed
that teachers got little respect in
America.
“Teachers don’t earn much, and
this country worships making
money,” she said. “In China, teach-
ers don’t earn a lot either, but it’s a
very honorable career.”
She said she spent time clearing
up misconceptions about China.
“I want students to know that
Chinese people are not crazy,”
she said. One student, referring
to China’s one-child-per-family
population planning policy, asked
whether the authorities would kill
one of the babies if a Chinese cou-
ple were to have twins.
Some students were astonished
to learn that Chinese people used
cellphones . Others thought Hong
Kong was the capital.
Barry Beauchamp, the Law-
ton superintendent, said he was
thrilled with the instructors. “Part
of them coming here is us indoctri-
nating them about our great coun-
try and our freedoms,” he said.
Ms. Zheng’s situation is fairly
typical of other guest teachers:
China pays about $13,000 a year
toward her salary, and the school
district provides her with housing
and a $500 monthly stipend. Law-
ton lends its guest teachers a car.
At MacArthur High School in
Lawton, Ms. Zheng teaches three
hourlong Chinese classes a day.
She has described to her classes
the schools in the city of Pingding-
shan, where students study six
days a week from 8 a.m. through
a mandatory evening study hall
ending at 10 p.m.
One day, Ms. Zheng recalled
how earlier this spring a student
brought her newborn to school.
“People were happy for her,” Ms.
Zheng said. “But I found it shock-
ing, because we think girls should
focus on their studies.”
After a student asserted that
France was not in Europe, she said,
“American students don’t know a
lot about the outside world.” She is
hoping to educate them in different
ways.
“They won’t remember a lot of
words,” she said, “but I want them
to remember the beauty of the lan-
guage and the culture.”
As Tuition Soars Globally, Schools Face a Need for Frugality
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
CAIRO — Who am I? What does it
mean to be human?
These are the kinds of questions
posed to undergraduate students en-
tering the American University in
Cairo during what the president, David
D. Arnold, called a first year of “disori-
entation.” The students — 85 percent
of them Egyptians — are taught to
learn in ways quite at odds with the
traditional method of teaching in this
country .
“It’s different here because there
is room for people to express them-
selves,” said Manar Mohsen, a junior
majoring in political science and jour-
nalism. “It is not that simple outside,
where it is more about conformity.”
In Egypt, education is based on the
concept of rote learning, and creativity
in the classroom is often discouraged.
Students at Cairo University say they
memorize and recite, never analyze
and hypothesize.
So the idea of a liberal arts education
aimed at developing critical thinking
skills is often new to the students. “For
a lot of the kids here, the idea that you
are supposed to have your own ideas
is a novelty,” said Lisa Anderson, the
university provost who is on leave from
Columbia University. in New York.
American University is a private, elite
school, expensive and generally out of
reach for all but the wealthiest families
and a handful of scholarship students.
Tuition and fees for Egyptian students
run about $19,600 a year, a large sum in
a country where about half the popula-
tion lives on about $2 a day.
“We are all rich and spoiled,” said
one student, upset that more of her
classmates were not more politically
aware. But in some respects, the elite
label is a strength. American Univer-
sity plays a central role as an intellec-
tual incubator for young people who
will become leaders in government
and the economy.
“If we teach the elite to be good citi-
zens, that’s not a bad thing,” Ms. Ander-
son said.
The university was founded in 1919 by
a group of Presbyterian missionaries.
The university was located originally in
Tahrir Square, in the center of Cairo, a
hyper-urban landscape with the mosaic
of Egyptian life on every corner. That
was part of the university’s appeal.
But over the years it has grown, and
now serves 5,000 undergraduates on an
architecturally inspiring, if geographi-
cally isolated, $400 million, 105-hectare
campus in a suburb called New Cairo.
But as the school has grown, so has a
conflict within the university itself: can
it change its mission while retaining its
liberal arts core?
“We are moving more and more into
professional schools, like business, en-
gineering, sciences,” said Nabil Fahmy,
a former longtime ambassador to the
United States who is the founding dean
of a new school of global affairs and
public policy.
There are other pressures, too, com-
ing from a society that holds engineers
in such high esteem that the profession
is also a courtesy title, like doctor.
“The humanities in general, and phi-
losophy specifically, are seen as either
frivolous or, at the very least, not fi-
nancially prudent, by many of the very
people who seek what makes A.U.C.
unique,” said Nathaniel Bowditch,
an assistant professor of philosophy.
Dr. Bowditch argued that “learning
how to think rather than what to think
prepares a person for all professions,”
and that without that “the academy
becomes nothing more than a trade
school.”
For now, the university leadership
says it remains committed to its core
mission. “We want our students to be
imaginative in their fields,” Ms. Ander-
son said.
By CONRAD DE AENLLE
College tuition and other fees have
risen for years in many countries, and
the economic and financial crisis al-
most ensures that the trend will persist
or worsen.
Students and their families will have
to get used to bearing a greater share of
the burden, the experts say.
But universities may be forced to
operate more efficiently and frugally,
they say, as those who pay the bills
become smarter, more cost-conscious
shoppers.
Margaret Spellings, senior adviser
at the Boston Consulting Group, a
global management consulting firm,
and secretary of education under
President George W. Bush, blames
government’s failure to demand
more value for the money spent, and
an elitism that she says is entrenched
in academia.
“Affordability is an issue worldwide,”
said Ms. Spellings, “but an interest in
reform is going up for the first time
ever.”
Soaring demand for university plac-
es is also driving up costs, as is a desire
by governments to accommodate the
demand.
“Part of the problem in much of the
world is exploding enrollments,” said
D. Bruce Johnstone, emeritus profes-
sor of education at the State University
of New York in Buffalo. He said condi-
tions were especially acute in develop-
ing nations.
And he cited a Western penchant for
academic egalitarianism.
“An expectation of an entitlement to
participation in a research university
is part of the problem,” Mr. Johnstone
said. He noted that all secondary school
graduates in France and Germany who
pass a national examination are guar-
anteed university admission.
Tuition rose 106 percent between 1997
and 2007 at American public universi-
ties and 76 percent at private universi-
ties, to $7,171 and $30,260, respectively,
according to the National Center for
Education Statistics.
It is lower everywhere else, although
it can be quite high relative to incomes,
especially in the developing world. The
23 million students attending Chinese
universities pay about $3,000 a year,
Mr. Johnstone said; the government
has warned that fees will go up.
Tuition in India varies, he said, but it
works out to about $600 a year for aver-
age universities and much more for the
elite technology institutes.
Chinese and Indian schools have no
shortage of applicants, but in Japan,
enrollments are shrinking.
The average tuition there is about
$4,500.
Tuitions are assessed at much lower
rates in Continental Europe, Mr. John-
stone noted.
“European countries introduce tu-
ition fees amid enormous political con-
troversy,” he remarked. Eventually
conditions deteriorate and the authori-
ties are forced to increase fees, he said,
“and then everyone really screams.”
Official Europe has begun to accept
the idea of tuition, with an important
caveat. Dennis Abbott, the European
Commission spokesman on education,
pointed to “a distinct trend to increased
cost sharing” between students and
state sources, although he stressed that
fees “should be supported by grants
and/or loans.”
Higher tuition is not the only sug-
gestion for closing the funding gap. A
2006 report by the Center for European
Reform, a London-based, centrist re-
search organization, encouraged Eu-
ropean universities to become more
competitive and more entrepreneurial
and, although it did not say so explicitly,
more American.
The authors also recommended pay-
ing faculty on the basis of merit; lobby-
ing aggressively with state and private
funding sources, like alumni; and woo-
ing corporate benefactors.
One way to improve affordability
and productivity, Mr. Abbott said, is to
make sure first that students at univer-
sities want and need to be there.
“Too many young people are em-
barking upon university careers but
dropping out before completing their
courses,” he said. “This represents a
missed opportunity, both in terms of
the human potential of the individual
student and in terms of the best value
for money. Better advice and guidance,
combined with improved support, in-
cluding financial support, should be
made available.”
Ms. Spellings said she expected an
increase in “a la carte, hybrid, technolo-
gy-based education,” in which students
take courses in person, online and at
times of their own choosing. “Consum-
ers are demanding it,” she said.
“Things are starting to change,
as prices have gotten so ridiculous,”
Ms. Spellings continued. “People are
starting to ask the right questions that
would have been heretical five years
ago. Universities have enjoyed their
ivory tower status of being above it
all, but they’re beginning to change
and it’s happening worldwide.”
Universities are urged to be more entrepreneurial.
In Cairo, a Campus Where Unlearning Is First
Visiting Chinese Teachers Experience American Ways
SHAWN BALDWIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The American University in Cairo teaches students to think for themselves. The school’s library.
MATT NAGER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Beijing has sent 325 volunteers, like Zheng Yue, to the United
States to teach Chinese language and culture.
An intellectualincubator for Egypt’s leaders.
Repubblica NewYork
A R T S & S T Y L E S
VIII MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
The phenomenally gifted if wildly
unconventional pianist Glenn Gould
was a tangle of personal tics and
complexes. Sometimes he seemed a
provocateur bent on riling the public
with extreme interpretations and odd
behavior. Other times he came across
as a fragile, fearful man, at ease only
when making music.
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of
Glenn Gould,” the fascinating new
documentary by the Canadian film-
makers Peter Raymont and Michèle
Hozer, has won praise for providing
insights into Mr. Gould’s eccentric
character. It shows the sad progres-
sion of a brilliant, garrulous musician
with a fiercely original artistic vision
as he becomes increasingly obsessive
and isolated. Yet it also provides valu-
able insights into the inner workings
of Mr. Gould’s distinctive technique
and unorthodox interpretive ap-
proach.
An only child, he studied piano with
his mother until, at 11, he began les-
sons with the Chilean-born pianist
Alberto Guerrero at the Toronto Con-
servatory. Mr. Guerrero was an advo-
cate of a technical discipline known as
finger tapping. He taught his students
to hold one hand in a relaxed position
on the keyboard, lightly touching the
keys. With the other hand, the student
would tap a fingertip enough to de-
press the desired key. The mechanical
action of the key springing up would
lift the finger back into place. The idea
was to teach the fingers to play with a
minimum of effort and no excess lift.
Mr. Gould sat low to the ground when
he played, his preferred chair just 33
centimeters high. In this crouched
posture, with his hands reaching up
to the keyboard, his fingers do every-
thing. Yet you cannot play the piano
with just your fingers. Your arms,
shoulders and back — even your feet
must get into act as well.
That Mr. Gould’s astonishing play-
ing lacked this bodily dimension comes
through in the film, in a segment about
his performance of Brahms’s D minor
Concerto with Leonard Bernstein and
the New York Philharmonic in 1962.
“You are about to hear a rather,
shall we say, unorthodox perfor-
mance of the Brahms D minor Con-
certo,” Mr. Bernstein began, with
“frequent departures from Brahms’s
dynamic indications.”
But he emphasized that there “are
moments in Mr. Gould’s performance
that emerge with astonishing fresh-
ness and conviction.”
The tempos in this performance
are fairly broad. Yet in retrospect Mr.
Bernstein must have been bothered by
Mr. Gould’s other “departures” more
than by the slow tempos. Brahms of-
ten wrote for the piano as if it were an
orchestra. Here Mr. Gould tried to rid
the piano part of orchestral thickness
and purge the music of blatant expres-
sive contrasts.
The film quotes Mr. Gould from a
radio interview the next year saying
he found Mr. Bernstein’s speech that
night full of good spirit and thought the
whole controversy was amusing.
That Mr. Gould, who died in 1982,
was beloved by a circle of intimates
comes through touchingly in the film.
After Mr. Gould stopped giving pub-
lic concerts at age 31 and confined
his work to the recording studio, he
spent countless hours with Lorne
Tulk, an audio engineer, who carried
out his painstaking editing demands,
sometimes neglecting his children, he
says.
One day Mr. Gould told Mr. Tulk
that they should be brothers, that they
should actually go to some office in To-
ronto and make it legal. Mr. Tulk, as he
recalls in the film, gently answered, “I
would love to be your brother, Glenn,”
but “I have four brothers and a sister”
who might want some say in the mat-
ter.
Mr. Gould thought this answer was
very sweet, Mr. Tulk says. The subject
never came up again.
By GUY TREBAY
The treasure hunters left the late-
summer light on a recent Sunday to
descend into the gloom of the Vault
at One Hanson Place in Brooklyn.
There, in subterranean chambers,
they searched through the folding
tables and bins set out by 30 or so vi-
nyl record dealers.
“I buy house and Detroit techno,
mainly,” said Matt Arace, a D.J.
from Hartford, Connecticut, who
was hunting down labels like Kom-
pakt or Minus.
Jeffrey Joe, who teaches high
school in Harlem, was “not looking
for anything in particular,” simply
putting himself in the way of seren-
dipity.
The numbers of vinyl fanatics are
hard to measure, but what’s certain
is that they are growing, along with
vinyl record sales. In 2008, 1.88 mil-
lion vinyl albums were purchased,
more than in any year since Nielsen
SoundScan began tracking sales 20
years ago.
That figure may be small com-
pared with the volume of digital
downloads during the same period.
Yet the people at SoundScan were
not alone in noting that a generation
raised on MP3 players has lately fall-
en in love with long-playing records,
as well as the outdated technology
that was the primary means of play-
ing music at home for the better part
of a century.
Mass retailers have taken note
and now sell vinyl records and re-
cord players. The men’s-wear de-
signer John Varvatos, a collector
whose personal stash runs to 15,000
records, was onto vinyl early; his
store stocks some of the choicest old
records in town.
“Vinyl is the biggest it’s been in 20
years,” Mr. Varvatos said recently.
The Brooklyn vinyl fair on a Sun-
day in late September was not the
largest one around, but it had a dis-
tinct flavor of New York. Among the
vendors was a senior editor at The
Huffington Post Web site; two guys
from Other Music, a record store; a
teacher with a sideline selling psych-
rock records; and Bill Yawien, a
55-year-old who recently moved
from a house to a condo.
“It was time to whittle it down
a little,” Mr. Yawien remarked to
some browsers perusing his trove
of records by Cream, Jimi Hendrix
and the Jefferson Airplane and the
Mothers of Invention.
It is safe to assume that buyers
were also, in some subtle fashion,
seeking cultural connections, the
kind you can get only from someone
like Sal Siggia.
“Someone once called me a cul-
ture maven,” Mr. Siggia said. “But
I never thought much about what
I was collecting. I just knew it was
worth saving somehow.”
Almost everything he sold that
day, including T-shirts from the
nightclub Area and a complete col-
lection of Smiths records, had been
acquired not for resale but for per-
sonal pleasure. “Everything people
bought was my stuff from the ’80s,”
Mr. Siggia said.
Was it tough, Mr. Siggia was
asked, to relinquish his treasure,
these autobiographical relics?
“No,” he said flatly. “Once I decide
to let go, I let go. If I dropped dead
tomorrow, all this stuff would be out
on Avenue A the next day.”
NEW YORK — You enter “Nueva
York (1613-1945)” feeling fairly sure of
your geographic bearings, but after
viewing an unusual accumulation of
artifacts, you leave less certain, curi-
ous, challenged.
Instead of seeing the
city and its past along
an East-West axis and
its conflicts and cul-
ture through interac-
tions with European-
born colonizers and
immigrants, we have our attention
rotated 90 degrees by the exhibition
at El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan.
We look along the North-South axis,
toward Latin America.
That is also the axis along which
immigration and cultural influence
accumulated in recent decades, lead-
ing to a growing Hispanic presence in
the city and in American life.
The Dutch, we learn, were inter-
ested in New Amsterdam not only
because of furs, pelts and lumber:
they also were countering their en-
emies the Spanish, whose empire in
the Western Hemisphere was vast.
We even see examples of the Spanish
treasure that inspired such rivalry.
Silver mines in present-day Bolivia
produced ingots like one on display
here. By the mid-1500s, the Spanish
had even cornered the market in
Mexican cochineal insects, which
were ground into paints and dyes,
creating the sumptuous scarlets and
reds of Renaissance Europe.
The British also had rivalries in
mind when they transformed New
Amsterdam into New York: Span-
ish power was the defining nemesis,
even in the way the British shared the
Dutch distaste for Spanish Roman
Catholic culture. A group of Jews from
Brazil was reluctantly permitted to
settle in New Amsterdam, but Catholic
churches were barred.
The American Revolution marked
a turning point. In opposition to
Britain, the colonies attracted Span-
ish support; in return, Spain was
rehabilitated. In 1786 New York’s
first Catholic church — St. Peter’s on
Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan
— was built.
But revolutionary ideals also in-
spired challenges to Spanish power.
In 1784 the Venezuelan Francisco de
Miranda arrived to seek assistance
“for the liberty and independence of
the entire Spanish-American Conti-
nent.” His enterprise faltered, leav-
ing it to others, like the Argentine
José de San Martín and the Venezu-
elan Simón Bolívar, to lead wars of
independence.
We learn of one New York celebra-
tion of South American independence
at the City Hotel on March 23, 1825.
But commerce must have been a
large factor in such support. Brook-
lyn became the world’s center for the
refining of South American sugar
cane.
In 19th century New York, new
immigrant communities formed.
They were small — in the early 1860s,
about 1,300 Spaniards and Latin
Americans lived in New York — but
they grew. Intellectuals and politi-
cians joined the merchants.
The 19th century’s Latin American
revolutions even seemed to begin in
New York, with many people fleeing
oppression in Cuba and Puerto Rico.
A red, white and blue flag hung here
is a reproduction of the one raised
by The Sun newspaper in 1850: it
was destined to become the flag of
an independent Cuba, though it was
meant as a call for its conquest.
New York became a locus for Cu-
ban debates for half a century. José
Martí, a supporter of Cuban indepen-
dence, came in 1880 and worked as a
journalist, while establishing New
York’s Spanish-American Literary
Society and writing poetry.
The exhibition cites a number of
such cultural encounters while also
showing their converse: the paint-
ings of Frederic Edwin Church (like
“Cayambe,” shown here) led to a lo-
cal fascination with the South Ameri-
can landscape.
By the time we reach the show’s
end, we see that even if there hadn’t
been a demographic transformation,
there is no way to understand the his-
tory of the city or the history of South
America without the North-South
axis. What is left unclear is just how
that axis changed in the latter part of
the 20th century under the pressures
of immigration.
Although the exhibition technically
ends in 1945, a film made for the show
by Ric Burns is meant to fill the gap,
and overturns the usual immigrant
narrative, blaming today’s influx of
immigrants on what American poli-
cies have done to their native coun-
tries. The film is being shown inside an
art installation called “From Here to
There,” created by Antonio Martorell:
a mock airplane resembling those that
ferried Puerto Ricans to New York in
the 1940s and ’50s.
The film’s assertions are par-
ticularly jarring because of what we
have already learned. There is no
claim made in this exhibition that
the history of the North-South axis
was untroubled or that anybody
was unilaterally benevolent, but it
is still a history of political inspira-
tion, mercantile energy and cultural
interaction.
DON HUNSTEIN/SONY
Glenn Gould’s technique involved an unusual posture.
KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Though still dwarfed by digital
downloads, demand for records
is rising.
CHESTER HIGGINS JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES
EDWARD
ROTHSTEIN
REVIEW
Virtuosity matched with a fragile eccentricity.
Looking South, Not East,
Into New York’s Past
RevealingThe MagicOf a Pianist
Hunting for Vinyl Treasure, And Cultural Connections
‘‘Nueva York
(1613-1945)’’
documents the
city’s historic links
to Spain and Latin
America. ‘‘From
Here to There,’’
an installation
made to resemble
the airplanes that
brought many
Puerto Ricans to
New York. Below,
Cuba is the subject
of this lithograph
printed in 1898.
Repubblica NewYork