tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146265382024-03-17T20:59:20.639-06:00Thirty letters in my nameHari Jagannathan BalasubramanianHarihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.comBlogger349125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-87611736014550237582018-07-05T07:26:00.001-06:002018-07-13T11:07:20.065-06:00Who knew healthcare could be so complicated? Snapshots from an American dataset<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just as the distribution of wealth in the United States exhibits dramatic skews – a small percent owns a disproportionate share of the total wealth – so too does the distribution of healthcare expenditures. When individuals in the US population are ranked based on their healthcare expenditures in a particular year, then it turns out that:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. The top 1% of individuals account for 22.8% of the total healthcare expenditures</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. The top 5% of individuals account for 50.4 % of the total healthcare expenditures</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3. The bottom 50% account for only 2.8% of total healthcare expenditures</span><br />
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<a href="https://meps.ahrq.gov/data_files/publications/st497/stat497.pdf"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">https://meps.ahrq.gov/data_files/publications/st497/stat497.pdf</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Healthcare expenditures refer to all payments made related to health events – either by insurer or out-of-pocket.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The estimates are from 2014, but the trends remain quite consistent from year to year. It is true that older individuals are more likely to have higher expenditures. But even if we look only at those over 65, we will still find that a small percent has an outsize impact. There is a fractal-like consistency to the pattern: if we narrowed our search down to the top 1% in a population of 10,000, then among these 100, the top 1-5 individuals will still account for a large percent of the total.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A similar trend emerges when we look instead at the prevalence of health conditions. If we were to plot the percent of individuals in a population (y-axis) who had no health conditions (count=0 on the x axis), exactly 1 health condition (count=1), exactly 2 health conditions (count=2) and so on, we would get something like the graph to the right. About 45% of the population has no apparent health conditions; about 25% has exactly one health condition; 12% has exactly two health conditions. The percentages start to decline as the count of conditions increases, indicative of the few who have 6, 7, 8, 9 or more conditions. We are now at the tail of the distribution where healthcare costs are most likely to be concentrated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because most of us in any particular year are healthy, the challenges faced by this small segment of the population can remain somewhat distant. Yet at some point in our lives – hopefully later than earlier or even better not at all: who can say – there is always a chance that we might join their ranks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In this column, I will present visualizations of healthcare use by individuals at the tails of the cost and health condition count distributions. I started creating these visualizations while researching a publicly available dataset called <a href="https://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/">the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey</a> - MEPS for short. This is the same dataset that was used to characterize the expenditure distribution above. Aggregate trends are valuable, but it is by looking closely at individual cases that one can begin to sense what is going on. Each year MEPS collects granular data on health events for members of thousands of households across the United States. Households are chosen in the survey to represent the national demographic; each household is compensated for the time spent filling out questionnaires. To protect the identities of those surveyed, the data is anonymized before it is released to the public.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few limitations first. While I have worked with physicians, nurses and pharmacists on research projects, I do not myself have any clinical training. I therefore cannot make any claims about whether the care received was appropriate or not. Also, I have a sense but not a detailed understanding of the arcane administrative process between insurers, hospitals, doctors' officers, and suppliers of pharmaceuticals that that leads to charges and payments in the United States – or any other country for that matter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This piece is therefore limited to what I saw in the data. What I saw surprised me – I was somewhat naïve to the complexity of modern healthcare, and it is this complexity that I'd like to communicate through examples.</span><br />
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<strong>Example 1</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first example is of a 50-year old female who was #10 when it came to expenditures ($209,370) among 35,313 individuals surveyed in MEPS 2011. The figure below shows a detailed split of her healthcare use in 2011, and how it changed in 2012 (each individual stays in the survey for up to two years).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01bb09e0eeea970d-popup"></a>There were no emergencies or hospitalizations in 2011 or 2012. 95% of the expenditures are on pharmaceuticals: 198 prescriptions were filled in 2011. While this number includes refills, it's likely that the prescriptions are not all of the same drug, but a mix. I say this because the 42 office based visits/consultations with physicians were spread across 6-7 specialties. Each specialist was likely prescribing something different. By downloading the right data files and linking it to this particular individual you can figure out which medicines were prescribed in 2011 and 2012, the diagnoses codes for each doctor visit, how much was paid out of pocket, how much by the insurer etc. Notice how in 2012 there are more office visits/doctor consultations (57) and 4 new outpatient procedures, but the number of prescriptions goes down to 89. Expenditures drop by over $100,000 and the same person is now ranked 81 among those surveyed in 2012. </span><br />
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<strong>Example 2</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My second example is of an 82- year man with high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, angina pectoris, and high cholesterol. He had a heart attack at 77, was diagnosed with diabetes the year of the survey. In the figure below, I show how the 75 doctor visits this patient had in a 2-year period were spread across 12 different specialties. The number on each edge indicates how many times the patient visited a particular specialty. Int. Med is Internal Medicine; Onc is Oncology; Orth. Is Orthopedics; Gast. Is Gastroenterology; Urol. Is Urology; ENT is Ear, Nose, Throat; Rheu is Rheumatology; Derm. Is Dermatology; Opth. is Ophthalmology; Card. Is Cardiology; Neph. is Nephrology; and PCP is primary care. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the qualitative parts of the survey the patient admits to having walking and vision limitations. It must not have been easy keeping up with so many doctor visits. Imagine setting up the appointments – 75 appointments in 2 years implies nearly 2 appointments every 3 weeks – driving to the clinics at the appointed time, experiencing waits, filling up multi-page forms, answering the same questions again and again, remembering all the medications prescribed. Even if there is a spouse or family member to help, being a patient seems like a demanding part-time or full-time job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My 83-year old uncle who lives in India once joked that nowadays there is a doctor who can treat the top half of your index finger, another one for the middle section of the finger and so on. He was parodying the proliferation of multi-specialty hospitals in India. I found myself agreeing with him. But I also realized that specialization is an inevitable consequence of how quickly medical knowledge has expanded over the last hundred years. It is unreasonable to expect a single doctor to master all of it. And so when faced with a situation beyond her expertise, the primary care physician – the family doctor or the general practitioner, who is often the first point of contact and who knows the patient's medical history the best – refers the patient to a specialist. When a patient has just one condition, a primary care-specialist pair can work well as a team. But when a patient is seeing 11 other specialists, making sense of the changes in symptoms, the numerous diagnostic test results and medications can be a challenge, even if electronic medical records capture all this information (they often don't). </span><br />
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<strong>Example 3</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This leads me to my third example, which gives us a physician's perspective. I am borrowing it from <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1406033#t=article">a short article</a> published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>. Its author, Matthew Press, is a primary care physician (PCP) at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In the article, titled "Instant Replay: A Quarterback's View of Care Coordination", Press describes the case study of a 70-year old patient whom he calls Mr. K:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"M. K's care was fairly straightforward— I was the only doctor he saw regularly — until the day he came into my office with flank pain and fever. A CT scan of his abdomen revealed a kidney stone — and a 5-cm mass in his liver, which a subsequent MRI indicated was probably a cholangiocarcinoma…Over the 80 days between when I informed Mr. K. about the MRI result and when his tumor was resected, 11 other clinicians [a urologist, a surgeon, a hematologist, a neurologist, a lab technician, a gastroenterologist, an interventional radiologist, an oncologist, a cardiologist, a pathologist, and a social worker] became involved in his care, and he had 5 procedures and 11 office visits (none of them with me). As the complexity of his care increased, the tasks involved in coordinating it multiplied…In total, I communicated with the other clinicians 40 times (32 e-mails and 8 phone calls) and with Mr. K. or his wife 12 times. At least 1 communication occurred on 26 of the 80 days, and on the busiest day (day 32), 6 communications occurred." (Excerpt and figure from <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1406033#t=article">Press 2014</a>)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Press kept a running list of all the tasks – emails, phone calls, visits etc related to Mr. K's care. This led to the figure above and <a href="http://www.nejm.org/action/showMediaPlayer?doi=10.1056%2FNEJMp1406033&aid=NEJMp1406033_attach_1&area=">an animation</a> on the journal website. It's worth watching how how the figure starts empty but fills up over 80 days. Luckily, Mr. K recovered and responded well to the treatment provided. After the 80-day burst of encounters things settled down. Press goes on to note that:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Patients can be harmed when the many moving parts of their care are out of sync. We owe it to them to coordinate the care we provide and prevent this type of medical error. For example, on day 32 of Mr. K.'s care, a Friday, I noticed some new electrolyte abnormalities on laboratory tests done before an interventional radiology procedure. First I called the cardiologist who had seen Mr. K. earlier that week, after I learned from the electronic medical record (EMR) that he had prescribed a new antihypertensive. Then I called Mr. K. to arrange to have his electrolytes rechecked, which had to be done at an outside laboratory because by then it was the weekend (this took two calls to the laboratory — one to schedule and one for the results). On Sunday, I had Mr. K. change medications and on Monday asked the interventional radiology nurse practitioner to recheck the labs again before the procedure (two more calls). On day 36, she did, and the electrolytes had normalized."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because Press had research duties, he worked part time and was the personal doctor for small number of patients. A relatively low workload gave him the time to meticulously track Mr. K's needs. In contrast, a typical doctor who works full time oversees the care of hundreds of patients. Press' article suggests that an overburdened physician will have much less time to coordinate the many dimensions of an individual's care, increasing the risk of serious errors.</span><br />
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<strong>Medications and Hospitalizations</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are two other situations in which modern healthcare can get complex. Just as a large number of specialists can become involved in a patient's care, so a patient may be prescribed a large number of unique medications: the former is actually a reliable indicator of the latter. In some datasets I've noticed patients who had been prescribed 15 or more unique drugs. There was one person who was on a staggering 30 unique medications! The trend is common enough to now have it own Wikipedia page and is called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypharmacy">polypharmacy</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other than the difficulty a person faces in remembering what should be taken, at what time of the day, when to refill, and why something is being taken, it made me wonder: how do clinicians and pharmacists weigh the side effects and possible interactions between all these medications? One medication in isolation can be tested in what is called a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomized_controlled_trial">randomized controlled trial</a>; the interactions between two, three or four medications gets harder, but nevertheless I assume they can be tested. It's mind-boggling to consider how a dozen or two dozen unique medications might interact.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The second type of situation is repeated emergency events and hospitalizations. The image below shows the sequence of events for a 42-year old man surveyed in MEPS 2011. He was hospitalized four times. The horizontal timeline marks the months of the year: J for Jan, F for Feb, and so on; PCP refers to a primary care visit. The last hospitalization happened at the end of December, the most festive time of the year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As with other things we've discussed, repeated hospitalizations and emergency events are prevalent in a small percent of the population. A hospital stay and the period after discharge can be extremely disorienting. Medical issues can be aggravated by disabilities, mental health concerns, substance abuse, absence of a supporting family member, and lack of steady housing. Absent an effective plan on what will happen after leaving the hospital, it is not uncommon for patients to get readmitted within days or weeks of discharge. The sickest patients end up receiving lots of expensive hospital care – which puts them into the top 1-5% - but that care isn't good enough to avoid future hospitalizations. </span><br />
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<strong>Concluding Remarks</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To summarize, the healthcare expenditure distribution is highly skewed. The vast majority of the population uses little or no healthcare, which is as it should be. Medicine has made significant progress is curbing infant mortalities and infectious diseases, and this has lead to longer lifespans. For most of that lifespan we can now hope to stay healthy. But it is also true that worldwide, even in developing countries, there's a been a shift from communicable diseases to the slow burn of chronic conditions. These diseases can manifest at any age but particularly when we grow older. Along with diabetes, arthritis, depression and mental health, certain types of cancers are now considered as chronic conditions that need to be managed long term.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The speed of technological advances in medicine and incentives to aggressively market those advances have led to numerous detection and treatment options. These options are supposed to make things easier and they often do. Yet they have also contributed to the complexity of modern healthcare. Many different specialists can get involved in a single patient's care, conduct a variety of diagnostic tests, prescribe a mix of medications. Such an escalation in intensity places a high burden on the patient without necessarily guaranteeing better health. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ash/initiatives/mcc/mcc_framework.pdf">acknowledges</a> "that as the number of chronic conditions increases, the risks of the following outcomes also increase: mortality, poor functional status, unnecessary hospitalizations, adverse drug events, duplicative tests, and conflicting medical advice".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The medical community recognizes the seriousness of the problem and its outsize impact on healthcare costs. Yet it has struggled to formulate effective responses. This is because the problem is not about tackling one disease in isolation, rather it is about how combinations of diseases collectively impact an individual. Complicating matters are socioeconomic factors and entrenched incentives which do not reward a holistic approach. Nevertheless a range of responses have emerged. I will finish the piece by briefly describing a couple.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One response has been to employ nurses and social workers visit medically complex patients on a regular basis, often in the patient's own home. Their goal is to simplify patient's care to the extent possible, help organize medications, and avoid unnecessary emergencies and hospital visits. They also address issues such as lack of employment, housing, insurance, mental health and addictions. In the process, the nurses and social workers hope to establish genuine relationships with their patients. A prominent illustration of this approach comes from Camden, New Jersey, featured here in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DiwTjeF5AU">13-min PBS Frontline video</a>. The Camden initiative, which MIT is evaluating <a href="https://www.camdenhealth.org/randomized-controlled-trial/">in a research study</a>, explicitly recognizes that medical issues, especially in cities such as Camden struggling with crime and economic decline, are inextricably linked to the social context. Similar approaches are being tested across the country, from urban <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/way-save-money-half-health-costs-spent-fraction-patients">Houston</a> to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/can-helping-high-risk-patients-basic-needs-reduce-costly-care-rural-areas">rural Montana</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another interesting response that caught my attention is a conceptual framework called <a href="https://minimallydisruptivemedicine.org/">minimally disruptive medicine</a>. The premise of minimally disruptive medicine is that patients can be overwhelmed by the demands that healthcare places on them. In the push to measure this and diagnose that, to try this new therapy or that new medication, what is truly important can get lost. Supporting this view are <a href="https://www.blogger.com/Beyond%20a%20certain%20threshold%20the%20demands%20of%20healthcare,%20rather%20than%20make%20things%20better,%20actually%20deplete%20the%20patient's%20financial,%20social%20and%20emotional%20capacity.%20This%20depletion%20makes%20it%20less%20likely%20that%20patients%20will%20follow%20recommended%20treatments.%20Minimally%20disruptive%20medicine%20asks:%20Is%20it%20possible%20to%20minimize%20the%20burden%20of%20treatment?%20Is%20it%20possible%20to%20truly%20listen%20to%20what%20the%20patient%20wants?%20Can%20the%20treatment%20be%20better%20aligned%20with%20the%20patient's%20goals%20in%20life:%20pursuing%20professional%20interests,%20spending%20time%20with%20family%20and%20friends,%20and%20having%20fun?">patient comments</a> such as these:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"To keep myself healthy, I miss out on a lot of things that people my age take for granted – working fulltime, cooking, showering every day, going out to socialize" [25-year old woman from the UK] </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"There is stuff that I am SUPPOSED to do, and stuff that I actually DO. If I did everything I am SUPPOSED to do, my life would revolve around doctors and tests and such and there wouldn't be very much left for living my life. So I've made a bunch of choices (with the input of my family and friends, because it's important for me to have their support)." [46-year old woman in the US] </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beyond a certain threshold the demands of healthcare, rather than make things better, can end up depleting the patient's financial, social and emotional capacity. This in turn makes it less likely that patients will follow recommended treatments. Minimally disruptive medicine asks: Is it possible to reduce the burden of treatment? Is it possible to truly listen to what the patient wants? Can the treatment be better aligned with the patient's goals in life: pursuing professional interests, spending time with family and friends, and having fun?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps I'll write a piece explaining these ongoing efforts in more detail. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what readers think.</span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-3155259206341727582017-05-11T10:39:00.000-06:002017-05-11T10:44:34.850-06:00Yelahanka: Sketches of a Neighborhood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My parents live in a two-bedroom flat at the northern end of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore">Bangalore</a>, in a town called Yelahanka. They moved in 2002, two years after I left for grad school in the United States. Over the last fifteen years, as I've continued to live abroad, Yelahanka has become the somewhat unfamiliar home in India, experienced every two years but no more than a few weeks at a time, and always changing each time I visited.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once a town with a history of its own, Bangalore's explosive growth over the last few decades made Yelahanka part of the greater city. In 2005, when I came to renew my student visa, the highway outside my parents' flat complex, the Bangalore-Bellary road, was being widened in preparation for the new international airport twenty kilometers north. The city seemed then to be splitting at its outer limits: earthmovers raking up heaps of rubble on the roadsides; laborers patiently striking heavy hammers to break existing concrete structures; and uprooted trunks and roots of what had once been massive trees, caked with the red earth of the depths from which they had been dug up. A study based on satellite imagery revealed that Bangalore, once called Garden City for its beautiful parks and tree-lined boulevards, <a data-mce-href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/GARDEN-CITY-no-more/articleshow/3308280.cms" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/GARDEN-CITY-no-more/articleshow/3308280.cms">lost 180 square kilometers</a> of its green cover from 2000-2006. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The new airport got going in 2008. A flyover – a separate airport access road to bypass local traffic – was constructed about 50 feet above, supported by giant pillars. In Yelahanka, these pillars landed on the lower road, splitting it in two. Instead of making things easier, the flyover for a long time felt like a major obstruction to the locals, blocking the view, and reducing access to public buses. The traffic, always notorious in India – an ever present cacophony of honks, a jostling for every inch of space between motorbikes, auto rickshaws and newly acquired cars – only got worse as drivers adjusted to the new u-turns and flows.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eight years later, things have settled down somewhat. The road from the airport to Yelahanka now has billboards encouraging the wealthy to purchase luxury high-rises that seem to be popping up everywhere. A couple of kilometers farther south are new malls, showrooms, glass fronted buildings of software firms and multi-specialty hospitals. Meanwhile, around the edges of these new developments, the older sections of Yelahanka continue undisturbed: a maze of narrow streets densely packed with homes, roadside businesses, vendor stalls, places of worship, with activities proceeding in an unstructured fashion and at a frenetic pace.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last August, as I strolled through various parts of town, I kept feeling that there is something very different about Indian neighborhoods when compared to the places I'd lived and visited around the world. But what are those differences exactly? The contrasts with American towns, not surprisingly, are the sharpest. Yelahanka is supposed to be a suburb, but the word suburb in the United States conjures up quiet streets with rows of single family homes, lawns, and parking garages; the mismatch could not be greater. Even the most crowded boroughs of New York City, parts of Brooklyn and Queens, are not quite like their Indian counterparts. Then there are the economically deprived towns across the US with their hollowed out buildings, vacant lots, potholed roads, grasses seeping back into the cracks of pavements – there are some surface infrastructural similarities, but such American towns lack the population densities and thriving small businesses that even smaller Indian towns have.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other parts of the world come a lot closer: the backstreets of the suburbs of Seoul, Hong Kong and Istanbul, market streets of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, and particularly Yogyakarta in Indonesia. Still, the combination of chaotic traffic and small-scale entrepreneurship gives the Yelahanka-like neighborhoods of India a distinct feel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Take the bustling side of the road outside my parents' flat complex. This is not a neatly marked pavement dedicated to pedestrians, rather it's an unpaved gray zone that ends up being shared by pedestrians, by vehicles that encroach on it to get ahead of the traffic, by public and private buses that swerve in suddenly to drop off and pick up waiting passengers, and by the vendors and informal businesses that have set themselves up along the edge. (There's also plastic litter everywhere despite the best efforts of the <a data-mce-href="http://bbmp.gov.in/home" href="http://bbmp.gov.in/home">BBMP</a> staff to sort trash and keep things clean -- this is another feature of Indian streets that I did not find in other developing countries, say in Guatemala or Peru, but I won't get into that in this column.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first business to the right is a small tire repair shed. No more than ten feet long and wide, it's a very basic, low-overhead kind of structure. Tires of various sizes and kinds are strewn all around. A lady with a thick ledger sits outside the shed with a pen, keeping accounts; she could be the owner. It's a busy place. A truck or van or auto-rickshaw driver is always looking for a repair. But you'll find absolutely no record of this bustling place online. It's one of the many ‘off-the-grid' businesses: businesses that in a western town would be marked on a map, licensed, reviewed, and taxed, but in Yelahanka are simply part of local knowledge. Google Maps features a blank space along this stretch of the road, but this misses the all the entrepreneurial activity that takes place. Farther down the same stretch, a blacksmith offers his services beneath a square piece of tarpaulin that serves as a roof. In the center of the square patch is a coal pit to heat metal; next to it, an anvil for banging metal into shape.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so it goes on along the edge of the road: one informal business after another. A woman in her sixties who in the narrow space of a porch sells <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idli" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idli">idlies</a> in the morning and <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vada_(food)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vada_(food)">vadas</a> in the afternoon at rates far cheaper than restaurants; a street vendor who positions his food cart outside a small liquor shop, so that the men who come to have surreptitious drink – unlike bars, these liquor shops have no music or social fanfare, drinking here appears to be a personal affair – can purchase the snacks to go with the alcohol. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The macro numbers only seem to confirm this. India has one of the higher rates of informal sector employment in the world. By definition, these are businesses that are small, easy to set up and dismantle, and do not take up much space. If you are interested in getting a visual sense of how such businesses operate, take a look at this YouTube video, created by Isha Gajjar. It captures numerous street vendors near the main bus station of Yelahanka. I've walked through this part of town many times.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even the formal businesses in Yelahanka are quite specialized and diverse. There is a small shop, for example, that focuses only on selling varieties of rice; there is a machine shop called GSS Engineering Works which does lathe-based machining; and there are houses from which there comes a clattering sound, as if printing presses are churning out newspapers. But the noise, my parents noted, could also be due to looms: Yelahanka has been known for the quality of its weaving industries for two centuries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The distinction between the formal and the informal applies to religious places too. In the older sections of Yelahanka, you'll find Hindu temples that span the entire range: from the larger ones with well constructed <em>gopurams</em> (the main structure), to those that you wouldn't formally consider as temples, but nevertheless serve a religious purpose, for example, the base of a tree with a wide, shade-providing canopy where a few idols have been placed; or a simple ochre-colored stone relief by the side of a pathway, accessible to everyone, the relief showing only the abstract outlines of a deity, a few fresh flowers offered by those who sit beside it and pray. Similarly, in the Muslim quarter of Yelahanka, there is a mosque whose prayer calls wake me up before dawn and which everyone knows about, but there is also, not far away, an unnoticed Sufi shrine, a single story structure painted green and with the title "Hazrat Buddhan Shah Wali".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Streets in the old section don't go in straight lines but rather curve and intersect in complex ways. With each random turn, I would discover something new. A utensil shop here, a ladies tailor shop there, a roadside shrine elsewhere. So it goes on and on! To understand this spatial distribution, it might help to consider the following contrast. In supermarkets and shopping malls, we find a dizzying range of catalogued products delivered from various parts of the world, all concentrated in one large air-conditioned room or one large building. Now imagine a more local kind of diversity, a similarly wide range of services, products and places of worship, but spread out in nooks and corners and edges of roads, not catalogued and searchable online, and which can only be known by living there and by learning what the locals know. This is what the older sections of Yelahanka are like.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">***</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Finally, a few words about the Yelahanka Lake. If I haven't mentioned the lake yet, it is because the traffic, crowds and the maze of streets are always front and center, and it requires effort to look beyond them and notice the natural beauty of the region. Luckily, from the ninth floor balcony of my parents' flat, I've always been able to glimpse the lake and the adjacent high-grass meadow where the cows graze throughout the day, their feet half sunk in the boggy soil. All kinds of migratory birds visit the region's lakes, which is why the neighboring Puttenahalli Lake has been protected as a sanctuary.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last year, I noticed that the Yelahanka Lake had more water, and a concrete walkway had been constructed along its outer circumference. The plan is to have a boating dock for residents of an unfinished luxury high-rise at the opposite bank. Maybe this will also turn into a thoroughfare eventually. But for now, a walk along that newly constructed lake-side path provides an unexpected and calming counterpoint. Rather than say much about it, I'll close by providing a few pictures.</span><br />
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-28183144751247222802017-02-14T19:16:00.000-06:002017-03-02T09:44:08.247-06:00Quantitative Measures of Linguistic Diversity and Communication<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of the <a data-mce-href="https://www.ethnologue.com" href="https://www.ethnologue.com/">7097 languages</a> in the world, twenty-three (including the usual suspects: Mandarin, English, Spanish, various forms of Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese) are spoken by half of the world's population. Hundreds of languages have only a handful of speakers and are disappearing quickly; one language <a data-mce-href="http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/26145" href="http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/26145">dies</a> every four months. Some parts of the world (dark green regions in the map) are linguistically far more diverse than others. Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, and India have profusion of languages while in Japan, Iceland, Norway, and Cuba a single language dominates. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why are languages distributed this way and why such large variations in diversity? These are hard questions to answer and I won't be dealing with them in this column. So many factors – conquest, empire, globalization, migration, trade necessities, privileged access that comes with adopting a dominant language, religion, administrative convenience, geography, the kind of neighbors one has – have had a role to play in determining the course of language history. Each region has its own story and it would be too hard to get into the details. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I also won't be discussing the merits and demerits of linguistic diversity. Personally, having grown up with five mutually unintelligible Indian languages, I am biased towards diversity – each language encapsulates a unique way of looking at the world and it seems (at least theoretically) that a multiplicity of worldviews is a good thing, worth preserving. But I am sure there are opposing arguments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instead, I'll restrict my focus to the following questions. How can the linguistic diversity of a particular region or country be numerically quantified? How do different parts of the world compare? How to account for the fact that languages may be related to one another, that individuals may speak multiple languages? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In tackling these questions, my primary source and guide is a short paper published in 1956 by Joseph Greenberg [1]. Greenberg's main goal was to create objective measures that could, in the future, be used to "to correlate varying degrees of linguistic diversity with political, economic, geographic, historic, and other non-linguistic factors." His paper proceeds from the assumption that linguistic surveys have been conducted and data on what people consider their mother tongue/first language, the number of speakers of each language, vocabulary etc. are already available. <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologue" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologue">Ethnologue</a> is an example of such a global survey [2]. </span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Linguistic Diversity Index</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The most basic measure Greenberg proposed is the now widely used linguistic diversity index. The index is a value between 0 and 1. The closer the value is to 1, the greater the diversity. The index is based in a simple idea. If I randomly sample two individuals from a population, what is the probability that they <em>do not</em> share the same mother tongue? If the population consisted of 2000 individuals and each individual spoke a different language as their mother tongue, then the linguistic diversity index would be 1. If they all shared the same mother tongue, then the index would be 0. If 1800 of them spoke language M and 200 of them spoke N, then index would be: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 – (1800/2000)<sup>2</sup> - (200/2000)<sup>2</sup> = 0.18</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the above, (1800/2000) is the probability that a randomly picked individual speaks M as their first language/mother tongue. And (1800/2000)<sup>2</sup> is the probability that two randomly picked individuals speak M. Similarly, (200/2000)<sup>2 </sup>is the probability that both the randomly picked individuals speak N as their mother tongue. When we subtract these squared terms from 1, what remains is the probability that the two randomly sampled individuals do not share a mother tongue. In this particular example, the index of 0.18 is low because of the dominance of M. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If there are more than two languages the procedure is the same. You would have one squared term that needs to be subtracted for every language. In a population of 10,000 where 10 languages are spoken and each language is considered a mother tongue by exactly 1000 speakers, the index would be:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 – 10 x (1000/10,000)<sup>2</sup> = 0.9.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This high value reflects both the number of languages and how evenly distributed they are in the population. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In fact, there are fifteen countries whose linguistic diversity exceeds 0.9, as the table above shows (based on Ethnologue data [2]). The list is dominated by 11 African countries, with Cameroon at number two. India, whose linguistic diversity I experienced firsthand for twenty years, is at number 13. Two Pacific island nations – Vanuatu and Solomon Islands: small islands these, and yet so many languages! – are in the top 5. First on the list is <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea">Papua New Guinea</a> whose 4.1 million people speak a dizzying 840 languages! The country's index of 0.98 means that each language has about 5000 speakers on average and that no language dominates as a mother tongue. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf00zlbbaf0Tzf6_KJLTJJYIiwSwb52Q32eUTtOw0u4X55gTTJbrXBaQiVceEnzfyHpGp020MHSBQ1HBheLf79J2GBjvE1Cz6hg0jbKb3_imnh2c3atuLS_d078xoS86tBB4M_jQ/s1600/Top15_3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf00zlbbaf0Tzf6_KJLTJJYIiwSwb52Q32eUTtOw0u4X55gTTJbrXBaQiVceEnzfyHpGp020MHSBQ1HBheLf79J2GBjvE1Cz6hg0jbKb3_imnh2c3atuLS_d078xoS86tBB4M_jQ/s640/Top15_3.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In his book <em>The World Until Yesterday</em>, Jared Diamond, who did a lot of his fieldwork and research in New Guinea, has this startling anecdote: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"One evening, while I was spending a week at a mountain forest campsite with 20 New Guinea Highlanders, conversation around the campfire was going in several different local languages plus two <em>lingua francas</em> of Tok Pisin and Motu…. Among those 20 New Guineans, the smallest number of languages that anyone spoke was 5. Several men spoke from 8 to 12 languages, and the champion was a man who spoke 15. Except for English, which New Guineans often learn at school by studying books, everyone had acquired all of his other languages socially without books. Just to anticipate your likely question – yes, those local languages enumerated that evening really were mutually unintelligible languages, not mere dialects. Some were tonal like Chinese, others were non-tonal, and they belonged to several different language families."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How different from what the majority of us are used to! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While New Guinea's linguistic diversity is widely recognized and not in doubt, its high language count and the rampant multilingualism that Diamond observed nevertheless lead to us to two flaws in the linguistic diversity index. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first flaw is that the index assumes languages are well defined, mutually exclusive units. It ignores the relatedness between languages and the fact that a dialect may be arbitrarily called a language. What of cases where there is close relatedness and even mutual intelligibility, for example between Hindi and Urdu, or between Spanish and Italian? And what to make of those cases where two dialects may well be closely related, but nevertheless are mutually unintelligible when spoken? Further, the language question seems loaded with the question of identity and politics. Apparently there is a running joke among linguists: "A language is a dialect backed by by an army and a navy."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To partially address this, Greenberg -- who recognized these problems, and was well aware of the difficulties of distilling complex language realities into quantitative measures -- suggested that the resemblance between languages or dialects could be numerically quantified by a value between 0 and 1. This what I understood from his paper: take the combined current vocabulary of a pair of languages and calculate the proportion of words that are common to both languages in relation to the total list of words. This proportion gives us a approximate measure of resemblance. A resemblance close to 1 means that the two languages are virtually identical, and a resemblance close to 0 implies an almost total lack of relatedness. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The resemblance can then be used to adjust the linguistic diversity index. Suppose there are three languages M, N and O spoken by 1/8th, 3/8th and 1/2 of the population and suppose the resemblance between [M, N], [M, O], and [N, O] is 0.85, 0.3 and 0.25. The unadjusted linguistic diversity index is 0.593. If we adjust for resemblance, this value drops to 0.381 -- diversity is not as high as it originally seemed. I have explained the calculations at the end of the piece [3].</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The second flaw in the index is that, by considering only an individual's mother tongue, it ignores multilingualism. As Diamond's New Guinea anecdote shows, a high linguistic diversity does not necessarily represent a lack of communication. The examples of Indonesia, India and the many countries of Africa show that it is possible to communicate in some common languages, <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca">lingua francas</a></em> that span large parts of the population, while yielding space to local mother tongues. So a different kind of measure is required. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></strong>
<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Index of Communication</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To accommodate multilingualism, Greenberg proposed the<em> index of communication</em>. As before, the index is a value between 0 and 1. A value close to 1 indicates high communicability and a value close to 0 indicates the opposite. If I randomly pick two individuals in a population, and each individual speaks one or more languages, then what is the probability that the individuals share at least one language in common? To ensure communicability, only one language has to overlap. (This index too has its problems. One flaw is that it ignores how well an individual speaks a particular language – something that might be hard to elicit in a survey. Another is how to set the threshold of communicability - is knowing a few basic words sufficient?)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Consider the simplest case where a population speaks only two languages, M and N. Using a census, you can calculate the proportion of the population that speaks M only, N only, and is bilingual in M and N. Suppose those proportions are 0.5 (speak M only), 0.3 (speak N only) and 0.2 (speak both M and N). To calculate the index of communication, I simply subtract the cases where the two individuals cannot understand/communicate with each other, which happens when the first individual speaks only M and the other only N, and vice-versa: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1 – [0.5 x 0.3] – [0.3 x 0.5] = 0.7<strong> </strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The same idea can be extended to more than two languages. </span></span></div>
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</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdBIxetFza0ZjswN1NQR46FxduuJ0VAUkoozHW4w8Zedqde-bMKfHTNHlkTAn-7-tD8Q5GAPFIHhB7246vE4TIqGyZrxtK1n-h7xVnAZZAWuN8mszma316tEVAacZ5AXwCgnxQgg/s1600/2997ab80-aae3-4ce7-b614-392475daa18d-1020x612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdBIxetFza0ZjswN1NQR46FxduuJ0VAUkoozHW4w8Zedqde-bMKfHTNHlkTAn-7-tD8Q5GAPFIHhB7246vE4TIqGyZrxtK1n-h7xVnAZZAWuN8mszma316tEVAacZ5AXwCgnxQgg/s320/2997ab80-aae3-4ce7-b614-392475daa18d-1020x612.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'll try to illustrate the index with a personal example. The engineering college I attended in the south Indian city of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiruchirappalli" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiruchirappalli">Trichy</a> had students from all parts of the country. At the time the college was called Regional Engineering College (REC), it is now called the National Institute of Technology. There was one REC in each major Indian state. The RECs had a unique admission policy. Half of the engineering students admitted each year were from the local state – in the case of Trichy, the home state was <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Nadu">Tamil Nadu</a> – and the remaining half were from outside the state. The more populous states, such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, got more students, but even far-flung parts, the Northeast and Kashmir, had some representation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />In my first year, all the 400 odd male engineering students were packed into the same hostel (dormitory), with 5 students sharing a room. In what seemed like a deliberate policy at integration, the students were assigned rooms so that 2-3 of the students were from Tamil Nadu and each of the others was from a different state. Since states in India are organized along linguistic lines, you had 3-4 mother tongues in each room. In the corridors you could hear the two dozen major languages of India [4]. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Despite all this diversity, communication was never a problem. Among the North Indians almost everyone knew Hindi and so Hindi was the bridge between mother tongues. The local state students– they were colloquially called <em>Tambis</em> by the North Indians – spoke Tamil but did not understand Hindi and were even hostile to it (even today, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's emphasis on Hindi annoys my Tamil friends). But all students whether North Indian or Tamil, had some working knowledge of English – the language of the textbooks, which everyone aspired to speak well if only to get access to good jobs after graduation. So English – however grammatically inaccurate or spotty – was the bridge between the locals and the North Indians. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If I randomly sampled two individuals from that student population of 400, then there is a good chance that the two students would have different mother tongues (high linguistic diversity), but due to multilingualism they would have at least one language in common. So the index of communicability was essentially 1, if we ignore the question of proficiency. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My own case was somewhat different but by no means unique. Although I was born with Tamil as my mother tongue, I had lived mostly in West and Central India and had picked up Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi socially (the last two have dropped off due to lack of practice). I applied to college as an out-of-state student, but was really returning to my home state. In Trichy, I could communicate in Tamil with all the local students. Indeed, my colloquial command of Tamil – all the bad words included –went up! With everyone who was not from Tamil Nadu, I used mostly Hindi or English. I learned, to my surprise, that my ability in conversational English was poor, because I'd never really spoken it socially. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The college experience I've described applies more generally. Many parts of India are like this: different language communities live together in cities and along borders between states and multilingualism facilitates communication. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To summarize, Greenberg's two indices capture contrasting aspects of language reality in a population. The diversity index captures the number of mother tongues and how evenly represented they are in relation to each other, while the index of communication captures how connected a population is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In theory, a population could retain its linguistic diversity while also maintaining a high index of communication essential in a globalized world. In practice however, a worldwide rise in communication appears to be happening at the expense of linguistic diversity. The numerous but lesser known languages of Australia, North America, Central and South America are losing ground quickly. Africa is the only continent bucking the trend. India's twenty odd major languages are still doing quite well, but others are not – check out these podcasts (<a data-mce-href="http://www.audiomatic.in/show/mission-impossible-surveying-indian-languages-dialects/" href="http://www.audiomatic.in/show/mission-impossible-surveying-indian-languages-dialects/">1</a> and <a data-mce-href="http://www.audiomatic.in/show/vanishing-voices-lose-lose-language/" href="http://www.audiomatic.in/show/vanishing-voices-lose-lose-language/">2</a>) by Padmaparna Ghosh and Samanth Subramanian on the challenges of linguistic surveys and inevitability of language loss. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Finally, here are brief notes on two different countries: Mexico and United States. I've had a long-standing interest in both these countries. Drawn to its pre-Columbian indigenous past, I traveled to Mexico six times – from Chiapas to Oaxaca in the south, to Michoacán and Mexico City in the center, to Chihuahua in the north. The United States, meanwhile, has been home for the last 16 years. </span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mexico </span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the last section of his paper, Greenberg demonstrates how his two measures – linguistic diversity index and the index of communication – stack up when it comes to the 31 states of Mexico, and Mexico as a whole. To do this, he used bilingual data from a census in 1930. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mexico's indigenous languages began to decline after the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521. </span></span>In Greenberg's calculation, Mexico's linguistic diversity index (unadjusted for resemblance) was 0.31 in 1930 while it's index of communication was 0.83. Among individual states, though, there was a great deal of variation. The federal district (DF – Distrito Federal), which includes the highly populous Mexico City had much lower linguistic diversity of 0.12 while its index of communication was 0.99 – virtually 1, which makes sense because Spanish is indispensable in the capital. The state of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaxaca" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaxaca">Oaxaca</a>, which I have visited twice recently and where indigenous groups have a strong presence, had the highest linguistic diversity index of 0.83. In Greenberg's data, Oaxaca's index of communication of 0.47 was the lowest in Mexico. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But this was in 1930; I am sure things have changed in the last 86 years towards greater communicability and lower diversity as Spanish continues to be dominant. According to Ethnologue, Mexico's language count is 290 but its diversity index is down to 0.11. Most likely – this is a guess – its index of communication, which was already 0.83 in 1930, is well over 0.9 now. <strong> </strong></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">United States</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to the Ethnologue, the US has 430 languages: 219 of which are indigenous and 211 of them immigrant. North America before European settlement was teeming with indigenous languages from different families. California was one of the most linguistically diverse places in the America with around <a data-mce-href="http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/languages/california-languages.php" href="http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/languages/california-languages.php">70-80 languages</a> from 20 language families. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because of the sustained ethnic cleansing that happened after European arrival, the vast majority American Indian languages are now tethering on the brink of extinction. English is dominant, which explains the country's relatively low linguistic diversity of 0.34. English is also why the United States' index of communication is likely to be very high – above 0.9 if not close to 1 (this is a guess and is not based on data). Today an American Indian who speaks, say, <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_language">Navajo</a> or <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language">Cherokee</a>, can communicate in English with a recently naturalized Indian-American whose original mother tongue was, say, <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_language">Telugu</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite English's dominance, the United States does have a certain linguistic richness to it, thanks to immigrants (citizens or not) from all other continents to make a living here. <a data-mce-href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/nyregion/29lost.html?_r=0" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/nyregion/29lost.html?_r=0">By some estimates</a> 800 languages are spoken in New York City!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Reference and Footnotes</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Greenberg, Joseph H. "The measurement of linguistic diversity." <em>Language</em> 32.1 (1956): 109-115.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: <a data-mce-href="http://www.ethnologue.com" href="http://www.ethnologue.com/">http://www.ethnologue.com</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3. Greenberg's adjustment for resemblance between languages: Suppose there are three languages M, N and O spoken by 1/8th, 3/8th and 1/2 of the population and suppose the resemblance between [M, N], [M, O], and [N, O] are 0.85, 0.3 and 0.25. Then the linguistic diversity index adjusted for resemblance is:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1 – [(1 x 1/8 x 1/8) – (1 x 3/8 x 3/8) – (1 x 1/2 x 1/2)] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">– [(0.85 x 1/8 x 3/8) – (0.85 x 3/8 x 1/8)] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">– (0.3 x 1/8 x 1/2) – (0.3 x 1/2 x 1/8) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">– (0.25 x 3/8 x 1/2) – (0.25 x 1/2 x 3/8) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">= 0.381</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first line is exactly the linguistic diversity index we have already seen, without adjusting for resemblance. There are 3 languages so one squared term for each language. Each term calculates the probabilities that both randomly picked individuals speak the same language. There is a multiplier of 1 since the resemblance of a language to itself is 1. If we used only the first line, we would get an unadjusted linguistic diversity index of 0.593. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next 3 lines take care of relatedness between language pairs. The second line calculates the probability that the first randomly picked individual speaks M and the second speaks N, and vice versa. The multiplier of 0.85 indicates that there is a high resemblance, therefore speaking M and N should be treated (almost) like speaking the same language. Lines 3 and 4 do the same for language pairs [M, O] and [N, O] and the respective resemblance multipliers are used. In the end the adjusted diversity index gives us a value of 0.381, significantly lower than the unadjusted value of 0.593.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. The beautiful Indian language tree illustration is by <a data-mce-href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-language-family-tree-in-pictures" href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-language-family-tree-in-pictures">Minna Sundberg</a>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. This piece was first posted at <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2016/08/quantitative-measures-of-linguistic-diversity-and-communication.html">3 Quarks Daily</a>.</span></span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-69854673920882040332016-07-06T10:33:00.004-06:002016-07-27T13:46:11.628-06:00Four days in Jogja<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCNhFzYHaom5ime8CNPE53QZMEe0COA8IVyM2QugxiSfSZy4yOARo7hnGE_NGNyFDwzy1pnRPlN92B3A9BdKrG3cH4YO5h8QXbPNk6JXg9intbATfpS5JsDlRGtqByZP58sHwCvw/s1600/IMG_20140821_154313_746+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCNhFzYHaom5ime8CNPE53QZMEe0COA8IVyM2QugxiSfSZy4yOARo7hnGE_NGNyFDwzy1pnRPlN92B3A9BdKrG3cH4YO5h8QXbPNk6JXg9intbATfpS5JsDlRGtqByZP58sHwCvw/s400/IMG_20140821_154313_746+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I was in the city of </span><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogyakarta" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogyakarta" style="background-color: white;">Jogjakarta</a><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">(also spelled as Yogyakarta) in May 2015. It was a short stay: I was primarily visiting Hong Kong, but then had to exit Hong Kong to re-enter because my visa-free stay had expired. Nearby countries would have served the purpose, but I chose Indonesia -- six hours south by flight and across the equator -- because I'd always been drawn to its size and diversity: thousands of islands in a tremendous sprawl (if the northwestern-most part of Indonesia started in Alaska, the archipelago would stretch all the way to Virginia); 240 million people, 87% of them Muslim, speaking 700 odd languages (even greater linguistic diversity than India); an unlikely national experiment that began in 1940s after centuries of Dutch colonial rule and a short but painful three years of Japanese occupation. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was no way to capture even a fraction of that complexity in four days, but I wanted to start somewhere. Jakarta, the sprawling capital where I stayed the first night, was too daunting; but Jogjakarta, an hour's flight from the capital and which holds a unique place in Javanese culture, seemed more manageable. Here are some informal impressions: nothing very detailed, just a first take. </span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The island of Java, studded with volcanoes throughout its length, is one of the most densely populated parts of the world, home to 145 million people. Jogjakarta lies in the central part of Java, but closer to the southern coast. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ride from the airport to the hotel was through a bustling thoroughfare, packed with people, shops and malls on either side. So many motorbikes and two-wheelers wove their way around cars that the traffic approached the chaos of Indian roads. Perhaps it was because I had arrived the time of the <em>Waisak</em> holiday – the holiday that commemorated the birth of the Buddha. In a few days, the President of Indonesia, <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joko_Widodo" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joko_Widodo">Joko Widodo</a>, was scheduled to visit <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur">Borobudur</a>, the famous 9<span data-mce-style="font-size: 11px;">th</span> century Buddhist temple near Jogja. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's the kind of place Java is: Islam is the formal faith and widespread, but the Hindu-Buddhist past remains a part of Javanese identity and is celebrated in so many ways. The other major draw in Jogja is the Hindu <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prambanan" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prambanan">Prambanan temple</a>, roughly contemporaneous to Borobodur. The Indian influence actually stretches even further back: Sanskrit inscriptions date to the 5th century. Thanks to the seasonal winds which promoted maritime trade, the Indonesian islands have been linked, directly or indirectly to China and India and the Middle East for over two millennia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just to give <a data-mce-href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2008/11/11th-century-gujarati-cotton-trade.html" href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2008/11/11th-century-gujarati-cotton-trade.html">one example</a>: in the 11th century – when Buddhism and Hinduism were still strong and Islam still hadn't taken hold – cotton that was produced in Gujarat (west India) was shipped to both Egypt and Indonesia. In an effort to be responsive to their markets, the Gujarati producers adjusted the color and pattern of the cloth to suit different preferences: "Green patterns sold well in Egypt. Animal patterns were sent to Southeast Asia, but not to Islamic Egypt."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The major shift towards Islam seems to have happened between the 13<span data-mce-style="font-size: 11px;">th</span> and 16<span data-mce-style="font-size: 11px;">th</span> centuries. This shift was not, as in so many other places, a result of conquering armies, but a gradual bits and pieces affair, the work of a few Sufi mystics who arrived from various parts of Asia. Further, the Islam that came to Java did not erase past beliefs, but blended with them to create a composite faith that borrowed from different strands – something that still persists today. </span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Although it was interesting to learn about Java's Hindu-Buddhist past, I wasn't very enthusiastic about visiting Borobodur and Prambanan. I had seen such archaeological sites in other parts of the world – Teotihuacan in Mexico, Machhu Picchu in Peru, Hampi in Karnataka, India – and was somewhat exhausted by the emphasis on past grandeur that only peripherally affected modern realities. But I had few other ideas, so I went in the hope of seeing something of the city, and how Javanese visitors related to the historical sites. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I took the city bus to Prambanan. The bus took a circuitous route, touching the parts of Jogja where the big universities were. Certainly there was much that reminded me of India that day: the hot day; a higher than average density of people; informal vendor stalls everywhere on the side of the roads; tricycle-taxis pedaled by drivers for short rides; coconut trees; Sanskrit names on storefronts. And then there was Prambanan itself, a Hindu temple at the end of the journey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prambanan's exterior was impressive. Its towers were slightly thinner compared to Indian temples, and all along the circumference of each tower were smaller conical structures pointing upward, which lent the entire complex a certain dynamism when viewed from far. But the interior of the temple, the beautiful reliefs on the walls, the deities that were worshiped – <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha">Ganesha</a>, <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva">Shiva</a> – felt pretty close to the forms I had known in India. </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8754f47970b-350wi" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="IMG_20150531_021739_822 copy" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8754f47970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8754f47970b-350wi" data-mce-style="width: 350px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8754f47970b-350wi" style="margin-top: 0px; width: 350px;" title="IMG_20150531_021739_822 copy" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Indeed, it felt somewhat strange to encounter the religious tradition I had been born into so far away from home but also reaching so far back in time. Large groups of Javanese school children had come that day, as part of school tours perhaps, to get a glimpse of their island's past. They tramped up and down the steep, black stone steps of towers. What did they make of this place, I wondered. Did it fit into the modern narrative only as a relic of history, beautiful to look at but with no real influence? In India, it's a fair bet a place like Prambanan – like the 800-year old <a data-mce-href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2009/09/at-brihadishwara.html" href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2009/09/at-brihadishwara.html">Brihadeeshwara temple</a> in Thanjavur – would still be active as a place of worship. I know that my devout father would immediately begin his prayers if he came anywhere close to Prambanan! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hinduism appears to have persisted in Java not through its temples – Prambanan in the 19<span data-mce-style="font-size: 11px;">th</span> century was in ruins and had to be reconstructed – but its major epics, the <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana">Ramayana</a></em> and <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata">Mahabharata</a></em>. The Javanese have made these epics and their central characters their own, weaving them into their most famous art form, the <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayang" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayang">wayang</a></em>, the shadow puppet theater, which has been popular for many centuries, and still is. A wayang can start in the evening and continue all night, into the morning. The <em>dalang</em>, the puppeteer – the good ones are high in demand these days and well paid – adapts the characters drawn from Hindu epics. </span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1ff2257970c-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1ff2257970c-popup" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Wayang_(shadow_puppets)_from_central_Java,_a_scene_from_'Irawan's_Wedding'" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1ff2257970c img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1ff2257970c-500wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1ff2257970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Wayang_(shadow_puppets)_from_central_Java,_a_scene_from_'Irawan's_Wedding'" /></span></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Image from <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayang#/media/File:Wayang_(shadow_puppets)_from_central_Java,_a_scene_from_%27Irawan%27s_Wedding%27.jpg" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayang#/media/File:Wayang_(shadow_puppets)_from_central_Java,_a_scene_from_%27Irawan%27s_Wedding%27.jpg">Wikipedia</a>: Wayang (shadow puppets) from central Java, a scene from <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iravan" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iravan" title="Iravan">Irawan</a>'s Wedding, mid 20th century, University of Hawaii Dept. of Theater and Dance</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Growing up in India in the 1980s, I learned all the details of the Ramayana and Mahabharata through serials shown on national television on Sunday morning, and through illustrated picture books. Thousands of miles away, a Javanese Muslim growing up at the same time might have have learned about the epics staying up all night and attending a <em>wayang</em> communally with many others. The names differ slightly in Java – Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, is Rahwana; Lanka is Alengka; Sita, the wife of Rama, is Sinta. What you learned depended on how the dalang presented the story. In 1979, VS Naipaul, while visiting a village near Jogja, noted this about a <em>wayang</em>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"The good puppet-master, whatever his interpretation of the story, political, mystical, leaves the issues open. Everyone watching responds according to his character and circumstances…Because every character trails his own ancestry and dilemmas, even the wicked Rahwana, even the beautiful Sinta. Everyone is engaged in his own search, and at his appearance in the story is in a crisis; so that, as in the profoundest drama or fiction, every encounter is charged with meaning. The epics are endless. The puppet plays bear any number of repetitions, because the more the audience knows the more it understands; and interpretations of motive, of what is right and wrong or expedient, will constantly change." [From <em>Among the Believers</em>.] </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em>Wayangs</em> are so popular that even the Islamist Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (the Prosperity and Justice Party, or PKS) which captured a small percent of the Indonesian electorate in 2009 and which held its national convention in Jogja in 2011 – the writer Pankaj Mishra <a data-mce-href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n19/pankaj-mishra/after-suharto" href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n19/pankaj-mishra/after-suharto">attended</a> the convention – even this Saudi-funded radical group, which might have rejected stories from other faiths, couldn't resist sponsoring for its delegates a <em>wayang</em> based on the Hindu epic <em>Mahabharata</em>!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was something else going on in Prambanan that day. Near a grassy patch on the outer periphery of the temple, a woman was singing a slow, haunting kind of song while others played modern stringed instruments and a drum. In front of the stage where the singer was seated, a group of boys, dressed presumably in old Javanese style, were dancing and enacting something. I thought maybe this was a rehearsal of the Ramayana ballets that were held on Thursday evenings at Prambanan. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After a while, I wasn't so sure. The boys seemed to be in some kind of trance. There was an older man who kept running from one boy to another, seeming to stabilize them, monitoring their progress closely. In one case, a boy was sprawled on the ground, and the old man forcibly opened the boy's mouth and removed something that the boy was chewing. Some kind of intoxicant. I learned later that whatever the boys were chewing was meant to promote the trance, and that the man who was running around checking on the boys was a kind of shaman, ensuring that nothing in this initiation got out of control. The woman whose melodious song I had found mesmerizing – I yearned for that song and voice for many days – was meant to keep the boys in their hypnotic state. </span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c875508a970b-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c875508a970b-popup" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="IMG_20150531_031940_542 copy" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c875508a970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c875508a970b-500wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c875508a970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="IMG_20150531_031940_542 copy" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what I thought was a performance, meant to entertain, was at least in part a ritual initiation ceremony, something related to Java's animist past, in which the boys enthusiastically participated for their own benefit. They cared little about the audience. But there was an audience, perhaps just as fascinated as I was, and it included women in headscarves. Suddenly the visit to Prambanan, which I had been lukewarm about, had turned interesting. For here were all those strands of Javanese faiths: a glimpse of its animist past on a holiday that commemorated the Buddha's birth, at this reconstructed Hindu temple where Ramayana ballets were held regularly – all of this explored and watched intently by visitors who were predominantly Muslim. </span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is this syncretic or composite faith that Java is known for, and which has been threatened by the more radical versions of Islam that have taken root (though not to the same extent as elsewhere). In his essay <em><a data-mce-href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n19/pankaj-mishra/after-suharto" href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n19/pankaj-mishra/after-suharto">After Suharto</a></em>, Pankaj Mishra, who has traveled to Indonesia many times, writes about the "creeping Islamisation": attacks on churches, on members of the minority sects, nightclubs and bars. Elizabeth Pisani who has lived and traveled extensively in the archipelago, points out in her book, <em><a data-mce-href="http://indonesiaetc.com" href="http://indonesiaetc.com/">Indonesia Etc.</a>, </em>that while the syncretic tradition still remains strong,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Islam in Indonesia has homogenized into something more orthodox than it was since <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto">Suharto</a> came to power. Saudi Arabia has been underwriting schools and mosques in Indonesia that teach Islam off a Middle Eastern template. The classic mosques of central Sumatra and Java, with their modest three tiered roofs in terracotta tiles that echo the shape of Indonesia's volcanoes and blend into the villages, are increasingly giving way to variations of the Middle Eastern style -- domed, minarets, ostentatious." </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In my short visit, I sensed this trend on two occasions. The first was in Jakarta, where I shared a ride to the airport with three or four other men, who were likely from the Middle-East. They were all dressed in white and wore white skull caps. They were rehearsing something in Arabic – verses from the Koran perhaps. When one of them forgot a verse or was off track, another would step in to correct. The men were taking a flight to Solo, 60 kilometers away from Jogjakarta. Were they preachers who had come to teach in a mosque or Islamic school in Solo? But the ride was short and I did not have the time to ask. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The second occasion was a slow-moving motorcycle rally in Jogja, in which the grim-looking bikers, about twenty of them, were covered in shawls or robes of some kind and carried flags with Arabic lettering. The Arabic stood out because most signs in Jogja are in <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_language">Bahasa</a>, the lingua franca of Indonesia.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Jogja though, going by its reputation, you are more likely to run into someone steeped in mysticism rather than a hardline Islamic worldview. This is what happened on the fourth and last day of my visit, when I met Raul. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Raul (not his real name) was the guide who took me to Borobodur. He was about thirty, dark-complexioned and with a square face. He was mostly Javanese, he said, but had a little bit of Chinese ancestry and perhaps a little European too. From the outset, it was clear that he was polite and sincere, and someone who did not impose too much. Perhaps it was the Javanese preference for courtesy and manners. Raul himself said that social interactions in Java had the quality of a ‘drama', an act. </span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d200e799970c-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d200e799970c-popup" style="float: right;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Mount_Merapi_in_2014" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d200e799970c img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d200e799970c-300wi" data-mce-style="width: 300px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d200e799970c-300wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 300px;" title="Mount_Merapi_in_2014" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Within minutes of heading out, he starting describing landmarks. Tugu circle, the intersection where my hotel was, is an important monument, he said. It is actually a <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam">lingam</a></em>. The Sultan's palace (the <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraton_Ngayogyakarta_Hadiningrat" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraton_Ngayogyakarta_Hadiningrat">kraton</a></em>: a kind of nerve center of civic and religious life in Jogja), the Tugu monument and <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Merapi" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Merapi">Gunung Merapi</a> (the still active volcano: image from Wikipedia), are in one straight line, Raul explained, and this assisted the Sultan when he sat down to meditate in his palace. Here again that delightful mix of different strands: <em>lingam</em>, a phallic symbol in Hinduism, adapted here in Java and linked to a sacred natural landmark.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This was Raul the guide, I thought, simply stating facts for the tourist in a detached way. But that impression wasn't entirely right. Javanese mysticism wasn't just something he explained to tourists. He'd experienced strange things himself. He once saw a green light – not an actual light, but a light from a different realm, an aura that's not visible to everyone – descending into someone's home. Puzzled, he had gone to the the Sultan's palace, to check with spiritual advisers there. They were at first surprised that Raul could detect such auras. What color was it, they asked. The green one, it turned out, was something unpleasant that could possess an individual. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Such auras are not unusual in Java", he said. "Once I too was possessed by a spirit. It happened when I was driving back home on my motorbike. It was a woman's spirit, and it troubled me for a while. I went again to the Kraton. They asked me not to worry too much about it and to recite the right prayers at the mosque. You know, prayers, the way they are said create certain vibrations which can help. After some time, I was cured. These things happen in Java."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Raul understood that I might be surprised at such claims. But he was unworried what I might think. He stated everything in a matter-of-fact way. He did not linger on these things and I did not delve further. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The presence of the spiritual advisers, people who had understood Raul's experiences and guided him, suggested a shared culture of mysticism. I later found more evidence of this in Naipaul's Islam-themed travel books, <em>Among the Believers</em> and <em>Beyond Belief</em>. In 1979 and again in 1997, Naipaul had met a successful Catholic poet, Linus, who lived in a village near Jogja. Linus was one of many Indonesians whose stories Naipaul described in detail. In 1997, Linus, much like Raul, had talked of his mystic experiences. In Linus' case, Siddhartha -- the Buddha himself -- came in his dreams, to reveal spiritual insights. But it wasn't a direct revelation and it wasn't just Linus. His friends were involved too. The message that the Buddha gave was typed onto the palm of Linus' friend. Yet another friend, a woman, was the only person who could interpret these messages by looking at the friend's palm. So there had been this group of friends that had met now and then, for many years: as in Raul's case, individual dreams and visions were collectively shared. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just as interesting was how Raul's mysticism intersected with the modern world. Raul mentioned how he had seen videos or a research paper online about an experiment that tested the impact of positive words and thoughts. Plants that had been exposed to positive words had developed symmetric and healthy patterns; plants exposed to abusive words had become distorted. Raul also believed that the act of naming something was important. By naming something you determined its destiny. He gave the example of an Indonesian airline that had, true its mythically inspired name, eventually gone out of business. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Raul had been born in a city about three hours by drive from Jogjakarta. He'd studied tourism at the local university but did not finish. Later, he worked for two years at a cruise ship. He had visited coastal cities in the United States. But the work had been detrimental to his wellbeing. He had a life-threatening health crisis, a paralysis due to a genetic condition, but one that he believed was triggered by an unhealthy lifestyle, eating American-style food at the cruise-ship. He had survived that narrowly. This work as a guide in Jogja was a slow a return to normalcy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">His views now were shaped by that crisis. He was against genetically modified foods. He cited scientific studies he had read on the internet to back his claims. He was against the excessive use of refined sugar. He was concerned about how much plastic was disposed and how it was polluting rivers. The group that he now worked with not only organized tours, but was also involved in addressing such ecological concerns. Outside the entrance to the Borobodur temple – which was abuzz with preparations for President's Jokowi's visit the next day – Raul expressed unease upon seeing caged birds sold by vendors, dozens of small sparrow-like, bright-colored birds, all confined to cages and jostling for space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Politically, Raul had a left-leaning stance. He was against the landowners who with the help of politicians had deliberately purchased land around the Borobodur and Prambanan temples, calling them amusement parks and thereby inflating the entrance fees (the $30 fee might seem okay by American standards, but a good lunch in Jogja costs less than a dollar or two – that's how cheap things are in Indonesia). Raul spoke fondly of the current President, Joko Widodo, who had been elected in 2014. Jokowi, as he is popularly known, was different because he wasn't from the political or military elite, but from a modest family in the neighboring city of Solo. When it came to Islam, Raul was clear that Sharia law or extremist interpretations had no place in Jogja. </span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c876aee2970b-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c876aee2970b-popup" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Borobudur_2008" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c876aee2970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c876aee2970b-500wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c876aee2970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Borobudur_2008" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meanwhile, the temple at Borobodur, striking though it was – overlooking mountain ranges and fertile green valleys – passed by in a blur. I remember Raul explaining the Buddhist themes of the temple carefully – moving from the realm of desires at the lower level to the top, where nirvana or enlightenment awaited – but my real interest had always been in conversing with and getting to know, even if only for a few hours, someone with a Javanese worldview.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So the grand Borobodur took a backseat that day, and Raul himself was front and center. I wished I could have talked more with him, but we were running out of time. After lunch at a roadside stall in the nearby village, where we had the cabbage-tofu dish, the <em>kupat tahu</em>, we headed back to Jogja. It was a hearty meal, sweet and spicy like many Indonesian dishes. Raul took a nap during the drive back. The next day I flew back to Jakarta. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-59434760462585049792016-05-27T08:49:00.001-06:002016-05-27T08:55:40.190-06:00Nature Notes from Massachusetts: How the Land has Changed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c85388f0970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c85388f0970b-popup" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="0305151548" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c85388f0970b img-responsive" data-mce-selected="1" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c85388f0970b-300wi" data-mce-style="width: 300px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c85388f0970b-300wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; outline: black solid 1px; resize: none;" title="0305151548" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've lived in Massachusetts for 8 years now, and I've always been struck by the density and variety of trees here – maples, oaks, birches, beeches, chestnuts, hickories, white pines, pitch pines, hemlocks, firs. Look in any direction and your view is likely to be blocked by a tangle of trees: in the winter and early spring crisscrossing, leafless branches form a haze of brown and gray; in the summer, when the leaves have returned, there is a lush, impenetrable wall of green. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Apparently this wasn't always the case: in the mid 1800s, the naturalist and writer <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau">Henry David Thoreau</a>, the author of <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden">Walden</a></em>, was "able to look out of his back door in <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord,_Massachusetts" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord,_Massachusetts">Concord</a> [now on the outskirts of Boston] and see all the way to <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Monadnock" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Monadnock">Mount Monadnock</a> in New Hampshire because there were so few trees to block his view." In <em>Natural History of Western Massachusetts</em>, Stan Freeman writes: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"in the early 1800s Massachusetts may have looked much like a farm state in the Midwest, such as Kansas and Indiana. Farm fields, barren of trees, stretched from horizon to horizon…"</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Also consider this. In 1871, when the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) surveyed the stone fences that European farmers in the Northeast had constructed, they found 33,000 miles of such fences <em>in Massachusetts alone</em>! That number should make clear just how much land was put under the plough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Things changed quickly, though. As the United States expanded westward in the 19th century, fulfilling its so called <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny">Manifest Destiny</a>, the Midwest emerged as a major player in agriculture. Midwestern crops could be sent back east by railroad. The farmers of the New England, unable to compete, abandoned their lands. The forests grew back, hiding the thousands of miles of stone fences.</span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8538926970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8538926970b-popup" style="float: right;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Untitled" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8538926970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8538926970b-300wi" data-mce-style="width: 275px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c8538926970b-300wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 275px;" title="Untitled" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1893, forest land in Massachusetts was about 30% of the land area of the state. In 1998, forest land actually <em>increased</em> to 60%. This still holds true -- see 2014 USDA map. The six million residents of Massachusetts are concentrated in a few cities and suburbs, and despite the resurgence of local farms, much of what the state needs is supplied from outside. Travel west of Boston (along I-90 or Route 2 or back roads such as MA-9) and the towns are never very big. At the edges of these towns – with their abandoned mills, red brick buildings, the odd convenience store, gas station, a church or two – are miles and miles of thick forests, winding brooks and wetlands. Even the exceptionally busy Mass pike or Interstate-90 runs through land that has simply been left alone. Driving by at 70 miles an hour, I once remember spotting a blue heron resting among <a data-mce-href="http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=TYLA" href="http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=TYLA">cattails</a> in a small pond. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Amherst, which is in the western part of the state, residential areas are continuously interspersed with a patchwork of conservation lands. One of my favorite spots is called Lawrence Swamp. Much of it looks like this picture I took a couple of weeks ago. I love how still the water is! You can follow even the smallest of ripples – created, say, by an insect skimming the surface. The mound you see adjacent to the dead pine tree is an active beaver lodge. A flooded landscape with dead trees, broken stumps and floating logs – very haphazard, but to ecologists such features constitute a <em><a data-mce-href="http://faculty.rwu.edu/lbyrne/papers/byrne_habitat_structure.pdf" href="http://faculty.rwu.edu/lbyrne/papers/byrne_habitat_structure.pdf">habitat structure</a></em>, an arrangement of the physical space that allows diverse species to thrive. In March and April, red-winged blackbirds perch themselves on the stumps, punctuating the silence with their screeches. Occasionally <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_woodpecker" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_woodpecker">a pileated woodpecker</a> will knock its beak against a tree trunk, not just once but continuously creating an eerie drumming rhythm that can be heard from far.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlqpkdjjhg944VIMweMyPnP4cYLfO5fReqa4p1xAxnPsfpIS9MvDr2lY-06qEVr4QbeD1NxIBfHc7lI5roFwolyPNtIpbbjuV-lq1L7TRT19IQ2KM0yRiumCkrAZGmb1cihlkbCA/s1600/LawrenceSwamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlqpkdjjhg944VIMweMyPnP4cYLfO5fReqa4p1xAxnPsfpIS9MvDr2lY-06qEVr4QbeD1NxIBfHc7lI5roFwolyPNtIpbbjuV-lq1L7TRT19IQ2KM0yRiumCkrAZGmb1cihlkbCA/s640/LawrenceSwamp.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When Thoreau was having his simple, back-to-nature Walden experience in the 19<span data-mce-style="font-size: small;" style="font-size: x-small;">th </span>century, many species I can easily spot now were less prevalent or even completely absent. For example, the last wild turkey in Massachusetts <a data-mce-href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/wild-turkeys/about" href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/wild-turkeys/about">was shot in 1851</a>. Now they've made a huge comeback; I see them regularly in groups of 6-10, foraging in meadows. Moose were absent then but are now around. Beavers had been eliminated in the 17<span data-mce-style="font-size: small;" style="font-size: x-small;">th </span>and 18<span data-mce-style="font-size: small;" style="font-size: x-small;">th </span>centuries thanks to the profit-driven excesses of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_fur_trade" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_fur_trade">the fur trade</a>. In the 1930s, they were re-introduced, and have transformed the wetlands of Massachusetts, creating swamp-like habitats that benefit a host of other species. Just to give two examples: blue herons and pileated woodpeckers make use of small tree islands in these swamps; with the increase in beaver-engineered landscapes, their numbers have risen in the last century. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The return of forests, wetlands, and once-missing or threatened animals: how counterintuitive these trends are at a time when habitats and species elsewhere are being lost rapidly!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><strong>References:</strong> My primary source for this piece has been <em>Natural History of Western Massachusetts</em>, but also David Foster's <em>Thoreau's Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape</em>. The map of the state of Massachusetts comes from <a data-mce-href="http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/ru/ru_fs57.pdf" href="http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/ru/ru_fs57.pdf">this USDA report</a>. Here's a <a data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/03/chasing-beavers.html" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/03/chasing-beavers.html">related column on beavers</a> I did for 3QD last year. </span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-57609173059829652822016-03-20T05:56:00.002-06:002016-03-20T06:04:11.452-06:00Where probability meets literature and language: Markov models for text analysis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac5db970c-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac5db970c-popup" style="float: right; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><img alt="220px-Markovkate_01" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac5db970c img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac5db970c-250wi" data-mce-style="width: 220px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac5db970c-250wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 220px;" title="220px-Markovkate_01" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is probabilistic analysis of any use in analyzing text – sequences of letters or sequences of words? Can a computer generate meaningful sentences by learning statistical properties such as how often certain strings of words or sentences occur in succession? What other uses could there be of such analysis? These were some questions I had this year as I collected material to teach a course on a special class of probability models called <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain">Markov chains</a>. The models owe their name to the Russian mathematician <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Markov" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Markov">Andrey Markov</a>, who first proposed them in a 1906 paper titled "Extension of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers">the law of large numbers</a> to dependent quantities".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The key phrase, as we shall see, is ‘dependent quantities'. Broadly speaking, Markov models are applications of that basic rule of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_probability" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_probability">conditional probability</a>, P(A|B): the probability of Event A happening, given that B occurs. The uses of Markov chains are many and varied – from the transmission of genes through generations, to the analysis of queues in telecommunication networks, to the movements of particles in physics. In 2006 – the 100th anniversary of Markov's paper – Philipp Von Hilgers and Amy Langville summarized <a data-mce-href="http://langvillea.people.cofc.edu/MCapps7.pdf" href="http://langvillea.people.cofc.edu/MCapps7.pdf">the five greatest applications</a> of Markov chains. This includes the one that is unknowingly used by most of us on a daily basis: every time we search on the internet, the ranking of webpages is based on the solution to a <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank">massive Markov chain</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The focus of this piece, however, is the analysis of letter and word sequences as they appear in text. In what follows, I'll look at four examples where Markov models play a role.</span></div>
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<strong style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. Vowel and Consonant Pairs in Pushkin's <em>Eugene Onegin</em></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first such example was demonstrated by Andrey Markov himself in 1913. To illustrate an example of his theory on dependent quantities, Markov had collected data – painstakingly, by hand! – on the first 20,000 letters of Alexander Pushkin's popular novel in verse, <em>Eugene Onegin</em>. He was interested in counts of vowels and consonants and the order in which they appeared. Of the first 20,000 letters in <em>Eugene Onegin</em> 8638 were vowels and 11362 were consonants. The overall probability estimate that a letter is a vowel is therefore 8638/20000 = 0.43. For a consonant, the same estimate is 11362/20000 = 0.57. </span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac58d970c-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac58d970c-popup" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Markov-counting-procedure-Link" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac58d970c img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac58d970c-500wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d1aac58d970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Markov-counting-procedure-Link" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Suppose the probability that a letter is a vowel or consonant is <em>independent</em> of what the previous letter was – in the same way that the outcome of a coin toss is independent of the previous toss. Just as the probability of a heads following a heads is 0.5*0.5 = 0.25, we can calculate the probability that: (1) a vowel is followed by a vowel (0.43*0.43 = 0.185), (2) a vowel is followed by a consonant (0.43*0.57 = 0.245), (3) a consonant is followed by a vowel (0.57*0.43 = 0.245) and (4) a consonant is followed by a consonant (0.57*0.57 = 0.325).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If these 4 probabilities (which sum to 1) were correct, we would expect that in 19,999 letter pairs of <em>Eugene Onegin</em> we should find approximately 0.185*19,999 = 3698 pairs where a vowel is followed by a vowel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it's not hard to see that the independence assumption is strange. A vowel is more likely to be succeeded by a consonant than it is by a vowel. Markov's counts based on 19,999 pairs of successive letters demonstrated this clearly. The number of pairs where a vowel is followed by a vowel is 1104, less than a third the number (3698) estimated assuming independence. Here are same four probabilities we discussed above, but now based on the pairs actually observed in <em>Onegin</em>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">v-v count: 1104, P (second letter is v, given that the first is a v) = 1104/8638 = 0.128</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">v-c count: 7534, P (second letter is c, given that the first is a v) = 7534/8638 = 0.872</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">c-v count: 7534, P (second letter is v, given that the first is a c) = 7534/11362 = 0.663</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">c-c count: 3827, P (second letter is c, given that the first is a c) = 3827/11362 = 0.337</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[My reference is <a data-mce-href="http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/first-links-in-the-markov-chain/6" href="http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/first-links-in-the-markov-chain/6">this article</a>, and the figure above comes from <a data-mce-href="http://bit-player.org/wp-content/extras/markov/#/44" href="http://bit-player.org/wp-content/extras/markov/#/44">here</a>.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What we see above is a simple illustration of dependent quantities. In this case, the probability that a letter is a consonant or vowel depends only what the previous letter was, but nothing more than that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Markov's application of probability to letters in a text must have seemed quaint at the time. What practical value could the analysis of vowels and consonants have? <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov">Andrey Kolmogorov</a> (1903-1987), another Russian mathematician – who came up with <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_axioms" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_axioms">the axioms of probability</a> – felt that Markov chose <em>Eugene Onegin</em> because he was somewhat isolated in Russia and therefore wasn't able to apply his ideas to the exciting discoveries in physics that Western Europe was abuzz in the first decades of the 20th century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But what is quaint in one era can suddenly become important in another. As David Link notes in his article, <a data-mce-href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Traces-of-the-Mouth-Andrei-Andreyevich-Markov-s-Link/4395517597eb0c07d64f8ee58d6d48bf6d9633e6" href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Traces-of-the-Mouth-Andrei-Andreyevich-Markov-s-Link/4395517597eb0c07d64f8ee58d6d48bf6d9633e6"><em>Traces of the Mouth</em></a>, Markov's efforts in retrospect "represent an early and momentous attempt to understand the phenomenon of language in mathematical terms." It's not an exaggeration to say that Markov's analysis of text is in principle similar to what Google and other firms now routinely carry out on a <a data-mce-href="http://norvig.com/mayzner.html" href="http://norvig.com/mayzner.html">massive scale</a>: analyzing words in books and internet documents, the order in which the words occur, analyzing search phrases, detecting spam and so on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[Read more <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2016/03/where-probability-meets-literature-and-language-markov-models-for-text-analysis.html">here</a>. The fourth and last part on the Indus symbols is below: ]</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. Do Ancient Symbols Constitute a Written Script?</span></strong></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c822832a970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c822832a970b-popup" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Indus_seal_impression" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c822832a970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c822832a970b-300wi" data-mce-style="width: 276px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c822832a970b-300wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 276px;" title="Indus_seal_impression" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now to a detection problem of a different kind. If archaeological excavations have unearthed a large corpus of symbols, how do we know that these symbols are evidence of a written script? The symbols, although they appear in a sequence, could be some type of religious or artistic expression, not necessarily a linguistic script. If someone in the distant future excavated samples of printed DNA sequences, which consist of 4 letters <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenine" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenine">A</a>, <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanine" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanine">G</a>, <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytosine" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytosine">C</a> and <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymine" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymine">T</a>, then could they prove or disprove that the sequence is a written script? Similarly, what would the conclusion be if samples of Fortran programming code were excavated?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These are precisely the type of questions that <a data-mce-href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5931/1165" href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5931/1165">this 2009 <em>Science</em> paper</a> attempted to answer using the conditional probability principles that underlie Markov models. The corpus they applied it to was the excavated <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation">symbols</a> of the <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation">Indus Valley Civilization</a>, "which stretched from what is now eastern Pakistan and northwestern India" from around 2600-1900 BCE. There are over 3800 such inscriptions made up of 417 symbols. The average length of each inscription (the analogy that comes to my mind is word length) is around 5 symbols. The largest consists of 17 symbols.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Indus script has not yet been deciphered. Indeed, because it is yet undeciphered, there still remains a question whether it represents a language at all!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If the Indus collection is indeed a language, then we should see general patterns that we see in other languages. In the same way that vowels and consonants do not occur independently of each other, letters of an alphabet do not occur independently either. Some letters occur more frequently than others in written text (see the <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law">Zipf distribution</a>). In English, the letter pair ‘th' occurs very frequently since the word ‘the' is the most frequently used word, but you'll be hard-pressed to find the letter pair ‘wz' in English.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thus there is a kind of imbalance that can be observed in languages. A measure called <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)#Relationship_to_thermodynamic_entropy" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)#Relationship_to_thermodynamic_entropy">information entropy</a>, which was proposed in Claude Shannon's paper we discussed earlier, quantifies this imbalance based on the observed counts/frequencies of letter pairs in a language. If the relative frequencies of pairs of Indus symbols exhibits similarities to the frequencies observed in other linguistic systems, then that provides supporting (but certainly not conclusive) evidence that the symbols constitute a written script. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is what the <em>Science</em> paper is claiming. The entropy of the Indus symbols was closer to languages - Sumerian, Old Tamil, Sanskrit and English - than it was to the entropy of non-linguistic systems such as DNA sequences, protein sequences and programming languages such as Fortran. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Around 7 years ago when these results were published, I remember they were heavily circulated on social media. It's a cool story for sure – mathematics revealing patterns of an ancient, undeciphered script in the hotly contested ground that is Indian history. However, Richard Sproat, a computational linguist, <a data-mce-href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/coli_a_00011" href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/coli_a_00011">raised concerns</a> that provide an important counterpoint. As late as June 2014, Sproat was still doggedly <a data-mce-href="http://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/archived-documents/Sproat_Lg_90_2.pdf" href="http://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/archived-documents/Sproat_Lg_90_2.pdf">pointing out</a> technical issues in the original <em>Science</em> paper! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whatever the concerns, I did find this type of work intriguing - a clever use of probabilistic approaches. If the data and parameters used in the calculations were made public, it should be possible to replicate the findings and debate the conclusions if necessary.</span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-168128272745060092016-01-18T14:48:00.002-06:002016-01-18T14:48:46.073-06:00A note on peppers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c808f0a1970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c808f0a1970b-popup" style="float: right;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Black_Pepper_(Piper_nigrum)_fruits" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c808f0a1970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c808f0a1970b-200wi" data-mce-style="width: 175px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c808f0a1970b-200wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 175px;" title="Black_Pepper_(Piper_nigrum)_fruits" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Indian subcontinent is well known for its spices, and one of its stellar contributions is the ubiquitous <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pepper" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pepper">black pepper</a>. Native to South India and Southeast Asia (see unripe green fruits in picture), it’s been around for thousands of years, making its way very early to Europe and other parts of Asia by trade. Black pepper and the related <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_pepper" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_pepper">long pepper</a> may have been the most prevalent hot spices east of the Atlantic. That was until Columbus blundered onto the Americas in 1492, inadvertently connecting the Americas – which at the time had a <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange">unique ecological and cultivation history</a> because of its isolation – to Europe, Africa and Asia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the newly globalized world since 1492, American ‘peppers’, better known as chilies, began to make their way to the rest of the world and took hold quickly. Indeed, all the chili peppers that the world uses today, without exception – from the mild bell peppers used primarily for their deep flavors to the hot ones that Indian, Thai, Chinese, Korean and other cuisines take for granted – all are descended from the varieties cultivated for millennia by pre-Hispanic farmers in southern North America (Mexico primarily) and northern South America (Peru and Bolivia have many varieties). The fiery <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habanero" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habanero">habanero</a><em>, </em>which scores high on the <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale">Scoville Heat Scale</a>, is originally from the Amazon from where it reached Mexico.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While traveling in <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaxaca" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaxaca">Oaxaca</a> (southern Mexico) last week, I saw and tasted the dizzying variety of chili peppers, small and large, fresh, dried and smoked, each imparting a different color, flavor and odor to the salsas, the region’s famous <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_sauce" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_sauce">moles</a>, and other Mexican classics such as <em>poblano rajas</em>. At one restaurant dozens of dried chilies, types I had never seen before, were patched to the wall.</span><br />
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01bb08adaef2970d-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01bb08adaef2970d-popup" style="float: right;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Thai_peppers" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01bb08adaef2970d img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01bb08adaef2970d-250wi" data-mce-style="width: 225px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01bb08adaef2970d-250wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 225px;" title="Thai_peppers" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Etymology provides some interesting clues. The word ‘pepper’ apparently has its roots in a South Indian word <em>pippali</em>, referring to the <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_pepper" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_pepper">long pepper</a> plant, whereas ‘chili’ is from <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl">Nahuatl</a>, a pre-Hispanic Mexican language (Nahuatl, though diminished since the Spanish conquest of 1521, is still spoken in Mexico). The word for chilies in <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language">Tamil</a>, my mother tongue, is <em>milagai</em> – a modification of the word <em>milagu</em>, the word for black pepper. It makes sense that this new entrant and competitor for creating heat should be linked by name to its older rival. Both <em>milagu</em> and <em>milagai</em> now co-exist in South Indian cuisine. The introduced chilies haven’t diminished the use of the peppercorns at all. Indeed, the potent <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garam_masala" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garam_masala">garam masala</a>, a signature mix of spices widely prevalent in India – Abbas has a recipe for it in his <a data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/11/so-i-have-written-a-cookbook.html" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/11/so-i-have-written-a-cookbook.html">new book</a> – uses only peppercorns for heat and not chilies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All said, it's hard to imagine Indian cooking without chilies today. If somebody had asked me about the origin of chilies in high school or college, I would have claimed them as Indian without a second thought. It was a huge surprise when I learned, in my mid twenties, that chilies were introduced, that before the 16th or 17th centuries, they were not part of the cuisine at all! K.T. Achaya, the author of <em>The Story of Our Food</em> notes that "in one of the sections of the <em><a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain-i-Akbari" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain-i-Akbari">Ain-i-Akbari</a>,</em> written in 1590, there is a list of 50 dishes cooked in the [emperor] <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar">Akbar</a>'s court: all of them use only [black] pepper to impart spiciness."<em> </em>Similarly, the red chili paste and sauces that you find in so many Korean dishes and Thai curries are relatively recent. Of course, chilies are not unique in this regard. The same idea applies to tomatoes, potatoes, a lot of grains -- the list could go on and on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is fascinating how things that were once foreign can integrate so seamlessly and become so familiar that they now feel ‘native’, as if they were timelessly associated with a place and people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Cross-posted <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2016/01/a-note-on-peppers.html">here</a>.</i></span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-15670307419236781692015-12-23T09:23:00.000-06:002015-12-23T09:33:33.898-06:00Reflections on War and Peace, and the Inner Work of Pierre Bezukhov<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First published over at <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/09/reflections-on-war-and-peace-the-inner-work-of-pierre-bezukhov.html">3 Quarks Daily</a>.</span></i><br />
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d15da4ef970c-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d15da4ef970c-popup" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="War-and-peace-pevear" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d15da4ef970c img-responsive" data-mce-selected="1" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d15da4ef970c-200wi" data-mce-style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b8d15da4ef970c-200wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; outline: black solid 1px; resize: none; width: 200px;" title="War-and-peace-pevear" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I finished reading <em>War and Peace</em> recently. It took me three years but I did try to read it carefully. Tolstoy defined art "as that human activity which consists in one person's consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings he or she has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also experiencing them." This is a wonderfully robust definition – especially because it does not impose which types of "human activity" or "external signs" qualify. And I was certainly infected by the themes of <em>War and Peace</em>: I felt on many occasions that the book was speaking especially to me. I took notes and copied down everything that struck me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>War and Peace</em> operates in two distinct parts. There's the story of two upper class Russian families and individuals – the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs and the inimitable Pierre Bezukhov – whose lives are directly affected by the Napoleonic wars from 1805-1812, including the French invasion of and subsequent retreat from Moscow. Here the narrative flows so seamlessly from one character to another, from one high society intrigue to the next, and so clear is the psychological detailing that it never feels like anything is being overdone. This despite the fact that Tolstoy likes to intervene constantly. His style goes against the "show but don't tell" advice that is nowadays given to writers. He takes great pains to tell us what's going on in each character's mind, how things have changed since we last met this or that person. Everything, internal or external – estates, battlegrounds, soirees, dinners, military offices, forests – is described with great precision. Sudden twists are not Tolstoy's style; the suspense instead comes from how a character will respond to changes in her circumstances.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The other part of <em>War and Peace</em> consists of what can only be called the author's own essays. Tolstoy inserts them throughout the book at regular intervals, having put the story on pause. The essays, though long-winded and difficult to get through, are nevertheless an integral part of the book. Tolstoy uses them to continually emphasize how difficult it is to attribute causes to events in history, how the so called "big men" such as Napoleon (whom Tolstoy particularly dislikes) do not have the kind of agency that historians like to credit them. </span><br />
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d3d616970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d3d616970b-popup" style="float: right;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="L.N.Tolstoy_Prokudin-Gorsky" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d3d616970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d3d616970b-200wi" data-mce-style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d3d616970b-200wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; width: 200px;" title="L.N.Tolstoy_Prokudin-Gorsky" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The gist of these essays is best illustrated by an analogy Tolstoy uses. In classical mechanics, Tolstoy notes, the continuous motion of an object or a combination of objects is accurately described and predicted by the integration of infinitesimally small quantities. The development of calculus in the 17th century made this possible. Likewise history too is continuous and can only be approached as an integral, as "the sum of all individual wills". The historian's typical approach, however, is to isolate discrete events or periods, assume that they are independent, and assign proximate discrete causes to the events. By this method, powerful individuals such as Napoleon, are said to cause events and drive history. But are such conclusions really correct? What of the wills the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and other citizens across Europe and Russia who were involved? In Tolstoy's view "only by admitting an infinitesimal unit for observation – a differential of history, that is, the uniform strivings of people – and attaining to the art of integrating them (taking the sums of these infinitesimal quantities) can we hope to comprehend the laws of history."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tolstoy wrote this in the 1860s. In 2015, the laws of history are still not clear. There seems to be no way to define a "differential of history" let alone integrate "individual wills". We still have lengthy, inconclusive debates on what exactly caused an event. We can sense, intuitively, that there are innumerable causes which we cannot fully list, all of which interact in complex ways. Nicholas Nassim Taleb described it well in <em>The Black Swan</em>: "History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history."<em> </em></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Inner Work of Pierre Bezukhov</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There's a lot more one can say about the analytical or theoretical parts of <em>War and Peace</em>. But the main focus of this piece is Pierre Bezukhov.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pierre Bezukhov and two pairs of siblings – Natasha and Nikolai Rostov; Marya and Andrei Bolkonsky – make up the five major characters of the book. Each has a different personality but they share important features. They are all extremely sincere. They introspect a lot, learn lessons from the major events in their lives and are aware of their flaws. They continuously seek happiness, the kind of happiness that does not depend on external circumstances. At least three of them – Pierre, Andrei and Marya – are engaged in some kind of religious or spiritual search or a search for meaning and wisdom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The phrase that comes up in the book a few times is "inner work". And I felt the inner work of Pierre Bezukhov especially crystallizes what Tolstoy is trying to convey. In what follows, I provide a compressed chronological version of Pierre's development in three parts along with key quotes. I can't claim that what I present is original. <em>War and Peace</em> has been endlessly analyzed and I may well be repeating what more qualified readers and critics have already noted. Also there are spoilers here, though I tried to minimize them by mainly focusing on Pierre's questions. All the quotes are from the acclaimed <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pevear_and_Larissa_Volokhonsky" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pevear_and_Larissa_Volokhonsky" target="_self">Pevear-Volokhonsky</a> translation. The artistic rendition of Pierre Bezukhov by D. Shmarinov is from <a data-mce-href="http://sites.utoronto.ca/tolstoy/tolstoy-and-the-arts/works/war/war29.htm" href="http://sites.utoronto.ca/tolstoy/tolstoy-and-the-arts/works/war/war29.htm" target="_self">this</a> website. The collage of Napoleon's invasion and retreat from Russia is from <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia" target="_self">here</a>. </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"What for? Why? What's going on in the world?"</span></strong><br />
<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d416aa970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d416aa970b-popup" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Bezukhov" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d416aa970b img-responsive" data-mce-selected="1" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d416aa970b-200wi" data-mce-style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d416aa970b-200wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; outline: black solid 1px; resize: none; width: 200px;" title="Bezukhov" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When</span><em style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> War and Peace</em><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> begins in 1805, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, has just </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">returned from Europe. He is a good-natured but bumbling, absent-minded and somewhat naïve. He admires Napoleon. He is not particularly interested in wealth but loves the good life. Physically, he is big and fat; he eats and drinks a lot. His father's exceptional wealth, which he accidentally inherits, brings him naturally into the orbit of Russian high society. He is introduced to Elena, the daughter of the well connected Prince Kuragin. Infatuated with Elena's beauty, he marries her. But quickly it becomes clear there is no real connection. When Elena flirts with a Russian officer, Dolokhov, Pierre nonetheless becomes jealous and challenges Dolokhov to a duel. He injures Dolokhov in the leg but the matter is hushed up. Pierre gets away with the implications. Afterwards Pierre has a quarrel with Elena who taunts him, and they separate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is exactly the point at which Pierre's inner work begins. While traveling, he has a chance meeting with a man who belongs to the "<a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry" target="_self">brotherhood of Freemasons</a>". Pierre has no belief in God or religious abstractions. In the past he even made fun of Masonic beliefs. But Pierre is fascinated by this stranger who argues convincingly that "the supreme wisdom is not based on reason alone" and can only be obtained by purifying oneself inwardly. With his life in disarray, Pierre is eager to embrace something that will give him purpose. He becomes a Mason, putting himself through the cultish initiation rituals of the brotherhood. Despite the strangeness of these rituals, Pierre is rejuvenated by the message of the Masons that "the source of blessedness is not outside, but inside us."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Moments like this, however, are always fleeting in Tolstoy's world. Like life itself everything moves and changes. Just when you think there is some kind of stability, it begins to disappear. So it is with Pierre's Masonic moment. Even as he becomes an advocate of his new beliefs, Pierre notices that his excesses in food, wine and the amusements of "bachelor parties" (Tolstoy's phrase for the company of women) continue as before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As he participates in events of the society around him and leads a dissipated life, a doubt keeps nagging him:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"What for? Why? What's going on in the world?"</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He also notices that everyone around him seems to be doing something to distract themselves so as to fill the gaps in their life:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Sometimes Pierre remembered stories he had heard about how soldiers at war, taking cover under enemy fire, when there is nothing to do, try to find some occupation for themselves so as to endure the danger more easily. And to Pierre all people seemed to be such soldiers, saving themselves from life; some with ambition, some with cards, some with drafting laws, some with women, some with playthings, some with horses, some with politics, some with hunting, some with wine, some with affairs of the state. "Nothing is trivial or important, it's all the same; only save yourself from it as best you can!" thought Pierre. "Only not to see <em>it</em>, that dreadful <em>it</em>.<em>" </em>[Tolstoy's italics.]</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How relevant these observations are even today! As if the activities of our "physical self" aren't enough – all the occupations and hobbies Pierre mentions above – we now have the innumerable pleasures and distractions of a life online! I was also struck by the claim: "Nothing is trivial or important; it's all the same." </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"A limit to suffering and a limit to freedom…"</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1811 and 1812 – the years the <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Comet_of_1811" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Comet_of_1811" target="_self">Great Comet</a> could be seen in the night sky – Pierre is caught up in the Russian resistance to the looming French advance. It endows Pierre, whose life had been drifting aimlessly, with a new purpose. He is not capable of serving as a soldier. But he attends meetings where funds are being raised for the militia; he cooks up occult theories that suggest that he himself will somehow obstruct Napoleon's apocalyptic advance. He feels a need to "undertake something and sacrifice something" though he cannot articulate "what he wanted to sacrifice it for". </span><a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d46d08970b-popup" data-mce-style="float: right;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c7d46d08970b-popup" style="display: inline !important;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This begins a fascinating phase where the clumsy and militarily clueless Pierre walks straight into the war when all other citizens are trying to escape. We see the great <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Borodino" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Borodino" target="_self">Battle of Borodino</a> through Pierre who, in good humor, blunders on to the most dangerous parts of the battlefield. Initially considered a nuisance, the soldiers slowly take a liking to this strangely dressed Russian count unexpectedly in their midst. We see him on the retreat along with soldiers. We see the burning of Moscow after the city has emptied out and Napoleon's army occupies it. Pierre stays on in Moscow, has comical plans of assassinating Napoleon with a pistol he possesses, ends up rescuing those trapped in fires, gets arrested for arson (something he was never guilty of), observes the harrowing public execution of fellow prisoners and himself narrowly escapes from being executed. Finally, he travels as a prisoner along with others under the harshest physical conditions as Napoleon's army begins to retreat from Moscow. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is in these challenging external circumstances – the three week walk in captivity, away from Moscow – that Pierre gains his deepest insights. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He learns "not with his mind, but with his whole being". He notices, to his own surprise, his ability to adapt to the difficulties very well. Depleted French reserves mean that Pierre is fed horsemeat, which he finds "tasty and nutritious" and "the saltpeter bouquet of gunpowder they used instead of salt was even agreeable". It is fall, the weather is cold, but walking keeps him warm and even "the lice that ate him warmed his body pleasantly". His feet are full of sores and are frightful to look at, but Pierre simply and very naturally thinks of other things. This teaches him "the saving power of the shifting of attention that has been put in man, similar to the safety valve in steam engines, which releases the extra steam as soon as the pressure exceeds a certain norm".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A fellow prisoner, a peasant foot-soldier named Platon Karataev, inspires Pierre with his genuine simplicity and cheer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pierre realizes that "as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree." Further: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"He had learned that there is a limit to suffering and a limit to freedom, and those limits are very close; that a man who suffers because one leaf is askew in his bed of roses, suffers as much as he now suffered falling asleep on the bare, damp ground, one side getting cold as the other warmed up; that when he used to put on his tight ballroom shoes, he suffered just as much as now, when he walked quite barefoot (his shoes had long since worn out) and his feet were covered with sores. He learned that when, by his own will, as it had seemed to him, he had married his wife, he had been no more free than now, when he was locked in a stable for the night."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What really elevates these sentences is the quality of the examples and the contrasts they set up. The claims are simple yet striking. They are those truths that we perhaps know intuitively but have not articulated yet. </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"People must join hands…"</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pierre is eventually rescued, and with the war finally reaching its end, he returns to normal life. Even though he falls ill, he is filled joy and recovers. When, "by old habit", he asks himself: "Well, and what then? What am I going to do?" immediately the answer comes to him: "Nothing. I'll live. Ah, how nice!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The search for a purpose, Pierre has realized, is precisely that which keeps one unhappy. The purpose seems simply to <em>live</em>, to get on with things cheerfully if possible, rather than looking for abstractions. Pierre has emerged a renewed man. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But just because we've gained some wisdom does not necessarily mean that we will adhere to it all the time. We see this again and again in <em>War and Peace</em>. (It also works the other way: a lack of enthusiasm for life never lasts either and a person finds himself revived one way or another.) Prince Andrei, Pierre's friend, keeps experiencing blissful moments when he feels that the world has been transcended. Such as when, lying injured at the Battle of Austerlitz, he glimpses something indescribably special in the "lofty sky", something that renders everything else insignificant. But however profound such moments may be, they always fade. Prince Andrei's sister, Marya Bolkonsky, who unlike her atheist brother and father, is devout, has an unshakeable faith, and tries very hard to elevate her character through religion – Marya discovers again and again that despite her best efforts and sincere intentions all kinds of irritations and jealousies torment her. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pierre changes at the end too, but it's a lot more subtle. The Epilogue is set a few years after the war. Pierre is happily married and has children. He retains much of his newfound joy in life; people still love to be around him. You would think this would be a good way to finish, literally a "happily ever after" ending. But somehow, inexplicably, Pierre now decides to participate in political intrigue. He has just returned from an important meeting in Petersburg. He feels the current administration in Petersburg is not doing the right things, there's "thievery in the courts", "what is young and honest, they destroy". So "people must join hands, in order to avoid the general catastrophe". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em>War and Peace</em> ends with Pierre hinting at the creation of a rebel group – something's cooking, and it will eventually lead to the <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist_revolt" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist_revolt" target="_self">Decembrists revolt of 1825</a>. So Pierre, who had learned from his experiences in war a few years back that there is no need for abstract purposes, now ends up again arguing for and participating in one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To the very end, Tolstoy remains faithful to the fact that not even the most profound realizations withstand the dynamism and change that is life.</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Exploring the Memoryless property of the Exponential Distribution. Cross posted over at <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/05/unconditioned-by-the-past.html">3 Quarks Daily</a>.</span></em></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Waiting For the Next Customer</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suppose you run a small business, a barber shop or a small restaurant that takes walk-ins only. A customer has just left, your place is empty, and you are waiting for the next customer to come in. You've figured out that on average the time between two successive arrivals is 15 minutes. However, there is variation and the variation follows the <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution" target="_self">Exponential probability curve</a> shown in the figure below. This is not an arbitrary choice: time between successive random and independent arrivals does actually follow the Exponential. The average time between arrivals depends on whether it is a busy or slow time of the day, but the general shape of the Exponential curve keeps showing up again and again when empirical data is plotted (one example <a data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/01/some-thoughts-on-the-science-of-queueing.html" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/01/some-thoughts-on-the-science-of-queueing.html" target="_self">here</a>). </span></div>
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<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c784d39c970b-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c784d39c970b-popup" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Exponential" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c784d39c970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c784d39c970b-500wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c784d39c970b-500wi" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Exponential" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The height of the curve is an indicator of where the greatest probability densities are. Most arrivals happen in quick succession (the curve is tall when t is small), but there will be occasions when a long time elapses before the next arrival happens. At t=0, when the last customer just left, if you <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution#Probability_density_function" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution#Probability_density_function" target="_self">calculated</a> the probability of the next customer arriving within 5 minutes (0 < t < 5) you would get the value 0.283. Equivalently you could say that the probability you will wait 5 minutes or more is (1 - 0.283) = 0.717. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now here's the interesting part. Suppose twenty minutes have now passed and the next customer still hasn't arrived. You are starting to get a little impatient; after all you don't want your productive time to be idle. So at t=20, you again calculate the probability of a customer arriving in the next 5 minutes (20 < t < 25), given that no one has come so far. You would think this new probability, based on how much time has elapsed, should be <em>higher</em> than 0.283. But, surprisingly, the probability that a customer will arrive in the next 5 minutes, given that twenty idle minutes have passed, is still 0.283! And the probability that you will wait 5 minutes or more is still 0.717.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is precisely the Memoryless property of the Exponential: the past has been forgotten; the probability of when the next event will happen remains unconditioned by when the last event happened. Fast forward even more: let's say you've waited for half an hour. No one has shown up so far. Frustrated, you recalculate the probability of someone arriving in the next 5 minutes (30 < t < 35). Still 0.283!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The behavior that we see in the Exponential is because your customers are arriving <em>independently</em> of one another -- remember that you allow only walk-ins. There is no "memory" or predetermined schedule connecting any two successive arrivals (in the same way that the outcome of a coin that is tossed now has no memory or connection with the outcome of a coin tossed at some point of time in the past). A barber shop, a small restaurant, a shoe-shop, a cab-driver, a car mechanic, a self-employed person who earns a living doing Japanese-English translation requests – one can find many contexts that experience the Memoryless property. Bigger retail firms also experience the same problem, but they hire (and fire) many people, cross-train their employees to do multiple tasks and thereby have ways to reduce the risk of staying idle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In small businesses, the wait for the next customer is felt far more personally and acutely. Recently, I spoke to Abel (not his real name), an Ethiopian man who had started a restaurant in a small Midwestern town. The Ethiopian dishes I tasted were excellent. Yet Abel said there were many difficult evenings he would be alone, waiting for someone to come in. To cut costs, he was both the cook and the server on such slow days. But Abel noted that he would, unexpectedly, get busy. This is the flip side of the Exponential: a string of closely spaced arrivals is very likely since the probability densities are <em>front heavy</em>, as seen in the shape of the curve. So you can go from being idle for an hour to suddenly having a long line of people waiting. Now you have a different problem – you are too busy and your customers are unhappy! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>2. A Visual Illustration</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let's look closer why exactly the Memoryless property holds true for the Exponential. Instead of showing the algebra, I'll try illustrating visually. I struggled with the Memoryless property myself for many years; so at the very least, I'll put my own thoughts in order. Please let me know if something does not sound right. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Exponential is a continuous distribution used to characterize the probability of time durations, such as the time between two successive randomly occurring events. Naturally the smallest possible value is 0. The Exponential curve is <em>asymptotic</em> – a fancy word for the idea that the probability curve keeps dipping as we move to the right and gets closer and closer to the x axis, but never quite dips enough to touch the x-axis. The dipping curve stretches to infinity. So very long time between events (long periods of idleness) are theoretically possible, although in practice they are very, very unlikely. The area under the Exponential probability curve, if we calculate the limit, tends to 1 (as it must for any continuous probability distribution). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c78800ba970b-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c78800ba970b-popup" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Rescale2" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c78800ba970b img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c78800ba970b-500wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c78800ba970b-500wi" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Rescale2" /></a>Let's return to the original example. Time between successive arrivals follows an Exponential Distribution with a mean of 15 minutes. Currently, twenty minutes have passed since the last arrival, so we are at t=20. We are trying to find out the probability that an arrival will happen in the next 5 minutes -- in the interval 20 < t < 25. To do so, we now only need to consider the area under the Exponential curve <em>to the right</em> of the t=20 mark. The total area under the curve to the right of t=20 is 0.263. We "rescale" this area such that 0.263 now becomes equivalent to an area of 1 -- we do this because this is the relevant conditional probability space we are now interested in. Further, the x axis is re-scaled: t=20 becomes t=0; t=25 becomes t=5; and so on, so that in the newly re-scaled or conditioned area we can calculate the probability of an event happening in the next 5 minutes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Surprisingly, the re-scaled area is exactly the original Exponential probability curve! Even the height of the curve corresponding to every time value on the x-axis is exactly as it was when the last customer left.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's not a precise analogy, but just as the same pattern keeps repeating itself in a <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-similarity" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-similarity" target="_self">fractal</a> no matter how much you magnify the original, so the same exact Exponential curve we started with keeps appearing again and again upon re-scaling no matter how much time has elapsed. It does not matter if 10, 30, 100 or 2000 minutes have passed without an arrival; the probability that an arrival will happen in the next five minutes will always be 0.283. This makes mathematical calculations very straightforward -- the past does not need to be kept track of, and the <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution#Probability_density_function" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution#Probability_density_function" target="_self">same formulas</a> can be used at any stage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is something about how the curve decays or dips, more specifically <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay" target="_self">the rate at which it decays</a>, which gives Exponential this unique property among continuous probability distributions. In fact, if you knew that time durations follow the Memoryless property you can work backwards and prove that the original probability curve <em>has to be</em> Exponential. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As a contrast, other well known continuous distributions, say the <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution" target="_self">Normal</a> or <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution" target="_self">Lognormal</a>, do not have the Memoryless property. The <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution" target="_self">Lognormal distribution</a> is a more relevant comparison since, like the Exponential, it allows only values greater than 0, unlike the normal which allows negative values and is therefore not always appropriate for modeling time durations. In the Lognormal and Normal, the probability of a future event is not unconditioned by how much time has passed. This means that you have to keep track of the past when you calculate the possibility of a future event -- and this quickly gets very cumbersome and computationally expensive. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For a further contrast, I've created a couple of roughly equivalent images, <a data-mce-href="http://people.umass.edu/hbalasub/Uniform.jpg" href="http://people.umass.edu/hbalasub/Uniform.jpg" target="_self">Figure 1</a> and <a data-mce-href="http://people.umass.edu/hbalasub/UniformRescale.jpg" href="http://people.umass.edu/hbalasub/UniformRescale.jpg" target="_self">Figure 2</a>, for the <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_distribution_(continuous)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_distribution_(continuous)" target="_self">continuous uniform distribution</a> -- a relatively simple, bounded distribution with a flat curve. Here we see that the probability of an event happening in the next five minutes was originally 0.1667; after twenty minutes, it went up to 0.5. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Among discrete distributions, the <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution" target="_self">Geometric distribution</a> has the Memoryless property.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3. Lifetime of a Device</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'd like to end the piece by raising a couple of questions. Probability textbooks routinely mention that the Exponential distribution can be used to model the <em>lifetime</em> of a device: time from when the device is put into operation to its failure. Here the Memoryless property seems puzzling to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If a device has worked for 3000 hours, the probability that it will work for another 1000 hours is exactly the same as when the device started operating. I find that quite amazing. Such a property is possible only if the failure of the device has <em>nothing to do</em> with wear and tear caused due to time. Otherwise, the longer the device works, <em>the more likely</em> it is to fail in the next time interval -- just as at the age of 70, the probability that we will die in the next 10 years is much higher than the same probability calculated at the age of 40. From what I've read, the lifetime of semiconductor components follows exponential time to failure distributions. But then how is it that these devices escape wear and tear caused due to time? And are there other examples?</span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-27731051139762018672015-04-14T16:11:00.000-06:002015-04-16T09:18:41.138-06:00The Traveling Moose # 6<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgygk0YmikUDUOx6_1CQO1EEfgIY1K9Eo4C_lTfEpOVaLqhhjP0ThxuSwfe5-c0Ox1LP815ArU5CbDX-kdmU7FON16p1uIWoVq8ffE2SV3aOk4NachXC6jZBHhYm7bn1jHHWEioqA/s1600/MooseTravel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgygk0YmikUDUOx6_1CQO1EEfgIY1K9Eo4C_lTfEpOVaLqhhjP0ThxuSwfe5-c0Ox1LP815ArU5CbDX-kdmU7FON16p1uIWoVq8ffE2SV3aOk4NachXC6jZBHhYm7bn1jHHWEioqA/s1600/MooseTravel.jpg" height="560" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was reminded of the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/09/the-shortest-path-the-traveling-salesman-and-an-unsolved-question.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">traveling salesman problem</a> (<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">TSP) in an unlikely context, thanks to a display at the New York State Museum in Albany (click on image for better view). </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The display showed the zigzagging journeys made not by a salesman, but a radio collared <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose">moose</a>, simply called #6. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">moose seems to have traveled a lot, but the explanatory note on the display said otherwise: "Most New York moose have settled into limited travel routines...From February 1998 to November 2000 radio-collared moose #6 ranged over 350 square kilometers (217 square miles) east of Great Sacandaga Lake." </span><br />
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-31670553344578241362015-02-17T00:47:00.001-06:002015-02-17T00:47:29.292-06:00A mobile surgical unit in Ecuador<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Latest <i>3 Quarks Daily</i> column is about my healthcare-themed trip to Cuenca, Ecuador last October. Full essay is <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/02/a-mobile-surgical-unit-and-a-rural-health-center-in-ecuador.html">here</a>. This is how it begins: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since 1994, a small <a href="http://www.cinterandes.org/index.php/en/staff" target="_self">team</a> of clinicians has been bringing elective surgeries to Ecuador's remotest towns or villages, places that have do not have hospitals in close proximity. From the city of Cuenca – Ecuador's third largest town, where they are based – the team drives a surgical truck to a distant village or town. Though a small country by area, the barrier of the Andes slices Ecuador into three distinct geographic regions: the Pacific coast in the west; the mountainous spine that runs through the middle; and the tremendously bio-diverse but also oil rich jungle expanse to the east, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriente_%28Ecuador%29" target="_self"><em>El Oriente</em></a>, home to many indigenous tribes. Apart from a few major cities – Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca – towns and villages tend to be small and remote. </span></span></blockquote>
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<a class="asset-img-link" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c74d3a5d970b-popup" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Isuzu Truck 2" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c74d3a5d970b image-full img-responsive" height="256" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c74d3a5d970b-800wi" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;" title="Isuzu Truck 2" width="400" /></span></a><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: center;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Each year the team goes on 12 surgical missions, roughly one per month. A trip lasts around 4 days: a day's drive to get to the place; 2 days to conduct 20-30 surgeries (sometimes more sometimes less); and then a day to return. Patients pay a nominal/reduced fee if they can: the surgeries are done irrespective of the patient's ability to pay. The clinicians belong to a foundation called <a href="http://www.cinterandes.org/index.php/en/" target="_self">Cinterandes</a> (<em>Centro Interandino de Desarollo</em> – Center for Inter-Andean Development). </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Amazingly, the <em>very same</em> Isuzu truck (see above) has been in use for more than 850 missions and has seen 7458 surgeries from 1994-2014! The truck itself is not very large; in fact, it cannot be, because it has to reach places that do not have good roads. The mobile surgery program has the lowest rates of infection in the country. Not a single patient has been lost. The cases to be operated on have to be carefully chosen. Because of the lack of major facilities nearby, only surgeries with a low risk of complication can be done. Hernias and removal of superficial tumors are the most common. Hernias can be debilitating, yet patients may simply choose to live with them for many years rather than visit a far-off urban hospital. For many, leaving work for a few days and traveling to get a health problem fixed is not an option.</span></span></blockquote>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-26249876698911884892015-02-17T00:37:00.001-06:002015-02-17T00:39:02.221-06:00A sky full of monarchs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cgFokMZA5U9sjRqQLotqBYjCndPP1v0Zn7kgBEIt9I42zEij1VNIWvE1KMQZPWpILF_mPFEdImTd8j0V83KXqTqK7G-zDm95KCiGK-JwlIuRiEToOWNdWlYOOXaegu3-qaui8Q/s1600/0209151310.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cgFokMZA5U9sjRqQLotqBYjCndPP1v0Zn7kgBEIt9I42zEij1VNIWvE1KMQZPWpILF_mPFEdImTd8j0V83KXqTqK7G-zDm95KCiGK-JwlIuRiEToOWNdWlYOOXaegu3-qaui8Q/s1600/0209151310.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">A sky full of the famous </span><a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2011/12/buttferflys-2000-mile-journey.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">monarch butterflies</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"> in Michoacan, Mexico. It's hard to capture this special phenomenon -- millions of butterflies congregating, after a 2000 mile journey from Canada and northern US, in a few fir/oyamel forests in Central Mexico -- on camera. This picture I took last week is not very good, but every black speck in the sky, however faint, is a butterfly. This year's monarch numbers seem to be better than last year, although still well below the average across two decades.</span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-87817118558098676532015-01-19T13:49:00.003-06:002015-01-19T13:52:07.062-06:00Birds seen this winter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's hard to spot new birds during Massachusetts winters (I don't own a house with a yard or a bird feeder, which makes it doubly hard). The hundreds of species that make their home or pass through here are more easily observed in spring, summer and early fall. But last Tuesday – a bone chillingly cold but sunny day in Amherst – I ran into four species all at once. I had come out for a walk in a quiet part of town, a dead end street where an unpaved hiking trail leads to a pond. The unusually high levels of noise in the trees suggested that a lot of birds were active. The repeated deep thuds I was hearing indicated that woodpeckers were around, hammering on tree trunks.</span><br />
<div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<a class="asset-img-link" data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c735c1d6970b-popup" data-mce-style="display: inline;" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c735c1d6970b-popup" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Birds_All4" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c735c1d6970b image-full img-responsive" data-mce-src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c735c1d6970b-800wi" data-mce-style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/.a/6a00d8341c562c53ef01b7c735c1d6970b-800wi" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 597.34375px;" title="Birds_All4" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So here are the species that I spotted, from left to right (picture assembled from Wikipedia images): <a data-mce-href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/eastern-bluebirds" href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/eastern-bluebirds" target="_self">the eastern blue bird</a>; the <a data-mce-href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/black-capped-chickadees" href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/black-capped-chickadees" target="_self">black capped chickadee</a>; the female <a data-mce-href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/woodpeckers/downy-woodpeckers" href="http://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/birds/woodpeckers/downy-woodpeckers" target="_self">downy woodpecker</a> (the male has slight red marks on the head); the misleadingly named <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-bellied_woodpecker" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-bellied_woodpecker" target="_self">red-bellied woodpecker</a> because the prominent red or orange patch is actually on the bird's curved head. The chickadee is the smallest of the four, and the red-bellied woodpecker the largest. Overall, nothing really surprising here – these are all common winter birds. But as an amateur bird watcher, I felt a special joy stumbling upon them; it felt, at least in those few moments, as if some special secret of nature had been unexpectedly revealed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some other things I've noticed this winter: (1) <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling" target="_self">starlings</a>, dozens of them somersaulting gracefully in the air in unison, literally a dance to avoid death, an attempt to disorient hawks that are hunting them (something similar to what's happening in <a data-mce-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8eZJnbDHIg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8eZJnbDHIg" target="_self">this video</a>. On a different note, the 150 million starlings in North America today are descended from the 60 odd European starlings that were <a data-mce-href="http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/starlings.html" href="http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/starlings.html" target="_self">deliberately introduced</a> to New York's Central Park in 1890 by "a small group of people with a passion to introduce all of the animals mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare" -- talk about literature influencing ecology!); (2) young wild turkey, moving black specks from a distance, foraging in a snow covered meadow (here's a <a data-mce-href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/08/on-pbs-nature-documentaries-and-my-life-as-a-turkey.html" href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/08/on-pbs-nature-documentaries-and-my-life-as-a-turkey.html" target="_self">previous piece</a> on wild turkey); and (3) a few weeks ago, at twilight, the mysterious, round faced <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_owl" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_owl" target="_self">barred owl</a>, the only owl I've ever seen, well camouflaged against the bark of a tree, very similar to this <a data-mce-href="http://fineartamerica.com/featured/barred-owl-peek-a-boo-jennie-marie-schell.html" href="http://fineartamerica.com/featured/barred-owl-peek-a-boo-jennie-marie-schell.html" target="_self">picture</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(This piece was cross-posted <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/a-winter-treat.html">here</a>.)</span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-956365291362239362014-12-30T13:06:00.000-06:002015-01-01T12:17:28.164-06:00The resettlement of refugee farmers in East Punjab after Partition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A different version of this piece was </span><a href="http://www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/orms-4-09/frresettle.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">published</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> back in 2009, in the OR/MS Today magazine.</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">__</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is
well known that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India">the partition of the
Indian subcontinent</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in 1947
had terrible consequences. Tens of thousands of people died. Millions were
displaced and lost their cherished ancestral homes: Muslims left India for
Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan for India. It was the greatest
mass migration in history. But what is less understood is the manner in which
the vast numbers of refugees were accommodated and settled into the newly
divided regions. The greatest mass migration in history inevitably became the
largest resettlement operation in the world.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How was
this monumental task achieved? That question might take up many books, and
perhaps many have already been written. But we get a glimpse of how
it was done in the Indian side of the Punjab (East Punjab) in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Refugees and the Republic</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>a chapter in Ramachandra Guha’s post-independence historical narrative<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2007/08/on-ramachandra-guhas-india-after-gandhi.html"><i>India
after Gandhi</i>.</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvk9l5p3CwBM_luTEszfFowvbyIba3OMMVP3rC899E2Jncj0kfnFs2ZDU9t89bnjfFq73dU1OHthM1LKGcf2FShJgBXEAwZw1tuqYY1E4wVOeBHF7TQWFEYN7BUe5DnGNw6OP6WQ/s1600/refugeecamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvk9l5p3CwBM_luTEszfFowvbyIba3OMMVP3rC899E2Jncj0kfnFs2ZDU9t89bnjfFq73dU1OHthM1LKGcf2FShJgBXEAwZw1tuqYY1E4wVOeBHF7TQWFEYN7BUe5DnGNw6OP6WQ/s1600/refugeecamp.jpg" height="467" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Guha’s
chapter appealed to me for a different reason. My specialization is the field
of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/What-is-Operations-Research">operations
research</a></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">: the quantitative or optimization methods that are now used
widely in the attempt to make service systems more efficient. The resettlement or land allocation problem set up
by Guha in the chapter seemed to fall squarely in the realm of optimization. I
was curious to know how the reallocation of land had been carried out in practice.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Punjab
was one of the partitioned provinces; the eastern part found itself in India
while the western in Pakistan. A large number of Muslims had left East Punjab
for Pakistan. But there was an even greater influx of Hindus and Sikhs into the
east<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>from</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Pakistan. Most of these refugees were
farmers. Together they had abandoned 2.7 million hectares of land in Western
Punjab but across the border in India where they now had to make a living only
1.9 million hectares had been left behind by Muslim farmers who had fled the
opposite way. The problem was made more complex by three additional factors:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Each refugee family had a claim
on how much they had owned prior to emigrating.<br />
<!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_6"
o:spid="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="http://www.orms-today.org/cleardot.gif"
style='width:.75pt;height:3.75pt;visibility:visible'>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The fertility of the land
differed; there were dry, unirrigated districts as well as lush, irrigated
regions.<br />
<!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_7"
o:spid="_x0000_i1027" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="http://www.orms-today.org/cleardot.gif"
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img alt="http://www.orms-today.org/cleardot.gif" border="0" height="5" src="file:///C:/Users/GEETHA~1/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image003.gif" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_7" width="1" /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There were demands that
families and neighbors be relocated in the same way as they had been in
West Punjab. If possible entire village communities had to be recreated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From
the comfort of hindsight – and given how far computing power has grown in the
last 6-7 decades – I can imagine formulating the land allocation problem as a
large scale <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_optimization">mathematical
optimization model</a>. The <i>decisions</i>
(the <i>x</i> variables in the problem,
which the model would be solved for) would be how much land to allocate to each
family and where to allocate. The <i>objective</i>,
expressed as a function of the
decisions, would be to minimize the difference between claims and actual
allocations. The <i>constraints</i> would be
equations that expressed limits such as the total land allocated could not
exceed the total land available. There
could be other constraints to ensure that families and neighbors are relocated
together. The mathematical model would also have to capture the spatial aspect,
the variation in fertility and relate them somehow to the allocation decisions.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even by
today’s standards this is a very difficult optimization problem; it also has
human or qualitative dimensions that are difficult to capture mathematically. The
unenviable task of reallocating land fell upon the Indian government and its
civil service workers. As a first step, they assigned each family of refugee
farmers 4 hectares irrespective of its past holding; they also gave loans to
buy seed and equipment. Viewed from an optimization lens, this 4-acre allotment
is an “initial solution” – a feasible assignment to the decisions (the <i>x</i>’s) to get things going, but very far
from optimal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
families began to sustain themselves, applications were invited for them to
claim more land, depending on what they had owned in West Punjab. Within a month,
there were 500,000 claims. These claims were then “verified in open assemblies
consisting of other migrants from the same village. As each claim was read out
by a government official, the assembly approved, amended or rejected it.” Refugees
tended to exaggerate of course, but were deterred by the open assembly method;
if a claim turned out to be false they were punished by a reduction in land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sardar
Tarlok Singh of the Indian Civil Service and a graduate of the London School of
Economics led the rehabilitation operation. He used two simple but interesting
rules (we call them <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics">heuristics</a></i>) for
allocating land, and this is where the pragmatism in the whole operation comes
most clearly to light. Though claims had been filed, because of the reduced
acreage, none of the refugees could be assigned as much land as they'd
originally owned. Everybody’s claim had to be reduced by a certain percentage.
Plus, there had to be some way of accounting for the differing fertility of
land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sardar
Tarlok Singh came up with two measures,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>the
standard acre</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>the graded cut</i>, which dealt
with these issues: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“A standard acre was defined
as that amount of land which could yield ten to eleven <i>maunds</i> of rice. (A <i>maund</i>
is about 40 kilograms.) In the dry, unirrigated districts of the east, four
physical acres were equivalent to one standard acre; but in the lush “canal
colonies” [where irrigation was strong], one physical acre was about equal to
one standard acre. The innovative concept of the standard acre took care of the
variations in soil and climate across the province.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The idea of the graded cut,
meanwhile, helped overcome the large discrepancy between the land left behind
by the refugees and the land now available to them – a gap that was close to
million acres. For the first ten acres of any claim, a cut of 25% was
implemented – thus one got only 7.5 acres instead of ten. For higher claims the
cuts were steeper: 30% between ten and 30 acres, and on upward, so that those
having more than 500 acres were taxed at the rate of 95%.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With this
rule, there clearly were losers, and the losers, of course, were those who had
once owned huge tracts of land: “The biggest single loser was a woman named
Vidyawati who had inherited land (and lost) her husband’s estate of 11,500
acres spread across thirty-five villages of the Gujranwala and Sialkot
districts. In compensation she was allotted mere 835 acres in a single village
of Karnal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s unclear what
analysis motivated Tarlok Singh to come up with the specific ranges and the
cuts. It’s possible that the taxing mechanism might have left too much land
unassigned, and many claimants dissatisfied. Or, given that the overall
reduction in total land was about 38 percent (the farmers had left 2.7 million
hectares behind and now were being resettled on 1.7 million hectares), the
taxing may not have been strict enough. The exact details are unknown. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What is known, though, is
that by November 1949, a year and a half after the resettlement began, “Tarlok
Singh had made 250000 allotments distributed equitably across the districts of
East Punjab”. Even the soft constraints, such as settling families and
neighbors together, were met to a large extent, though “the recreation of
entire village communities proved impossible.” The resettlements were so
successful that “by 1950, a depopulated countryside was alive once again.”
Tarlok’s heuristics might have been simple, but they helped solve a complex,
large-scale allotment problem in the aftermath of a traumatic event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Halfway across the world,
in the summer of 1947 — the same year that the partition of the Indian
subcontinent took place — <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig">George
Dantzig</a> conceived the famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplex_algorithm">Simplex Algorithm</a>. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In
the next decades the Simplex Algorithm, helped by advances in the computing
capability, would provide fast solutions to large linear optimization problems.
Each fall I teach the algorithm to graduate students from many disciplines. But
in 1947, the Simplex algorithm could only tackle a small version of the
classical </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">diet problem</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">: optimally
choosing food items for a family to minimize costs while ensuring minimum
nutritional needs are met. That particular diet problem had only 9 constraints
and 27 variables, but took 120 man-days to solve; worksheets were glued
together and spread out like a tablecloth to assist in determining the optimum solution
[1].</span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This puts the enormity of
resettlement problem in perspective. With half a million people making claims –
which means there would be hundreds of thousands of variables and constraints –
even an awareness of Dantzig’s algorithm could not have helped the Indian Civil
Service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nearly 7,000 officials
were needed for the resettlement effort; they constituted a refugee city of
their own. The problem occupied them for a period of three years. Imagine the
paperwork and the records that had to be kept and retrieved; imagine the
disputes among the refugees, the flared tempers and the jealousies. But imagine
also the perseverance of everyone involved. It made me think about what it is
exactly that makes certain large scale operations successful and others not.
It’s hard to make generalizations, but one feature seems to be effective
coordination across large groups of people: largely error-free lunch deliveries
by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala">Dabbawalas</a> of
Mumbai is an example that comes to mind.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Related
notes:</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Guha
ends the chapter in his book poignantly. The resettlement, Guha says, may have
been successful, but the general sense of loss could not be undone. The
migrating Sikhs had left behind a beloved place of worship, Nankana Sahib, the
birthplace of the founder of their faith,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Nanak">Guru Nanak</a>. Muslims
migrating from East Punjab too had left behind the town of Qadian, the center
of the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiya"><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Ahmadiya</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>sect of Islam; the Ahmadiya mosque was
visible for miles around. Very few Muslims now lived in Qadian, which was full
of Hindu and Sikh refugees. Guha quotes the editor of the Calcutta newspaper
Statesman, who wrote that in both Qadian and Nankana Sahib there was “the conspicuous
dearth of daily worshippers, the aching emptiness, the sense of waiting, of
hope and…of faith fortified by humbling affliction.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2. The
picture shows a boy at a Delhi refugee camp in 1947. Here is the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Young-refugee-delhi1947.jpg">source</a>.
The largest refugee camp, though, was at Kurukshetra, consisting of nearly
300,000 people. For their entertainment, film projectors were brought in and
Disney specials featuring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were screened at night.
It was, as one social worker described it, a “two-hour break from reality”.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">References<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Bazaraa, M., Jarvis, J., and Sherali, H., 2005,
Linear Programming and Network Flows, Wiley 3<sup>rd</sup> Edition<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2. All quoted parts in the piece are from Ramachandra Guha’s <i>India After Gandhi</i>. </span></span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-30624235964044355542014-12-23T17:37:00.001-06:002014-12-30T12:51:31.960-06:00The Undocumented Journey North, Through Mexico<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Latest <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/12/the-journey-north-through-mexico.html">column</a> is up. A bit long, some typos here and there, but hopefully still interesting. Here is an excerpt: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From 2000-2006, I was a graduate student at Arizona State University in the Phoenix metro area. My neighborhood, a ten minute walk from the university, had cheap apartments where Asian students lived alongside immigrants from south of the US-Mexico border. We students had visas, had made safe journeys on flights, and now worked and studied on campus. Many Hispanic immigrants, in contrast, had made life threatening journeys and had crossed the border illegally. They now did construction, farm, and restaurant jobs for a living. At the neighborhood Pakistani-Indian restaurant, I remember seeing – through a decorative window shaped as a Mughal motif – three Hispanic workers in the kitchen patiently chopping the onions and tomatoes that would go into the curries that I enjoyed.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some Indian students looked down on these immigrants, blaming them for petty bicycle thefts and how unsafe the streets were at night. And just as all East Asians were "Chinkus", the immigrants from south of the border were "Makkus" – a twist on "Mexican", used mostly (but not always) in a negative sense. No one, though, had a clear sense what the stories of these immigrants were. While it is true that a large percentage of those who cross the border are from Mexico, tens of thousands each year come from the troubled countries further south – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. This year, an estimated <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/child-migrants-surge-unaccompanied-central-america" target="_self">60,000 unaccompanied minors</a> from Central American countries, fleeing violence in their home towns, will cross the border. Surprisingly, even hundreds of undocumented <em>South Asians</em> cross via Mexico – but more on that later.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/12/the-journey-north-through-mexico.html">here</a>. Towards the end, I talk of the South Asian angle, including a Bangladeshi man I met in Quito, Ecuador, hoping to make the undocumented journey to the US: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><strong>The South Asian Angle: </strong>A<strong> </strong><a href="http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2009.pdf" style="color: #003366;" target="_self">2009<strong> </strong>report</a> by Homeland Security estimated that India was number six – after Mexico, the Central American countries, and Philippines – with 200,000 undocumented immigrants currently in the US. Between 2009 and 2011, <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-17-illegal-immigration-indians_n.htm" style="color: #003366;" target="_self">2600 Indians</a> were detained by the Border Patrol along the US-Mexico border. This coincided with a visa-on-arrival policy that Guatemala and other Central American countries allowed for Indian passport holders. So Indians could fly in to Guatemala City and start the journey north. The cross continental flight suggests Indian migrants had more money than most Central Americans - perhaps the money bought them a safer passage. Guatemala has now stopped visa on arrival for Indians.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><strong>A Bangladeshi in Quito</strong>: In October this year – in one of those strange, unlikely encounters that happen during travel – I met met a Bangladeshi man selling <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samosa" style="color: #003366;" target="_self">samosas</a>, 3 for $1, in the old town of Quito, Ecuador. He was the only South Asian among many Ecuadorian street vendors. The samosas were in a container - perhaps a hundred of them. Business was brisk. To appeal to the locals, he had cleverly called the samosas "<em>Empanadas de India</em>". </span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I spoke with him in Hindi. He had been in Ecuador for five years and was fluent in Spanish. Life had been reasonable, he said; accommodation, food and cost of living were inexpensive in Quito. He was in a position now to apply for an Ecuadorian passport. But his interest had always been in migrating to the United States – the same route via Mexico that others take. Some acquaintances of his had made it there already. He asked me about jobs in the US. Unfortunately, I had no concrete sense on what an undocumented immigrant could expect. I did tell him that the journey through Mexico, from what I'd heard, was risky. But he seemed intent and had a more optimistic view. All this was before I read Martinez's book -- if I had known of <em>The Beast</em>, I would have urgently recommended it to him.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span><span style="background-color: white;">How unusual and compelling his story is: here was a man from Bangladesh in, of all places, Ecuador, biding his time patiently, saving up money by selling that most South Asian of snacks, samosas, and even securing a backup citizenship, so that he could risk the journey north! </span></span></blockquote>
</div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-56045940615236799612014-12-01T11:16:00.000-06:002014-12-01T11:16:43.173-06:00A 1000-year old witness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #141823; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhexh_UEtgqEBsIZnqHTmffO2LpTFSnUYM40qVcISaitrRCuCvD2Kk2R0BXGNSLpYnh0sXYsCPscqtMwvHSTL8x2qi-q5eJqwJ9CL9O9ih3mRnBbKvyChMQ39uzJrELEkeXFYfg/s1600/1106141606.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhexh_UEtgqEBsIZnqHTmffO2LpTFSnUYM40qVcISaitrRCuCvD2Kk2R0BXGNSLpYnh0sXYsCPscqtMwvHSTL8x2qi-q5eJqwJ9CL9O9ih3mRnBbKvyChMQ39uzJrELEkeXFYfg/s1600/1106141606.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">History in the rings of a 1021 year old redwood tree -- from Muir Woods National Monument, north of San Francisco. The tree was born 930 AD and fell in 1930, and was alive during key events in North American history: a millennium of great tumult, especially since 1492. Each year produces a natural growth ring, varying in size depending on the type of year (dry, rainy etc.) so there are approximately 1021 rings in this cross section. Redwood trees are massive (350 feet tall), which is not conveyed by these pictures. Sorry for the poor images and the flash -- the forest created by these tall trees is dark even during the day, and my cell phone has poor resolution.</span></span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-21001876066801670812014-11-20T00:19:00.003-06:002014-11-20T00:23:08.542-06:00Essays at 3 Quarks Daily<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you've been wondering why I haven't posted here for so long -- well, it's not because I've been busy with work. In fact it's been a good year for writing essays. I've been writing this year for a website called <i><a href="http://3quarksdaily.com/">3 Quarks Daily</a></i> since this January. So far I have nine essays, all collected <a href="http://people.umass.edu/hbalasub/Essays3QD.html">here</a>. Comments welcome! I should be cross posting the essays here too, but I've been lazy. Maybe, with the 3QD pieces coming regularly, I'll find some way to post more informally here. Though I've probably lost what little readership I had. </span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-11381555415209059262013-10-22T10:50:00.000-06:002015-01-05T12:46:49.268-06:00Erzurum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">On July 12<sup>th</sup> this year, after <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-trip-to-turkey.html">three days in Istanbul</a>, I traveled with my friend Serhat, to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzurum">Erzurum</a>, a regional city
about 770 miles away in Northeastern Anatolia. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The flight was 2 hours long. After
takeoff, the plane first took a northwards course: the dark blue waters of the
Black Sea were beneath us. A few minutes before, I’d glimpsed the 32-km-long
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus_Strait">Bosphorous Strait</a>, Istanbul’s iconic landmark. Istabulites
know the maritime significance of their city very well, but to me it was a
revelation: a ship traveling from Odessa, a Ukrainian city on the north cost of
the Black Sea can travel via the narrow Bosphorus to the Sea of Marmara; and
from there through the Dardanelles Strait to the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas;
and finally through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQw92hzDimbqzdaY32I7mTecY05Nts2OiQNSVlBrUEami9g86ILuKrsY9dxmyRGrpOMbteByEEdkLTHVwc2VSMnmrPyoGe9kt3w2JuqZybb32RjSM9GhjQ5HKEkeaySNBophKGCQ/s1600/Turkey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQw92hzDimbqzdaY32I7mTecY05Nts2OiQNSVlBrUEami9g86ILuKrsY9dxmyRGrpOMbteByEEdkLTHVwc2VSMnmrPyoGe9kt3w2JuqZybb32RjSM9GhjQ5HKEkeaySNBophKGCQ/s640/Turkey.JPG" height="369" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The marked
spot to the right of the map indicates Erzurum</span></i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The plane eventually steered eastward, following
Turkey’s Black Sea coast, and during the last half hour, it turned inland
to northeast Turkey. The landscape was consistently mountainous: sometimes lush
green (especially when close to the Black Sea), sometimes covered with cloud,
sometimes dry, the ridges on the slopes of brown mountains casting shadows in
the late afternoon light, creating a distinctive visual texture. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Erzurum, a town of about 367,000, lay in a sprawling plain at the base of one
such dry mountain range (Mt Palandöken is a ski resort near Erzurum). A haphazard
checkerboard of farms stretched for miles and miles around the city. Many of
them, I discovered later, were hay farms, important in a region whose economy
depends heavily on stock breeding We rented a car at the airport. The small
airport, the plains around and the mountains in the distance reminded me a
little of Bozeman, Montana. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">On our way to Erzurum center, we passed by the gates of Ataturk University. With 30-40,000 students and medical school to boot, this is a major university and contributor to the economy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">By the time we had checked into the Esadaş Hotel,
along Cumhuriyet Caddesi, Erzurum’s main thoroughfare, it close to <i>iftar</i> time; light was fading fast and the
Ramazan fast would soon be broken -- at 7:53 pm. We started walking to the popular </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Gelgör</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Restaurant. On the way, we passed by two
historic mosques: the Yakutiye and Lala Pasha. Erzurum, like the rest of
Anatolia, has seen many layers of history: it has been influenced by Greek,
Roman, Arab, Persian, regional Georgian and Armenian Christian, Seljuk and
Mongol rulers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">In the courtyard of the Lala Pasha, we ran into
two boys, aged between six and ten. The younger one was selling toilet paper or
rolls of tissue neatly folded in a plastic cover; the older was carrying some
small contraptions, one of which looked like a low plastic bench. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">We did not buy anything, but Serhat got to
talking with them. He told them that I was from <i>Hindistan</i>. Almost immediately, the boys started repeating a few
words frantically to me. The younger one said, “Amita..bhaccha” at least five
times, before I realized they were referring to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabh_Bachchan">Amitabh Bachchan</a>. The older one
was saying <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharukh_Khan">Shahrukh Khan</a> in his own way. Bollywood’s popularity in unexpected
places is not unusual -- from <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2009/05/travel-conversations.html">West African taxi drivers</a> in Minneapolis, to <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2010/03/king-khan-in-lima.html">painters</a> on the streets in Lima (Peru), to an
Uzbek man I met on a Grand Canyon hiking trip: everyone is familiar with
Bollywood. The bigger surprise was that these kids, making do with basic
Turkish, were not locals but from Kabul, Afghanistan. Serhat learned that they had
entered Turkey illegally in what must have been a very long journey from home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Just then there was a loud explosion and puff
of smoke: this was the city cannon signaling the end of the fast. Prayers
immediately reverberated from the minarets all around. When I looked at the
twilight sky above, I saw large numbers of swallows emitting low shrill sounds
and flying very fast like quivers of arrows – their excitement probably had nothing
to with the excitement of a Ramazan evening, but in my mind at least it seemed
so. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The fact that I was traveling in a predominantly
Muslim city in a far corner of Anatolia had until then only been a fact. But
the impressions of that evening – the unlikely meeting with the kids from Kabul;
the firing of the cannon; the azans; the swallows – all came together with special force to make that moment personal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">We continued to walk towards the restaurant. Ramazan
is a time to be with family and friends, so the streets were completely
deserted, and this reminded me of the bleakness of American suburban
neighborhoods. But Gelgör was bustling with people
relishing their kebabs delivered non-stop on skewers by busy waiters. Here it was easy to
feel the festive, communal atmosphere of Ramazan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">After dinner and a rich dessert – the kadayıf
dolması – we walked through the streets and alleyways of Erzurum, and came
across more old tombs and mosques. The emptying out of streets at iftar time
had given the impression that the night life of the town was over. But after 9
pm the streets got busier and busier. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Tea houses are a distinctive feature of Turkish
life: male Turkish life, if you are in a conservative town. In alleyways and
the main streets of Erzurum, I saw plenty of informal, open-air tea houses: large,
stylish and what looked like stainless steel samovars (heated, in one case, atop a hearth
with wooden sticks); men chatting with other men, tea cup in one hand,
cigarette in the other; dark red tea in glass cups pleasing to the eye. Even the little cubes of
sugar provided on the side have aesthetic value. This tea habit – one cup is
never enough and each cup costs less than a lira -- reminded me Dostoevsky and
Tolstoy’s novels, where in the large gatherings, parties or soirees of the
aristocracy, the presence of tea served in samovars is mentioned without fail,
often at the expense of other items (Dostoevsky hardly ever describes food items other than tea, which left me to wonder if Russian food at the time
was very dull). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Back at Cumhuriyet Caddesi, which runs through
the city center, families – plenty of women and children – were out in full
force; the noise and the traffic was incredible, given how late it was. Near
the Yakutiye and Lala Pasha mosques, a stage had been set up and there would perhaps be
skits and other entertainment. Glass-fronted dessert and ice-cream shops were
doing quick business. There were billboards advertising stylish and expensive Islamic
wear for women: the elegant black dresses and ornamented head wear had a
touch of modern fashion in them even if their basic function was conservative.
Overall, Erzurum conveyed a sense of prosperity and wealth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">3.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There were many questions I had about Turkey and
Erzurum, and Serhat did his best to fill me in. He pointed out the billboard of a radical Islamic party with the motto, “Morality and Spirituality
First”; the party wanted to appeal to all Turkic
peoples of Central Asia. This affinity to the broader ethnic group stemmed from history: the Turks as a people were originally from
someplace in south Siberia; they had slowly, over a millennia or more, made
their way westwards, interacting with many other cultures along the
way -- borrowing loan words from the Persians and the Arabs (this is
perhaps why many Hindi and Turkish words mean the same thing, because India too
was ruled by Central Asians). The westward movement of the Turks finally
culminated in the creation of the Ottoman Empire. In Eastern Anatolia the
Seljuk Turks, whose architectural remnants are a major attraction in Erzurum,
were prominent a few centuries before the Ottomans arrived on the scene. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This idea of Turkic groups conquering new lands raised some issues. How did the rulers bring the original inhabitants of Anatolia, who would have had their own diverse traditions and languages, into their fold? </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I was also curious how, in the early 20th century, the Turkish state had been
fashioned by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk">Ataturk</a>, especially this far away in Anatolia, and the tensions
inherent in the transition from an empire to a nation-state. I had questions,
too, about the predominance of a single language and religion in Turkey. To my
eyes – perhaps because I had grown up in India – Turkey seemed remarkably
homogeneous, but I knew that couldn't be entirely true. Whatever its history and politics, Turkey seemed to have done much better than India in some essential aspects: its regional cities were cleaner, more organized and better equipped in terms of infrastructure. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">To the questions on history, I found some partial answers in the <i><a href="http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_9781101196274,00.html">Rebel Land</a></i>, a non-fiction book -- a very personal one -- </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">by the</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> English correspondent </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_de_Bellaigue">Christopher de Bellaigue</a>. About a 5-10 years ago, Bellaigue visited the seemingly nondescript</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> town
of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varto">Varto</a>, 3 hours south of Erzurum, for extended periods, in the attempt
to unearth “the riddle of history in a Turkish town”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Fluent in Turkish, Bellaigue was able to talk to
the town mayor, civil servants, army men, businessmen and shepherds. In the
process he unveils a complex and tangled history bringing to fore fault lines in modern
Turkish history: the Kurdish question; the Alevis who were at
odds with the majority Sunni Muslims; the Armenian mass deportation and
killings that had happened in the chaos of shifting alliances in the First World
War, a time when the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs, its Christian
subjects in Europe had become nation states, and Russia was advancing into
Ottoman territory in Eastern Anatolia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">In an early chapter of <i>Rebel Land</i> de Bellaigue is still deciding which town he should
choose for the book. In Ankara, he meets
a Kurdish friend for dinner. The friend tells him about Varto, “a small
place in the southeast… but not far south as to be caught up in regular
fighting…a little north of the great Armenian monastery of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Karapet_Monastery">Surp Karapet</a>.” </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">De Bellaigue’s friend had “got to know Varto through his wife, also an Alevi, who had relations there. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Alevis of Varto generally spoke Zaza, he said, and the Sunnis Kurmanji; both were Kurdish languages”. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">He then said that the “Alevis of Varto suffer from a peculiar existential angst. They are divided over whether they are Turks or Kurds.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">These were precisely the sort of nuances I had no
idea about. Recently, a native of Erzurum, now living
in the US, confirmed how her home town stood out sharply as a Turkish Sunni bastion even among the generally conservative towns of Eastern Anatolia. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In a few days, I would visit the much smaller
and poorer town of Kars, close to the eastern border with Armenia. Almost
immediately after getting off the bus, I could tell that Kars was messier but more diverse and relaxed in its outlook. Maybe I was biased; maybe I felt that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">way because there were many
good places, with vegetarian options, open for lunch in Kars; lunch during Ramazan at a
restaurant in Erzurum does not seem to be possible.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">After that evening in Erzurum, Serhat and I left early the next day. We drove north through the mountains, to the town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rize">Rize</a> – the hometown
of the current prime minister, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdogan">Erdogan</a> – on the Black Sea Coast. From there, we
headed east towards a group of villages (part of a United Nations Biosphere) located in a lush green, mountainous region on the border between Turkey and Georgia. After twelve hours of driving we finally got to our accommodation
at 8 pm. I will describe this journey by road in my next post. <span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-9310029337384725822013-09-03T14:57:00.001-06:002013-10-22T13:55:24.047-06:00Some analyses of 40-year bird count data in Central Massachusetts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><b>1.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Two years ago, <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2011/08/cardinal-day-keeps-color-blindness-away.html">in a post</a> with a cheesy title,
I’d written about seeing cardinals frequently. I continue to come across them: it is still a thrill to see a sharp movement of red in the branches
of trees, and to hear the bird’s distinctive calls. Inspired by these sightings,
I find myself now drawn to other birds, mammals and insects that live in the
wooded areas of New England.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On May 27th this year, I visited a tract of land preserved by
the Massachusetts Audubon Society near Worcester: <a href="http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Wachusett_Meadow/index.php">the Wachusetts Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary</a>. There, I met naturalist Joe Choiniere. We talked for a while. Joe knew well the birds in the area -- details of their range, habitat, prevalence, appearance, calls etc. As
the current property manager, he, like others before him, organizes a bird
count each year at the meadow. I told him about my interest in looking at the data -- an interest that has grown ever since I began to teach probability and statistics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Joe said could share the data with me. To observe how the data was collected, </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">he also invited me to attend the count this year, on June 9th. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was a somewhat cloudy Sunday morning, but visibility was good. Around 10-15 people, most of them expert
birders, broke into groups and went on different trails that wound through the hill forests,
ponds and marshes of the sanctuary. I followed one group along the main dirt
road. Each person carried a paper listing of all species and marked the numbers
as soon as something was spotted. Close to 500 species of birds have been
observed in Massachusetts, so one has to be a keen and experienced observer of birds to get the identifications right.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Late morning, everyone returned to a room in the
Visitor’s Center. A coordinator called out the name of each species; the birders
around the table responded with their counts, and a tally for 2013 obtained. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">This process remains the same each year. Minutes
of the discussion are maintained, and journal published each year presents the
tally. Variables such as the number of observers, weather and temperature can
of course change somewhat, but the trails on which the counts are made have mostly
remained the same. Most importantly, despite year to year variations, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">the 50-year duration means that some
general inferences on population levels of particular species can be made. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Joe sent me an Excel Spreadsheet with the count for <i>all</i> species at the meadow from 1964 to 2003 (the data for 2003-2013 is also available, but has not yet been entered in Excel). I started working with the data recently and made some preliminary graphs. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In this post, I will illustrate, with examples,
whether or not the annual bird count at Wachusetts Meadow tallies with other
statewide trends. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So let’s take a look at the cardinal count for
40 years since 1964, when the count first started at the meadow. The x-axis is
the year. The y-axis
is the number of cardinals observed by birders at Wachusetts Meadow. We notice the variability from year to year
(except in the early years when no cardinals were seen). But it’s pretty clear
that there is an increase in the number of cardinals seen, even though there
are still years when none are observed.</span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijXJwZ0toEuF4wElNKfSMyN_24gukld29CGtsn5n7PIG9yx9YoliAMh2O2hdjza6tVPke-18BeL6ICj0ye0VXZio2VeXMQq2-xpTUeFkBcthCJqX6cO8ZMZOgNWKfnpfdXB6LXdQ/s1600/CardinalCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijXJwZ0toEuF4wElNKfSMyN_24gukld29CGtsn5n7PIG9yx9YoliAMh2O2hdjza6tVPke-18BeL6ICj0ye0VXZio2VeXMQq2-xpTUeFkBcthCJqX6cO8ZMZOgNWKfnpfdXB6LXdQ/s640/CardinalCount.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Note that the image is only of the male cardinal (somewhat sexist, you could say!); the female is more gray than red, but females are of course part of the count.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">What do the statewide counts compiled by the
Massachusetts Audubon tell us on the prevalence of cardinals? There are three
such counts: the <a href="http://www.massaudubon.org/birdatlas/bbaportal/index.php">Bird Breeding Atlas</a> (conducted from 1974-1979 and again from
2007-2012); the <a href="http://137.227.245.162/bbs/about/">Bird Breeding Survey</a> (an annual effort on specific roadways);
and the <a href="http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count">Christmas Bird Count</a> (a 114 year tradition that is kept going by
enthusiastic citizens).
Trends in the cardinal population based on these counts can be seen
<a href="http://www.massaudubon.org/StateoftheBirds/species_account.php?spc=NOCA">here</a>. Notice that all counts suggest either a "likely" or "strong" increase in the
number of cardinals. This agrees with the graph above, based on the Wachusetts Meadow annual count.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>2.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is of course also possible that Wachusetts cardinal count may have only coincidentally agreed with other counts. So, for further validation, let’s look at the 40-year trend at Wachusetts for two other birds: the cliff
swallow, and the house finch. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jiaIsJBQMOp7sxaMUz38YVd6eKvXqM9Lj_8_XZWgUP_dDj_wxyrx3TUN3GnWAY9AynhwmaicU6gH_2EdIexb-fCn9QUrfg7YEX3mP1ZwketunLixnSdlxeNPnEs-kkyzZcBHcA/s1600/CliffSwallowCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jiaIsJBQMOp7sxaMUz38YVd6eKvXqM9Lj_8_XZWgUP_dDj_wxyrx3TUN3GnWAY9AynhwmaicU6gH_2EdIexb-fCn9QUrfg7YEX3mP1ZwketunLixnSdlxeNPnEs-kkyzZcBHcA/s640/CliffSwallowCount.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>I am fascinated by swallows: this July, I saw hundreds of rock swallows, their appearance similar to the above image, at the desolate ruins of the ancient city of Ani, along the river that separates Turkey from Armenia.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sadly, for the cliff swallow we see a precipitous
decline and counts have been zero for most of the 80s and 90s. This agrees with
three statewide counts <a href="http://www.massaudubon.org/StateoftheBirds/species_account.php?spc=CLSW">posted</a> at the Massachusetts Audubon Society: they
confirm a “strong decline” in numbers. The brief note says: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Today, the Cliff Swallow occupies less than half
of the distribution it held in 1979. Loss of nesting structures, such as old
barns and bridges, along with nesting competition from introduced House
Sparrows are among the factors accounting for this restricted distribution.” </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloXVln_hyeLUrvqc9gzXEfcYJjrK_ELmV1573uq73gar5BNDnuwjAb-eZO5pXqPiWkqKSTnR4vzyIfqDA-jOhtJhkLAK3qH36j5N9I6ZJOxhflx7YMOkyCuWidL9Q_BOQ8QEqNw/s1600/HouseFinchCount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloXVln_hyeLUrvqc9gzXEfcYJjrK_ELmV1573uq73gar5BNDnuwjAb-eZO5pXqPiWkqKSTnR4vzyIfqDA-jOhtJhkLAK3qH36j5N9I6ZJOxhflx7YMOkyCuWidL9Q_BOQ8QEqNw/s640/HouseFinchCount.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">For the
house finch, we see no sightings at all until the 1980s. It <a href="http://www.massaudubon.org/StateoftheBirds/species_account.php?spc=HOFI">turns out</a>
that the house finch was introduced into this region in the previous decade: <span style="background: white;">“The introduced House Finch arrived in Massachusetts
during the 1970s and never looked back. It can now be found living alongside
humans over much of the state, and as a breeder it is nearly ubiquitous.” <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the above figure, </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">we don't notice high numbers in the years leading up to 2003, but the early years validate well with the available knowledge on house finches.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In both
these cases, the Wachusetts Meadow trends again seem to match reasonably well with other
statewide trends. Still, this is just preliminary evidence. Birders may be
influenced by what they hear from others in their community or what they read
in journals; during counts, they might unconsciously seek for a particular species or ignore
others, thus introducing some “unnatural” variation. Yet, there is no way to
completely escape such biases in a field study.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">What
impressed me most was the perseverance of anonymous individuals participating
to keep such censuses alive all over the country. The comprehensive bird counts
listed in the Massachusetts Audubon Society, all depend on the efforts of such
individuals; the <a href="http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count">Christmas Bird Count</a> has been going on for 114 years! </span></div>
</div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-4343777172372837142013-08-14T15:44:00.000-06:002013-10-22T13:53:18.472-06:00A trip to Turkey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In July
this year, I traveled to Turkey. I reached Istan</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">bul on July 09 – the day
Ramazan began – and stayed in at <a href="http://www.ku.edu.tr/en">Koc University</a> near Sariyer, </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">a northern suburb of the city on the European side </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(pardon the incorrect Turkish spelling: for those used to the English alphabet, the Turkish one is convenient and familiar, but at the same time there are some key sounds the English alphabet does not cover). I was attending an academic healthcare conference
at Koc. But that was merely an excuse to begin again the kind of unstructured travel
I’d managed in Latin America a few years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I stayed
for 3 days in Istanbul but then flew with a longtime Turkish friend, Serhat, to
northeast Turkey: cities, towns, and villages in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzurum">Erzurum</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artvin_Province">Artvin</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kars">Kars</a>
provinces, along the border with Georgia and Armenia. Serhat, an avid traveler himself, had already been to these and
other far flung parts of the country. So this trip was different in that I had
somebody who could translate and interpret things for me. I returned to Istanbul on July 18th, and experienced the Ramazan rhythms around the Sultan Ahmet mosque that evening. The next day I left for Boston. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why Erzurum and Kars? The choice was arbitrary; I wanted to get a sense of a completely
different part of Turkey. And the Northeast seemed like a
gateway to the vast Eurasian mountains and steppes of the Silk Route that I
knew very little about, but had always had dreamed of traveling to. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This post provides some quick impressions of my time in Istanbul, but </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in the coming weeks, I’ll write about the 6-7 days of extensive travel in Northeast Turkey. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On July 9th, my flight arrived at Istanbul at 2 pm. It took about
40 minutes to clear my passport; the line for South Asians was the same as that
for Iraqis, who outnumbered all other nationalities. The Iraqi lady behind me wondered if I
too was from Baghdad. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Serhat picked me up from the airport. We used the metro, tram and funicular – I was impressed how
organized and cheap public transportation was – to get to Taksim Square and
Gezi Park, the site of fierce public protests and even fiercer police/government
retaliation this summer. Gezi Park had just been reopened to the public the day
before. But the reopening had prompted more protests; teargas had again been
used the previous evening. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hHSma_ctt45Zt5sFU-wPBdMgqLkZsoXVfWnm0BwtwRogYMaplGmaBhgLzVFdybf3-VDrNlKuwe3UKkGkkufJcJmRHjAGtRE_vzvJ9TwkivQYannJVXoI4Fsnc1mq2pN-e_CrDQ/s1600/IMG_9308.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hHSma_ctt45Zt5sFU-wPBdMgqLkZsoXVfWnm0BwtwRogYMaplGmaBhgLzVFdybf3-VDrNlKuwe3UKkGkkufJcJmRHjAGtRE_vzvJ9TwkivQYannJVXoI4Fsnc1mq2pN-e_CrDQ/s640/IMG_9308.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>One view from Taksim: the image of Ataturk, the founder the modern Turkish state, on the building in the distance. </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_J_-6qwDcWXyuDC42pMZzEJoG6vCUKT8vPlqf8qvOTwPLwiR8BLeJ7L3M_sgF6NfRI2KDueb6_GEbLMNOjqZ7JEVjmK6bLwPLfVM-C7TKyA-oBCsgAwJo6AF23oeVh5XJhe4x2w/s1600/IMG_9325.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_J_-6qwDcWXyuDC42pMZzEJoG6vCUKT8vPlqf8qvOTwPLwiR8BLeJ7L3M_sgF6NfRI2KDueb6_GEbLMNOjqZ7JEVjmK6bLwPLfVM-C7TKyA-oBCsgAwJo6AF23oeVh5XJhe4x2w/s640/IMG_9325.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Police vehicles at Taksim</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Taksim
was quiet when we arrived: it felt strange that the explosions, fires and water
cannons that I’d seen on television in June had happened here. But for the
police trucks that were parked in one corner, ready to repress if a critical
mass of people gathered, Taksim seemed as safe as the rest of Istanbul. I passed
through Taksim twice again in the next days with no problems. I was told that the story was
different the evenings, when those interested in protesting got off their day
jobs began to congregate at Gezi Park.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I did the
usual things that tourists do in Istanbul: visiting buildings, mosques, streets
and bridges the city is famous for; taking the ferry ride on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus">Bosphorus Strait</a> (we took a public ferry used by commuters in the evening: the 80-minute ferry ride from Eminonu
to Sariyer, as scenic as any I’ve been on, astonishingly cost a mere 1.5 US dollars);
visiting Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, an actual museum based on the novel
of the same name, in Cukurcuma, near Istiklal Street; and shopping
for food, spices and souvenirs in and around the Grand Bazaar. There’s plenty
of information about these things in travel books, so I won’t say anything
more, except that Istanbul lived up to its promise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxGxi8IoMb4z8hNdaPCJe3trs6q6L1tj0CWy4Ewe2iCiiK0HvISl4XE1IZ8swmIAEHnU4B0MQqUknQSJTIpvzV8ZkxQs5VbWni7SWt0ymeIuFzaAsxn4TK_Pi4ZuksKkFzgWaBMA/s1600/IMG_9321.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 16px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxGxi8IoMb4z8hNdaPCJe3trs6q6L1tj0CWy4Ewe2iCiiK0HvISl4XE1IZ8swmIAEHnU4B0MQqUknQSJTIpvzV8ZkxQs5VbWni7SWt0ymeIuFzaAsxn4TK_Pi4ZuksKkFzgWaBMA/s640/IMG_9321.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Vegetarian options at a restaurant on Istiklal Street.</i> </span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjba2n6-bR0hutM7QSHC0Jc_1fuf9RmfijVMSbU1Ga3yWHhSqU0sSu1xh9nvjYZYHwE8sDzxUO4FBc6OXmH7X5yx1-brjcFSuudlSzo3J3uOYGjKFmVP_pxh5ozhGqaDclaYKN3PQ/s1600/IMG_9657.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjba2n6-bR0hutM7QSHC0Jc_1fuf9RmfijVMSbU1Ga3yWHhSqU0sSu1xh9nvjYZYHwE8sDzxUO4FBc6OXmH7X5yx1-brjcFSuudlSzo3J3uOYGjKFmVP_pxh5ozhGqaDclaYKN3PQ/s640/IMG_9657.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Courtyard of the Sultan Ahmet Mosque at 10:30 pm</i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I first reached the gates of Koc University, I had to check in with the security. This private university – owned by one of Turkey’s prominent business
families – has a secluded campus set on a hill in the midst of pine and oak forests,
far north of Istanbul’s attractions, and close to where the Bosphorus opens into
the expanse of the Black Sea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A security
guard in fatigues asked for my passport. He said I’d have to wait for the next shuttle
that would drop me near my dorm accommodation inside campus. Until then I could spend time inside the small security room. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was
around 8:45 or 9 pm. About five security guards were absorbed in having dinner in the room. A number of dishes were on display in plastic or glass containers:
bread, salad, fried cheese rolls, pasta or noodles, vegetables, rice. All dishes
were shared. The guards offered me some of the food. I ate a cigar-shaped fried
roll filled with slightly salty cheese. The guards did not see it, but I am sure
my eyes must have lit up at the taste. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I remember feeling struck by the atmosphere in
the room: there was something very warm and genuine about that gathering. It didn't occur to me then, but this was of course
the dinner,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">iftar</span></i><span style="line-height: 115%;">, after the day-long Ramazan fast:
perhaps even more special, since this was the first day of Ramazan, so the
first breaking of the fast. </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">Later, in Northeast Turkey, while sharing tables
with strangers in crowded restaurants – all customers patiently waiting for the powerful microphones on minarets to signal the end of the fast, even as freshly served bread, soup and salad sat enticingly on the table – at these restaurants, I experienced again and again, that same atmosphere of a communal meal.</span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-33601564270383358452013-07-22T19:19:00.000-06:002016-01-14T07:30:23.501-06:00Notes from Yellowstone and Wyoming -- Part 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Read <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2013/05/notes-from-yellowstone-and-wyoming-part.html">Part 1</a> and <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2013/06/notes-from-yellowstone-and-wyoming-part.html">Part 2</a>. </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>This part focuses on the wildlife I saw during the trip. In Part 1, I’ve already mentioned prolific herds of bison, which are easily
spotted in Yellowstone and take center stage. Here I list other, more subtle
experiences: </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1) Grasshoppers
were our constant companions throughout the trip. Perhaps August – mid to late
summer – is when they are most active. When flying, they made constantly
spaced sounds -- </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">one every half second -- </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">loud enough to be clearly audible more than a hundred feet away</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">, each note like a small, flat-sounding
firework. On
the ground, these drab brown grasshoppers were quiet and hardly noticeable. But when
in flight, I noticed that their bodies had a touch of bright yellow. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">2) While driving
from Cody to Riverton, we passed by the Wind River Canyon. On the slope of
a high mountain adjacent to the road, we saw three male bighorn sheep, grazing
along with deer, looking cautiously at us, although both distance and a steep
slope separated us. We had seen female bighorn sheep before, in Zion National
Park, Utah, and some in Yellowstone, but never any males with their signature
curved horns. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The writer and naturalist, Joe Hutto, who raised wild turkey
chicks to adulthood in a forest in Florida – his experience has been reenacted
in the PBS Nature documentary </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/my-life-as-a-turkey/full-episode/7378/">My Life as a Turkey</a></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> – now lives in this area. He disappears for months at a time in
the Wind River mountain wilderness, following populations of bighorn sheep as
part of a research study. His new book, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Light_in_High_Places.html?id=OGz65ZTLfcIC">The Light in High Places</a></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, is as much about mystical and solitary engagement with high and wild places, as it is
about the causes of decline in bighorn sheep numbers. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">4) Approaching
Jackson from the south, you come to the <a href="http://www.fws.gov/refuge/national_elk_refuge/">National Elk Refuge</a>. Elk are
active here only in the winter. But right before the road enters town is a
marsh, where we saw a pair of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpeter_Swan">trumpeter swans</a> (see center of picture below), whose numbers have declined in
the last century.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">5) Other significant
sights: (a) a pair of resting ravens, probably a couple, completely still as if
frozen, on a fallen log by the side of a lonely road in Yellowstone, the head
and beak of one tilted upward; their jet black color – something I've always
admired – contrasting sharply with the bright hue of the grass around them; (b)
a red fox, caught in the headlights late in the evening, moving discreetly
along the side of the main road in Yellowstone; (c) an osprey (a brown bird of prey,
with a white head; see picture below) perched on a branch of a tree; and (d) pelicans soaring in
the sky above Hayden Valley. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">3) At the edge of the Grand Teton National Park, not far from the Jackson airport (which, strangely, is also within the park), a mother black bear and two cubs crossed a major road and made their way to the wooded hills on the other side. They moved at a deceptively steady pace, but in the end covered ground very quickly. But for a pair of binoculars – amazing how an intelligent arrangement of lenses/glasses can bring the distant so vividly and breathtakingly close – we would have missed them. They would have been two black specks on the horizon not worth commenting about. Instead, it was an absolute delight to see their languid, unstructured and carefree walk towards the hills, now disappearing behind a thicket or tree, now reemerging again, before finally fading away on the forested slopes.</span></span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-30052533081115398022013-06-18T18:28:00.000-06:002013-10-22T13:53:59.796-06:00Notes from Yellowstone and Wyoming -- Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Second
part of my trip to Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming in August 2012 (read
<a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2013/05/notes-from-yellowstone-and-wyoming-part.html">Part 1</a>). The focus here is on the drive through some lesser known towns and
parts of Wyoming, in particular the Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the
Northern Arapahoe and Shoshone. I’ve reproduced the Greater Yellowstone map
again below.</i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Beyond Lamar Valley is the northeastern exit to Yellowstone. Here, the route south eventually becomes the <a href="http://byways.org/explore/byways/2168">Chief Joseph Scenic Highway</a>. It runs through the pristine wilderness of <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/shoshone">Shoshone National Forest</a>. Unlike Yellowstone, there were no cars and people around; it felt like we’d left the world behind. It was late in the afternoon; the desolate vistas that opened up along high mountain passes – over 8000 feet – were beautiful and striking in the fading light. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It was a remarkably intimate experience of wilderness, exactly what I had been yearning for, but paradoxically I had found it outside national park borders.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The presence of a few cattle grazing on steep slopes suggested that people did live around here. But the ranches that they presumably owned were nowhere to be seen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The highway is named after <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Joseph">Chief Joseph</a>, the leader of a group of 800 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nez_Perce_people">Nez Perce</a> Indians who were escaping from the US army in 1877. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By this time, America's westward expansion and its capture of land that belonged to Indians had reached its peak. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Nez Perce band had refused to live in lands that US government had designated for them. Their defiance made them outlaws in their own land. Around 2000 American troops followed the escaping Nez Perce to arrest them and forcibly bring them back within the confines of a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">reservation</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> -- the term refers to a territory designated by the US government for Indian tribes. It’s a strange term, but now accepted and commonplace; I’d encountered it first in Aldous Huxley’s </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Brave New World</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, which I’d read as a college student. The Phoenix metropolitan area, where I spent six years, and the state of Arizona more generally, has a number of reservations, including the largest, the Navajo Nation. In all, there are 550 recognized tribes and around 300 reservations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Beginning in Oregon and passing through Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, the chase of the Nez Perce lasted for an astonishing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flight_of_the_Nez_Perce-1877-map.jpg">1,170 miles</a>. This included a section through Yellowstone, and the Wyoming wilderness we were now driving through. The Nez Perce deftly avoided the US army at many points in the chase. But just 40 miles south of the Canadian Border and their destination painfully close, Chief Joseph and his group, exhausted and having suffered many casualties, surrendered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everywhere I’ve traveled to the US, there is such a story of forced dispossession and ethnic cleansing. In Massachusetts, where I now live, I learned about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wamponoag">Wampanoag</a>, who helped the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_(Plymouth_Colony)">Pilgrims</a> (this alliance may have resulted in the very first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)">Thanksgiving</a>), but eventually lost their own lands and people to wars and diseases. During a trip to <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2009/05/among-indians.html">Pine Ridge reservation</a> in South Dakota, I learned of the infamous <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2007/11/thoughts-on-americas-westward-expansion.html">Wounded Knee Massacre</a>. For the Cherokees, there is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokees#Trail_of_Tears">Trail of Tears</a>; for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajos">Navajos</a> in the Southwest, there is the forced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_of_the_Navajo">Long Walk</a> to eastern New Mexico. For the Arapahoes who now have a home in the Wyoming – the Wind River Indian Reservation, which I’ll come to in a bit – there is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre">Sand Creek Massacre</a>. If you collect these individual tragedies together – there is such a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_massacre">Wikipedia page</a> that does exactly this – you realize the scale of the tragedy, the silent evidence that lies beneath the much touted notion of American greatness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the beautiful mountain scenery, the landscape turned flatter and more arid, as we approached the western edge of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains">Great Plains</a> in Wyoming. The Great Plains were the stage of the many of the Indian Wars of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, and refer to the vast swathe of land east of the Rocky Mountains: the United States' sparsely populated middle. We stayed in the town of Cody for a night. There were irrigated farms at the outskirts of <a href="http://wikitravel.org/en/Cody">Cody</a>, and among the long shoots of corn, gazing at us as we drove past, were small groups of deer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cody fit the template I had in mind of remote and small Western town: a single row of shops and hotels, a few side streets, and not much else; a rodeo every evening of the summer; the historic, Wild West themed <a href="http://www.irmahotel.com/">Irma Hotel</a>; no fancy organic stores as in Bozeman, Montana (see <a href="http://thirtylettersinmyname.blogspot.com/2013/05/notes-from-yellowstone-and-wyoming-part.html">Part 1</a>); and unlike Bozeman, no major university to influence the demographics and outlook; mostly steak restaurants, which, given the free ranging cattle, are likely to be good (though preferring vegetarian food, I wouldn’t know anything about quality); and the occasional Mexican or Chinese restaurant providing the only variety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The <a href="http://php/">Wind River Indian Reservation</a> is about three hours southeast of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It is jointly shared by the <a href="http://www.northernarapaho.com/background">Northern Arapahoe</a> and Eastern Shoshone. Before European arrival, the Arapahoe had lived on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming; American expansion drove them west. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshone_people">Shoshones</a>, in contrast, had lived in this region probably well before American settlement. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacajawea">Sacajawea</a>, the famous Indian woman had helped <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition">Lewis and Clarke</a> on their expedition to the Pacific, was Shoshone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few weeks before the trip, I had read a New York Times article titled “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/us/wind-river-indian-reservation-where-brutality-is-banal.html">Brutal Crimes Grip Wind River Indian Reservation</a>”. It talked about arbitrary homicide, drugs, health problems and depression that plagued the Arapahoe and Shoshone. While all this may be true, the article itself was not convincing; it lacked depth and proper engagement, and was more intent on painting a certain surface portrait. But the disheartening facts in the article, which probably did have some basis in reality, made me think twice about whether I should visit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We stayed in Riverton, which I initially thought was in the reservation. At least that is what the map suggested. But land ownership in and around a reservation is often a complicated matter. Riverton turned out to be a majority white town. It sits on the outside edge of the reservation but is not in it. The town has benefited a recent oil boom; executives from big firms frequented the two or three high end hotel chains in town. I wondered if the oil boom also included the natural gas extracted by the controversial “fracking” technique, whose potential impacts on neighboring rivers, streams and house water supply are highlighted dramatically in the documentary <i>Gasland</i>. Indeed, <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/is-fracking-behind-contamination-in-wyoming-groundwater-1.11543">recent sampling</a> of wells in Pavillion, a small town in the reservation northeast or Riverton, seem to support these claims. Not surprisingly <a href="http://www.encana.com/">Encana</a>, the Canadian corporation that is responsible for the drilling in the region has <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/12/12/encana-calls-b-s-on-epas-wyoming-gas-fracking-study/">questioned</a> these results. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The reservation starts one mile south of Riverton, with the newly opened and Arapaho owned Wind River Casino. The casino building had minimal but attractive Arapaho motifs. In the open space of the casino parking lot, a roping championship was going on. Roping refers to the cowboy sport where a pair of riders on horses ensures that an escaping calf is lassoed around the neck in just the right way and at just the right time. It was less violent sport than I’d imagined, although it was clear – and painful to contemplate – that a slight mistake could easily break the calf’s neck. The parking lot had large trailers to accommodate horses. The participants had red, sunburned faces and wore cowboy hats; they all seemed solemn, keen to perform well in the event, but in good spirits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The interior of the casino was like any in Las Vegas: dark as a cave, with the strong odor of smoke and alcohol; scores of pair of eyes patiently – or perhaps obsessively – glued to the screens of slot machines; and the cacophony of rings and bells that accompany a successful or failed slot trial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The local Indians were among the staff, but the gamblers were mostly white. The casino was not full, but I nevertheless wondered where the gamblers had traveled from. This part of the country is sparsely populated: Jackson, Casper, Cheyenne and Fort Laramie, the moderate sized towns in the state, were more than 2 hours away; and Denver more than five hours away. But I guess distance is no match for addictions. Perhaps gambling would also attract those passing through Riverton, on their way to Yellowstone or Grand Teton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In modern day America, Indian reservations are closely associated with casinos: the National Indian Gaming Commission states that there are 460 gambling operations run by 240 tribes. Because reservations have some degree of sovereignty, states have limited tax and regulation control over what happens in reservations. So in a strange, roundabout way, reservation land, which is where the US government wanted Indian tribes to be confined to, would attain a degree of independence, and pave the way of lucrative gaming operations in the late 20<sup>th</sup> century -- although it remains puzzling why it is only the casino business, and not others, that have boomed as a result of state tax exemptions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Casino revenues are sometimes used by tribes to open new healthcare facilities, elder care centers, and retention of indigenous languages. They have enabled a kind of cultural renaissance for American Indians. But Indian casinos are successful only when they are close to large metropolitan areas: 12% of the casinos make 65% of the total revenue. The small minority of reservations and Indians that have benefited have become tremendously rich; it does not seem that Wind River is among them. The Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut -- not far from where I now live – is one of the most successful reservation casinos in the country. Owned by <a href="http://www.mashantucket.com/default.aspx">Pequot Tribe</a>, it is successful primarily because of population and travel density in the Boston-New York corridor. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We had dinner that evening at a restaurant owned by a Mexican family, back in Riverton, about two miles north of the Wind River Casino. A stocky, young man, about eighteen years old, the son of the immigrant couple who had started the restaurant, came to talk with us. He was cheerful and curious. Noticing that I did not want meat, he asked – with a sincerity that I found endearing – how it was possible to have such meals. His sister, he said, had recently turned vegetarian, but he could not understand it; he laughed heartily about it. He’d grown up in the US, but his parents were from the city of Guadalajara Their family also owned a restaurant in Jackson, the affluent town near Grand Teton National Park.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The presence of this Mexican family, so far from home, and in such a remote part of Wyoming, is not surprising. There is a lot of that sort of immigration everywhere in the world. But then I remembered the Arapahoe and Shoshone Indians who had lived in this region well before American settlement. It struck me that Mexicans might not be that far apart from them genetically, despite the significant cultural differences. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here in Riverton, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">more than a thousand miles north of the US-Mexico border,</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the young Mexican-origin teenager at the restaurant could easily walk through the reservation and be considered native. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The next day, we drove through the Wind River Reservation. The place was quiet, as most reservations are; you wouldn't even know you were driving through one but for the signs. We passed by single story homes with old, disassembled cars rusting in the backyards; the odd high school, church or tribal administrative unit. But, strikingly, no businesses, no sellers of arts of crafts in old pick-up trucks or stalls (common in the Southwest), no small stores or restaurants let alone malls. Even gas stations were few and far between. Except for the newly opened casino, which may or may not do well, there was nothing that could contribute to the economy. This was made more puzzling by the fact that in Riverton, which is also geographically remote, there are plenty of businesses. What are the dynamics between reservations and states that keeps reservations so poor when the majority white communities in surrounding cities are able to do so much better?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Near the town of Fort Washakie, at the eastern end of the reservation – this was the Shoshone side – we found a small market. We went in to ask about lunch. They did have a kitchen of sorts, but only pizza and deep fried food. I asked a man in charge of the kitchen if he knew of any nearby restaurants in Fort Washakie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Without a hint of irony, he said: “This is the best restaurant in town.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He and the other staff who worked in the kitchen were genuinely friendly and wanted to help as much as they could. Their skin shone with sweat from the heat of the all oven cooking and deep frying. Their features and complexion reminded me of the Mexican immigrants I’d met in kitchens of restaurants in southwestern towns. When I asked for vegetarian options, they all looked sincerely around to see if they could get me a cheese pizza, which they’d run out of. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the end, I found some jalapeno poppers and some meat lasagna without pieces of meat. It was good comfort food, something I’d not had in a while. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Three hours northeast of Fort Washakie, at the base of the dramatic Teton Range of the Rocky Mountains – jagged peaks that rise suddenly for thousands of feet from the valley, creating a view that is scarcely believable and extensively photographed – is one of the more affluent towns in the country: Jackson. The contrast from Wind River could not have been sharper. In Jackson, I would get the fancy vegetarian food I was looking for. At the restaurant, the waiters and waitresses were all well dressed formally; there was emphasis on etiquette that had no intrinsic meaning or essence except to signal social status and refinement; there was a separate and extensive menu for all kinds of drinks; the diners held wine glasses the right way; the smart phones were out for pictures and the instant Facebook uploads; the expensive bills were conveniently paid by gleaming credit cards. The main plaza of Jackson is full of boutique shops and store of brands such as Eddy Bauer and Gap. One bookshop I went into prominently featured a biography of former vice president Dick Cheney, who is from Wyoming. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such different socioeconomic realities, in the space of a few hours! </span></div>
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-29443651459754387432013-05-24T20:54:00.000-06:002013-10-22T13:54:57.397-06:00Notes from Yellowstone and Wyoming -- Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The iconic <a href="http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm">Yellowstone National Park</a>, the oldest in the US, established in 1872, is not easy to get to. If you don’t live in or close to the northeastern corner of Wyoming, you need either to drive from major cities like Denver, Salt-Lake City or Seattle – by no means a trivial drive -- or fly to two small airports, Bozeman (Montana) or Jackson (Wyoming). Despite its remote location, Yellowstone National Park gets 3.6 million visitors each year. Each day in the summer, as many as 10,000 tourists may visit the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Faithful">Old Faithful</a> Visitor Center, named after the natural geyser -- one of dozens in the park -- which spews thousands of gallons of hot water every 90 minutes or so. Yellowstone is so crowded in the summer months that it can feel like a catered amusement park, rather than the genuine natural wonder it is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For eight days in August 2012, we visited parts of the <a href="http://www.yellowstonewiki.com/wiki/Greater_Yellowstone_Ecosystem">Greater Yellowstone</a> region, shown below [map credit: yellowstonewiki.com]. Our flight departed from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford">Hartford</a> (Connecticut) at 7 pm; we reached <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozeman">Bozeman, Montana</a>, with a stopover in Minneapolis, at 11 pm. From Bozeman, we drove to Yellowstone, where we spent two days, before leaving the national park and exploring some of the lesser known towns and regions in Wyoming. Cody was the first stop on this route, reached through the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway that runs through the desolate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshone_National_Forest">Shoshone National Forest</a>. Next, the town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverton,_Wyoming">Riverton</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_River_Indian_Reservation">Wind River Indian Reservation</a>. In the last leg, we turned north to <a href="http://www.nps.gov/grte/index.htm">Grand Tetons</a>, the other major national park in the area. Yellowstone is only 40 miles north of the Grand Tetons. From Yellowstone, it was a short ride back to Bozeman, Montana, through the town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Yellowstone">West Yellowstone</a> and <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/gallatin">Gallatin National Forest</a>, for the return flight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The descriptions below mostly follow the chronology of the trip.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Bozeman airport was just outside town, in Belgrade. We stayed at a
Quality Inn nearby, managed by local employees. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">There was a Bible in the room: a reliable presence in most
American hotels. But there was also, uniquely, a long note encased in a glass
frame, placed on a desk. I will paraphrase the gist here: “We sincerely wish
you a wonderful journey wherever you are headed in this beautiful region. We
wish your presence is profitable for us; we also hope that if you are
conducting business, like we are, that you have a most profitable time.” The
message, brimming with cheer and goodwill, seemed a most natural merger of
American evangelism and entrepreneurial zeal. It felt like a condensed version
of the hyper-positive sermons the Houston evangelical preacher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Osteen">Joel Osteen</a> delivers
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the morning, I had my first glimpse of the landscape
around Bozeman. I’d imagined a very lush green setting, perhaps Alpine
forests in close proximity. Instead, what I saw was not very different from the
small towns in northern Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico that I had traveled to
as a graduate student: a mostly flat, dry and indistinct plain that stretched
in all directions, allowing a very large sky, and ringed by bare brown
mountains in the distance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bozeman was a ten minute drive from the hotel. Naively, I
had expected it to be a remote town with little to offer. Instead, Bozeman sprawled
over an area that seemed large for its population of 37,000. The downtown had
trendy restaurants, well-stocked bookshops, and a cooperative grocery selling
local and organic food. The idea of a rugged, inhospitable West is only a
decorative exterior in Bozeman. The coffee shops had plush seating and colorful
interiors; and the well dressed young clientele, absorbed in their laptops,
were probably students from the nearby Montana State University or urban
backpackers on a break. Thinking back, I feel amused I did not spot a
meditation or yoga center. But an easy google search reveals that there are in fact many in town.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are two routes from Bozeman to Yellowstone National
Park. One leads to the western entrance and the other through the northern –
through Gardiner city. We took the latter. After downtown Bozeman, one could be
forgiven for momentarily forgetting about the social conservatism of the
region. Very soon, however, there were prominent signs on the freeway: </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Life is
a Beautiful Choice”. The radio shows were sympathetic to the Republican
worldview. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The grass had a beautiful tinge of yellow; the wildflowers by the
roadside, also mostly yellow, were in full bloom. Otherwise the scenery was
primary agricultural: grazing cattle and farms with mechanized equipment for
irrigation, suggesting some sort of large scale ownership.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the northern entrance to Yellowstone – commemorated by a
historic old arch – a black SUV from Colorado proudly declared: “God bless our
troops and especially our snipers.” How this message, aggressive in tone and
spirit, could be reconciled the large cross of Christ that hung from the
rearview mirror of the same car, remained a mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most natural parks revolve around some startling visual
feature or theme. The <a href="http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm">Grand Canyon National Park</a>, for example, is about the wondrous
shapes, depths, colors and textures that water and other natural forces have
created in the brittle, dry and high Colorado Plateau. The same theme echoes,
on a smaller but no less dramatic scale, through the national parks of southern
and south-central Utah: <a href="http://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm">Zion</a>, <a href="http://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm">Bryce</a>, <a href="http://www.nps.gov/arch/index.htm">Arches</a>, <a href="http://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm">Capitol Reef</a>, <a href="http://www.nps.gov/cany/index.htm">Canyonlands</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yellowstone, however, is not just about one thing, though
its active volcanic status – expressed through geysers, strange-colored
(prismatic) springs, mud volcanoes, steaming vents – would be grand enough to
draw crowds. There is a lot more. The Yellowstone River carves its own canyon (picture below),
and provides startling and intimate views of waterfalls, sheer cliffs and
rapids. And then there is the easily observed wildlife: bison, elk, bears,
bighorn sheep, red foxes, pronghorn antelope, bald eagles, pelicans, ospreys, otters,
trumpeter swans. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy7S2Wirfu-7_xIz2r2e39yYxQDlhK-MVn31tIXxdbjZpeezz9OLHzv1I3aTpRKtqlubYAPGcZBrS3-ox5yXycTE0x5jkLkleUDp0XQzx1mfECITAsgi6kFs32sfN64vGumW6Tg/s1600/IMG_8725.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy7S2Wirfu-7_xIz2r2e39yYxQDlhK-MVn31tIXxdbjZpeezz9OLHzv1I3aTpRKtqlubYAPGcZBrS3-ox5yXycTE0x5jkLkleUDp0XQzx1mfECITAsgi6kFs32sfN64vGumW6Tg/s640/IMG_8725.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This diverse visual bounty means that the five visitor’s
centers, where the expensive lodging, dining and shopping options are, can feel
like miniature cities in the summer. The large parking lots are constantly
abuzz with people and cars, the constant opening and slamming of doors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The suburban mall analogy isn’t far off the mark: for us
humans, it is about shopping and consuming experiences that Nature has to offer.
Whatever the cost, we are intent of capturing a slice for our own memories: by
driving the 142 miles of paved roads in the park; getting too close to herds of
bison or mother bears and cubs (as happened during my visit) for the petty
reason that the posing tourists can be in the foreground of a photograph that
can be proudly paraded on Facebook; using the expensive lodging and dining
facilities, creating enormous quantities of trash in the process, a fact quickly
forgotten as we bask in the glow of the odd environmentally sustainable
practice that the parks and hotels promote. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">During the summer, the National Park Service (NPS) hires 800
employees, who live within the boundaries of Yellowstone. The private firm,
Xanterra Parks and Resorts, runs the lodging, fine dining and cafeterias for
NPS, while the general stores are owned by <span style="background: white;">Delaware
North Companies Parks and Resort. These corporations have 3500 employees who
live in inside the park, in shared dormitory-like settings. The employees,
young and old, are hired from far flung states like Texas, but also abroad
(Taiwan has a formal exchange program). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Xanterra claims to be an environmentally
responsible corporation. It also has a presence in Grand Canyon, Death Valley,
and Zion. Their 2011 sustainability report, <a href="http://www.xanterra.com/UserFiles/2011+Sustainability+Report.pdf">accessible online</a>, provides details
about how they reduced absolute as well as adjusted greenhouse gas emissions
over the last 10 years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In true corporate style, the report is
glossy and promotional, with scenic pictures distractingly placed
next to the graphs and tables. The report essentially admits that the very idea
of high end resort in a fragile natural places runs contrary to any notion of
environmental protection. In this sense, it is honest. Corporations, the report
says, make huge claims about sustainability to promote their public image; this
façade is aptly called “greenwash”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To its
credit, the report does list some specifics: waste vegetable oil to partly
power Xanterra activities; building a solar power generation facility in Death
Valley National Park in California; soaps that are made of organic materials;
and creating a store (the first of its kind, they claim) with a sustainability
scorecard, to promote awareness. The vending machines smartly adjust themselves
to peak and low usage periods, switching refrigeration on and off, thus
minimizing unnecessary energy use. At Zion National Park, Xanterra has stopped
the use of bottled water. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 2008, Xanterra was bought by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz">Philip Anschutz</a>, a Colorado-based billionaire whose empire
includes businesses ranging from petroleum to entertainment. Anschutz is a
cultural and social conservative, and, according to Wikipedia, was a major
supporter of the George W Bush administration and his policies. When he bought Xanterra in
2008, however, he was, as <a href="http://insiderealestatenews.com/2011/08/xanterra-keeping-our-national-parks-green/">this website claims</a>, fully in favor
of its sustainability initiatives. The question however remains: Can a billionaire involved with the petroleum industry and interested
in furthering economic development, really be supportive of sustainability, or
is he concerned more with the <i>impression</i>
of sustainability, so that customers who use Xanterra feel less guilty about
their travels – proud, even? The impression of sustainability is good for business, but sustainability itself is a more complex matter, and raises questions that we are afraid to face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of Xanterra’s high end attractions within
the park is the pricey <a href="http://www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/lake-yellowstone-hotel-cabins-94.html">Lake Yellowstone Hotel</a>. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt;">The building is large and
multistoried. Its yellow paint makes it look bland although the blandness could
also be interpreted as a kind of minimalistic elegance. The lobby and lounge
are spacious, have clean wood floors, small lamps attached to pillars,
cushioned seating, a large piano, and a glass doors which provide a view of the
Yellowstone Lake. When we got there in the afternoon, families and older
couples, with drinks in their hands, were enjoying the view, as they waited for
dinner.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">An LCD television on a wall near the
lobby provided a map and details of the local farms the food was sourced from. It
was good to see this, but I wondered whether the benefits
of local were incomparably overwhelmed by visitors like me, who had flown or
driven from far flung places in the world. </span><span style="background: white; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">5.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Driving north from Lake Yellowstone, you pass through Hayden
Valley. The wide meadows and rolling hills here looked grand, and I felt it was
principally because of the striking green and yellow hue of the grass, this
last phase of the summer. Bison grazed in the valley along the winding path of the
Yellowstone River. Occasionally there were clouds of dust as they indulged in mud
baths, vigorously twisting their upside-down bodies, their legs flailing. Roads
were routinely blocked by herds leisurely making their way across the road,
from one meadow to another (these traffic halts have a name: <i>bisonjams</i>). Unlike elk, deer, bears,
foxes, coyotes, and pronghorn antelopes, which are alert to the slightest
movement, sensitive to the presence of people around them and therefore harder
to see up close, bison seem to display a Zen-like dispassion to the flow of
people or cars. This dispassion is an illusion of course: a roused bison can
move fast and finish off a pesky, intrusive tourist with little fuss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indeed, bison
are so easy to spot within the confines of Yellowstone that weary tourists, who
have been in the park for a few days, declare with a touch of annoyance: “Oh,
it’s only a bison.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How quickly one gets used to extraordinary sights! </span>It’s easy
to forget that this magnificient animal almost went extinct. In fact, it is not to be
found in other wilderness areas in the country. Bison are raised in farms for
their meat, but such herds cannot be considered wild. In all, there are about
4000 bison in Yellowstone. Once <i>millions</i>
of them roamed the Great Plains. As America expanded westward, Plains tribes lost
their lands; and new settlers hunted bison with rapacity and abandon. Their
numbers at Yellowstone came down to an astonishing 23 – yes <i>23!</i> -- at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century. By pure chance, the thermally active region around Yellowstone did not
lend itself easily to agriculture, and so was spared direct colonization by
settlers. That did not stop poachers, however. The decline in numbers would
have continued had it not been for a concerted, government backed effort at
protecting bison and its habitat. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">6.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
somewhat less crowded Lamar Valley is in the northeast of Yellowstone. The
landscape, dominated by scrub vegetation, is more rugged, and the silences
mysterious. Bison herds are even more extensive, and are spread for miles and
miles along the banks of Lamar River. Now and then, I spotted elusive pronghorn
antelope grazing with bison. At trailheads, park rangers warned of recent bear
activity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lamar is
also where one is likely to see wolves. If the Bison’s near-extinction story is
tragic, the Wolf’s is even more so: wolves were completely eliminated in
Yellowstone, primarily due to their adversarial relationship with farmers. Efficient, large-scale agriculture is opposed to species
diversity: anything that kills, directly or indirectly, what we eat (cattle or
crops) must be eliminated to improve yields. Wolves kill cattle and therefore
are on the wrong side of human interests. So, even as bison were protected in
Yellowstone, wolves continued to be hunted. Unlike bison, wolves were not
threatened on a global scale: there were other habitats where they still
thrived. But in Greater Yellowstone, by the mid nineteenth century, they had disappeared.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1995,
wolf packs were controversially reintroduced to Lamar Valley and Greater Yellowstone. They have a
healthy presence in the region now. Their reinstatement provides a fascinating
opportunity to quantify the impact a major predator’s absence or presence creates
in the food chain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is
what has been <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/157/">hypothesized</a>: With wolves missing, elk numbers rose through the
last century. Coyotes, rivals of wolves, also prospered. But streamside
vegetation – willows, aspen – that elk consumed declined. Beavers, which
depended on these plants, also declined. When the wolves returned, elk numbers
reduced by half, coyote numbers are down as well. But beaver populations are
back to healthy levels. Bears, meanwhile, have benefitted, since they can
scavenge wolf kills easily. Scavenging birds – ravens, eagles, and magpies –
have also more wolf-kill carcasses to feed on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Whether observed increases and decreases in numbers of
other species are chance correlations or whether the reintroduction of the wolf
was indeed the principal cause is difficult to say with certainty. Nature is
far too complex:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">there exist plenty of
other changes that happened in the same timeframe for the reintroduction
experiment to have neat conclusions. Yet it is fascinating preliminary evidence
on the interconnectedness of everything. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span> </span></div>
</div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-40735774013707494702013-04-30T09:54:00.001-06:002013-10-22T13:56:26.581-06:00Reviving this blog...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Time flies quickly! The last time I posted was well over a year ago, in March 2012. I won’t give the tired old excuses of how busy I've been: who isn't these days. Instead, I’d like to present some disconnected thoughts on what I've been up to recently, and gently ease into the task of blogging again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
On May 1st, I finished five years (10 semesters) of teaching at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. That day, after the last class session of the semester, some students came by to say they’d enjoyed the course (you generally don’t hear from those who did not like the class; perhaps it’s best that way). I left the class in a joyous mood to have lunch at the student union building, and the beautiful spring scene outside – warm and gentle sunshine; messy, overgrown and dark green grass; the leaves just beginning to make an appearance on bare trees – matched what I was feeling. Adding to the excitement was the realization six year long process of securing tenure was slowly but surely drawing to a close: I now again nurture the hope of reading, writing and traveling – the three things that energize me more than anything else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Since reading Tolstoy’s <i>Anna Karenina</i>, about a year and a half ago, I am now halfway into <i>War and Peace </i>(the new <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pevear_and_Volokhonsky">Pevear-Volokhonsky</a> translation). If anything, the latter book is even more complex, wide ranging and longer. I often look forward to the end of a day or week, just so I can immerse myself in the book. Like many others, I was intimidated by the book’s size before I started it, but I am now thankful that it is long – it seems that I could go on reading it forever, delighting in the drama of the story, the astute psychological details and the philosophical and religious speculations that Tolstoy embeds so well into what is essentially a soapy, high society narrative.</span><br />
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When a book resonates powerfully within, I feel as if I have access to a special secret that no one else in the world is aware of -- this despite the fact that countless others may have read the same book. In the last ten years or so, I felt this way while reading Tolkien’s <i>Lord of the Rings</i> (2001-2002; though its effect has faded considerably); Salman Rushdie’s <i>Midnight’s Children</i> (2003-2004); Jared Diamond’s <i>Guns, Germs and Steel</i> (2004-2006; the book that set the tone for a lot of my travels in the Americas); Charles Mann’s <i>1491</i> (2006-2008); V.S Naipaul’s <i>India: A Million Mutinies Now</i> and his other travel writing (2005-2008); Fyodor Dostoevsky’s <i>Crime and Punishment</i>, <i>The Idiot</i> and <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> (2006-2008); and now Tolstoy’s long works (2011-present).
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While still on Tolstoy, here is a quote from his work, <i>What is Art?, </i>which defines art in as open-ended a manner as possible:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">as that human activity which consists in one person's consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings he or she has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also experiencing them.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Interpreted this way, art would cover -- as it should -- everyday activities such as talking, playing, and conveying by the way one lives certain feelings and emotions that others can connect with. </span><br />
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Since March 2012, I did not manage to travel abroad but I did visit many national parks in the US: <a href="http://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm">Everglades</a> in Florida; <a href="http://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm">Bryce</a> and <a href="http://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm">Zion</a> in Utah; and <a href="http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm">Yellowstone</a> in Wyoming. This year, I traveled New Mexico and Colorado to experience cities and landscapes of the American southwest (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Denver, Boulder, <a href="http://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm">Rocky Mountain National Park</a>) that I’d somehow missed as a graduate student in Arizona. All of these deserve their own posts, but the one that I have managed to write and that will be up soon, is my 8-day trip in Yellowstone and neighboring towns in Wyoming. I wrote this slowly over the last few months, whenever I had a little bit of time, and it now stands at 5000 words. I’ll post it in 3-4 parts.
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Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14626538.post-22022635325753424982012-03-29T21:55:00.001-06:002013-10-22T13:55:56.603-06:00A Fictional Conversation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For about a year, I've wanted to share and write about my newfound interest in religion, nature, animals, science, and all sorts of things that never interested me before. I tried the essay format, but so far I haven't quite succeeded in writing anything interesting. It takes time, I guess, to find the appropriate language, words and tone. It's always a work in progress. But here is an initial attempt to discuss religion and science, using two individuals. The two individuals are merely puppets to get some points across; it's very artificial for sure, but still felt better than an essay. Not sure how this is going to read -- but how does one know unless one tries?</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> -----</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“… but you still believe there is no conflict between religion and science?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“It’s all about how you interpret it. It just depends on what you call ‘religion’.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“To me, religion is belief in God, and that’s pretty clear cut.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Well, alright, let that be our definition of religion then: belief in God. It’s a problematic definition, but we can work with it.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Good. Now tell me how you can reconcile science with religion. To me science is about evidence and cultivating doubt, whereas belief in God is not.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yes, that’s true. Science certainly provides more evidence than religion and also – if the scientists are honest – allows doubts and failures. You turn on the switch on and there is light – that’s proof that science works. The evidence is there in virtually all aspects of life, which we now take for granted…”
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Whereas religion gets away with unverifiable claims: the presence of a soul, someone was enlightened thousands of years ago, or someone walked on water, or someone lifted a mountain…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“But you cannot disprove these claims; these things could have happened. It would be unscientific to negate these possibilities outright, even if our current laws of physics suggest otherwise. A more apt way to phrase it would be to say that religious miracles, unlike everyday scientific miracles, cannot be demonstrated on a regular basis. You just take them on faith, which is really a blind faith, rather than saying: It could have happened but I cannot say anything for sure; there is no evidence.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Exactly! In science you have the burden of proof, whereas the burden of proof is not there in religion. One promotes skepticism, the other asks for blind belief no matter what. And then exploits that belief to create wars, divisions, ideologies. To me that’s an irreconcilable difference.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Well, science, if not practiced well, can also divide, create wars, ideologies and destruction. We humans are the problem, though we like to play the secular/scientific versus religious game. I have a more moderate view on the debate between science and religion. I think of it in terms of degrees of objectivity. In a relative sense, yes, science is more objective than religion, and there is no disputing that. But it would be incorrect to call science the ultimate truth or theory. We can instead call it the most objective truth we have, or what humans have collectively and gradually come up with, using the tools of logic and mathematics.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“So there is something over and above?”
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I don’t know. Good science represents the limit – and it’s an ever expanding limit – of what humans can think of and explain. Beyond it, who knows what’s there. I simply don’t know. And that’s important: I don’t know – that space of not knowing is very important. Socrates said something about not knowing....”
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I think he said: I know only that I know nothing…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Right. In my view, not knowing is where religion begins. Knowledge often leads to arrogance, but not knowing and being sincere and honest in accepting that you do not know is humility. This is the same humility that most of the world’s religions ask us to cultivate. But in general – and almost no one is immune from this – the more you know the more you think you can control, and you become egocentric and protective of your knowledge. In this aspect, science has a serious downside: the ability to know the laws of nature and exploit the natural world to suit human needs makes us feel supremely confident; we feel can achieve anything. We look only at what we have achieved, and feel tremendously proud as a species, but we ignore what we do not know at all.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“But our lives are better…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> “Materially better, yes, for now, but sooner or later, you run into a wall. Reality doesn’t quite function the way humans want. No amount of knowledge can capture the ever changing nature of reality. What the future has in store we have absolutely no idea. The universe and even events in our solar system may have some unpleasant surprises in store for us. Science is the effort to find answers, but no matter how deep you go, quantum mechanics, evolutionary theory and what not, you always reach a point where you do not know anymore. So you stop for a moment there and acknowledge, ‘Wow, this is too vast, too big and too complex, for my puny mind to understand.’ It’s the Great Unknown.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I understand that. But that’s still very different from belief in God…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Is it really? That’s why I said it is all in the interpretation. For me, the Great Unknown is what you can label, for the purposes of convenience, as God. I believe in this Great Unknown; I don’t know what it is, but it is there…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Well you know, you are sounding very mystical now!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> “Why not! A scientific pursuit is really a mystical pursuit. I start with the feeling, ‘I want to know’ and you do get to know more, and you are able to explain more. It is a great feeling – you can compare it to the religious joy that a pilgrim or a monk or a yogi might feel. Einstein’s theories of relativity are aesthetically beautiful theories – they say it is the most elegant use of mathematics to show the intertwined nature of space and time. Darwin’s ideas make you feel connected to every living creature in earth – by his thesis, the animals and birds you see around you are your cousins! That promotes a wonderful feeling of unity! At the same time, there still are unanswered questions and new questions, and you realize you can’t know everything. That does not mean you stop – you can be thankful for the knowledge you have and you can keep the search going – but the illusion that you will know all begins to go away.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> “Alright. Your ‘religion’ -- if you can call it that -- is quite different. Something like a poetic impulse with scientific bits thrown in. I don't have an issue with it. My main issue is with the monotheistic faiths that claim that there is a Creator, or that the world has been intelligently designed. I feel these faiths are quite arrogant – they prescribe that there is only one way and no other way, and in doing so cause all sorts of problems.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> “Saying that there is only one way and no other way implies that the person who is making that very strong claim has complete knowledge – wouldn’t that be the opposite of humility? Is it possible for someone to claim, with tremendous sincerity and honesty and without a trace of doubt, that there is only one way to God and that all other ways lead to hell? And as for the existence of a Creator, one cannot reject the possibility: no one can disprove something that so far not been seen. But it does not matter anyway. Whether a Creator exists or not is irrelevant; the Creation exists – by that I mean this universe, this earth we live in, the sun, the moon, our senses and our thoughts which allow us to experience the world, they all exist, or at least seem to be vivid and real to us. That’s all that matters, and that itself is a miracle of sorts. This is actually an amazing fact: the Creation is everywhere and all around us, this table here that my eyes allow me to see, this chair whose solidity I can feel, this fruit that I can smell and taste! It makes you ask the question: <i>What is all this?</i> That itself can impart a sense of wonder.”</span></div>
Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339987786745985294noreply@blogger.com5