From a lifetime of sunrises over the Atlantic, I am now embracing sunsets over the Pacific.

Welcome to 2012.

]]> http://suefan.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/east-meets-west/feed/ 1 suefan ©sue fan photography http://suefan.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/in-japan-restoring-photos-for-tsunami-victims/ http://suefan.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/in-japan-restoring-photos-for-tsunami-victims/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:31:48 +0000 sue fan http://suefan.wordpress.com/?p=2849 Continue reading →]]> by Frank Langfitt

Each week, tsunami survivors gather at temporary housing centers in the city of Yamada along Japan’s northeast coast. They sing songs to cheer themselves up and comb through salvaged photos.

One morning, Miyoko Fukushi finds an old picture from the opening day of her daughter’s elementary school. It’s a formal shot of the students’ mothers, wearing kimonos with their hands in their laps. Fukushi, 77, points to a younger version of herself.

“I was chubbier when I was young,” she says with a laugh.

Then she points to other women in the picture, who lost their lives in the deluge.

“Kayo Suzuki. She was washed away as she ran from the tsunami,” Fukushi recalls. “This is Kayoko Kon. I heard she went back home to get her belongings.”

Last March’s tsunami devastated the coast here. If people didn’t lose their lives, they lost practically everything else — except, it turns out, many of their photos. Survivors found countless pictures strewn amid the mud and wreckage, many badly damaged by water.

Over the past several months, All Hands Volunteers, a Massachusetts-based, nonprofit, has done everything from repairing homes to cleaning drainage ditches along the coast. The organization has also hand-cleaned more than 55,000 photos. In some cases, professionals from around the globe have even restored images digitally.

Fukushi’s photograph needs work. Specks of dirt are embedded in the surface, and saltwater has washed away some of the figures.

“It’s a shame that damage has gone up so far on this lady, but most of her face is there,” says Becci Manson, a volunteer with All Hands, as she examines figures in the picture.

Ordinarily, Manson works in New York retouching images for magazines like GQ and catalogs for Barneys. When she saw all of the damaged photos here, she saw another way to help.

Manson has traveled more than an hour up the coast today to pick up and return photos. She takes Fukushi’s picture, scans it onto her laptop and uploads the image to a server. Then, she turns to scores of volunteers — from Sydney to Spain — to see who’s available to restore it.

“I’ll send an email out to all the retouchers and say, ‘ I’ve got loads more images for you,’ ” says Manson, who travels from town to town with a portable scanner. “Those who write back and say they want a new one, I’ll start sending the images.”

Scores of photo retouchers have pitched in to help. In all, they have fixed more than 220 photos for nearly 60 families, Manson says.

One of the volunteers is Bob Whitmore. Whitmore used to work with Manson in New York and learned about the photo rescue project on Facebook. He has already restored two pictures and is working on a third from his home in Metuchen, N.J.

Sometimes, Whitmore has to restore people’s bodies, or backdrops have been blotted out by water. He uses Photoshop to restore a piece of clothing or reconstruct a room.

“Using the laws of perspective, if you’ve got a wall coming up and a ceiling coming over, you can kind of figure out where they should meet,” he says in a Skype interview.

Professionally, Whitmore spends most of his time making a glamorous world look even more so in fashion magazines, but he has always loved restoring people’s old pictures.

“It’s the most satisfying work I think I’ve ever done,” says Whitmore. “Taking old photos and breathing some life into them. Putting the color back in that was faded, or fixing spots that have been damaged. People just light up when they see something come back that they thought was gone.”

Cho Kikuchi certainly did. She lost all of the photos in her house to the tsunami, but a few survived in a Buddhist temple, including one of her late father and another of her late husband.

They were worn and scratched by the elements. Manson retouched the photos herself, good as new.

“I didn’t expect this would [be] so beautiful,” says Kikuchi, 75, admiring the restored photos while sitting in a temporary home the government has provided. Every time she sees Manson — who is about half her age — Kikuchi invites her in for tea and snacks.

Kikuchi has placed the restored prints in a small, wooden shrine in her tiny home where she honors her loved ones.

“In the morning, I give them water and tea with ice,” she says. “Then, I pray for them to please watch over me.”

Manson says responses like this make the work worthwhile.

She says it’s also gratifying for another reason: Photo retouchers are often criticized for distorting reality in fashion magazines.

“There’s always someone who’s got something to say about how thin someone is made or how flawless someone’s skin is and the effect it has on young women,” says Manson. “So when I set up the project, it was nice to think we could actually do something to help someone.”

There’s more to do. In Yamada alone, thousands of recovered photos are waiting to be reclaimed by their ow

NPR / All Things Considered / Published: August 19, 2011

i have the honor of being a part of this project. what an incredible gift to give. you can listen to the story on npr here.

charity: water started five years ago with a simple idea: we’d share our story with the world, ask others to join us, and use 100% of the money we raised to fund clean water for people in need. With your help, we’ve had explosive growth. Our partners in the field are working at capacity to implement our projects. The only way to keep fighting the water crisis at this rate is to buy the equipment our partners need to get the job done faster.

Scott Harrison is such a good man. Clean water should be available for all. This is possible.

INSIDE OUT is a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone is challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world. These digitally uploaded images will be made into posters and sent back to the project’s co-creators for them to exhibit in their own communities. People can participate as an individual or in a group; posters can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium. These exhibitions will be documented, archived and viewable virtually.

Genius.

What can you pledge for the planet? Take shorter showers, use less plastic, buy local, reduce, reuse, recycle. Every little thing you do makes a big difference.

The Global Footprint Network came up with this nifty quiz: What’s your impact? See how many planets it would take to support your lifestyle.

Do something green today. And every day.

John Vidal reports from La Paz where Bolivians are living with the effects of climate change every day. Their president has called for an urgent 50% cut in emissions – action that is essential for the country’s survival.

President Evo Morales: “The budget of the United States is $687 billion for defence. And for climate change, to save life, to save humanity, they only put up $10 billion. This is shameful.”

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Bolivia enshrines natural world’s rights with equal status for Mother Earth

by John Vidal

Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.

“It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all”, said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. “It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration.”

The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.

Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. “Existing laws are not strong enough,” said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. “It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels.”

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia’s traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. “Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values,” he said.

Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales’s ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.

However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining companies which provides nearly one third of the country’s foreign currency.

In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.

The draft of the new law states: “She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation.”

Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature “the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution”. However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.

COPING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

Bolivia is struggling to cope with rising temperatures, melting glaciers and more extreme weather events including more frequent floods, droughts, frosts and mudslides.

Research by glaciologist Edson Ramirez of San Andres University in the capital city, La Paz, suggests temperatures have been rising steadily for 60 years and started to accelerate in 1979. They are now on course to rise a further 3.5-4C over the next 100 years. This would turn much of Bolivia into a desert.

Most glaciers below 5,000m are expected to disappear completely within 20 years, leaving Bolivia with a much smaller ice cap. Scientists say this will lead to a crisis in farming and water shortages in cities such as La Paz and El Alto.

Evo Morales, Latin America’s first indigenous president, has become an outspoken critic in the UN of industrialised countries which are not prepared to hold temperatures to a 1C rise.

The Guardian / Environment / Published: April 10, 2011

This doesn’t just break my heart. This terrifies me. This affects all of us. Our next war will be over water. It baffles me how people can truly believe money is the bottom line. Can they afford a new Earth and a clean conscience?

We are the only ones who can stop us. Take action.
Learn more from The New York Times exposé Drilling Down.

Hydraulic Fracturing FAQs

How does hydraulic fracturing work?

Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.

What is horizontal hydraulic fracturing?

Horizontal hydrofracking is a means of tapping shale deposits containing natural gas that were previously inaccessible by conventional drilling. Vertical hydrofracking is used to extend the life of an existing well once its productivity starts to run out, sort of a last resort. Horizontal fracking differs in that it uses a mixture of 596 chemicals, many of them proprietary, and millions of gallons of water per frack. This water then becomes contaminated and must be cleaned and disposed of.

What is the Halliburton Loophole?

In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.

What is the Safe Drinking Water Act?

In 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was passed by Congress to ensure clean drinking water free from both natural and man-made contaminates.

What is the FRAC Act?

The FRAC Act (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness to Chemical Act) is a House bill intended to repeal the Halliburton Loophole and to require the natural gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.

How deep do natural gas wells go?

The average well is up to 8,000 feet deep. The depth of drinking water aquifers is about 1,000 feet. The problems typically stem from poor cement well casings that leak natural gas as well as fracking fluid into water wells.

How much water is used during the fracking process?

Generally 1-8 million gallons of water may be used to frack a well. A well may be fracked up to 18 times.

What fluids are used in the fracking process?

For each frack, 80-300 tons of chemicals may be used. Presently, the natural gas industry does not have to disclose the chemicals used, but scientists have identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.

In what form does the natural gas come out of the well?

The gas comes up wet in produced water and has to be separated from the wastewater on the surface. Only 30-50% of the water is typically recovered from a well. This wastewater can be highly toxic.

What is done with the wastewater?

Evaporators evaporate off VOCs and condensate tanks steam off VOCs, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The wastewater is then trucked to water treatment facilities.

What is a well’s potential to cause air pollution?

As the VOCs are evaporated and come into contact with diesel exhaust from trucks and generators at the well site, ground level ozone is produced. Ozone plumes can travel up to 250 miles.

Yikes.

This little vineyard of family farmed wines in Avondale, PA is brilliant. A little bit of everything local (from dips to wood fired pizza, olive oils and chocolate wine truffles, and of course, wine), delicious (all of the above), and beautiful.

A little slice of perfection // 8822 Gap Newport Pike

As the name beckons, seriously, go there.

Today is the day! Barefoot is the way to be. But that should be a choice.

[It links to YouTube. Music video starts at 2:47.]

The Johnny Cash Project is a global collective art project, and we would love for you to participate. Through this website, we invite you to share your vision of Johnny Cash, as he lives on in your mind’s eye. Working with a single image as a template, and using a custom drawing tool, you’ll create a unique and personal portrait of Johnny. Your work will then be combined with art from participants around the world, and integrated into a collective whole: a music video for “Ain’t No Grave”, rising from a sea of one-of-a-kind portraits.

Strung together and played in sequence over the song, the portraits will create a moving, ever evolving homage to this beloved musical icon.  What’s more, as new people discover and contribute to the project, this living portrait will continue to transform and grow, so it’s virtually never the same video twice.

Ain’t No Grave is Johnny’s final studio recording. The album and its title track deal heavily with themes of mortality, resurrection, and everlasting life. The Johnny Cash Project pays tribute to these themes. Through the love and contributions of the people around the world that Johnny has touched so deeply, he appears once again before us.

The Johnny Cash Project is a visual testament to how the Man in Black lives on – not just through his vast musical legacy, but in the hearts and minds of all of us around the world he has touched with his talent, his passion, and his indomitable spirit. It is this spirit that is the lifeblood of The Johnny Cash Project. Thank you for helping Johnny’s spirit soar once more. God bless.

-Chris Milk

Be a part of something beautiful.
Pick a frame, draw a frame, contribute.

How much food does your family waste?

A lot, if you are typical. By most estimates, a quarter to half of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten — left in fields, spoiled in transport, thrown out at the grocery store, scraped into the garbage or forgotten until it spoils.

A study in Tompkins County, N.Y., showed that 40 percent of food waste occurred in the home. Another study, by the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, found that 93 percent of respondents acknowledged buying foods they never used.

And worries about food safety prompt many of us to throw away perfectly good food. In a study at Oregon State University, consumers were shown three samples of iceberg lettuce, two of them with varying degrees of light brown on the edges and at the base. Although all three were edible, and the brown edges easily cut away, 40 percent of respondents said they would serve only the pristine lettuce.

In his new book “American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food” (Da Capo Press), Jonathan Bloom makes the case that curbing food waste isn’t just about cleaning your plate.

“The bad news is that we’re extremely wasteful,” Mr. Bloom said in an interview. “The positive side of it is that we have a real role to play here, and we can effect change. If we all reduce food waste in our homes, we’ll have a significant impact.”

Why should we care about food waste? For starters, it’s expensive. Citing various studies, including one at the University of Arizona called the Garbage Project that tracked home food waste for three decades, Mr. Bloom estimates that as much as 25 percent of the food we bring into our homes is wasted. So a family of four that spends $175 a week on groceries squanders more than $40 worth of food each week and $2,275 a year.

And from a health standpoint, allowing fresh fruits, vegetables and meats to spoil in our refrigerators increases the likelihood that we will turn to less healthful processed foods or restaurant meals. Wasted food also takes an environmental toll. Food scraps make up about 19 percent of the waste dumped in landfills, where it ends up rotting and producing methane, a greenhouse gas.

A major culprit, Mr. Bloom says, is refrigerator clutter. Fresh foods and leftovers languish on crowded shelves and eventually go bad. Mr. Bloom tells the story of discovering basil, mint and a red onion hiding in the fridge of a friend who had just bought all three, forgetting he already had them.

“It gets frustrating when you forget about something and discover it two weeks later,” Mr. Bloom said. “So many people these days have these massive refrigerators, and there is this sense that we need to keep them well stocked. But there’s no way you can eat all that food before it goes bad.”

Then there are chilling and food-storage problems. The ideal refrigerator temperature is 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and the freezer should be zero degrees, says Mark Connelly, deputy technical director for Consumer Reports, which recently conducted extensive testing on a variety of refrigerators. The magazine found that most but not all newer models had good temperature control, although models with digital temperature settings typically were the best.

Vegetables keep best in crisper drawers with separate humidity controls.

If food seems to be spoiling quickly in your refrigerator, check to make sure you’re following the manufacturer’s care instructions. Look behind the fridge to see if coils have become caked with dust, dirt or pet hair, which can interfere with performance.

“One of the pieces of advice we give is to go to a hardware store and buy a relatively inexpensive thermometer,” Mr. Connelly said. “Put it in the refrigerator to check the temperature to make sure it’s cold enough.”

There’s an even easier way: check the ice cream. If it feels soft, that means the temperature is at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit and you need to lower the setting. And if you’re investing in a new model, don’t just think about space and style, but focus on the refrigerator that has the best sight lines, so you can see what you’re storing. Bottom-freezer units put fresh foods at eye level, lowering the chance that they will be forgotten and left to spoil.

Mr. Bloom also suggests “making friends with your freezer,” using it to store fresh foods that would otherwise spoil before you have time to eat them.

Or invest in special produce containers with top vents and bottom strainers to keep food fresh. Buy whole heads of lettuce, which stay fresher longer, or add a paper towel to the bottom of bagged lettuce and vegetables to absorb liquids. Finally, plan out meals and create detailed shopping lists so you don’t buy more food than you can eat.

Don’t be afraid of brown spots or mushy parts that can easily be cut away.

“Consumers want perfect foods,” said Shirley Van Garde, the now-retired co-author of the Oregon State study. “They have real difficulty trying to tell the difference in quality changes and safety spoilage. With lettuce, take off a couple of leaves, you can do some cutting and the rest of it is still usable.”

And if you do decide to throw away food, give it a second look, Mr. Bloom advises. “The common attitude is ‘when in doubt, throw it out,’” he said. “But I try to give the food the benefit of the doubt.”

The New York Times / Well / Published: November 1, 2010

Sanitation and Hygiene: Clean water along with hygiene training and sanitation can reduce disease by up to 50%. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living, 90% are children under five years old.

Education: Many children around the world spend their days collecting water for their families or home sick with a water-related illness instead of going to school. With safe water nearby, they can earn an education and build the future of their communities.

Learn more here.

by Evan Osnos

The New Yorker / Letter from China / Published: March 10, 2011

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I always giggled in his presence. He deserves a break, but I miss him already. I know many will and many who have for a long time. A slightly scary beginning of an end. A hopeful beginning to another end.

Proud of my little Delaware. Expected no less from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, and Hawaii. No real surprise all around, but it’s good to have the “less than 10% of Americans have their passports” theory debunked.

Based on 2000 census numbers:

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[From the hard work @ Grey's Blog and ever handy DATA.GOV.]

All are beautiful.

Celebrate women today! Take a look back at some of our latest stories from the field about powerful women:

- Elodi from Central African Republic: She lost a child to waterborne illness. But the Live Drill would change the future for her other kids.
- Rose from Kenya: Now that she has clean water, she’s getting her grad degree.
- Keisha from Haiti: She fled to an island after the earthquake — with no water, but lots of hope.
- Helen from Uganda: “Now, I am beautiful.” 

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charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects. Learn more or donate.

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Blu Dot (maker of modern furniture) is letting you turn your awesome abilities and odd collections into the furniture of your dreams. It’s not magic (maybe a little). It’s the Blu Dot Swap Meet. Here are the rules:

1. Pick out any Blu Dot item you want. Come up with an interesting offer (collections, creations, talents, taxidermy, etc.) and upload it to their site between February 28 – March 11.
2. Check Blu Dot throughout the period to see the status of your bid. Blu Dot may like it enough to swap, or may want you to up the ante.
3. If your bid becomes a successful swap, you will be additionally notified via email.

That’s it!

Some winners so far:

This is my kind of shopping.

Irina Werning is a genius. Here’s more.

A LOVE LETTER FOR YOU seamlessly mixes documentary and narrative, love and loss, community and solidarity, art and crime, to paint a compelling portrait of two artists and their impact on the neighborhood they grew up in. It was filmed in concert with a series of 50 murals, painted around the city of Philadelphia in the summer of 2009 when ESPO returned to his hometown and wrote a love letter across the rooftops that can be viewed from the ride on the cities elevated trains.

Watch the trailer here.