Month: August 2013

poor planning - earthquake, tsunami, blackout, meltdown
Collamer

Nuclear: Vermont Yankee to Close, 22 Fukushimas Still Threaten US

The Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, one of the oldest nuclear plants in the country and the subject of heated battles over the decades, will close late next year. This would leave the US with 99 operating reactors. Four reactors in Georgia and South Carolina are under construction, and the Tennessee Valley Authority is finishing a fifth in Tennessee. But the industry is in a period of rapid decline.

wolves, war on wolves
Wildlife

Jay Mallonee on Roaming with the Wolf Pack

Politics, not sound wolf scientific research, has influenced the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s efforts toward removing gray wolves across the country from the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Jay Mallonee, researcher from Wolf & Wildlife Studies, has found that left alone, wolves regulate their own populations with highly sophisticated social interactions within the pack. Unfortunately, the hunting and ranching lobbies don’t support the theory we should learn to live with top predators as a necessity for ecosystem health.

Barong-Ranga Ritual, Bali, Indonesia, documentary film
Film, Performance

Legong Film: Balinese Dream Dance of Nymphs in Heaven

Film and music of shimmering yet jarring beauty play together on a South Seas beach in “Legong: Dance of the Virgins.” It’s a rarely screened 1935 silent movie, shot entirely in Bali with a Balinese cast, mixed with a new score by Club Foot Orchestra and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Presented in a crude but rich two-strip early Technicolor process, one of the last silent films made by Hollywood, it depicts Bali as Westerners idealized it at the time.