Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company
FRIDAY REPORT OF 03/16/07
The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy
“FLORIDA’S FORGOTTEN REBELS”
Portions of article by Amy Sturgis in April 2007 Print Edition of reasonline
“John Horse’s story feels like an answer to every Hollywood studio’s wish list: a mix of Spartacus, Braveheart, Amistad, and Glory, with just a pinch of Dances With Wolves. A sweeping tale of a decades-long struggle against oppression, the movie would show how Horse and the Black Seminoles created the largest haven for runaway slaves in the American South, led the biggest slave revolt in U.S. history, won the only emancipation of rebellious North American slaves before the Civil War, and formed the largest mass exodus of slaves in U.S. history. In the 1830s Horse’s people journeyed from the Florida Everglades to what is now Oklahoma and then across the border to Mexico, where they ultimately secured title to their own land.
“…Now a nonprofessional historian – J.B. Bird, an administrator at the University of Texas – has written and produced an engrossing multimedia Web documentary, Rebellion: John Horse and the Black Seminoles, the First Rebels to Beat American Slavery. (To see it for yourself, go to www.johnhorse.com.) In the process, Bird has illustrated not just an important part of the American past but also one of the ways cyberspace is changing how history is studied and taught…
“With its cross-referenced sources and attention to detail, Rebellion offers a compelling case for Web documentaries as a significant new medium for the writing, dissemination, and revision of history. Bird originally conceived of his project as a film, and he is still pursuing that goal, but the Rebellion site is an impressive accomplishment in itself. The site’s interactive structure and varied contents are useful to scholars and educators as well as interested laypeople. From the interactive map of John Horse’s life, for example, visitors may click on any location for images of images of and additional information about that place. Or they can leap directly to the specific page among the 370 multimedia panels that explores the relevance of that place to the website’s larger narrative…
“Does it matter that Bird is not a professional, credentialed historian? Not really. He knows the difference between primary and secondary sources, and his citations open the door for additional research by interested parties of all backgrounds. In some ways, it may be a blessing that Bird is not a professional. His website manages to be both comprehensible and comprehensive, neither lost in the self-serving jargon of too many monographs nor myopic and overspecialized to the point of irrelevance. Bird communicates his message clearly and never loses sight of why it is important to the ‘bigger picture.’ In so doing he offers a welcome and edifying example to many in the field.
“That said, his greatest accomplishment lies in what he has done, not how he did it. In Bird’s own words, ‘Readers seeking a politically correct indictment of American history may be disappointed in Rebellion, but so will those who are uncomfortable learning the darker sides of the American tradition.’ He has told a thrilling and disturbing tale, forgotten for far too long, about people who were committed to seeking freedom and ultimately successful in finding it.”
To read the complete article, click on http://www.reason.com/news/show/119079.html
“WOODSTOCK REVISITED”
Portions of an article in the 03/08/07 print edition of The Economist
“Mankind has used trees as a source of fuel for thousands of years. But now the notion of exploiting trees for fuel is being updated with a high-tech twist. The idea is to make ethanol, a biofuel that usually comes from maize (corn) or sugar cane, from trees instead. Politicians and environmentalists are embracing ethanol for a number of reasons. Unlike oil, ethanol is renewable: to make more of it, you grow more crops. And blending ethanol into ordinary petrol, or burning it directly in special ‘flex-fuel’ engines, reduces greenhouse-gas emissions.
“Why use trees, rather than maize or sugar cane, as a feedstock for ethanol? Because ‘treethanol’ has the potential to be much more energy efficient. The ratio of the energy yielded by a given amount of ethanol to the energy needed to produce it is called the ‘energy balance.’ The energy balance for ethanol made from maize is the subject of much controversy, but America’s energy department puts it at 1.3; in other words, the ethanol yield yields 30% more energy than was needed to produce it. For ethanol made from sugar cane in Brazil, the energy balance is 8.3, according to the International Energy Agency.
“But for ethanol made from trees, grasses and other types of biomass which contain a lot of cellulose, the energy balance can be as high as 16, at least in theory. In practice the problem is that producing such ‘cellulosic’ ethanol is much more difficult and expensive than producing it from other crops. But the science, technology and economics of treethanol are changing fast. Researchers are racing to develop ways to chip, ferment, distil and refine wood quickly and cheaply…
“BioJoule, a start-up based in Auckland, New Zealand, is planning to build a pilot plant to produce ethanol from a type of willow. The idea, says James Watson, BioJoule’s co-founder, is that farmers would grow coppiced willow trees which could be processed into wood chips and then transported to a conversion plant to be turned into ethanol…
“Because willows are fast-growing and can thrive even on nutrient-poor soils, BioJoule’s technology could also be used in other parts of the world where there is strong demand for energy, but the soil is not suitable for food crops. Mr. Watson thinks China and India look promising…
“Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when man first gained mastery over fire, wood was his primary fuel. In the past few centuries fossil fuels have risen to prominence, with calamitous consequences for the world’s climate. A diversity of new fuels and energy sources seems the most likely future. It would be fitting if humanity’s portfolio of new energy technologies had a place for wood, the oldest of them all.”
To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/science/tq/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8766061
“ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIAS”
Portions of an article of 03/10/07 on Economist.com
“Wikipedia’s wide variety of contributors is both a strength and a weakness of the online encyclopedia. The idea of an encyclopedia – a compendium of all the best available knowledge – is as tempting as it is flawed. Truth does not always come in bite-sized chunks. And the notion of an infinitely elastic internet encyclopedia, always up to date and distilling the collective wisdom of the wired is even more tempting. When open to all comers, anonymously, the problems are even more glaring.
“This week a senior Wikipedia editor, who used the pseudonym Essjay, turned out not to be a professor of religious studies as he claimed, but in fact a 24-year-old college dropout. That has highlighted both the strengths and the failings of the world’s biggest online encyclopedia, which now boasts well over 1.5m articles. The “Encyclopedia Britannica”, by contrast, has a mere 120,000…
“That anonymity creates a phoney equality, which puts cranks and experts on the same footing. The same egalitarian approach starts off by regarding all sources as equal, regardless of merit. If a peer-reviewed journal says one thing and a non-specialist newspaper report another, the Wikipedia entry is likely solemnly to cite them both, saying the truth is disputed. If the cranky believe the latter and the experts the former, the result will be wearisome online editing wars before something approaching the academic mainstream consensus gains the weight it should.
“Wikipedia has strengths too, chiefly the resilient power of collective common sense. It benefits from the volunteer efforts of many thousands of outside contributors and editors. If one drops out, another fills his place. People are vigilant on issues that interest them. When mistakes happen, they are usually resolved quickly. This correspondent’s modest Wikipedia entry was edited by an anonymous contributor who posted a series of entertaining but defamatory remarks; a mere four minutes later, another user had removed them…
“So how useful is Wikipedia? Entries on uncontentious issues – logarithms, for example – are often admirable. The quality of writing is often a good guide to an entry’s usefulness: inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information. A regulas user soon gets a feel for what to trust.
“Those on contentious issues are useful in a different way. The information may be only roughly balanced. But the furiously contested on, say, ‘Armenian genocide’ or ‘Scientology,’ and their attached discussion pages, do give the reader an useful idea about the contours of the arguments, and the conflicting sources and approaches. In short: it would be unwise to rely on Wikipedia as the final word, but it can be an excellent jumping off point.”
To read the complete article, click on
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RRNDQNN
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