Couple Works to Restore Tierra Del Fuego

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Tierra del Fuego, the region that Doug and Kris Tompkins are working to preserve.

I recently came across an article about Doug and Kris Tompkins, two successful entrepreneurs, who last December donated more than 94,000 acres at the tip of South America, where they plan to form the base of a national park.  The land that they purchased some 15 years ago is part of the region Tierra Del Fuego, characterized by high mountains, rare forest and clear lakes and rivers.  The move comes as an intention to nationalize the area for nature and was part of an extraordinary endeavor that has made them the greatest private creators of protected landscapes in history.

At the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the couple has so far purchased 2.2 million acres of Chile and Argentina, conserving and restoring it while sensitively providing access and other facilities, so that they can present it to the two countries for national parks.  To date, they have donated 600,000 acres to the government.  December’s addition catalyzed the Chilean government to add 276,000 adjoining acres of its own land.  The resulting Yendegaia National Park, which takes in both the Darwin Range and the Beagle Channel, protects the last frontier of sub-Antarctic beech forest and is the home of such critically endangered animals as the ruddy-headed goose.

Just seven months earlier, the couple donated 37,500 acres of the Andes to swell Argentina’s Perito Moreno national park.  They have also given two entire parks, one in Chile and one in Argentina, since 2000 and are close to handing over three more.  They have brought back tens of thousands of acres of degraded land, reintroduced locally extinct species, revived communities and built roads and trails, camp sites and visitor centers.

Rugby Players

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New Zealand’s rugby team is known for performing the “Haka”, a traditional Maori dance designed to intimidate foes, before games.

When I played rugby back in the day, one thing that struck me was the sense of debt that players had.  People who enjoy rugby usually feel that they need to pay back all that they’ve received throughout the game.  Rugby, beyond the technical and tactical teachings, is a sport of camaraderie and friendship.  It teaches players how to share, respect each other and work as a team.  This is one of the essential components to playing rugby.

In recent years, rugby has spiked in popularity, thanks to the former players who work tirelessly to teach younger generations the values of rugby.  There are many different roles and positions in rugby.  The best is, of course, a player.  Nothing beats the buzz that comes from playing, sharing a training session, game, tours or after-games.  The memories associated with such fleeting moments have lasted me a lifetime.  Even though I have since passed my rugby-playing prime, there are still ways to stay involved in what truly is a great sport.

A lot of former rugby players love to coach.  Their vision comes from many years of playing and learning tricks on and off of the field.  It’s the closest to playing that somebody like me can get.  But the game still evolves so quickly, and coaches need to work hard to stay up-to-date.  When this becomes too much of a challenge for a coach, the next logical step is to become a club official.  Clubs are units where the need to push together is clear, and where there is always a role to be played.  These clubs need to find representation at a higher level.  In such a case, they typically send their finest to either work at a provincial or national level.

Djokovic Beats Nadal

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Novak Djokovic, shown here, after a successful match.

Recently, I’ve been watching the Sony Open Tennis games, which have been wildly entertaining.  Just yesterday, Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in the final with 6-3, 6-3.  His game plan was focused on attacking Nadal where he was most vulnerable: returning serve and extremely wide in the Ad court.  Since he first had to navigate saving a break point in the opening game of the match and deal with Nadal’s legendary form, it took him a while to execute his strategy.  However, Nadal was unable to handle the Serb’s onslaught as he attacked his forehand return with both first and second serves.

Nadal’s backhand return motion is compact and easier to block the serve back, while the forehand backswing is larger and more likely to be pressured for time, particularly on hard courts.  Djokovic’s attack was a disruptive, surprise tactic to attack the strength and keep Nadal guessing.  It was also extremely effective to catch Nadal running around his backhand return.

Djokovic seemed to always be ahead in the rallies, and Nadal seemed to be a step slower than normal.  He committed 18 forehand groundstroke errors to Djokovic’s seven, and where these errors were made help understand the inner workings of the Serb’s plan.

A staggering 16 of the 18 of Nadal’s forehand errors occurred standing in the Ad court, where Djokovic attacked with his backhand cross court and forehand.  Of these 16, 10 occurred very wide around the Ad court alley (and sometimes outside it) as Djokovic kept grabbing Nadal out of his comfort zone.  Djokovic is well-known for his backhand down the line, but every one of his backhand winners were cross court in the direction of Nadal’s forehand.  Although both players won 14 points each in baseline rallies during the opening set, it was clearly Djokovic who took the honors during the second set, winning 65% from the back of the court.

Djokovic broke for the first time in the 2-3 opening set as Nadal served.  Djokovic finished at the net with a forehand volley winner on the first point after he crushed a second serve return down the line to Nadal’s forehand.  Djokovic went after the forehand again at 0-15, hitting a short angle backhand cross court winner.  Nadal won the following point with a good first serve that was unreturned, and at 15-30 Djokovic hit a huge forehand down the line, attacking Nadal’s forehand, then backed it up with a cross-court winner.  At 15-40, Djokovic used the secondary pattern of attacking Nadal’s backhand.

Djokovic then won seven of eight points to take command of all areas of the court.  Leading 3-2, 30-0 in the second set, he was feeling it so much that he nailed an old-school slice backhand approach deep to Nadal’s forehand, which the Spaniard in turn missed down the line.  After Djokovic’s primary concerns were humming, he occasionally mixed it up to Nadal’s backhand in an effort to confuse him.  Nadal’s serving was disappointing, as he only won 59% of the first serves and 46% of second serves.  Djokovic constantly began the point returning down the middle with a deep missile which pushed back Nadal and put him in control of both court position and the directional flow of the point.  In the first set, Djokovic averaged landing his return 11.4 feet from the baseline against first serves, which improved to only 5.8 feet from the baseline against second serves, pushing Nadal back.  In his post-match interview, Djokovic said everything went “perfectly” for him.

Tomas Berdych Falls

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Tomas Berdych, pictured here with a triumphant grin, hasn’t been doing as well during the current BNP Paribas Open.

In the past couple of days, the BNP Paribas Open has been going on in Indian Wells, California.  I’ve been enjoying watching the great games going on.  Yesterday, Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut knocked out Tomas Berdych in the second round, beating the Czech 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.  This is especially amazing, considering that Berdych had won 11 matches in a row this past month and is 16-4.  According to Berdych, this is “the worst match” that he’s had so far this year.

Second-seeded Novak Djokovic was a 7-6 (1), 6-2 winner over Victor Hanescu of Romania during their second-round match.  While the Serbian wasn’t thrilled with his performance, it was nonetheless a victory, even though he still has a lot of practice ahead of him.  Due to ligament damage in his left wrist, the sixth-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro had to withdraw.  Last week, he also pulled out of the Dubai tournament.  Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France dropped out as well after falling 6-4, 6-4 to countryman Julien Benneteau.

John Isner, the only remaining American from the original contingent advanced after a 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory over Russia’s Nikolai Davidenko.  Despite an ankle injury earlier in the season, the 6’10” American says he feels fine.  He claims that he wasn’t too hung up on upholding “American honor” either.  At this point in the tournament, he’s more concerned about his own advancement than he is about his American teammates.

The World’s Underground Wonders

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I recently came across an article about some of the most amazing underground wonders around the world.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been to as many of them as I’d like, but they all sound astounding to me.

On the island of Palawa in the Philippines is Puerto Princesa, an underground river that runs five miles underneath a limestone karst mountain and connect the Cabayugan River to the South China Sea.  Through underground guided rafting trips, you can see several large underground chambers, some of which are as wide as 390 feet and nearly 200 feet high.

The stone walls inside the Thrihnukagigur Volcano in Iceland are filled with a psychedelic sort of pattern.

Since the Middle Ages, the Turda Salt Mines in Transylvania have been excavated by generations of miners.  It’s currently a subterranean museum and recreation center, complete with basketball hoops, a mini-golf course, Ferris wheel and underground lake.  The mines even have halotherapy spa facilities, which treat respiratory problems through ionized air, pressure and humidity.

For the past 4,000 years, Thrihnukagigur Volcano in Iceland has been dormant.  Over the course of this time, the magma in the volcano somehow drained away, leaving behind amazing mineral coloration.  Visitors to the volcano enter the maw via a cable car nearly 400 feet down.

On the eastern border of the Chapada Diamantina range in northeast Brazil, the Poço Encantado (Enchanted Well) is a massive underground lake, with a natural window up above.  But just referring to it as an “underground lake” doesn’t do the Poço Encantado justice.  The water is so clear that you can see over 200 feet to the bottom of the lake, filled with ancient tree trunks and rock formations.

Back in 2000, La Cueva de los Cristales was discovered in the Naica Mine in Mexico, after water was pumped out of the small chamber.  The gypsum columns there are some of the largest natural crystals in the world.  Unfortunately, visiting this wonder is rather difficult, due to dangerous conditions: the chamber has near 100% humidity and reaches temperatures as high as 136 degrees, thanks to a pool of magma underneath the cave.

The glowworm caves look like something out of an episode of Star Trek or Star Wars.

After Peter Jackson filmed the epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in New Zealand, the oceanic island has since become the place to go for anything fantasy-related.  But there was one great feature of the island that Peter Jackson didn’t put into his epic blockbuster trilogy: the Waitomo Glowworm Caves a couple hours south of Auckland.  The caves are filled with New Zealand’s indigenous glowworm, the arachnocampa luminosa, which gives off a subtle blue glow that makes the underground caves look like something out of a sci-fi film.

Greenbrier, a swanky resort in south-eastern West Virginia, looks nondescript enough.  However, in 1956, the government built a bunker there to house Congress if a nuclear war were to break out.  The fallout shelter, since declassified, could house more than 1,100 people behind 25-ton doors.  The bunker was equipped with such features and facilities as a power plant, decontamination chambers, communications equipment, meeting rooms and a great hall for joint sessions.

Across the pond, as German fighter planes dropped bombs down onto England’s major cities during World War II, the British built a secret underground bunker in London.  Occupied by ministers, military personnel and Winston Churchill himself, the Cabinet War Rooms saw extensive use from the start to the end of World War II.  Much of the bunker has since become a museum, preserving many of the various artifacts used in that era, such as large maps full of pinpricks and even the swivel chair that Churchill used.

A screenshot of the morbid Capuchin ossuary.

San Clemente Basilica in Rome is steeped in history; built in the 12th century on top of a fourth-century church, itself built over a first-century home that stands next to a second-century temple dedicated to the all-male fertility cult of the sun god Mithras.  A 10-minute walk from the Basilica is the church of Santa Maria della Concezione, underneath which is a grim ossuary where the bones of 4,000 Capuchin monks were used to artistically decorate the space with chandeliers, coats of arms and archways.

For forty years in the first half of the 20th century, the eccentric immigrant Baldassare Forestiere built a subterranean home and garden in Fresno, CA, inspired by the ancient catacombs of his native Sicily.  Using nothing but farming tools, Forestiere dug about 10,000 square feet of rooms, a chapel and even an underground fishing pond.

Protesters Clash in Crimea

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A elderly Tatar man, with flags waving behind him.

In the Crimea region of southern Ukraine, tensions have been erupting in the past couple weeks.  With Yanukovych no longer President, the region is divided between a pro-Putin Russian majority and a pro-Ukrainian Tatar minority.  On Wednesday, thousands of Russian and Tatar protesters clashed in Simferopol, the region’s capital city.  Tensions, previously nationalistic, developed a religious undertone, as the predominantly Muslim Tatars shouted “Allahu akbar”, which is Arabic for “God is great”.

The conflict in Ukraine, with Russia on one side and the west on the other, is eerily reminiscent of the Cold War.  Protests erupted in Ukraine after Yanukovych flaked out of a treaty with the European Union in favor of a bailout from Vladimir Putin.  On one side, Ukrainians protested the move, while the eastern and southern regions of the country, which are predominantly Russian, were pro-Putin.  Since Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the Russian majority in Crimea has been secretly wishing that Russia would annex their homeland.  Many of them are distrustful of Ukrainian nationalists, since some of them formed alliances with Nazi Germany during World War II.  Tatars, on the other hand, have no love for Russia; during World War II, Stalin deported many of them were deported en masse to Siberia and, since returning to Crimea, have little desire to become a part of Russia once again.  While most of the people on both sides have no desire for an armed conflict, small militant groups have been getting more and more active.  Pro-Russian groups have been creating “self-defense” units, while hard-line Cossack organizations, descended from the warriors who worked to expand and secure Russia’s borders, have no desire for peace.  While the Tatars are known to be peaceful, and have historically shown little interest in Islamic extremist movements, a small number of militant Tatars have started to talk about calling for a jihad.

No doubt, the protest’s religious undertones is disconcerting to the Russians, who have spent the past 20 years quelling Islamic separatist movements in the North Caucasus.  Since the ousting of Yanukovych, Putin has been ordering surprise military exercises on the Ukrainian border, furthering tensions between his country and the United States and betraying his desire to keep Ukraine under Russian influence.  It seems likely that Putin will stage a military intervention in Ukraine.  This expansionist policy, combined with the tensions in Crimea, pose two huge challenges that the new regime in Kiev has to face.

Yesterday, Russia’s military put tens of thousands of troops on Russia’s western border on alert for an exercise scheduled to last until March.  The Russian minister of defense also mentioned plans to tighten security at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, located in Crimea.  He insisted that Russia was only testing its military’s readiness to respond to a “crisis situation”, and not related to events in Ukraine.  In recent days, Russian military vehicles are making their presence felt on the streets of Crimea.  Road blocks flying Russian flags appeared on the main highways leading to Sebastopol, a Crimean city dominated by the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.

While Russia prepared for possible military intervention in Ukraine, American Secretary of State John Kerry warned the Russians doing so would “cost them”.  Kerry also was considering offering Ukraine a $1 billion package of loan guarantees, as well as aid to the Ukrainian government, to help deal with the economic crisis.  So far, the Russians have yet to recognize the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian regime, denouncing their actions as “inflammatory and divisive”.  While Russian officials have been talking, however, Putin himself has yet to comment on the crisis.  However, the clamor of the ethnic Russian majority in eastern and southern Ukraine might lead Russia to intervene.

Former Pope Speaks Out

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A photo of former Pope Benedict XVI, back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

There has recently been much speculation that Benedict, formerly Pope Benedict XVI, was forced to resign.  The fact that he was the first pope to resign since 1415 looked suspicious to many.  However, in one of the few times that Benedict has broken his silence since stepping down last year, he spoke out against these accusations, referring to them as “absurd”.  According to Catholic church law, a pope’s resignation is only valid if he makes the decision voluntarily and without pressure from others.  Benedict, who now holds the title “pope emeritus”, wrote in a letter to the Italian website Vatican Insider that there was no doubt regarding the validity of his resignation.

Just over a year ago, Benedict announced his decision to resign, and formally stepped down from power on February 28th.  Two weeks later, Francis was elected pope, the first non-European pope since Gregory III, a Syrian, was elected in 741.  According to Benedict, he stepped down because he no longer had the physical or spiritual strength to run the Catholic Church, and the decision was 100% voluntary.

Earlier this month, the day after the first announcement of Benedict’s resignation, Italian newspaper Libera ran a long story which speculated that the former pope was forced to resign due to scandals in the Vatican.  Since Benedict continues to wear white and has kept his papal name (instead of reverting to his birth name, Joseph Ratzinger), Libero claimed this was because Benedict still viewed himself as pope.  According to Benedict, however, this is only for practical reasons.  Benedict lives in near-total isolation inside a former convent in the Vatican, and has only responded to a select few letters and appeared in public only a handful of times since his resignation.  The last time he was seen in public was last week, when he attended a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica where Pope Francis created new cardinals.

10 Natural Oddities

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A recent article on CNN.com talked about various natural oddities around the world.  While I haven’t gotten to see too many of them, I have ambitions to see as many of them as I can before I die.

In Antarctica, there is a blood-red waterfall staining the otherwise white ice of Taylor Glacier.  This was first seen by geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor, after whom Taylor glacier is named.  According to glaciologists and microbiologists, this waterfall’s red hue is due to an underground lake rich in iron.

In chilly Moncton, New Brunswick, there is a “magnetic hill”, that makes cars roll backward up the hill without power.  Nobody knows exactly why this is, and since its discovery in the 1930s, the “magnetic hill” has proven to be a major tourist attraction.

The Moeraki Boulders of New Zealand

Before 1963, the island of Surtsey, off the coast of Iceland, didn’t even exist.  However, an underwater volcano in the Westman Islands erupted, and when the volcanic activity finally settled in 1967, a small island, only 1 square mile, had seemingly emerged from the deep.  Since its “creation”, Surtsey has been eroded to half of its original size due to wind and water.  The Icelandic government has worked tirelessly to conserve the island, and therefore it is off limits to visitors.

Scattered across Koekohe Beach on the east coast of New Zealand South Island are large spherical boulders, formed millions of years ago on the ancient sea floor.  Over the years, these boulders have collected and hardened sediment and minerals around a core such as a fossil or shell, much like how Oysters form pearls.  While the “Moeraki Boulders” aren’t the only example of this, they are some of the largest examples in the world.

Between late April and the end of August, the sun never sets over Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Sea.  This phenomenon messes with many peoples’ body clocks, and many people lose track of what time of the day (or night) it is.

While it might look snowy, Pamukkale, Turkey, is actually covered in calcium carbonate deposits from 17 natural hot springs.  This area near present-day Denizli has been a destination for those who sought the therapeutic benefits of the mineral-rich springs, whose temperatures reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

In 1915, a prospector and his wife noticed tracks over the “Racetrack Playa” in Death Valley, California, that seemed to indicate that the stones there had traveled across the dry earth.  Since this was first discovered, nobody knows exactly what happened with the stones; theories abound, ranging from cosmic intervention to aliens.  However, scientists think that ice formed around the stones caused them to move and leave a trail in their wake.

Behind a small waterfall in Orchard Park, right outside of Buffalo, New York, there appears to be a flickering flame.  This is caused by a leak in the rock behind the waterfall, which allows 1 kilogram of methane gas to escape to the surface every day.

Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming has the highest concentration of geysers in any place in the world.  The most famous of these geysers is “Old Faithful”, which erupts every 55 to 120 minutes for two to five minutes.

The excessive lightning over Lake Maracaibo.

Because of its humidity, elevation and the clash of winds from the mountains and the sea, the southwestern corner of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela has the highest frequency of lightning activity in the world.  Lightning flashes fill the sky more than 200 nights per year, sometimes with 25 or more flashes every minute.  To give you an idea of how huge this is, the National Weather Service classifies anything more than 12 strikes per minute as “excessive”.

Worker Centers

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These Latino workers, members of a workers’ center, cheer.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, business organizations are now mounting an aggressive campaign to curb “worker centers”.  As America’s labor unions have lost members and power, these new types worker advocacy groups have sprouted, pressing businesses on things like wages and working conditions.  These “worker centers” have gotten on the nerves of many businesses, who claim that they are fronts for organized labor.  According to them, these groups wrongly and unfairly demonize companies.  The US Chamber of Commerce issued a report this past November criticizing these groups.

In recent years, worker centers have spiked in prevalence, popularity and power.  Richard L. Trumka, the President of the AFL-CIO, announced that unions would start cooperating closely with these various worker centers.  This has terrified many businesses, who accuse the worker centers of using such tactics as intimidation to get what they want.  They argue that worker centers should deal with the same scrictures that labor unions do, such as detailed financial disclosure, regular election of leaders and bans on certain types of picketing.  According to them, it’s unfair that these groups are enjoying the privileges of being a union without having to deal with the regulations that come with being a union, allowing them to get away with tactics and practices that unions couldn’t.

Many of the worker centers were formed to help out immigrant workers, who had been long overlooked by unions.  So far, millions of dollars have flowed to worker centers from 21 different foundations.  Worker centers have started using strategies to antagonize business leaders who treat their workers “unfairly”, which could prove to be a dangerous strategy.  Nonetheless, many of these new organizations feel empowered by the strong reaction from these businesses, since it shows that their tactics are making them feel threatened.

Argentina Defends Claim to Malvinas

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A pair of Falkland Islanders.

Recently, ex-senator Daniel Filmus, recently made head of Argentina’s Malvinas Islands Secretariat, granted an interview to the British newspaper “The Guardian”.  According to him, Argentina will continue to defend its claim to the Falkland Islands, disputed by the United Kingdom and Argentina.  Filmus warned that companies drilling for oil off the coasts will face both administrative consequences and prison sentences, if they refuse to obtain a permit from Argentina first.

Filmus threatened that Argentina will go to international courts if need be.  According to Filmus, this is one of the few issues in Argentina on which the general populace and all political forces can agree.  Argentina recently passed a law setting sanctions on foreign companies that carry out hydrocarbon exploitation activities in the territories.  Argentinean President Kirchner has accused the British government under David Cameron, of “looting” Argentina’s natural resources in several public appearances.

While the people of the Falkland Islands wish to remain British and consider themselves British subjects, the United Nations has recognized the Falkland Island dispute as a territorial dispute and not a controversy about the observance of the inhabitants’ right to choose their mother country.  Therefore, the dispute over who controls the Falkland Islands is a decision to be made between the United Kingdom and Argentina.