Lots of people think these landscape photos are boring. I'm just thankful there still is some landscape. I read a long article today (in a recent New Yorker--Oct 6, 2008) about the smuggling of Russian timber into China, enriching the smugglers and local officials, as well as Chinese factories and US stores like Walmart. It touched on timber smuggling from Brazil and Indonesia as well. It mentioned baby cribs and paint-brush handles as things that are made from smuggled wood. It seems that there are too many people, really, using too much stuff. And here I sit at my computer, made of minerals mined everywhere. . .
I recently read a similar article about China smuggling timber from Burma and that China then sold all this timber to Swedish IKEA stores for all their furniture merchandise. What a web of piracy we weave internationally around the globe. And today we have real authentic pirates on the high seas of Africa. June, what is going to happen next?
ReplyDeleteGolly, it beats me. That Ikea connection was also mentioned in my article. And I thought those beautiful wooden salad bowls that I used to buy for presents were politically neutral, as it were. And the pirate thing. Isn't that awful? So far it is just being handled by paying ransom, I have read. Seems like a poor idea, paying ransom. Sort of like leaving dog food out on the deck for the cute little raccoons. I saw a video of people who had done that. At the time of the video, they were unable to use their patio, due to hostile raccoon behavior, and had counted more than forty raccoons out there. It reminds me of toxic loan derivatives somehow. June
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