August 2007 Archives

Sandra Welkerling - Australian National University

"Taboo" is a ritually sanctioned prohibition against contact with a thing, a person or an activity. The word itself originated in Polynesia, where taboo played an important cultural role, but the concept is universal. The use of the word "taboo" is drawn from "tapu," meaning "not allowed," and traces back to the year 1777 and the English explorer Captain James Cook, visiting a place he named "the Friendly Islands" (now Tonga). Describing the Tongans, he wrote:

Not one of them would sit down, or eat a bit of any thing.... On expressing my surprise at this, they were all taboo, as they said; which word has a very comprehensive meaning; but, in general, signifies that a thing is forbidden.... When any thing is forbidden to be eat, or made use of, they say, that it is taboo.

Common taboos include injunctions against eating certain foods, touching kings or outcasts, contact with corpses and sexual relations with certain people. The subject of taboo may be regarded either as sacred or as polluted, and violations of the taboo are not merely a crime but also an act of defilement. Breaking a taboo ordinarily brings either a specific supernatural sanction or a sort of general misfortune. Taboo is particularly associated with liminal social positions. Persons at the margins of society, such as rulers, untouchables and hermits, are often taboo to ordinary people. Persons in transitions, such as initiates and new parents, are usually required to observe an unusual number of taboos.

Jason Bolicki, Producer, "Road to War: Iraq"

When I began contacting interviewees for "The Road to War," many seemed surprised. With news from the Middle East dominating the headlines every day, it seemed natural that I would want their take on the current situation in Iraq. But everyone understood the importance of reflecting on how the decision was made to go to war. It's a decision that still affects every one of us more than four years later.

It was fascinating to hear, firsthand, how quickly the wheels began turning for a war with Iraq. Richard Armitage recalled that, after 9/11, "Saddam Hussein's name was mentioned almost immediately by some colleagues in the Department of Defense." Though the CIA quickly ruled out Saddam as the culprit, Armitage told me "there were certain quarters the administration who would speak up and say, 'Oh, Saddam Hussein may be at the bottom of this.'"

Inviting me into their homes or offices, everyone was quite candid about their particular role in history. Mary Matalin spoke about the heated debates that occurred behind closed doors at the White House. Sen. Bob Graham told me he was stunned when he heard there were no plans for a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's WMD programs. Andy Card recalled how he was alone with President Bush just moments after he made the decision to go to war.
What's most remarkable about "The Road to War" is that there's only one man walking on it. Whether or not you agree President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, it was his -- alone -- to make.

Think you can be like Cesar Milan? Test your skills at the new Diagnose That Dog . There you can view a Dog Whisperer clip and answer what is really troubling the pooch before Cesar has a chance to.

Your favorite Dog Behavior Expert returns with brand new episodes Friday, September 7th at 8:00pm et/pt

Greg Chapman - Research

I had the chance to sit down with Gail Mitchell, a producer for the Lockdown series, and ask here a couple of questions about her experiences filming inside of America's prisons. Here is what she had to say.

Greg: What was the most interesting experience that you had while filming an episode for Lockdown?

Gail: The most interesting experience was when a female inmate at Valley State Prison for Women asked me if I was a new inmate. Apparently I fit right in at California's maximum security prison for women.

Greg: Once you enter the prison where you are filming, what are the inmates' reactions towards you and the NG film crew? Welcoming? Hostile? Neutral?

Gail: Well, our NG film crew discovered that no one can just walk into prison. Each crew member had to have passed a complete background check, present ID, go through a metal detector, and then sift through each piece of film gear. This could take about an hour on the average shooting day. And the inmates in California male prisons are divided by their threat level. So inmates weren't wandering around the prison grounds once we entered the gates... they are contained in housing units and yards that were beyond another security check point. Generally inmates were very welcoming and love National Geographic. It was common to hear inmates yelling, "I love Jacques Cousteau!"

Courtesy of The Green Guide: The recent hot and muggy weather has us all thinking about how to take the temperature down a notch. With that in mind, we've culled the top ten ways consumers can cut into the 22 tons of carbon dioxide each of us produces in the United States. Take these small and not-so-small steps and you'll help ensure a more comfortable future for us all (all carbon savings are annual averages).

1) Replace five incandescent lightbulbs in your home with compact fluorescents: Swapping those 75-watt incandescents with 19-watt CFLs can cut 275 pounds of CO2.

2) Instead of short haul flights of 500 miles or so, take the train and bypass 310 pounds of CO2.

3) Sure it may be hot, but get a fan, set your thermostat to 75 degrees and blow away 363 pounds of CO2.

Dr. Victoria Pitts-Taylor - Professor of Sociology, Queens College

Taboos show us how culturally relative our ideas about the "natural" are. In relation to the body, taboos show us not the body's physical or biological boundaries, but its cultural boundaries. What does the natural body look like? What is naturally beautiful? What looks healthy and normal? The answer to these questions depends upon the social and historical context -- what is normal in one place and time might be taboo in another.

In one culture, a natural, perceptibly healthy body might be considerably larger than in another culture. In the Renaissance the beautiful woman's body was often large and fleshy, as depicted in the renderings of great artists. Displaying such a body now in an advertising campaign would violate a contemporary taboo against showing what we may presently call an "obese" body.

The "perfect" Victorian body in Europe and America - which still informs some of our western beauty ideals - might have relatively unmarked skin, but a tribal body elsewhere might proudly display permanent designs made by scarring or tattooing. Colonial perspectives often viewed the marked bodies of tribal peoples as "primitive" or savage.

Violating taboo can be appealing, of course. Subcultural groups have long found ways to violate taboos, and in doing so, to establish their social distance from mainstream culture. Punks, goths, tattoo enthusiasts, contemporary body modifiers, sailors, bikers and many other subcultural groups have used or adapted tribal body practices like tattooing and body piercing as a way to mark their distinct sense of bodily style.

Sometimes, the broken taboo can be so alarming that it seems to demand attention as a social problem. In the 1970s, the British media openly worried about what the rise of punk represented in Britain's youth culture. In the 1990s, the popularity of body art raised media concerns about an epidemic of "self-mutilation." Sociologists who study social problems often see such media responses as promoting "moral panic," which has the effect of buttressing cultural norms and marginalizing or pathologizing groups who violate them.

Photograph by Jupiter Images

Elephants meeting with each other at a watering hole in Tsavo National Park

Dr. Mike Heithaus

Not many people would guess that my team and I are headed into the middle of the wilderness as we drive through the sleeping streets of Miami hours before sunrise. But just a few miles from Miami is Everglades National Park - over a million acres of wilderness. While most people think of alligators when they hear the word Everglades, we are on our way to find bull sharks. Bull sharks are one of Florida's largest and most impressive predators. Adult bull sharks hunt coastal waters, but the juveniles are found in the rivers of the Everglades! We've caught them almost 30 miles from the ocean in water that is completely fresh.

My students and I are interested in why the sharks use these freshwater nurseries that are unavailable to other sharks and the role of bull sharks in the Everglades ecosystem. The first thing that we have to do is catch them. After driving an hour and a half by truck from Miami to Flamingo, FL we launch our boat and drive another hour and a half upstream. Next, we set a longline and clip 50 hooks to it baited with small chunks of mullet. After an hour we come back and check our line. Most of the sharks we catch are between 3-4' and range from newborns to three year olds. Some of the sharks that we have tagged have been caught in the same spot more than a year later!

From The Green Guide: According to the EPA, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for almost one-third of all residential water use, totaling more than 7 billion gallons per day. So as summer arrives and temperatures rise, resist the temptation to keep your lawn golf-course green with constant watering, and keep these water-saving tips in mind:

1. Use a sprinkler timer. Timers will automatically shut off your sprinkler system after a set period so you don't have to remember. Sprinkler timers are available at Home Depot stores from $39.99 and up.

2. Use sprinklers that emit large drops of water, low and close to the ground (not the sidewalk or street), and water early in the morning. This will ensure that the water soaks into the soil instead of evaporating. The Noodlehead Sprinkler features flexible nozzles so you can spray the water right where you need to.

3. Don't water every day. Simply test the lawn first to see if it needs water. If you step on the grass and it springs back easily, it doesn't need water. Or, try pushing a long screwdriver into the lawn. If you can push it easily for several inches, you don't need to water.

4. While it may be tempting to spray off your driveway and sidewalk while you've got the hose out, save the water for the yard and use the broom instead.

For more information check out this month's edition of the Green Guide

Dan Cesareo - Producer

It was 2 AM on a Wednesday morning. While most nights would find me buried under my covers snoring away, tonight was a bit different. I was in Central Florida hanging out behind a warehouse with a clandestine group of bikers. From out of the darkness, three riders emerged-two riding wheelies and one pulling an endo. This anti-Harley crew considers themselves the "New" Outlaws of the 21st century- where just cruising is for the AARP cardholders. With car headlights illuminating the blacktop stage, the sport bike riding crew was putting on an amazing display of stunt riding. Wheelies, endos, acrobatics, burnouts, standing on the seat of their bikes going 20 MPH--it was absolutely aggro. And while I was blown away by their performance, I wanted to get the goods on tape and get out of there before someone got hurt or the police came. Stunt riding is an underground sport in the motorcycle world and in the eyes of the law illegal outside the arenas. But with no place to practice, riders find spots like tonight's warehouse to hone their skills. After some well place phone calls we were lucky enough to score an invite to tonight's riding session.

For the Daytona PD, the stunters were out of sight and out of mind. They had bigger things to worry about than a few guys pulling wheelies. Imagine 5 blocks crammed with hundreds of thousands of bikers- pipes roaring, music blasting, and sidewalks are jammed pack. To say it's overwhelming is an understatement. Now imagine this same environment, but you are a police officer. Your force is outnumbered more than 1000 to 1. Beer is flowing, people are racing around on bikes, traffic is backed up for miles and in a drop of the hat things can go wrong...very wrong.