Basking Shark, Red Sea

Now I feel like I really must go kayaking in the Red Sea.

Washing into the sea

Madagascar is falling apart geologically and biologically.

Today, Soichi Noguchi posted a gorgeous picture of the mouth of a river in Madagascar, pouring mud into the sea with a design like an abstract painting:



Sadly, that mud is flowing off the hillsides with every rainstorm, every one of Madagascar's not-infrequent cyclone hits, and blows off with the wind. Deforestation began in Madagascar with the first European colonization, and the demand for exotic wood (or any wood, eventually), and continued as slopes were cleared for agriculture. Between the general population of Madagascar, with people simply trying to get enough to eat, and shelter, and work, and the corporations driving the agriculture, it will be amazing if Madagascar can keep from dying, biologically, before any sort of control or balance is found.

Africa from Europe on Google Streetview

From Google Sightseeing

How cool is that? That is very cool.

We're fostering a tiny puppy, switching the garden over into fall mode, trying to get our house in order, and I'm finishing a semester at school. This is Geography Awareness Week, and I think there will be a post about that before the week is up.

They really don't make flags like they used to

Wikipedia says: "The Benin Empire or Edo Empire (1440-1897) was a pre-colonial African state of modern Nigeria. It is not to be confused with the modern-day country called Benin." In Nigeria, Benin City still sits to mark the region, a central part of the slave-trading region of the 17th century.



I want to learn more of the kinds of world history I missed in middle and high school, either because it just wasn't taught (where do kids learn about the Benin Empire in high school history?) or because in all my moving around (five high schools, really and truly) in my youth, I missed out on some curriculum.

This is the sort of thing I've missed.

(Thanks to Boing Boing for the pointer