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10 things you don't know Henry Rollins

In describing Henry Rollins, the tendency is to try to squeeze as many labels as possible into a single sentence. “Rollins is many things,” says the Washington Post, “diatribist, confessor, provocateur, humorist, even motivational speaker…his is an enthusiastic and engaging chatter.” Entertainment Weekly’s list includes “Punk-rock icon. Spoken word poet. Actor. Author. DJ. Is there anything this guy can’t do?” TV Guide has more concisely called him a “Renaissance Man”—but if Henry Rollins could be reduced to a single word, that word would undoubtedly be “workaholic.”
For better than a quarter century, Rollins has toured the world as a spoken word artist, as frontman for both Rollins Band and Black Flag and—without a microphone—as a solitary traveler with insatiable curiosity bypassing the resorts in favor of places like Siberia, Senegal, Burma and Bangladesh.
When he’s not living out of a backpack, Rollins is constantly at work as an actor, radio DJ, author of more than 25 books and running his publishing company and record label 2.13.61. Henry currently hosts a weekly radio show on L.A.’s renowned NPR affiliate KCRW, and is a regular columnist for LA Weekly and Rolling Stone Australia. Henry has also shared his topical rants and played thoughtful interviewer as host of The Henry Rollins Show, and mixed performance and documentary in a string of Uncut specials filmed around the globe. Now, in 10 Things, Henry brings his unbridled passion for history to H2, searching for the stories and facts you don’t know about America’s extraordinary past.

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There's a global banana crisis

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The banana as we know it may be doomed

That banana you ate this morning was the perfect banana, even if you didn’t realize it.

Tough enough to survive a trip often covering many thousands of miles, it cost well less than a dollar and yet tasted (we hope) delicious. The tree that produced it bore lots of the fruit, but wasn’t so tall that it would tip over during hurricane season. When the banana turned yellow, you knew it was ripe.

But Cavendish, the best-selling commercial banana worldwide and in the U.S., is also facing a threat that could spell its demise — for the very reasons that put it at No. 1.

’Consumers are kind of addicted to the Cavendish banana. That’s what they see the banana as.’

Randy Ploetz, University of Florida

The problem is an easily spread soil fungus called Panama disease that can’t be treated with pesticides. When it’s appeared in banana-growing regions such as Southeast Asia, the fungus has rendered agricultural regions completely barren.

Also called Fusarium wilt and Tropical race 4, it hasn’t yet appeared in Latin America, the main exporter of bananas to the U.S., but it’s only a matter of time, experts say.

So much so that a meeting of the International Banana Congress this week — at which all of Thursday’s programming focused on the disease — was changed to take place in Miami, because of concerns about attendees spreading fungus-ridden soil in Costa Rica.

Earth Day special report: Toxic algae are threatening humans and wildlife across the world

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The change, which CNN reported Wednesday, was intended to make “a statement,” said Jorge Sauma, the chief executive of Costa Rica’s National Banana Corporation (CORBANA), the organizer of the congress.

Should the disease cross the Atlantic Ocean, it won’t quite mean bananapocalypse. But it will mean more expensive bananas in the short term, Sauma said, and a very different banana in the future.

“Are bananas going to go extinct? Not going to happen,” said Randy Ploetz, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida. “But this thing is really moving rapidly,” and there’s no other easily exported banana waiting in the wings.”

Second time around

Why is Panama disease so potent? Blame a lack of diversity in the banana crop.

Bananas are a crop that gets sick easily. That’s exacerbated by the “monoculture” of Cavendish bananas, said Dan Koeppel, a journalist and author of “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.”

Related: Fresh Del Monte’s banana problem is linked to drug smuggling

Since they don’t have seeds — what appear to be seeds at the core of the fruit in fact are vestigial and can’t sprout — our bananas don’t reproduce sexually, and thus lack genetic variation. Or, as Koeppel puts it, you “put all your bananas in one basket.”

This isn’t the first time the banana has faced a threat of this kind.

The first commercial banana, the Gros Michel, is what first taught Americans to love the fruit when it was brought here in the late 19th century. It’s a “way better banana than Cavendish,” said Koeppel, because its thicker peel made it easy to ship, but it also tasted better and ripened at a slower pace.

But “Cavendish did one thing really well: It didn’t get Panama disease,” he added.

Until now.

What’s next?

Producers are working to stave off the disease, but most agree the solution is a better banana.

Yet it’s not as easy as picking another of the thousand varieties of banana, which range widely in color and size.

Why? Think back to all the specifications a commercially exported banana needs to fit. New types of bananas require “major investments in research and development,” explains a November 2015 research paper in PLoS.

We’re already decades behind, Koeppel said: “The banana industry hasn’t done decades of study. They haven’t really started.”

The University of Florida’s Ploetz agreed, though he said it’ll be more like five to 10 years before there’s a suitable replacement commercial banana.

See: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef threatened by coral bleaching

Big banana companies used to play big roles in research, but today they act as more of a middleman, focused on profit margins, he said.

Banana manufacturers — the major players include Chiquita Brands International Inc., Dole Food Company Inc. and Fresh Del Monte Produce FDP, +0.69% — don’t entirely agree.

Panama disease hasn’t yet affected farms in Latin America, and “there is no reason to believe that the situation could change in the immediate future,” said Christine Cannella, investor relations officer at Del Monte.

“However, Del Monte takes this potential threat very seriously,” she said, and so it’s making changes “to prevent entry of potentially contaminated material to farms, container yards and other banana related facilities. Also, significant resources are being dedicated for research aimed at identifying a long-term solution to this situation.”

Related: America’s water crisis is way bigger than Flint

Even if most experts have concluded that Panama disease is inevitable, Sauma is positive about the banana’s future.

Compared with 50 or 60 years ago, “we have now molecular biology — the sequence of the genome of this particular fungus is already done. We have now biological control, and we have the Internet,” he said. “We are really positive we can find a solution.”

The bananas of tomorrow

It remains possible we can have our Cavendish bananas and eat them, too. Two potentially Panama disease–resistant varieties are being evaluated, Sauna said.

But one of those, a genetically modified variant from Australia, raises other questions about consumer acceptance, Ploetz said, adding that a non-GMO disease-resistant banana is at least a decade away.

Another option is bringing more exotic types of bananas to the U.S., assuming consumers would be willing to pay more for the fruit and weather the learning curve.

But it would require a fundamental realignment in banana thinking, readjusting to eating a banana that’s green when ripe, for example.

“Consumers are kind of addicted to the Cavendish banana,” Ploetz said. “That’s what they see the banana as.”

Courtesy by : marketwatch.com

10 Simple Things You Can Be Grateful for Even When Times are Tough

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some days are just great. Things go as planned or even better and you bounce from meetings to tasks to your private life and you feel wonderful on the inside.

Then there are other days.

Days when you do not feel much motivated at all. When your best laid plans go out the window before the day has barely begun.

When something important unexpectedly goes wrong and you get that sinking feeling in your stomach. Or when you feel sorry for yourself and honestly just want to go back to bed and to sleep again.

Maybe the simplest and certainly one of the most effective ways to turn such a day, week or month around into something more positive and better is in my experience to turn your focus to gratitude.

Because even if things look tough today or for the next 3 or 6 months I can always find something or several things to feel very grateful for about my life.

So I’d like to share a small list of 10 simple, fundamental things that I feel grateful for. I usually only reflect on one or a few of these things when I need to but I thought a list like this one could be helpful both for you and for me.

Maybe not every item on this list works in your life, then take what works from here and create and add to put together your own list.

1. A roof over my head and a warm home.

I live in Sweden, a country where the winters are cold and snowy and the fall and often spring can be quite rainy.

So I often return to this one.

Few things feel better than to reflect upon having warm home and a roof over my head when it is cold and windy outside and I can hear the rain beating hard on my window.

2. Plenty of drinkable water.

I love water and drink plenty of it every day. It is certainly something I take for granted from time to time. But it is not a given.

780 million people lack access to safe drinking water according to water.org.

3. I don’t have to go hungry.

Plus, most of things I cook and/or eat are quite tasty and healthy. And sometimes they are simply wonderful.

So I have much to be grateful for when it comes to food.

4. I can enjoy the small and free pleasures of life.

A sunrise.

A relaxing walk in the woods.

A cool swim in the ocean.

A crisp Autumn day when the trees are filled with leaves of vibrant and spectacular colors.

The sun warming my face after many days of the sky being filled with dreary, gray clouds.

5. Access to the internet.

When I was really young back in the 80’s and 90’s and you wanted to learn about something then you had to ask someone who may have had spotty knowledge. Or you had to visit the local library and maybe there was a book or magazine about it.

Things are so different now and even though it is just a part of everyday life it still amazing.

I can learn about pretty much anything online. I can add new skills and habits to make my life happier and more awesome with the help of what other people share online.

And there is the opportunity to connect with and get to know people from all around the world.

6. My friends and family.

For the love, support, kindness and all the fun that they offer and I get to offer them.

7. My health.

I do not have the indestructible body of Superman. But if I treat it well and get plenty of sleep, work out and eat healthy then it works really wonderfully well almost all the time.

Sure, I get sick sometimes.

But overall I have very, very much to be thankful for that I often take for granted about my body and how it helps me to do everything – see, listen, walk, write, hug, kiss, think and experience my world – every day.

8. The kindness of people I have never met before.

Every day I get kind and supportive emails and messages from people all around the world that I have never met but who reads my blog or newsletters. Their expressions of gratitude make my life happier and help me when things feel tough.

And I truly appreciate the simple kindness in the rest of my daily life too when people let me skip ahead of them in the checkout line in the store when I only have a few items. When they stay for a few seconds and hold up the door for me too. Or let me into their lane when I drive.

9. The setbacks that have formed me and made me stronger.

I have been really ill a few times in my life and these experiences has made me stronger mentally and given me the gift of being very appreciative of modern medicine and of my own body and taking good care of it.

Last year was in a way the toughest one yet for my business as the number of visitors to my website via Google went down in big, big leaps month after month. That has changed in a very positive way over these last few months but 2013 really helped me to work harder and smarter than ever.

And it has made me more appreciative than ever of the opportunity I have with what I do here.

10. I am alive.

I have like everyone else been in situations where an accident and being in the wrong place for just a few seconds could have meant I would not have been here anymore.

If I had been born in another time or in another place then there is a big chance that I would not have been here to experience my 33:rd birthday.

But I am here now. I have this moment and day and hopefully many days still to experience and live my life.

It is an amazing thing.

Courtesy by : positivityblog

There's a global banana crisis

The humble banana is under attack by a disease that is spreading around the globe, and threatening Latin America's all-important export industry.

The industry is so worried about it, that it moved this week's International Banana Congress from Costa Rica to Miami at the last minute so that attendees wouldn't transport the disease to the region with the contaminated dirt on their shoes. Latin America is the primary source of bananas for North America and Europe.

The disease -- known as "Panama disease" or "Fusarium wilt" -- has already spread from Asia to parts of Australia, Africa and the Middle East. It specifically affects the Cavendish banana, which is the fruit that consumers in the West are accustomed to eating.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned this month that the $36 billion banana industry must act "to tackle one of the world's most destructive banana diseases."

An earlier strain of the Panama disease wiped out what had been the most popular banana variety in the 1960s, the Gros Michel. Producers subsequently adopted the Cavendish banana, which was deemed an inferior product but was resistant to the disease.

Related: No loser in cola wars. Coke & Pepsi thriving

Now, banana scientists and growers are considering which new banana might replace the current Cavendish variety, as a new strain of the disease has caused production to collapse in parts of Asia.

Taiwan has created a number of "mutant" Cavendish bananas that are being tested in the Philippines and China, according to Inge Van den Bergh, a senior banana scientist at Bioversity International in Belgium.

"They're quite promising," but they're not necessarily as tasty or suitable for long-distance transport, she told CNNMoney. There's no "silver bullet solution," she said.

For now, banana prices in Western grocery stores aren't rising since Latin America has been spared.

But consumers in North America and Europe could start seeing changes to their banana varieties and prices over the next decade if the Panama disease spreads to Latin America, Van den Bergh said.

The developing world is most at risk from the spreading disease, which stays in the soil for up to 40 years. Billions of dollars and billions of tons of food are at risk, and planting new varieties of bananas is very expensive.

"The spread of Fusarium wilt could have a significant impact on growers, traders and families who depend on the banana industry," warned plant pathologist Fazil Dusunceli from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

Courtesy by : money.cnn.com

The 10 Weirdest Objects in the Universe

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