Digging for Diamonds (and Information)

I have wanted to know more about diamonds ever since I saw the 2006 film Blood Diamonds. It's a movie well worth seeing if you are concerned about the human condition in other parts of the world. And you know I am if you have read my first post - A is for Activism and Advocacy.

As modern Americans our first thought when diamonds are mentioned is likely to be of jewelry. We may even be aware that because of their hardness they are used in industry for cutting and grinding. But that does it for me. So I was surprised to learn that we can document their use in India for religious icons as far back as 3,000 years and possibly 6,000 years!

Wikipedia has a huge amount of information about diamonds, starting with how nature creates them:

• They are made from carbon-containing minerals ... 
• ... under high pressure at a depth of 87 to 118 miles beneath the earth's surface. (Note: It is 3,818 miles from the earth's surface to its center.) 
• The process takes 1 billion to 3.3 billion years. 

If that's not a show-stopper I don't know what is!

So how did those ancient Indians find them? Without history to tell us we can assume that volcanic eruptions brought them to the surface where they would ultimately have have been found by accident. We can guess that they might, then, have dug at those sites hoping to find more.

Mining diamonds continues to this day, with about half the annual production coming from Africa. Unfortunately the conditions there are brutal, resultng in humanitarian efforts to improve them. The film Blood Diamonds is a part of that ongoing effort.

Open-pit diamond mine in Kimberley, South Africa - the largest hole excavated by hand

About 57,300 pounds of diamonds are mined world-wide annually, only half of which are gem quality. But the remainder is not enough to meet industrial demand so we have learned to make them in a high-pressure high temperature process to fill that need! For at least fifty years we have been creating industrial grade varieties in laboratories, and recently even began manufacturing gem quality.

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"Digging" for this bit of information to share with you led me inevitably to unearth much more on the topic. (I'm not finished yet.) At the same time I also acquired a new skill which every blogger should know about: how to illustrate a post both legally and free. This article explains: 7-places-find-usable-images-online

I discovered that on Twitter which is fast becoming my favorite source of news and information. Until now I have either linked to articles and pictures on other sites (that's OK) or copy/pasted them into my posts (that's not OK unless I'm using my own writing or pictures). The picture above is my first free and legal image thanks to Getty Images, Free for online use - Search Royalty Free Images  That's 35 million pictures, nicely catalogued for easy topic hunting! I hope this will be helpful for you, too.

Culinary Historians

By now everyone has heard of Julia Child, that tall lady with a passion for food who brought French cuisine to American kitchens. I think she would have great fun with today's foodies. And she surely would have loved her 100th birthday party despite the Michigan heat of an August day in 2012. That was just one of many events regularly hosted by the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor (CHAA).

A cardboard Julia Child surveys the many dishes prepared in honor of her 100th birthday by the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor. With a yellow 'Julia Child' rose.

Kim Bayer | AnnArbor.com Contributor

Until recently I had not heard of "culinary historians". Nor could I have imagined the passion such a calling could generate. That was before my introduction to CHAA. The program on my first visit was a lecture about The Egg! Did you know there are many similarities between human and chicken reproductive systems? That was just the first of many startling and fascinating facts presented that day. And our lecturer was so knowledgeable and entertaining that after the Q&A members followed him to his car with more questions!

There's even a blog written by an Atlanta nutritional anthropologist (another unusual field of study) - The Culinary Historian. Dig a little deeper and you will find whole sections in some libraries devoted to food preparation and consumption dating back as far as the Greeks and Romans. A fine example is our own University of Michigan Clements Library's archive. There a small and devoted volunteer staff works tirelessly to gather and catalog information relating to American culinary history, as well as presenting the occasional program.

And speaking of "the spice of life",  according to a recent lecture it was spices from the East that literally made life bearable for the Greeks and Romans. Theirs was a "fragrant" existence without plumbing or many other waste disposal conveniences that we take for granted. To counteract that situation they regularly dispatched fleets of ships and land-based caravans to the Orient to procure for them huge quantities of rich spices. This vast and steady traffic resulted in the creation of a whole system of enterprise and travel along routes still in use today.

FLASH  This just in, a new book compiled in part by going through Lincoln's grocery bills:

Brigadoon

B is also for buff, film buff that is. That's me.

The movie Brigadoon came out in 1954 when I was a freshman in college. It was based on the Alan Jay Lerner Broadway musical of the same name and featured a fine cast and many of Lerner & Loew's best songs. Dated as the film is by today's standards I still have fond memories of the story and music.

This is a whimsical love story set in a misty version of a long ago time. It plays to our desire for the unattainable, to remain forever young and in love. No wonder it was so popular in that post-Korea era!

Because I studied German literature I noticed a similarity to the German story Germelshausen by Gerstacker. That, in turn, was based on the ancient tale of a town that falls under an evil enchantment and disappears, reappearing for just one day each century. Like the town, the story keeps resurfacing, so we must be due for a new version. I can't wait to see how it is treated in today's idiom!

The obvious and comforting point here (for some!) is that however much civilization may "improve" us over the centuries, in our hearts we humans remain the same.

Several of the Brigadoon songs were long-runing hits in the day. My favorite is sung here by Frank Sinatra. We girls were all in love with him, and our mothers were convinced that all that "swooning" and screaming was terribly unhealthy for us. (Adolescent females then were pretty much like today's.)

Activism and Advocacy

You'll propbably agree that this is a heavy opener for a blog about the "spice of life". If you dropped in to be titillated I apologize! In the future I'll take a lighter hand, but this is a day for reflection. It's a day to contemplate my own good fortune compared to the lives of so many others, and to ponder ways I might make a difference for some of those others.

I find it hard to be playful when 239 people on a 777 airplane are lost over the ocean, when Syria has become a nation of refugees, and the Central African Republic is a literal death camp. Equally distressing is awareness of the plight of many right here in Wayne County, Michigan, USA.

The differences between my life and theirs keep nagging me, urging me to seek ways to address that difference. That's where Activism and Advocacy come in. I won't spend a lot of time "word-smithing", but I need some tools to help me find ways to be involved. Advocacy is aligning oneself with an issue or idea, then working within its structure to raise awareness and work toward improvement. Activism is more "impatient. It usually operates outside an established structure to initiate steps toward quick change, often in confrontational ways.

As an experienced "organization person" I'm looking for a suitable advocacy group. I know my capabilities and limitations, so when I find something that appeals to me I'll know where I might fit in.

The Devil is in the Details  Important aspects of the "right" organization:

• It will probably be a non-profit, perhaps an NGO (non-governmental organization). 
• There will be lots of "grunt work" where I can start with little training.  
• There may be some pay, however small. (I don't know if that is possible.) Volunteering is noble, but after contributing hundreds of hours since "retiring" I know that burnout and lack of respect are inevitable no matter how good the cause.  Even a little pay would make up for the loss of personal time and inevitable failures.  

For practical advice I reviewed  Everything You Need to Know About Working for a Non-Profit.

Ready, Set, Go . . . 

That's my plan. I am searching the internet for suitable groups and I'll report to you under various letters in this blog. Whatever else I post you can be sure I'll be working on this project "in background".

Oh, yes - if you have any suggestions for me to look into please put them into comments. I look forward to hearing from you.

I'll see you later,
Mary