A parody of social unity

The global village concept has relied on technological advancements to unite the world. The informational networks become crucial to keep people connected. They are considered the routes to celebrate diversity in societies growing increasingly multicultural. However, as the London riots demonstrate, the spread of dysfunctional attitudes make a parody of social unity. 

Globalization opened up markets beyond national borders. The Internet was meant to bring together diverse cultures. Economic development was expected on one hand, and spirituality on the other. The assumption has been that the new knowledge facilitates the ready acceptance of differences. And yet, London burned...!

Over several days, flash mobs all over sprang into action faster than they could be controlled. The systemic machinery was caught flatfooted. Violence became contagious with diverse groups joining in on muggings, robbings, lootings, arson and pitched battles with police.

 Addley writes:

… familiar and well-loved streets were turned, for a time, into alien, frightening battle zones … shocking because of their speed and unpredictability, but also because of their geographical and socioeconomic scope.

The British Prime Minister opinioned that pockets of society  were sick. The impression might be that criminal gangs were responsible. However, is that the troublemakers were not clearly identifiable as such. Shockingly, they cut across society – not only white, black, Asian, men, women, children, old or young alone, and neither local nor outsiders, but strange combinations of all of these.

Technology was used effectively to organize the rampage, leaving authorities struggling to keep up. Blackberry messenger, facebook, and twitter spread word like wildfire among the rioters. In the context, social mobility took on new meaning.

Lewis and Harkin write:

… territorial markers which would usually delineate young people's residential areas – known as 'endz', 'bits' and 'gates' – appear to have melted away. "On a normal day it wouldn't be allowed – going in to someone else's area. A lot of them, on a normal day, wouldn't know each other and they might be fighting … This is bringing them together."

Some authors identify alienation, anger, boredom and mischief as the common factors in the chaos.  Some say the long police history of heavy-handedness with the underclass has boiled over. Others point to government policies forcing brutal cuts and austerity measures onto populations. The ordinary experience widening social inequalities, while the richest ten percent reportedly become one hundred times better off at their expense.

In the present context, Power comments:

…consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy … Decades of individualism, competition and state-encouraged selfishness – combined with a systematic crushing of unions and the ever-increasing criminalisation of dissent – have made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.

I should think that the sense of inequality perceived among social groups is more than a recent occurrence - in fact, a legacy of past imperial practices over populations. Essentially, the interpretations of life naturally differ with cultures. In Western philosophies, for instance, goals have traditionally based on the idea that people have but one lifetime to make an impact.  Since survival is of the fittest, individualism must be favoured. Through centuries, the outlook broke new ground, but it also broke moral and ethical boundaries. 

Western explorers have sailed boldly into unchartered waters to discover the ends of the world driven by the spirit of adventure. The self-reliance and openness to new experiences allowed finding new frontiers. They pushed gathering of new knowledge beyond existing limits.

Tales of wealthy foreign cultures by numerous travellers spawned expeditions to unknown regions also in search of gold, spices, silks, and so on, initially for simple trade in oriental goods. However, economic depressions, internal stresses and market protectionism changed the Western outlook to territorial takeovers. In relentless pursuit of the capture and control of treasured resources, traders became political extensions of their monarchies abroad.

Political fractures within and between communities were exploited to divide and rule.  Ultimately continents were successfully colonized. The English, for instance, were able to boast that the sun never set on their empire. The people they assumed power over were perceived livestock that could be used and abused in slave and labour trades.

Western expansionism flourished also because the foreign lands were peopled by deferent, inward-looking cultures. The Eastern philosophies upheld collectivism, and the ideal of community before self. They tended towards peace of mind, harmonious reciprocity and cosmic karma. However, they were manipulated to lose even national identity for several centuries.

Globalization has most benefited the corporate world, and mostly those located in the West. It enables companies become multinational, to employ skills from a global workforce. But at the same time, rapid changes in reality have been far more than most people could cope with. Despite new markets, local availability of jobs for the underprivileged is rendered uncertain, because outsourcing is common. This cements cross-cultural animosities, although the divisive practice is an indigenous product honed over centuries.

Technology has indeed transformed reality. However, economic and political power games have resisted change. The informational networks have also juxtaposed social issues of past and present in people's minds. They have enabled greater awareness of differences against similarities between diverse people. 

Issues of the present reactivate memories of past racial and cultural inequalities among minority groups. Although demographic migrations post-globalization turned societies heterogeneous, interrelationships between social fractions are ambiguous at best. Distinct cultures coexist in society, but have hardly reconciled with the values of others, especially the majority. Habitual thought and practice remains entrenched in ethnic perspectives. Thus, social divides harboured in the mind never really close. 

The historical wounds of inequalities among minority groups and other social have-nots  also carry forward, mounting tensions generation to generation. Their collective rage might even make the past indignities feel real in the environment here and now. It seems a shame that the rioters turned to destruction as the only way to communication.  It is perhaps more shameful that despite claims of celebrating diversity, Western powers-that-be are yet to get over selfish consumerism, and to harmonize relations with all others that share the same universe, including those within their own societies.

References for this post:

1. Addley, Esther. “London riots: 'A generation who don't respect their parents or police'” guardian.co.uk The Guardian. Tuesday 9 August 2011. 
2. Lewis, Paul and Harkin, James. “Who are the rioters? Young men from poor areas ... but that's not the full story” guardian.co.uk The Guardian. 10 August 2011. 
3. "Imperialism in Asia" wikipedia.org. Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. 25 July 2011. 
4. “The story behind the mugging that shocked the world” Reuters report. stuff.co.nz.  Stuff.co.nz. 11/08/2011. 

Biofoods in India: 5. Coping with threat

While replicating experiments to confirm earlier findings, other researchers discovered an area of concern that those involved with creative biotechnology had failed to consider - that the disease resistance biofoods displayed, depended on environmental factors. In places where the disease-producing fungi species are stronger or that which witnesses an outbreak of the disease, the artificially developed hybrid becomes as vulnerable as the non-hybrids forms.

A study conducted by CSRIO in 2006 reported findings that led to several similar GM bio-foods projects in Australia being scratched from production. In them, gene transfer had been attempted between bean and pea to make the latter resistant to pea weevils attack. Safety tests conducted over a specific period by independent agencies found the product allergen–free. In further testing however, it was discovered that over time, the transgenic pea altered the structure of protein formations enough to caused immune reactions among certain test animals.

The consumer resistance to GM-products gained momentum with what has been named “frankencorn.” This is a Bt corn hybrid type that was taken to and flourished in Mexico. In the process, the existing biodiversity gene pool comprising of 20,000 corn varieties and plant relatives were in danger of being choked out of existence with the “pollution". Experiments on mice conducted in Europe showed that a sustained diet of Bt corn does eventually cause health problems. The biotech firms that had licenced the product, however, continued to aggressively market in the region, pricing it lower than the local non-hybrid grains.

Regulatory norms in many countries of the world are generally not as wide-angled as those in the West. Many business houses attempt to slip through the loopholes that they find in other parts of the world. For example, the purview of regulatory body GEAC (India) is only “environmental safety”. By applying to this body, the biotech companies obtained exemption certificates for their processed bio-foods. The branded potato chips that contained ingredients banned in the West may not have harmed the environment, but there was no gainsaying the fact that the human consumers (who fell outside the regulatory purview), were at risk.

Regulatory bodies in different countries differ in their focus for mandatory labelling. Some focus on finished product, which needs a label only if traces are found on testing, and others on technology process that requires GM labels being pasted always. Because these add to costs that eat into returns on investment, companies prefer to avoid them. Such tactics contributes to the public acquiring blanket sensitising against the biofoods, the companies that produce them and the scientists associated with their research. In India, biotechnology is already stridently opposed by the nation’s NGOs, and supported by their overseas-based counterparts like Greenpeace. New GM-product labelling rules now proposed in the country may turn out more stringent than elsewhere.

Backing GM-foods production at the NDTV-hosted world economic forum seminar 'Rethinking how to feed the world' in Davos recently, Bill Gates put the onus on national Governments. They would need to take the call on the issue of starvation amongst their people, weighing the benefits of biofoods against the risks.

Western governments are generally pro-business. Heads of State help to open new markets by lobbying for the multinational companies. The Indian governance, in contrast, is pro-poor and hence economic reforms across the country are slow. The system responds quickly to acute environmental disasters like floods or famine, but is far less active in responding to chronic problems of poverty, malnutrition or sanitation. On the question of biotechnology, the political parties whether in power or in opposition, have perched on the fence, with no definitive stand on the issue, either for or against.

Fact is creating and testing products in laboratory conditions is only half the job done. Companies cannot ignore the need for stringent, ongoing safety testing. These identify potentially toxic side effects in different climate zones and bio-diversity. The imminent costs of the process would reduce through meaningful partnerships with local scientific institutions. They would be better equipped to pursue the issues in their specific environments, and perhaps devise innovative solutions to eliminate the errors arising in their jurisdiction.

Scientists and companies also need to rethink their assumptions about products and their potential consumers. In the age of information, people no longer appreciate being told what to buy. Being far more cognizant of their own needs today, people resent coercion or deception. For instance, the past practice of corporate bodies of dumping surpluses on the unsuspecting developing nations should urgently be eschewed. Transparency in business, like providing necessary information on product labels, would not only enable consumers take informed choices on product selections, it would stimulate their continued satisfaction and brand loyalty.

With better knowledge about the scientific techniques that benefit both people and environment, consumers may understand the source of their resistance – largely a carryover from the past. Many biotechnology advocates believe the consumer resistance will eventually die down. Australia, like Europe and unlike India, has so far harboured strong resistance to GM-technology. Studies conducted there have found positive indications of a thaw in attitudes resisting change. It may be hoped that in time, the improved “next generation” of bio-foods will improve consumer acceptance enough to actually combat world hunger.

References…next

Biofoods in India: 4. Sting in the tail

Like the Midas touch that literally turned food, water and even people to gold, every boon to humankind is double edged. Advanced biotechnology is no exception. In genetically engineered biofoods, the resistance to disease vary with the conditions - individual or environmental differences could actually change the disease profile into something completely unexpected.

The 1960s “green revolution” too, carried a sting in its tail. Within a few decades, farmers using the technology found that the much hyped “food sufficiency” came at a price. The hybrid seeds required the intensive use of fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation. The techniques then best served those who could afford the technology, could count on ample rainfall or had access to irrigation facilities.

Further, certain problems refused to go away, or new ones were created in their stead. The agricultural pests soon attained pesticide resistance, or mutated to new forms. Other chemicals were needed to protect the crops from these new, developed strains. New hazards to health and the environment were also being created. The pesticides permeated the air, diffused into the earth, and eventually, seeped into the ground water. They thus affect not only insects and bacteria, but also the entire food chain.

The chemical deluge diffusing through the environment poisoned plant and animal systems. Children felt the effects from birth itself, with many being “born blue” suffering cyanosis. Families living along the farming belt found members developing cancer. There was depletion of groundwater levels, salinising of prime farmland, loss of biodiversity and destruction of other wildlife. The environmental degradation and income inequality made the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Scientists examined the properties of toxic contaminants that contribute to pollution of the environment – soil, water and air. They studied the biochemical nature of various plants, insects and animals and devised advanced processes to improve human health. Genetic engineering “injected genes” from one species or genus into another. Investigative journalist Coale explains,

…researchers implanted a gene from a fish that swims in icy arctic waters into strawberries and tomatoes to help the vulnerable fruits ward off frost.

This process makes the conventional method of spraying strawberries and tomatoes with water to protect them from the harsh weather redundant.

“Designer genes”, they reasoned, would ensure that crops carry higher contents for vitamins, other nutrients, as well as various vaccines for immunization. The genetic manipulations of plants would make them immune to viruses and bacteria. Crops would become far more hardy then before and able to withstand extremes of weather and temperature. In India, proposals were made to cultivate grain and vegetables similarly resistant to agricultural pests and herbs.

For instance, the commercial release of insect-resistant Bt corn was hailed around the world. The product also met the protocol standards of environmental impact, food safety, nontarget effects, and pest resistance the regulators had set up. Extensive field tests with livestock feed in Iowa USA showed a reduction in their “vulnerability to mycotoxin-producing fungi”. These myotoxins are the disease carriers that pass from the plants to humans and other animals.

Malnutrition is a recurring problem in India, with millions suffering from anaemia, blindness, goitre, etc. Traditionally these have been dealt with supplement tablets like vitamin A or fortifying common foods like salt with iodine. “Biofortifying” grains or seeds with micronutrients are considered both cheaper and more effective in alleviating the health problems of the masses. There have also been proposals for bio-fortifications whereby essential micronutrients may be genetically introduced into grain, like Golden Rice that contains carotene or Vitamin A to combat night blindness.

Sadly the process has a catch – called allergens. The first generation of GM bio-foods are best described as ‘experimental’ because the nature of the errors that occurred were never visualized at the drawing boards. The new gene that is introduced causes formation of entirely new class of proteins, originally absent in the host. The “allergen” is a reaction-producing protein. It may be a miniscule part of the food, but it causes an immunological response in the plant or body by itself, or by its reaction to bacteria existing in the digestive tract of its consumers.

For example, in the mid-1990s, a biotechnology company had attempted to boost the content of protein in soybean by introducing a specific gene from Brazil nut. The protein content was enhanced as expected, but the new gene produced a new virulent allergen in addition, and the project had to be abandoned. The lesson to be learned here is that long-term safety testing of engineered products needs to be mandatory.

Next…the threat

Biofoods in India: 3. The patent connection

The resistance to the biotech companies and hence to their bio-foods, has centred on people being unable to find sufficient benefits for consumers. The public disfavour has, in turn, prompted the political leadership to impose more stringent controls. These developments have not however, encouraged companies to change their business tactics in foreign markets.

For example, the outcry in the West against “frankencorn” led to tighter food safety regulatory controls there. Major overseas buyers of grain, like Japan and Korea, then refused to accept consignments of any of the genetically manipulated forms. The rejections would cause an annual loss of about 200 million USD for biotech firms in USA. To make up their losses, these firms proceeded to offload the surpluses on Mexico and other ‘third world’ countries.

In 2008, random tests were conducted on imported processed foods picked up from shelves in Indian supermarkets. Greenpeace reported findings from independent laboratories that in potato chips ingredients, the Mon 863 and NK 603 varieties (from genetically modified potatoes) were present. These are genetically altered for resistance to pests and herbs, but they could pose serious health impacts to humans. Monsanto, one of the largest concerns operating in the region, had marketed the products being sold at retail outlets without the required labels to warn consumers.

Corporate business leadership generally has little knowledge of the technical intricacies of research. Firms like the agri-biotech giant may have operated on the presumption that a food safety clearance back home in USA ensures that their products are safe for all climates and countries over time. Consequently, they are little inclined to further testing of their products. There are no plans for developing “local partnerships” to carry on testing or work on developing applications to suit local environments.

Besides, although the initial discovery and creative processes receive heavy funding from various institutions, few resources address the research needs of developing countries. Stark differences remain in the conditions between the originating laboratories and the farmlands of developing countries targeted. The biotechnology applications originating in the West are thereby doomed to failure.

In public perception, scientists involved in GM projects lead insulated lives. Ensconced in state-of-the-art workplaces with unwavering focus on R&D, they are an elite class completely out of touch with the ground realities of less developed nations. Faith in their involvement with poverty and starvation is minimal. The general consensus is that the processes they advocate might work in the advanced economies, but are unlikely to do so on the remote side of the globe.

Consumers suspect a nexus between “mad scientists” and companies driven by bottomlines. The scientists are committed to discoveries, publications, and patents. Private biotech companies that get licences to these patents and incorporate them into the products, market for business profits. They have neither interest nor skill in products developments according to new situations. Words like 'social responsibility' have not figured in their lexicon.

Awareness groups like Safe Food Alliance are up in arms against the companies, their subsidiaries, and their scant tie-ups with universities in India. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, scientists have been running GM cultivation trials for sometime now with the vegetable Bt brinjal to win licensing approval from the Government. But activists have launched stiff protest demanding a complete ban on GM bio-foods in the country, to pressure the Government into disallowing commercialisation amongst the population of over a billion people.

Next...the sting

Biofoods in India: 2. To eat the brand or not

That the green revolution transformed agricultural practices in India is widely acknowledged. The benefits of advanced biotechnology have also been perceived positively amongst the majority. The source of the resistance to bio-foods then originates not in biophilia or politics, but elsewhere. The projected disfavour may actually be directed against those who represent the biotechnology in the minds of people – the multinational companies.

Object attitudes are built on personal perceptions, feelings, and propensity to act. The attitude, says Banytė, is “achieved”, usually by direct or indirect experience. Once formed, it is relatively permanent, it motivates behaviour and resists change. Consumer experiences contribute to cognitive evaluations of goods and services and subsequently, determine the attitudes formed towards them. Emotional satisfaction develops a positive attitude; else negative impressions persist in thought, feeling and action. The object in question and all things associated with it are thence either liked or disliked.

Surveys have shown that people of different cultures react differently to mandatory labels on foods. In USA, for example, many people tend to assume that the products labelled GM (genetic manipulation) are inferior. The French generally overlook GM labels, but if attention is drawn to them, tend to change their choices. People in India prefer to read labels for dates, medicinal qualities, etc., instead. A recent survey study (2008) conducted by the Asian Food Information Centre (AFIC) found that Indians are more concerned about inaccurate labels, hygiene, and the use of low quality ingredients.

Perceptual differences to biotechnology exist in food production countries like India and China, and food importing ones like Japan and South Korea – the former more positive about the benefits of plant biotechnology. Survey results conducted by Environs International in 2000-01 showed that up to 69 percent of people in India felt that improved food quality, health betterment and food sustainability outweighed the possible risks associated with biotechnology.

Over the years the corporate industry has attempted to utilize cultural attitudes for their own profits. In long term, their tactics have backfired. Now, although the majority of Indians have a very favourable opinion about biotechnology, the national perception of Western business practices overseas has been discouraging. Consequently, brand relationship with the multinational firms is minimal.

India has had a long experience of being “dumping ground” for the West. In the first three decades since India’s independence from colonial rule in 1947, all of her food-grain imports including consignments under the “PL-48” food aid programme were found to be little better than “cattlefeed”. As late as the year 2000, despite seller assurances about their safety, a GM soybean consignment was found to contain “15 diseases, seven of which are viral diseases”.

The point is the first generation of GM foods has focused on producer benefits. That is, on immediate profits for the company, grossly overlooking the effects of their actions in the long-term. Banytė et al comment:

Globally it is possible to find not a single brand, successfully applying the means of emotional impact in communication with consumers.

The Indian people have become sensitized against multinational organizations in aggressive search of new markets. They have learnt to mistrust their trade practices, the levels of their knowledge and awareness in new environments. Thenceforth, as a matter of policy, all cultivatable GM bio-foods including 1000-tonne grain consignments arriving as food aid for the poverty-stricken have been systematically rejected.

Next…the patent

Biofoods in India: 1. Advent of the miracle answer

The World Economic Forum 2010 at Davos, Switzerland had delegates as wide ranging as the topics of global interest they deliberated on. The use of Biotechnology, for instance, was discussed to tackle issues of starvation all over the world. Biotechnology is not a new process. It has been utilized globally for centuries. Indeed, life would have been bland without bread, cheese, yoghurt, wines and other alcoholic beverages!

GM (genetic manipulation) techniques are said to take the process further to improve taste and nutritional values of food yields. Scientists who have created them believe that they are the ‘miracle’ answer to worldwide hunger, malnutrition and disease. Such bio-foods are sources rich in fibre, minerals, vitamins, and many with new or enhanced medicinal qualities.

India is a ready market for the miracle workers, with a quarter of its population under the poverty line. Yet the many multinational biotechnological companies pushing their products in India are intensely frustrated with their minimal headway. Since 2002, only one product type, three species of Bt cotton, has been allowed cultivation. The Government’s most recent move has been to allow the entry of processed products. That is, foods that, as end-products, no longer contain living micro-organisms able to “propagate or reproduce”.

Theorists have put forth several explanations for this: biophilia or the lack of political will. The problem could be the technology itself, with discomfort in agrarian India over new-fangled techniques. With an eye on elections, governments may also be unwilling to upset the traditional practices of the vote-banks.

However, history does not quite support the explanations. Fact is, the “green revolution” actually started in India in the 1960s in response to the deteriorating food situation in places hit by prolonged drought. Scientist M.S. Swaminathan imported the technique developed by Norwegian-American agronomist Norman Borlaug of cross breeding plant species to make specific hybrid grain seeds - rice, wheat and corn. This completely transformed agricultural practice.

Author Doyle writes,

It was so successful in terms of production increases that it defied the gloomy Malthusian predictions of the 1960s, which said hundreds of millions would starve as population outstripped farm output.

The people of India are pro rather than anti-technology. In other technological applications like computers or telecommunications, they compete on the world stage. Regarding the new agricultural process, not only did subsequent governments welcome the process, farmers more importantly, gladly adopted the new techniques in place of traditional practices. The success has been attributed to the size of the hybrid plants. They were far shorter than the indigenous variety. The changed physical structure maximises photosynthesis, because the plant stalks take up less energy. The process, so readily accepted in India, was then applied in other parts of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

In the picture author Hazell paints,

Instead of widespread famine, cereal and calorie availability per person increased by nearly 30 percent, and wheat and rice became cheaper …led to sizable increases in returns to land, and hence raised farmers’ incomes… stimulated the rural non-farm economy, which in turn grew and generated significant new income and employment of its own.

Poverty and malnutrition are severe challenges to the world in general, and in particular to Indian aspiration of becoming a “superpower”. As the largest democracy, it is obvious that the country desperately needs the benefits of technology to ensure food for the teeming millions - hardy crops, biofortifications and enhanced productions.

A survey study conducted in 2008, reported findings that GM vegetables would have a majority (60%) acceptance in India. Even the minority who have reservations about the potential risks are open to purchasing them at discounts. Why then did a resistance to bio-foods arise within four decades of the ‘green revolution’? Clearly there is need to dig deeper for reasons to explain the turnoff.

Next...the brand

The Epcot adventure

Florida is awash with sunshine when we land there. It is a stark contrast to New York/New Jersey and discarding the heavy wear is certainly a relief!



You can’t come to Florida and not visit Disneyland, the 80-year-old reasons, what will people think? She has done the rounds before, but memory sometimes fails, so we need to consolidate remembrances.

It’s actually far from where we are located, but we plan on adventure. We decide to take a bus ride, at six-thirty in the morning. The bus has air-conditioning and the set temperature is cold for us. We brave it as best we can, since fellow passengers are dressed for warm climes and nobody’s complaining.

It’s a five and half hours stretch with one change of bus. For the elderly it is far too long. It’s not a happy thought that we have to repeat the experience on the way back. Food and drink is banned on the bus, so there’s little to do other than watch the onboard film. Disneyland is a city in itself. The tour operators drop off passengers at the various pavilions, so the distance seems to be never-ending.

Some passengers have brought valises; they’re going to stay over. We have opted for a day’s tour and it seems a mistake. But then we hear voices raised agitatedly – a couple of the valises have been misplaced! From the conversation we realize that, in the region, Spanish is spoken far more than is English.

Eventually we’re asked to disembark at a parking lot. Remember the number painted on the ground, says the driver, and be here by six. I understand, but where’s Disneyland?

We have a bit more to go – by monorail. We find the station and mount the ramp to the rail. This is by far the best part of the journey. We have a fine aerial view of the lush green surroundings. All too soon we’re at Epcot, which we understand, is dedicated to science. Security means that everything we carry is opened and checked.

There is quite a crowd, and so the lines move slowly, ponderously at each of the pavilions. The aisles created have the queues meandering from one side to another for quite a while. It takes at least twenty minutes simply to reach the entrance. Sometimes you find that you need to wait a long time before the gates open for the next batch of visitors. For the very young and the very old the walking and the waiting can be difficult, hence the strollers and motorised chairs.

The surroundings are meticulously maintained. In fact, the plant-life have been arranged according to colour. The splashes of reds, blues, yellows makes pretty pictures to please the eye.

We’ve reached about mid-day and realize that time, for us, is short. We must condense our visit into four hours. We start with Spaceship Earth. We sit in pairs in the cars that will take us away. We find a closed circuit screen before us, that tells us the story of our future. Yes, our faces appear on cartoon characters that enact the futuristic us…

But alas! The spell is soon broken. As luck will have it, a mechanical glitch develops and we’re stranded in the dark. We’re told to stay put. But clearly the efforts to re-start the journey fail. After about half an hour of waiting and wondering we’re suddenly brought out again to the harsh reality that perhaps our spaceship failed to take off!



The 80-year-old remembers how exciting it had been the last time she visited. Science sadly, isn’t able to save the day this time! Still there is much to see and learn. Land examines the ground beneath our feet and is dedicated to human interactions with the earth. As The Diva team we participating in the exercise to ‘reduce, recycle, reuse and recover the resource from the trash we create’. We get a certificate of achievement for thinking green. We miss out on Soarin’ (waiting is 114 minutes), so head into the seaworld of Nemo and Friends.

But there are many other pavilions – country themes, like China, Mexico, and Norway that bring the culture and architecture of the region. Ellen’s (Degeneres) energy pavilion is a travel through time to how we get fuel today. There is Innoventions that shows new ways of doing things for the future, like making music simply by waving hands.

The Imagination pavilion is high on entertainment. Honey, I shrunk the audience is a 3D film you watch with special glasses. Its special effects include the illusion of rats running into the audience! The What If labs from Kodak help people’s interacting with camera technologies, large and small. But all too soon it’s time to go. Definitely to remember the next time that Disneyland is over 4000 acres in area, and it needs time to cover all that space!

Cont'd...