News & Blues 6/9

In the U.S., He’d Get a Bonus

A North Korean firing squad executed Pak Nam-gi, 77, the ruling
Workers’ Party’s finance chief, after currency reforms he implemented
damaged the country’s already ailing economy. He was accused of being “a
son of a bourgeois conspiring to infiltrate the ranks of
revolutionaries to destroy the national economy,” a South Korean news
agency reported. The reform wiped out the savings of well-off North
Koreans who had managed to save money earned from international trading
and caused widespread hoarding and even starvation as food prices
soared. (Britain’s The Guardian)

More Woes

Scientists warned that methane gas bubbling up from a long-frozen
seabed north of Siberia “could trigger abrupt climate warming.” Their
study, reported in the journal Science, said about 8 million tons
of methane a year—equivalent to the annual total previously estimated
from all of the world’s oceans—were seeping from vast stores long
trapped under permafrost. “Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be
an impermeable cap,” said Natalia Shakhova of the University of
Fairbanks, Alaska, a co-leader of the study. She noted current methane
concentrations in the Arctic are the highest in 400,000 years.

Downplaying the threat, Martin Heimann of Germany’s Max Planck
Institute for Biogeochemistry, said the Arctic emissions have been
occurring since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago. He insisted that the
release of 8 million tons of methane a year was “negligible,” compared
with current global emissions of about 440 million tons. (Reuters)

WWJE?

Artistic depictions of the Last Supper have increased the sizes of
plates and portions in the past thousand years, reflecting people’s
tendency to overeat and gain weight, according to a study by brothers
Brian Wansink, a Cornell University professor, and Craig Wansink, who
teaches religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College. After analyzing
52 paintings of the Last Supper, the researchers found that the size of
the main meal has progressively grown 69 percent, plate size has
increased 66 percent and bread size has increased 23 percent. 

“The last thousand years have witnessed dramatic increases in the
production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food,”
said Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. “We
think that as art imitates life, these changes have been reflected in
paintings of history’s most famous dinner.” (Reuters)

Irony Illustrated

Authorities investigating the death of Anthony Rankin, 26, said he
was shot at his Atlanta, Ga., home during an argument with his wife of
five days, Arelisha Bridges, 45, who is a registered lobbyist for a
group fighting domestic violence. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Nature’s Bounty

The Utah Legislature approved a measure to allow citizens to collect
rainwater for their personal use. The state has prohibited rainwater
harvesting for decades. The bill requires Utahns collecting rainwater to
register with the state and limits the collection to 2,500 gallons,
which must be stored in an approved, standardized container. (Associated
Press)

News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To contribute,
submit original clippings, citing date and source, to Roland Sweet in
care of The New Times.