For those without a detailed familiarity with British comedy films of the 1950s and '60s, "Norman Wisdom" is the name of a comedian who portrays a farcically inept character. For a taste of Rohan's e-mail wit: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4435
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Eco Sounding
John Vidal
The Guardian, March 9, 2005
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1432926,00.html

Norman wisdom

Remember Rohan Prakash, the sweet 12-year-old son of Dr CS Prakash, director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University in the US? (UK web-based arch enemies GM Watch found itself on the wrong end of his bilious emails after it had the temerity to criticise dad). Some months ago, Rohan wrote a rap song in praise of Norman Borlaug, the great old exponent of biotech and the green revolution. Well, now we can actually hear him singing it. Here's a taster:

Raight out of Iowa Norman came,
Then travelled the world, saw suffering and pain. Millions of people were starving, yo in Pakistan, India, Mexico.
Norman found the great solution,
Known as the Green Revolution.

Hear the whole ghastly thing on
http://www.agbioworld.org

Trickle-down factor

One of the most intriguing court cases in years opened in New York on Monday. More than 100 Vietnamese affected by the chemical defoliant Agent Orange in the war against the US have started a lawsuit against 30 of the companies that made it. Among them are the Dow Chemical Company - whose factory in the Indian city of Bhopal exploded in 1984, killing thousands in one of the worst ever cases of industrial pollution - and Monsanto, now the world's leading GM company. Just to remind people: US forces sprayed an estimated 90m litres of herbicides, including Agent Orange, on the country between 1962 and 1971 to deny food and jungle cover to the Vietnamese communists. But the chemical remained in the water and soil decades later. Agent Orange is blamed for severe birth defects in Vietnam. Some babies were born with two heads or without eyes or arms.

Chinese puzzle

Friends of the Earth and publishers HarperCollins have teamed up for a new book called Save Cash and Save the Environment. ("At last," gushes celeb Jonathan Ross, "becoming a domestic eco warrior has never been so easy!") The interesting thing is that it is published on "100% post consumer waste" paper, which is about as good as it gets. This is a big change from only a few months ago, when Greenpeace visited HarperCollins to try to persuade them to print all their books on similar paper, but got the brush-off. Meanwhile, a new Thames & Hudson book called The Eco Design Handbook ("No style-conscious household should be without it" - Sainsbury's mag) has been printed locally in China on paper from a Swedish mill "which has a tradition of environmental responsibility". Hmmm.