If anyone doubts there is a well-coordinated, well-funded assault on science in America that is designed to fool people, look no further than this plan.

The confidential strategy memo advises using “subversion” to build a national movement of people protesting wind farms.

Sound silly? Any time money is behind a science issue it can become politicized. Consider 1920s Germany. Right-wing activists put money behind the crazy idea that Einstein’s special theory of relativity would lead to moral decay. They called it “Jewish science” and “a hoax” and said Einstein was in it for the money. Sound familiar?

“This world is a strange madhouse,” Einstein wote a friend at the time. “Currently every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation.”

The ATI propaganda plan was discussed at a meeting of 30 of these so-called ‘wind warriors,’ hand-picked by the plan’s author, ATI senior fellow John Droz Jr., in Washington D.C. last February.

“These documents show for the first time that local Nimby (Not In My Back Yard) anti-wind groups are co-ordinating and working with national fossil-fuel funded advocacy groups to wreck the wind industry,” said Gabe Elsner, co-director of Checks and Balances, the accountability group which unearthed the proposal, in an interview with the Guardian.

The propaganda campaign calls for a national PR effort to cause “subversion in message of industry so that it effectively becomes so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it.”

This is similar to the strategy used to demolish “cap and trade,” turning it into a epithet during the 2010 climate bill debate in Congress. This “concept murder” happened to the dismay of conservative economists like former George W. Bush chief economic advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin, who saw cap and trade, which was invented by conservatives, as the best conservative tool to battle top-down, command-and-control environmental regulations. Holtz-Eakin says conservatives have forgotten that, and lost their roots. “They’ve taken positions that are divorced from any reality on the policy and from their own history,” he told me. “We don’t want to go back to the old, big-government approach of one size fits all of the 1970s,” he said. “Conservatives need to figure out what they stand for. Is it just the highest bidder, or are there principles in there that mean something? I’ve always felt it’s in their political interest to not deny the science, that’s where the votes of the future are.”

The propaganda plan goes much further than cap-and-trade opponents did in its efforts to fool the American public. It suggests creating “dummy businesses” to purchase billboards, much like the recent notorious Heartland Institute billboard, which was featured on Clear Channel space.

The plan also suggests creating a “counter-intelligence branch” to track the wind energy industry, and it recommends spending $750,000 to create a 501(c)(3) “nonprofit” with paid staff, much like the Heartland Institute, ATI, Americand for Prosperity, and other propaganda mouthpieces for the energy industry, and is dedicated to “constructively influence national and state wind energy policies” by building public opposition to the wind energy industry.

Subversion, propaganda, and fooling the public are nothing new to ATI’s associates. During the 2010 elections, the Montana Commission of Political Practices found that ATI’s parent organization, WTP/ATP, broke state campaign laws by failing to register as a political committee or report its donors and spending.

The state suggested WTP/ATP was involved in corruption and money laundering. They found that it solicited unlimited contributions to support candidates and then passed them through a “sham organization,” similar to the “dummy businesses” suggested in the new propaganda plan. The sham organization was the Bozeman-based political action committee The Coalition for Energy and the Environment that ran attack ads against Democrats. WTP told corporations that it aimed to combat “radical environmentalists” and “beat them at their own game” and that their contributions would remain secret. This view is similar to the radicalized view of mainstream scientists, federal science agencies, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences adopted by the Heartland Institute, who compared them on its widely discredited billboards to “murderers and madmen.”

The propaganda plan says its “broader possible goal is to constructively influence national and state energy and environmental policies.”

Get Shawn Lawrence Otto’s new book: Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, “One of the most important books written in America in the last decade.” Starred Kirkus Review; Starred Publishers Weekly review. Visit him at http://www.shawnotto.com. Like him on Facebook. Join ScienceDebate.org to get the presidential candidates to debate science.

Each of us can help protect these gentle yet jeopardized animals

The Humane Society of the United States

Turtles are one of the most endearing and symbolic of America’s native wildlife. Turtles not only fascinate each generation of children, who find endless wonders under those hard shells, but they also continue to serve as a timeless role model in children’s literature: the slow and steady turtle, whose patient progress always wins out against a fast but feckless competitor.

Yet our connection to turtles hasn’t prevented humans from abusing the creatures. In fact, many land, freshwater, and sea turtles are facing imminent threats to their survival because of human activities. Turtles are substantially affected by habitat loss and the pet trade, not to mention the food and traditional medicine industries. Many turtle species also suffer from the effects of pollution as well as from the destructive effects of industrial fishing operations.

Despite these hardships, May is a busy month for turtles. Many have recently emerged from winter hibernation and are beginning their search for mates and nesting areas. For this reason, May 23 was designated World Turtle Day.

World Turtle Day was initiated in 2000 by the American Tortoise Rescue, a turtle and tortoise rescue organization founded in 1990 in Malibu, California. The group brings attention to turtle conservation issues and highlights ways each of us can help protect these gentle but jeopardized animals. In the spirit of World Turtle Day, we at The HSUS also have suggested actions you can take to honor these fascinating creatures.

Sea Turtles

The seven species of sea turtles are among the most endangered animals on earth. Their survival is seriously threatened by destructive industrial fishing operations such as longlining and shrimp trawling. Fishing nets and lines pulled through the oceans accidentally snare and kill countless sea turtles each year. Nesting habitat is also disappearing at an alarming rate as beach-front development flourishes. And although many local, national, and international laws protect them from trade, sea turtles continue to be collected for their eggs, meat, and shells.

Despite the many threats, there is hope for sea turtles. You can join the many individuals and groups working to make the world’s oceans a safer place for one of their oldest inhabitants.

Turtle Excluder Devices and Longlining

Steps are also being taken to limit the harmful effect fishing practices have on sea turtles. Many in this industry want to help protect endangered sea turtles, and they work alongside government organizations and protection groups to develop fishing techniques that reduce sea turtle injury and mortality. As a result of this work, the National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency within the Department of Commerce, issued regulations in 2003 requiring that fishing operations in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico use larger turtle excluder devices to allow bulkier sea turtles such as the loggerhead and leatherback to escape fishing nets. Larger TEDs are not the perfect solution, though. Some sea turtles die from injuries caused by TED gear failures and from being captured and released numerous times, so alternatives are being developed.

Turtles as Pets

Turtles are the most popular pet reptile. In 2007, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, about 1.1 million American households kept at least one turtle as a pet – about the same as the number with lizards and snakes combined. Data from the American Pet Product Manufacturers Association show an even higher number of households with pet turtles. The price of this pet ownership, at least for the animals, is high: Over-collection of turtles for the pet trade has harmed wild turtle populations in the United States and abroad. Captive breeding doesn’t solve the problem. Thousands of turtles perish during capture and shipping. Of those who survive, thousands more die because they do not receive proper care.

Often people who buy turtles don’t realize how difficult they are to care for, nor do they know that turtles pose a threat to human health because the reptiles carry Salmonella bacteria. The bacteria can cause severe and possibly life-threatening illness, especially in young children. In 2007, a 2-year-old Florida girl died from Salmonella that was traced back to a pet turtle. Because of the health risks, selling small turtles is illegal, but many are sold illegally.

The Turtle Trade

Throughout the world, the number of turtle species that have become critically endangered has increased due to their popularity in the food and traditional medicine trade. Turtles are exported from the United States in vast numbers—35 million turtles were exported just from 2000 to 2002.

The majority were freshwater turtles destined for Southeast Asia to supply the growing food markets. Because many wild turtle populations in Asia have been decimated by over-collection, dealers have begun targeting U.S. turtle populations to meet Asian market demands.

Fortunately, states are responding to this threat to their natural resources. In 2003, North Carolina prohibited the harvest of freshwater turtles. In 2007, Texas prohibited the commercial harvest of turtles from public waters. In 2008, Oklahoma enacted a three-year moratorium on the commercial harvest of turtles from public waters. In 2009, Florida prohibited commercial harvest of freshwater turtles and South Carolina enacted protections for nine native species, prohibiting the removal of more than 10 turtles from the wild at a time and more than 20 in a year.

In addition to conservation concerns, turtles in the food trade are treated with little or no regard as living creatures.

Pollution and Development

Habitat loss is a serious threat to all turtle populations.The gopher tortoise, for instance, is declining throughout its range, particularly in Florida, primarily because of development. In 2007, Florida stopped issuing permits that allowed developers to bury gopher tortoises alive during construction. Instead, developers are working with The Humane Society of the United States and others to relocated these treasured animals. Development along coastlines reduces suitable nesting habitats for sea turtles. Refuse, such as discarded plastic bags and balloons, causes suffocation, strangulation, or blocked digestive tracts in turtles. Pollution, in the form of hazardous chemicals and garbage, further limits suitable habitats for turtles and causes illness and death in many land, freshwater, and sea turtles.

A study conducted by the Canadian Wildlife Services at three sites in the Great Lakes region found deformities in male snapping turtles, believed to be the result of chemical pollution. Young turtles in the region also showed other biological abnormalities including impaired thyroid function.

Sea turtle populations near areas of intense human activity are suffering from the deadly disease Fibropapilloma, which may be caused by chemical pollution. It is believed that nearly half of all green sea turtles off the coast of Hawaii are infected with this disease and will perish from it.

World Turtle Day is an annual opportunity to reflect on the myriad of threats facing turtles and tortoises and what we can do to protect them.

Sick From Fracking? Doctors, Patients Seek Answers

Kay Allen had just started work, and everything seemed quiet at the Cornerstone Care community health clinic in Burgettstown, Pa. But things didn’t stay quiet for long.

“All the girls, they were yelling at me in the back, ‘You gotta come out here quick. You gotta come out here quick,’ ” said Allen, 59, a nurse from Weirton, W.Va.

Allen rushed out front and knew right away what all the yelling was about. The whole place reeked — like someone had spilled a giant bottle of nail polish remover.

“I told everybody to get outside and get fresh air. So we went outside. And Aggie said, ‘Kay, I’m going to be sick.’ But before I get in, to get something for her to throw up in, she had to go over the railing,” she said.

Nothing like this had ever happened in the 20 years that Allen has been at the clinic. After about 45 minutes, she thought the coast was clear and took everyone back inside.

“It was fine. But the next thing you know, they’re calling me again. There was another gust. Well, the one girl, Miranda, she was sitting at the registration place, and you could tell she’d had too much of it. And Miranda got overcome by that and she passed out,” she said.

‘It’s The Unknown I Think That’s The Scariest Thing’

This sort of thing has been happening for weeks. Mysterious gusts of fumes keep wafting through the clinic.

Science And The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers

Explore key components of the natural gas production process — and the questions scientists are asking.

NPRView Interactive

In fact, just the day before being interviewed by NPR, Allen suddenly felt like she had been engulfed by one of these big invisible bubbles.

“And all of a sudden your tongue gets this metal taste on it. And it feels like it’s enlarging, and it just feels like you’re not getting enough air in, because your throat gets real ‘burn-y.’ And the next thing I know, I … passed out,” Allen said.

Half a dozen of Allen’s co-workers stopped coming in. One old-timer quit. No one can figure out what’s going on. For doctors and nurses used to taking care of sick people, it’s unnerving to suddenly be the patients.

“It’s the unknown I think that’s the scariest thing,” she said.

Richard Rinehart, who runs the rural clinic, can’t help but wonder whether the natural gas drilling going on all around the area may have something to do with what’s been happening.

“I lay in bed at night thinking all kinds of theories. Is something coming through the air from some process that they’re using? I know they use a lot of chemicals and so forth. Certainly that could be a culprit. We’re wondering, Is something coming through the ground?” Rinehart said, noting that he’d just noticed a new drill on a hill overlooking the back of the clinic.

Now, no one knows whether the gas drilling has anything to do with the problems at the clinic. It could easily turn out to be something completely unrelated. There’s a smelting plant down the road and old coal mines everywhere.

“Anything could be possible, and we just are trying to get to the root of it,” he said.

Mysterious Symptoms, Lots Of Questions

People living near gas well drilling around the country are reporting similar problems, plus headaches, rashes, wheezing, aches and pains and other symptoms.

state impact

Shale Play: Natural Gas Drilling in Pennsylvania

Doctors like Julie DeRosa, who works at Cornerstone, aren’t sure how to help people with these mysterious symptoms.

“I don’t want to ignore symptoms that may be clues to a serious condition. I also don’t want to order a lot of unnecessary tests. I don’t want to feed any kind of hysteria,” DeRosa said.

To try to figure out what’s going on, the clinic called the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which is investigating. It also started testing the air for chemicals, monitoring wind direction around the clinic and keeping diaries of everyone’s symptoms. In addition, the clinic contacted Raina Rippel, project director for the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project.

The local nonprofit was set up recently to help people in this kind of situation. Her team tested tap water from inside a men’s room and from a stream out back.

Rippel says she knows people in the area have a lot of questions: “Is my water fit to drink? Is the air fit to breathe? Am I going to suffer long-term health impacts from this?”

Connecting Experts In Search Of Answers

To try to answer these questions, her project is connecting doctors and patients with toxicologists, occupational health doctors, environmental scientists and other experts.

“People go from physician to physician, because ‘nobody seemed to be able to treat this awful rash that I have,’ or ‘nobody seemed to be able to deal with my gastrointestinal pain that I have.’ And so they go from place to place, trying to find someone who can do that,” said David Brown, a toxicologist who helped set up the project.

The project is also starting to educate doctors about what kinds of tests they can try and what kinds of advice to give. In addition, a nurse practitioner visits and counsels people who are sick.

Dr. Sean Porbin, a private doctor who advises the project, gives the project’s nurse practitioner advice when she needs it. But Porbin is skeptical that many people are getting sick from the drilling, which is commonly called “fracking.” There are about 5,000 new wells in Pennsylvania.

“If it’s true, you’d expect people dropping all over the place based on the amount of fracking that’s going on here. You would look around and see people dropping like flies. It’s not the case. I don’t see anybody affected. And it’s not for a lack of looking,” he said.

Porbin, who like a lot of people in the area has leased some of his land for drilling, wants to make sure no one’s missing more mundane explanations — like Lyme disease, sinus infections and migraines.

“We have an old saying in medicine: When you hear hoof beats, you don’t think zebras — you think horses,” he said.

Lots Of Anecdotes, Little Evidence

The natural gas industry says there’s no evidence the drilling is causing health problems.

Public health experts say the only way anyone is going to really know whether the drilling is making people sick is to do some big studies.

“There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence out there. And so a well-conducted study looking at a number of communities could help us better understand if there’s an impact, what its magnitude [is], how we should avoid having that impact if there is one,” said Christopher J. Portier, director of the National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Explore Shale: Go deep inside the natural gas drilling process – and how it’s regulated – in this interactive from Penn State Public Broadcasting.

In the meantime, patients and doctors don’t have a lot of options. In western Pennsylvania, a lot of them are referred to Charles Werntz at West Virginia University. Werntz, an occupational medicine specialist, is used to dealing with chemical exposures. Lately, he’s seeing more people who live near the drilling.

But for now, he says he can’t really do much more than offer basic advice: Drink bottled water, air out the house, leave your shoes outside. If it’s still too bad, move — if possible.

“It is frustrating. As a physician, I like it when somebody can come to me with a problem and I can help them solve the problem. Whether it’s through a specific treatment or, you know, whatever. And this is frustrating, because in this case, the treatment is to get away from the exposure. And that’s hard to do,” Werntz said.

Back at Cornerstone, Rinehart just wants to get back to taking care of patients.

“We are in the business of trying to improve and maintain the public’s health here. And now we are in the throes of it. And we’re trying not to point fingers,” Rinehart said.

The next day, people got sick again, and the clinic had to be evacuated once more. So they’ve moved the clinic to temporary offices until someone figures out what’s going on.

Wednesday on Morning Edition, NPR’s Jon Hamilton will report on researchers who think they have a good shot at answering whether drilling is making people sick.

Bats are essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems. Most bats eat huge amounts of insects, including farm pests and many of the nasty bugs that harass outdoor gatherings. You’ll also enjoy learning more about bats as you watch them come and go from the home you provided.

• If you’re building your houses, use a combination of exterior grade plywood and cedar. Don’t use pressure-treated wood. Be sure to caulk all seams.
• Make sure your bat houses are at least two feet tall, 14 or more inches wide, with a three- to six-inch landing area that extends below the entrance.
• Any number of roosting chambers will work, but having more is better.
• Place roost partitions 3/4 to one inch apart.
• Roughen all landing areas. Scratch wood surfaces horizontally or cover them with durable plastic screening.
• Build vents six inches from the bottoms of all houses.
• Remove wasp nests in late winter or early spring before wasps or bats return.
• Build or buy open-bottomed houses so birds, mice, squirrels and parasites are less likely to set up camp, and so guano does not accumulate.
• If your area gets average high temperatures in July of 80 degrees or less, your bat houses should get at least 10 hours of sun and should be painted black.
• You’ll need less direct sunlight – about six hours a day – if your average high temperatures in July average less than 100 degrees, but more than 80 degrees. In the 85 to 95 degree range, paint the bat house dark brown or gray. If your July temperatures usually hover around 95 to 100 degrees, paint the bat house medium or light colors.

Free Bat House Plans

Visit your local Agway where you’ll find everything you need, year-round, for your home, lawn, garden, farm, pet and wild birding needs. Be sure to check back to www.agway.com for more information, projects and tips.

The federal government has decided not to list Atlantic bluefin tuna as an endangered species. No, this is not the chunky tuna you mix with mayonnaise for sandwiches. We’re talking about huge, majestic fish that are caught, shipped off for top dollar to places like Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market, sliced up, and sold around the world as high-end sushi.

Last year, an environmental group called the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare this fish an endangered species because the population now is perhaps 20 percent of what it once was.

A single fish can sell for over $100,000, and fishermen have gone after them aggressively. Quotas have been set by an international body. But until recently, it simply ignored the advice of its own scientists, and allowed the fish to be caught at an unsustainable rate.

Adding insult to injury, the Altantic bluefin spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico were in the path of last year’s BP oil spill. That raised concerns that many of the young fish — which emerge from eggs as tiny larvae — could have been killed by the oil. NOAA scientists say that in 2010 they measured only a modest decline in fish-larvae populations in the Gulf of Mexico. But some of that survey occurred before the spill, so they don’t yet have a full picture of how the spill affected the tuna.

NOAA officials say that they have named the Atlantic bluefin tuna as a “species of concern,” which means they will pay it extra attention. Officials hope tighter international fishing rules, established last November, will be enough to allow this species to recover. And NOAA said it would reconsider the request to list the species as threatened or endangered in 2013.

Listing the fish as endangered would have restricted fishing in U.S. waters, and by U.S. fishermen in international waters. But it would not address the aggressive fishing off the shores of Europe, and that has been driving most of the decline of this species.

The Harvard School of Public Health recommends eating oily fish rich in Omega-3 fatty acids like tuna twice a week, in part because it’s good for the heart.

But the Center for Biological Diversity wants consumers to boycott bluefin to take pressure off the species, and has even gone after sushi restaurants in Las Vegas that serve the tender slivers of meat.

So what’s an environmentally conscious sushi lover to do? Check the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guide for sushi that tastes good and is OK to eat. As an alternative to bluefin, the aquarium recommends albacore tuna (shiro maguro), saying “it tastes similar and is a best choice when troll caught in the US or Canada.”

Ann Batdorf/Smithsonian Institution via APTai Shan on his first birthday. The panda was conceived in 2005 through artificial insemination in a procedure performed by National Zoo scientists and veterinarians.

The star resident of the National Zoo is leaving Washington next week. Four-year-old Tai Shan will board the “FedEx Panda Express” to Chengdu, China.

On Thursday, Tai Shan will load himself into a large steel crate — he’s been trained to do it on command — and be taken to a Boeing 777 freighter waiting for him at Dulles International Airport. From there, it’s a nonstop, 14 1/2-hour flight to Chengdu.

Tai Shan tears into a bamboo-and-beet birthday cake on his fourth birthday. His name means “peaceful mountain” in Chinese.

He’s not the first panda to be FedExed; the company brought Tai Shan’s parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, to the United States in 2000. Nor will he be traveling alone — Mei Lan, a 3-year-old panda from Atlanta, will be sharing the flight.

“We’ve had a good, cooperative relationship with FedEx. They often ship animals safely for us,” says Donald Moore, the associate director at the National Zoo’s Office of Animal Care. The company is even shipping the pandas free, Moore tells NPR’s Audie Cornish.

Zoo officials announced in December that Tai Shan would be sent to China for breeding. He has been one of the biggest attractions at the zoo since his birth in 2005, but he is the property of China.

All giant pandas outside China are actually on loan from the country. The panda is China’s national symbol, and the nation’s semi-official “panda diplomacy” — lending pandas abroad as a sign of goodwill — goes back to the days of the Cold War.

Once Tai Shan lands in Chengdu, he’ll be under the care of China’s panda breeding centers, Moore says. “He’ll help to save his own species.”

Courtesy of Elizabeth AndohThe fresh bamboo shoots are boiled in water, along with rice bran flour, or nuka, to neutralize toxins and chilies to add spice and prevent spoilage.

Makes about 2 1/2 pounds

2 or 3 small fresh bamboo shoots, 2 1/2 pounds total weight

1/3 cup dried rice bran powder (nuka)*

2 small dried whole Asian chili peppers (the Japanese one is called tōgarashi)*

*Available at Asian markets.

With a kitchen brush, scrub away any earth that may still be clinging to the shoots. Peel away and discard a few of the tough, darker outer leaves, rinsing away any soil that may be trapped between the layers. Cut off a sliver on the diagonal from the very top of each shoot, exposing an elliptical pattern of concentric rings.

Trim the base with a straight cut, removing a circular slice about 1/8 inch thick. Lay the shoot on a cutting board upright, with the tip at top and the base at bottom. Holding the shoot securely to keep it from rolling about, make a shallow slash lengthwise, from the narrow tip to the wider base. Do not cut the shoot in half. You want to slash it only, which will permit better circulation of moist heat during cooking (and make peeling easier later on).

Place the bamboo shoots in a deep pot and add the rice bran, chili peppers and enough water to cover. Ideally, the shoots will fit snugly in the bottom of the pot, with plenty of headroom. Top with a colander turned upside down to keep the shoots submerged in the bubbling liquid.

EnlargeLaura McCandlish for NPRPeeling back the outer leaves of the bamboo shoot reveals the delicate champagne-colored inner leaves (top left). The shoots are sliced vertically after they’re boiled and cooled.

Place the pot over medium heat, bring the water to a boil and adjust the heat to maintain a steady simmer. Do not let it boil vigorously. Cook the shoots for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a skewer or wooden toothpick meets no resistance as it passes through the core. Remove from the heat and allow the shoots to cool, lidded, in the cooking liquid.

When the shoots are cool enough to handle, lift them from the cooking liquid. Rinse away the excess rice bran under cold running water. Discard the liquid in the pot, and soak the pot in sudsy warm water for 30 minutes or more to make cleaning it easier.

Peel off each shoot’s tough outer leaves, saving the delicious pale champagne-colored layers just beneath. Next, shave off any large, pebbly bumps from the outer surface of the shoot’s broad base. Stand the shoot upright, measure about 3/4 inch from the bottom, and slice it off horizontally. Cut this base section in half vertically to expose a pattern of horizontal ledges and hollows inside. Try to remove any white, chalky material (not harmful to eat) caught in the hollows between the ledges.

Turn your attention to the tapered portion of the shoot that remains. Separate it into the tip (the top 1/2 inch or so) and the midsection. Now the shoots are ready to use in recipes.

Andoh calls for cutting the soup’s vegetables into paper-thin sen-giri (“one-thousand slices”) strips. Unlike Western up-and-down chopping that flexes the wrist, this Japanese knife technique keeps the wrist steady as the forearm pushes forward, making thread-thin slices. Stack the slices and repeat, pushing away, not down. I failed to cut the ingredients with Andoh’s precision and clouded the pure broth with more bamboo and snow peas than she indicated but still loved the umami-rich broth. Kelp stock requires advance preparation.

Makes 4 servings

2 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in 1 cup hot water for 30 minutes

1 sheet thin fried tofu*

Splash of sake

3 cups stock, preferably basic kelp stock but any bouillon is fine (recipe follows )

1 generous teaspoon light-colored soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 ounce boiled fresh bamboo shoots, cut into thread-thin strips, preferably from the bottom section

1 tablespoon shredded carrot, cut into thread-thin strips (see headnote)

2 or 3 snow peas, strings and stems removed, blanched for 1 minute, and cut into thread-thin strips on the diagonal (see headnote)

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

*Available in refrigerated or freezer section of Asian market.

Basic Kelp Stock

1 piece kombu*, about 1 1/2 inches wide by 4 inches long

4 cups water, preferably soft tap or filtered

*Dried kelp seaweed available at Asian or natural foods stores.

Place the kombu in a large glass jar. Pour in the water, and cover with a lid or plastic wrap. Covering the jar prevents surrounding odors from entering the stock and helps trap the good seashore aromas.

To extract the most flavor, allow the kombu to sit submerged in the water at room temperature for at least 30 minutes or up to 12 hours before using the stock. If you prefer to refrigerate the stock from the start, allow the kombu to soak for at least 8 hours or up to 48 hours before using the stock.

Remove the softened kombu from the jar after the flavor has been extracted from it (within 2 days). The stock can be kept, refrigerated, for 4 to 5 days before using.

For The Soup

Drain the mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid. Trim off the stems, rinse the caps to remove any gritty material and squeeze out the excess liquid. Slice the caps into thread-thin strips (see headnote) and set aside.

Bring a small saucepan filled with water to a boil (this can be the same water that was used to blanch the snow peas). Add the tofu and blanch for 30 seconds to remove excess oil, or until beads of oil float on the water’s surface. Drain the tofu, and when cool enough to handle, use paper towels to press out and blot away excess water and oil. Cut the tofu lengthwise into 3 or 4 strips, then cut crosswise into short, thin strips. Blot the strips again with paper towels.

Place a 3-quart pot over medium-high heat. Add the fried tofu and saute with the oil that still clings to it (even after pressing and blotting, some oil will remain). When the tofu is slightly browned and aromatic, add the shiitake strips and saute for 1 minute. Add the sake and deglaze the pot, stirring to dislodge any browned bits.

Add the mushroom liquid and the kombu stock and bring to a boil. Skim away any clouds of froth with a fine-mesh skimmer, then adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Season the broth with the soy sauce and salt. Add the bamboo shoot strips and simmer for 1 minute. Add the carrot strips and simmer for 30 seconds more. Skim away any froth.

Remove the pot from the heat, add the snow peas and immediately ladle into bowls. If possible, use 4 deep, lidded Japanese-style soup bowls, which will ensure the soup is served piping hot and will trap the aromas. Grind the pepper over the soup, lid the bowls and serve immediately.

‘Big Miracle’: A Whale Tale As The Cold War Wanes

When it’s mammal-saving time at the movies, the plot typically unfolds as a pitched battle between critter-loving gods and oil-drilling monsters. I wouldn’t call Ken Kwapis’ impish Big Miracle a radical departure from the rule. But it’s at least refreshing that, in this story of a struggle to save three stranded gray whales off the coast of Alaska, the universe divides into greater and lesser humans, every flawed one of them with a personal dog in the fight. (Oil barons are people too, right? Certainly if they’re repped by Ted Danson, a real-life environmentalist who’s having a ball playing the enemy, mostly with his eyebrows.)

Loosely based on Thomas Rose’s 1989 book about a real-life Reagan-era drama that gripped the public, fed the news cycle, and brought grist to the publicity mill for both pols and fat cats, Big Miracle tells the story of Barrow, Alaska’s struggle to free the whales from behind a thickening slab of ice that prevents them from making their annual migration to warmer climes.

Drew Barrymore, all grown up but still trailing E.T.‘s Gertie in her saucer eyes and her gift for the ill-considered blurt, plays Greenpeace activist Rachel Kramer, an arm-waving hothead with a self-defeating habit of ticking off the power brokers she needs on her side.

Among those on her hit list are Danson’s tycoon, who’s anxious to repair his tarnished image as an eco-killer; the National Guard (as embodied by Dermot Mulroney), which is only trying to help; and Rachel’s ex-boyfriend (John Krasinski), a TV reporter chasing the big story that will fast-track him out of this frozen backwater.

And that’s not counting the local Inuit leaders, who for once escape the noble-savage treatment usually afforded them in eco-Hollywood. The tribe has a survival stake in harvesting the whales; their elder (John Pingayak) is a quick study in how to manipulate the media, and his unavoidably cute grandson (Ahmaogak Sweeney) is a fan of Western pop as well as a budding tourism entrepreneur who sells cardboard warming devices to shivering townies at $40 a pop.

Big Miracle doesn’t have much of a plot, other than the comic escalation of interested parties who descend like vultures on the tiny town, hoping to convert the whales’ plight into all manner of capital. Given this vast human ensemble, it’s no wonder the beasts themselves, played by startlingly lifelike animatronic creatures built in New Zealand and shipped to Alaska, get edged out of the action. Aside from one lovely underwater sequence shot by the great cinematographer John Bailey, this carbuncled family of three mostly bobs up and down adorably in a square yard of frigid water, melting stony hearts by the score.

Darren Michaels/Universal PicturesMalik (John Pingayak, right), and his grandson Nathan (Ahmaogak Sweeney) each have a stake in the fate of the whales.

Unless you remember the Cold War, you’ll never guess who saves the day. Big Miracle is a family movie fitted with the usual appeals to multiple audiences, and though tots, teens and younger parents might find the action a little slow until the rescue pressure builds, the grandparents will enjoy it as a trip down media memory lane, complete with cut-in footage of an astonishingly young-looking Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings.

The back of Reagan’s head has a brief cameo, and there’s a death and a wedding that really happened. It may be stretching the truth to suggest that the whale rescue played a bit part in thawing the Cold War, but some of the funniest writing (by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler) is in Russian, and there’s a wonderfully stately action sequence that involves a Soviet ship head-butting a giant iceberg.

The longer Big Miracle goes on, the more it settles for an amiable communitarianism chased down by a PG group-hug finale. But when the excitement is over, everyone goes back to being very much the compromised souls they were before. And if you pay close attention to the old news clips at the end, you might catch a glimpse of an emergent persona, in the form of a comely fledgling television news reporter and future governor of Alaska, dewy with ambition and ready to roll.

Faced with losing their farm, a family changed their business model and now, two decades later, they sell more than 180 million organic eggs a year.

By Chad Brooks, BusinessNewsDaily

HEN PARTY: Jessie LaFlamme and family. (Photo: Pete & Gerry’s)