Vanguard Blog

On my long transatlantic flight this week, I managed to catch up on a movie I’d been meaning to see for some time. It usually takes flying to force me to commit to watching anything on the screen for more than 20 minutes. So between a couple short naps I finally watched Transformers 2. Though the movie was lame, I’d been reminded of how much I loved the Transformers as a kid. I grew up wanting to be an evil Decepticon who wreaked havoc on humankind. (Just seemed more fun than to be a friendly Autobot.)

So I guess it was my childhood fascination with cartoon robots that fueled my interest in the idea of a robot takeover of Japan. And while that is far from being an even exaggerated reality, we’re surely seeing a growing number of them pop up in Japan. For a number of reasons Japan’s population is in decline: xenophobia, women are choosing to pursue careers and saying no to marriage, the Japanese aren’t having sex (no explanation).

And so, robots seem to be the solution — in a very odd Japanese way — to the shrinking workforce that’s threatening Japan’s economic vitality.

Since I did my story in Japan there’s been a slew of new robots, including a robot fashion model, scary horror movie child robots, jumping robots, even a sex robot (you can google that one on your own). How these robots –except perhaps the last one — address population decline, I’m not sure. But they’re fun distractions I suppose. Perhaps they’re not alone, though…because now, we’re starting to see robots invade other nations. This just might be the oddest one yet. Enter the shopping mall robot guide in the UAE.

Japan: Robot Nation (Video)

Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- Why Should You Trust Us? – Mitch Koss
- My Second Tour of Sri Lanka – Mariana van Zeller
- Chinese Mobsters and Megacities – Joanne Shen
- The world: A dangerous place for do-gooders – Kaj Larsen
- The world: A dangerous place for reporters – Darren Foster
- Sometimes that which seemed impossible actually comes to pass – Mitch Koss

Tonight, Vanguard premieres The Forest of Ecstasy at 10pm ET/ 10pm PT on Current. Not too long before our trip, I’d bought myself a new digital SLR camera to satisfy my then-newfound passion for still photography. (Some photos below)  As I go through the hundreds of photos I took during our trip, I’m reminded of all the moments and experiences my colleague Joanne and I experienced during our trip to Cambodia.

While the ecstasy trade, and its impact on Cambodia’s rainforest was one of the main focuses of our trip, this was just one of many many stories that caught our attention. In her blog entry, Joanne touches upon how the drug trade has overrun the heretofore vulnerable nation – today, mostly in the form of meth.

In the mid-late 70s, Cambodia was run by a genocidal regime, known as the Khmer Rouge. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over the country, and declared the beginning of Year Zero – and all cultural institutions and traditions were to be wiped. Essentially, the nation would hit the restart button, and only new revolutionary ideas would hold.

These guys were responsible for killing nearly 1/5 of the nation’s population, wiping out entire classes of intellectuals and professionals, and instituting an entirely socialized, agrarian society.
During the campaign of terror, the country was essentially hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world. This isolation would outlast the regime itself, which was driven from power in 1979. Ongoing violence and instability kept much of the rest of the world from wanting to engage, or do any business in this dangerous country.

Drugs, like many other legal products, are part of international business. Cambodia’s instability proved to be too risky for the drug traffickers, who steered clear. So even though the country sat in a region known for massive flows of drugs, Cambodia was entirely drug free.

In the years since the Khmer Rouge have lost power and melted away, Cambodia has begun to rejoin and re-engage with the world. This has meant increased trade with its neighbors. And now, the drugs are flowing in, in massive amounts.

Drug pushers are finding Cambodia to be rich, fertile ground for the proliferation and sale of drugs. Meth has proven to be particularly viral for this broken population. At the same time, those who are resource-hungry are also finding Cambodia ripe for exploitation. Like the forests full of the ecstasy precursors and the exotic animals deep inside.

Unfortunately for Cambodia, this is what democracy, the ideals of freedom, and trade have brought. Development has been extremely positive for Cambodia, and the nation is far better off than it was under the Khmer Rouge. But did liberty and freedom have to be so costly?

Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- A Geologist’s Analysis of the War in Afghanistan – Kaj Larsen
- Everything is connected: ecstasy, rainforests, and beyond – Adam Yamaguchi
- Street Hustlers, Militants, and Vanguard’s Mission – Mitch Koss
- Cambodia’s Coming Drug Crisis – Joanne Shen
- Preparing for armageddon in the year 2012 – Adrian Baschuk

Over the years, I’ve worked on a number of environmental stories that have taken me from one part of the globe to another — from Madagascar to China and all the way to Greenland.

For me, this entire journey has been a bit accidental. I’d never really considered myself to be truly “green” in any one way, but when I came to Current, I committed myself to doing stories of large global import. As I began mapping out the big stories that I felt needed to be told, many of them have happened to point back to the health of our planet.

This led me to the realization that everything is somehow tied to the environment. By simply paying attention, we can see and understand how most every action we take, nearly every product we consume, has an effect somewhere else in the world. That reaction may not be within sight – conveniently, it often isn’t – but somewhere, you can bet there’s a cost.

I began tossing around ideas about how best to illustrate that idea. Examples abound – like plastics accumulating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, electronic trash burning in an e-waste wasteland in China, or sushi’s acceptance as a global cuisine leading to an emptying of our oceans. My colleague found an unexpected, nearly grotesque example.

Ecstasy.

A few months ago,  Joanne Shen and I traveled to Cambodia to see how the global demand for ecstasy was helping drive the destruction of what was amongst the most pristine, intact rainforests in Southeast Asia. It’s a great example of how the demand for various goods can, and often has, massive, reverberating effects halfway around the world. These ‘ecstasy hunters’ are burrowing deep into the forest to obtain safrole oil, the precursor to MDMA, or ecstasy. This is the crucial ingredient for the drug.

In “The Forest of Ecstasy” you’ll see me trudge through the rainforest in search of a rare tree that’s being cut down for its high quantities of the essential oil. And we came across safrole oil ‘factories’ in the middle of the forest, extracting and refining the oil before it’s sent out to become the ecstasy pill. The damage doesn’t end there. As the guys create roads into the forest, they’re paving the roads open for poachers looking for the wildlife bounty inside. It’s a chain reaction caused by club kids looking for a good time.

I’m not suggesting we stop doing all the things we do in any given day, or stop consuming the things that have become ‘necessities’ in our lives. But a greater level of awareness just might make you think a bit more about the choices you have to make.

The world is far more connected than you might imagine.

The “Forest of Ecstasy” airs tonight Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 10/9c on Current TV. For more information, visit Vanguard on Current.com.

These days, I don’t have very much time to do much of anything but scurrying about and working. And, as much as I dislike going through airport security, or waking up at 3:30 to make early morning flights, or the poor service on most carriers, I’ve come to enjoy the calm of flying.

It’s become my rare refuge from the barrage of phone calls and emails that stop me in my tracks every few minutes. It’s become that rare window where I can catch up on my growing stack of newspapers and magazines. And best of all, it’s become my time to catch up on TV.

Apparently, I really haven’t been missing much. An endless parade of reality shows, boring docs, a taped newscast featuring annoyingly enunciating anchors turned me away.

The one bright spot might be Top Chef, which has recently become one of my new favorite shows. My version of cooking involves eating out every night, so watching the show is pushing me to want to learn how to cook. I feel like I want to be a more refined version of myself, and it’s aspirational.

But again , most of the TV lineup is mindless drivel. VH1’s ‘celebreality’ was amusing for a minute, and then sunk to depressing. I tuned away, strangely feeling better about myself for not being one of the people on those shows. Maybe that’s the point.

And I think that’s why I’m so excited to be working with the Vanguard family. We happen to think there’s an audience that’s yearning for something better, something smarter. It’s my hope that upon watching a Vanguard episode, you come away entertained, fulfilled and have knowledge in context. And ultimately, more interested in learning and being an engaged member of society.