NOV 1 HUGE PROTESTS IN TIBET: NO ONE CARES

NOV 1 HUGE PROTESTS IN TIBET: NO ONE CARES

Hey...didja hear about those San Francisco Giants? Yeah...they're about to win their first WORLD SERIES in 55 years? Of course you've heard! Well, it's everywhere in the news. Hey...didja hear about these nasty elections? Yeah...there's been more negative ads and speeches than a Klu Klux Klan meeting? Of course you've heard! It's everywhere in the news. Hey...didja hear about those vicious protests in Tibet? Yeah...the Chinese are at it again, beating up defenseless monks with batons again. Oh you MISSED THAT! Of course you did! It's no where in the news.

Sorry about the rant...this is MONDAY BOB after all...anyhow...here's what's happening in Tibet: The Han government in Beijing recently announced that the Tibetan language will no longer be taught in grammar schools in the 'autonomous' region of Tibet. Instead, all classes will be conducted solely in Mandarin. Currently, most elementary schools are conducted in Tibetan and High Schools are taught in Chinese. This makes sense since both languages are needed for adults to function in the region. Tibetan is the language of the people, while Chinese is the language of the government. But to eliminate the teaching of Tibetan at the age when language skills develop the most is an unsettling development in a long history of strife between China and Tibet. Thousands have taken to the streets in protest.

Did I say LONG HISTORY? Okay, I'll make it a SHORT HISTORY. Since the average elevation of Tibet is 16,000 feet (higher than any place in the 48 contiguous states), it has remained pretty isolated from the rest of the world. The only real colonization of the Tibetan people occurred two thousand years ago, when Buddhist monks first visited. Over time, a unique form of the religion evolved into a theocracy, which would be led by men called the DALLI LAMA. The only nation to ever try to conquer the 'rooftop of the world' was, of course, China. A peace treaty signed in 824 stayed largely in effect until 1900's, when a slow, methodical annexation began to take place. While the US was able to halt, or at least slow, Chinese military aims in Korea and Vietnam, Tibet was not so lucky and became part of the People's Republic.

But the recent action by Beijing has clearly gone too far, and the fragile relationship between the two immense cultures has once again become inflamed. “Language is the foundation of Tibetan culture and this recent attack reveals the Chinese governments’ sinister attempt to assimilate Tibetans into Chinese society,” said Tenzin Choedon, national director of Students for a Free Tibet. Indeed, this recent incursion is much less subtle than the last event, which involved the new, direct train service between Lhasa and the Western metropolises. Tibetans worried it would result in a flood of Chinese people, commerce and culture. Beijing replied that Tibet must be the only place in the world to protest government funded train service. We'll let this one play out some more.

Instead, let's get back to the schools. Tibetan is the language of preference for some eight million people. It's also one of the world's oldest known languages, with it's own unique alphabet, which was loosely borrowed from Sanskrit a couple thousand years ago. It was one of the first languages to employ rules of grammar, which impressed the British when they first arrived here 300 years ago. “It is the inalienable right of every Tibetan to learn in their own language. We call on governments around the world to press the Chinese government to respect Tibetan language rights,” said Tenzin Dorjee, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet. But, as usual, only RICHARD GERE and a handful of Berkeley hippies with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers will take notice.

OCT 21 WORLD'S LONGEST TUNNEL OPENS

OCT 21 WORLD'S LONGEST TUNNEL OPENS

Workers, engineers, politicans and truckers all cheered under a sky of fireworks in the Southern Swiss city of Bodio this week. They had just finished the final bore through dense Alpine limestone, completing a decade of exhausting work by 2,500 workers from just about every single European nation. When other nations are cutting down on grand, expensive projects, Switzerland was able to hold her head high, and claim a superlative in the engineering world: Earth's longest tunnel! Long live the Gotthard!

Not that it was cheap to build. All in all, it took TEN BILLION DOLLARS to construct. But we must remember, it was approved in a series of ballot measures and complicated referendums, which began back in 1988 when people had money. Opposition at first was overpowering. Since the population of Switzerland is only eight million, it meant that every man, woman and child would have to pony up $1,300 to build the darn tunnel. But, the Swiss are rich, and politicians united the nation with one, hard-to-dispute simple fact. Whether you live in a tiny hamlet or in a Lake Geneva downtown chalet, the tunnel is good for the environment. And no one wants diesel fuel in the bottled alpine water.

When the original GOTTHARD TUNNEL was built, in 1888, it too was the longest tunnel in the world. It connected Zurich to Milan and opened up the heart of Switzerland to the outside world. It was hailed as an engineering milestone. But, over the last 130 years, the highways between Switzerland and Italy became a lot more crowded. Something like 1.2 million trucks spew heaps of exhaust as the twist and churn up the steep Alpine slopes on each side. The new tunnel will cut train travel time by 1.5 hours between Zurich and Milan as travelers will be swept under the Alps at 153.4 miles per hour! Since 70% of Switzerland's cargo is moved by rail, this will eliminate tons of waste.

So, for the time being, the Swiss have trumped the Japanese, whose SEIKAN tunnel, built in 1988, connects HONSHU with HOKAIDDO, Japan's two largest islands. But is was close: The Gotthard is 35.4 miles to the Seikan's 33.5 miles. But don't worry: You can still take the old route, made famous by such Alpine explorers as HANNIBAL and DUNER. It is one my favorite train routes on earth and highly recommended, no matter how much exhaust it takes.

OCT 13 IT'S GOOD TO BE A TRAPPED CHILEAN MINER

OCT 13 IT'S GOOD TO BE A TRAPPED CHILEAN MINER

If you haven't heard about the 33 trapped Chilean miners you must be stuck in an even deeper cave! But...since there is always one person who has no idea what I'm talking about...let's do a quick re-cap. Disaster struck the SAN JOSE MINE in the remote Andes mountains near Chile's ATACAMA DESERT. Shifting soils resulted an an underground avalanche some two thousand feet below the surface, trapping the workers underneath. For two weeks, there was no contact and the miners were feared dead. Then, using astounding SONAR technology, they were located. It took an army of engineers, but they were eventually rescued, surviving the longest known entrapment in history...a whopping 69 days!

It's true: There is something about being trapped in a bottomless pit, or a wishing well or a dragon's cave, that tugs at every one's heartstrings. Maybe it's a metaphor of endless despair. Or perhaps some deep fear we all have about being trapped, physically and mentally. But for whatever reason, everyone in the world was wondering what was going to happen to these 'troubled-thirty-three' miners. Hence, it came as no surprise that when the first miner appeared to see precious sunlight for the first time in three months, it quickly became one of the most watched items ever on the Internet.

And...if it is one of the most watched items on the Internet...everyone wants a piece of the action. So these miners, who three months ago were just 'Average Josés' who willing to risk their lives over $1,500 a month, are now worldwide celebrities. Don't believe me? Okay, upon arrival on the surface, they will need to wear sunglasses to protect their dilated pupils. So they will be given special, designer shades made and donated by an upscale Italian company and valued at $500 a pair. Next, they are handed checks, from dozens of companies around the world totalling $5,000 each. They can soothe their eardrums with new i-Pods signed by STEVE JOBS himself.

After a couple of days in hospital for checks and recovery, they will have to choose from a number of invitations. All 33 can go to a Greek Isle for two week's rest offered by a Greek travel consortium. SIR BOBBY CHALTON, the owner of famed soccer club MANCHESTER UNITED has invited the lads to a stay at OLD TRAFFLAR for front row seats at an upcoming match. (All the miners are big soccer fans!). One miner, EDISON PENA is a huge Elvis fan and requested his albums to pass the time. So it comes as no surprise the GRACELAND THEME PARK has invited him to Tennessee for a private tour.

Then, there are the gifts. The whole thing kind of feels like a game show. "Tell the audience what the trapped miners have won, Bob!" "Well, sure, Ted! In addition to the Greek and British holidays, our trapped miners will receive a year's worth of delicious Chilean wines, made from some of the oldest vines in the continent. They'll also enjoy the taste of SUSHI X, (a Japanese restaurant chain) who is giving each trapped miner a year's worth of FREE SUSHI. (Hope they don't deliver it all at once!). And then there's free beer, sodas and...of course...TURTLE WAX!"

Sorry, got carried away, just like FLO FROM PROGRESSIVE. Anyhow, perhaps the luckiest miner is VICTOR SEGOVIA, who from the first day forward, kept a written journal of the entire entrapment. As the only one to do so, this exclusive book has publishers salivating all across the world. Not to mention the TV interviews, exclusive tabloid reports and Internet chats. But my favorite has to be the endorsement offers. One is to plug drills and the other is for a sex aid vitamin. Hey...what were those guys doing down there???

OCT 5 OKTOBERFEST SETS CHICKEN EATING RECORD

OCT 5 OKTOBERFEST SETS CHICKEN EATING RECORD

Yesterday, the mightiest of German festivals, OKTOBERFEST, officially came to a close. And this year's fest set some pretty impressive accomplishments. As always, those meticulous Germans love to make annual announcements about each year's OKTOBERFEST. And, as always, the figures are amazingly accurate. In 2010, 66,436 hectolitres (what is that?) of beer were drank, 116,923 sausages were eaten...and...488,137 chickens were consumed. A NEW RECORD!

Having attended this esteemed event, I thought it might be helpful for DUNER to share some brief items about OKTOBERFEST. Read them, laugh at them, then file them away in a corner of your brain. Next time you're at a restaurant and some one's friend's boyfriend is visiting from Stuttgart and you end up stuck talking with him while waiting for your table, you can throw out some of these fascinating tidbits. Because...love it or hate it...EVERY GERMAN PERSON has an opinion on OKTOBERFEST. And...love it or hate it...EVERY GERMAN PERSON... absolutely believes that their opinion on the matter is, in fact, the correct one!

First thing: This year's OKTOBERFEST was an import milestone for the festival, as it marked the 200th anniversary of the initial event. Indeed, the exact date was October 12, 1810. At the time, there was no united "Germany," just an enormous patchwork of Royal Kingdoms, Church-owned Principalities and 'free' trading cities. One of largest such states was the proud Kingdom of Bavaria, where King Ludwig the First was about to be wed to Princess Therese of Saxony. To celebrate such a momentous event, two weeks worth of pre-wedding festivities were being held in the capital, Munich. On the 12th, to the delight of the citizenry, the two royals raced each other on horseback around a lush meadow. What a stupendous October fest!

Since everyone had such a great time, it was decided to repeat the two week celebration every October. In 1835 the first inaugural parade was held. The parade was led the Munchen Kindl, which were dozens of boys dressed by a local monastery. They would serve as the inspiration for the Munchkins in Frank Baum's novel THE WIZARD OF OZ. In 1880, electric lights were installed for the first time. And guess who screwed them in? ALBERT EINSTEIN, of course! He was twenty at the time and worked for his uncle's hardware store. But not all Oktoberfest times are good. The festival has been cancelled 23 times for wars. The longest such stoppage was for the Prussian war, which would eventually result in the end of the Bavarian Kingdom. And there was that awful time in 1854 when a nasty outbreak of cholera killed 4,000 people in Munich. No celebrating that year!

Finally, here are three personal DUNER OKTOBERFEST TIPS: 1. Eat the chicken. They will serve you an entire bird. Eat it all; you'll need the base in your stomach and it's easier to digest than sausage. 2. Watch out for the steins. These large glasses hold a liter of beer and weigh a hefty 1.3 kg (2.9 lbs). While thefts are down, stein assaults are up. 3. Avoid the meadow. Since 1960, the famous site of the horse races is now a grassy meadow. At night, it becomes a very shady place, with amazingly drunk people stumbling around in varying states of consciousness. Even though the bathroom line may be long, don't pee on the tree!!

SEPT 24 OHIO STATE MASCOT TACKLED: NATION REJOICES

SEPT 24 OHIO STATE MASCOT HURT: NATION REJOICES

Many sports fans across the world joined hands and celebrated what has to be one of the most celebrated events in sports history. Much bigger than JESSIE OWENS record race in the 100m at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. And much better than BILLIE JEAN KING's win in the 'Battle of the Sexes' tennis match in 1972. Heck, this even bigger than KOBE BRYANT and the LAKERS as the current back-to-back NBA CHAMPIONS. What is it, you ask? (Well, it's in the headline, dumb-ass! And the photo!) Someone finally got to beat the crap out of BRUTUS BUCKEYE the OHIO STATE MASCOT.

Sure, some people (like BIG JACK) argue that mascots are not an integral part of sports. "No cheerleader ever won a game" they'll point out. But sports aren't just about winning and losing. No, sports are about character; sports are about how you show yourself to the world. Don't believe me? Let's play word association. I say: basketball coach BOBBY KNIGHT. What did you first think about? His national championship at Indiana? Nope, it was him throwing a chair at official in the MIDDLE OF THE GAME. It was completely OUT of CHARACTER for a mature-grey-haired-leader to act like a tantrum-throwing-toddler.

The same goes for mascots. Love it, or hate it, when TOMMY TROJAN comes thundering out on a proud white stallion brandishing a flashy sword, USC already has an advantage on the playing field. The fans go nuts and feel invincible just by association. So do the players. But what about mascots which aren't fierce? What about mascots which are just plain embarrassing like BRUTUS BUCKEYE? We all know Ohio's state nickname is the same as the tree. But why make it the mascot of the football team as well? Anyhow, just like his rival, the STANFURD TREE, he is always on the top the lists of the dumbest mascots and everyone associated with college sports suffers.

What also makes the assault of Bucky even more stupendous what how it was carried out. Hero BRANDON HANNING has been banned from any contact with Ohio sports, and he doesn't care. He admits the entire thing was premeditated. "I tried out about a year ago and the only reason I tried out was so I could come up here to Ohio State and tackle Brutus." He studied the game tape to find the best possible time to pummel him. And, to the joy of sports fans everywhere, the most important moment finally happened. Thank you, BRANDON!

SEPT 14 CHIMPANZEE MASSACRE IN THE CONGO

SEPT 14 CHIMPANZEE MASSACRE IN THE CONGO

We here at the DUNER-BLOG worry about things that other people don't. We stay up late at night worrying about that postman in Calgary who was viciously attacked by a family of hawks on her remote route. (They even broke her bicycle helmet! But she's doing fine.) We're also concerned about the vulcanologist in Sumatra who is gravely ill after inhaling ash and fumes from the surprise eruption of Mt. Sinabung. (He too is recovering well!) So it comes as no surprise that everyone at the DUNER-BLOG is completely ENRAGED over the merciless slaughter of man's closest relatives in the Eastern Congo. WE NEED TO SAVE THE CHIMPS!!!

Sorry...I got a little carried away there...but we do have a serious problem brewing in Central Africa. The so-called "Democratic Republic of the Congo" is a gigantic nation with ginormous problems. The DRC ranks 12th in the world in size. With a whopping 71 million people, it now ranks 18th on the world population charts. On the other side, the Congo has the second lowest GDP per capital of all IMF nations. People earn about $200 a year. That doesn't leave a lot of money for good food. So people eat whatever they can. And the easiest thing to catch and eat is a chimpanzee. SOMEONE NEEDS TO HELP THE CHIMPS!!!

But aren't chimps protected? Sure, but a law is only good when it is enforced, which has never happened in the Congo. Uh-oh! It's time for another DUNER-BLOG HISTORY LESSON! Here we go: Until 1850, aside from a couple of crazy-ass English explorers, no white people ever ventured very deep into the jungles of Africa. Hence, much of the Congo lay unclaimed when BELGIUM arrived very late in the colonial free-for-all of the 1800's. They hired SIR HENRY STANLEY (Livingstone was busy) to explore the massive area and claim everything he saw for Belgium. He did an amazing job. The BELGIAN CONGO was now on the map. Let the plundering begin! For the next 50 years, King Leopold enslaved locals to produce rubber and mine for diamonds. When Zaire became independent in 1960, all 100,000 Europeans instantly fled. For the last 50 years, the DR Congo (the nation has changed its name six times) has wallowed in civil war and anarchy. SO THERE IS NO ONE THE HELP THE CHIMPS!!!

Indeed, and as poverty spreads, people become more and more desperate for food. In the outdoor markets, BUSH MEAT is becoming more and more common. Poachers venture into the plentiful rain forests with high-tech American-made rifles and pluck off the peaceful chimps like shooting practice. Just how bad is it? A researcher from the University of Amsterdam, CLEVE HICKS recently reported the the LONDON GUARDIAN about his startling discoveries in the Eastern Congo. Having made many trips over the past couple of decades to observe the primates, he couldn't help but notice an alarming increase in the number of orphaned chimps in the last year. He looked but found no bones or carcasses of corresponding adults. In search of an answer, he inquired in the local town and quickly found the answer. The fifty adult chimp carcasses were right there, behind the outdoor market. IT WAS TOO LATE TO HELP THE CHIMPS!!!

Hundreds of years from now, historians will look back at the year 2010 and wonder. In the year 1810 or 1910, it was understandable why poachers were allowed to drive certain animal species to extinction...science was still in its infancy. But in 2010, when everyone understood that EXTINCTION IS FOREVER, they still ignored vital signs and let the earth deteriorate. These historians will look at the news headlines on Sept. 14, 2010 and will understand why we let the Chimps die. LADY GAGA WON EIGHT MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS!!!

SEPT 9 FINALLY! PLAYBOY MAGAZINE FOR THE BLIND!

SEPT 9 FINALLY! PLAYBOY MAGAZINE FOR THE BLIND

All my life I've pondered a difficult question: How do blind people read PLAYBOY MAGAZINE? Sure, it's easy to get a Charles Dickens novel read to you on an audio tape. Or one could read the LA Times in braille. Both would be pretty similar to actually reading a book or looking at a newspaper. But PLAYBOY is all about the pages themselves. Sure, a blind person could hold the magazine...but it just wouldn't be the same!

Well, thanks to volunteers at the TAPING FOR THE BLIND FOUNDATION in Houston, folks can ...for the first time ever...get verbal descriptions of Playboy Magazine. A local DJ for a classic rock radio station named SUZI HANKS was approached about the project. She was happy to use her, deep, sultry voice for something other than announcing yet another classic from LED ZEPPELIN. And the results have been amazing. It's one of the most requested items from the foundation's catalog. But she denies trying to 'sex-up' her takes. Says Hanks: "I just read it, and I'm a woman. That's pretty much all the sexy."

She doesn't read the magazine cover-to-cover. She begins with the articles and the jokes. She also describes the cartoons and reads the phony 'letters to the editor.' But sooner or later, she gets to the centerfold. Okay, Okay, I'll give you a sampling:

"She's a Latina, brunette with dark, chocolate eyes. She has long curly brown hair. In the first photo, she is sitting in the ocean. She has a very large grin on her face, pink lipstick. She has a small tattoo right over the small of her back, over the dimple area, that appears to be some sort of tribal design. It is red. Her legs are kind of crossed. Behind her shoulder, down past her arm, you can see her breast peeking out. There are no tan lines at all. She is not wearing any nail polish or jewelry, or...anything!"

Ahem! When asked later why she mentioned the nail polish, Hanks replied: "Sometimes it's all they have on!"