“The world that always was and never will be"

Michael Eisner former CEO of the Walt Disney Corporation

I had already been involved in television science broadcasting for some 15 years when I had a small epiphany that set me on the road that has led sometimes slowly, sometimes inexorably to first, my masters thesis and then this book. About fifteen years ago I was attending the second annual World Congress of Science Producers, a small collection of broadcasters, producers and programmers who got together once a year to exchange anecdotes, programming ideas, commission new science stories and enjoy a glass of wine and some good food. It was my first year and the conference was in Montreal. There were perhaps 100 in all in attendance, with representative from broadcasters of science programming as well as producers and the congress lasted a total of 4 days. I had just made the leap into independent production after a long tenure at both CBC and CTV as a science reporter, weathercaster, science writer, host and creator of the nationally syndicated children’s science show, “Wonder Why?”. I had been invited to attend by a former work colleague who was at the time the vice president of production at the fledgling Discovery Canada cable broadcaster.

The sessions were about how to create better science programming, what constituted good science programming and how to engage the viewers in what was the beginning of the broadcast expansion into cable. The internet was just beginning to stir and was still not seen as a broadcast platform or a competitor to television.

One of the sessions that had me in a bit of a quandary was about the X-Files. The producer of the X-Files had been invited to speak to a plenary session and I was curious what we as documentary science producers and broadcasters could learn from science fiction that would be of any interest to factual science production. As the speaker spoke, it became obvious to me that there was very little about science that interested the producers of the X-Files. There was no science advisor, nor was there any effort made to adhere to any science. The plots, writing and depiction of the science in the scripts were not science fiction at all, not in the traditional sense of science fiction writers like Asimov or Clarke, but closer to fantasy and superstition, a polar opposite from what I thought it should be. However, there was no arguing with the success of the series. It went from being a small Vancouver production to being one of the most popular series in Hollywood worth billions as a franchise. And as I looked around the room, it was obvious that most of the broadcasters and the producers in the room were more interested in the show’s financial success and how its model could be incorporated into current television factual science production. My eyes went from person to person seated around the gigantic round table and it occurred to me that I was alone. Even though all around me there were people who had interests in science that ranged from passionate to expedient, almost all were from the arts, journalism and broadcasting. Not one other person in that group, called the World Congress of Science Producers, numbering less than 100, had even an undergraduate degree in the core sciences of biology, chemistry or physics. A few, all Europeans, like the commissioning editors from ZDF the German broadcaster and the BBC, the British icon had degrees in science, but not in what is termed the core sciences such as chemistry or physics.

At the close of the session, when the question period opened up, I asked why the producer of the X-Files had been asked to come and speak to us? There was no science at all in X-Files, they had no science advisor and much of the show’s premise was designed to promote false science stereotypes, present what was clearly not science and promote the public’s fascination with the occult and superstition. It was not the most politic thing I could have done. My question rippled through the audience like a splash of cold water. To the broadcasters, it was all about eyeballs, ratings and ultimately dollars. To the other producers, it was about how far the science envelope could be pushed into fantasy and still be categorized as science.

It was an epiphany for me, when I realized that science television production, especially in North America, whether it is in the news, documentaries, children’s production, shorts or long series, is also a financial enterprise, and the role of science in many venues was merely to act as a lens for other interests to bring in an audience, which meant increased revenues. Was science just a vehicle for the business of television? Was this a dangerous dalliance, one that had the potential to subvert the whole idea of what is science and what it is not?

I wondered to what degree this type of science programming affected the viewer. Does this type of science, the science represented by television, have ramifications for viewer educational choices, both for children and adults, how the viewers see science, what is considered to be science and influence the choices that are made by our governments, businesses on our behalf in this increasingly complex, scientific world? Skewed or inaccurate representations of science, could mean skewed and inaccurate perceptions of science by the viewers. Stereotypes of scientists and what they do means educational choices made on incorrect perceptions. Or perhaps not. Is television an entertainment medium that doesn’t fit into the peer reviewed mould of scientific method? Is it the thin edge of the wedge so to speak, that spurs interest and education just by showing any science at all? Is any science good science? And is the viewer savvy and sophisticated enough to understand how television works? Television is a powerful medium and influential. Does it also have the capacity to teach, present ideas and inform the public?

In North America, television has been and remains a media juggernaut, in spite of the advent of computers and the internet and changing viewing habits. Television shows signs of adapting to the changing technological landscape and remains a powerful mass medium. How science is portrayed on television influences and ripples through all media and public forums. As an example take the Creationist stance. Through the skillful manipulation of television programming in the news and documentary format television the fundamentalist Christian right has succeeded in having Intelligent Design included as part of the educational curriculum in many school boards in the United States and in Alberta, as a scientific alternative to Darwinian theory even though virtually all biologists who teach at a University level agree Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory nor has any basis in science at all and is just a rebranding of Creationism made infamous during the Scopes Monkey Trials more than fifty years ago. In the same way the pseudo science of the Tobacco lobby presented to the viewers on television, was able to distort medical science for decades. These conflicting messages obfuscated the real science information and education viewers received through television programming and influenced choices, causing many to become smokers, some of whom paid a steep price in the end. 

In my 30 years in television programming, I have watched wholesale changes in the technology of television, programming of television and the mindsets in television science. I have watched television science production drift from traditional Nova style presentations to reality show productions, with the hosts’ behaviour replacing science, and become a mainstay of almost all science broadcasters. Science on television is now more spectacle driven and anthropogenic. Science production has pushed aside pure science in the push for increased ratings as the network owners of the cable and digital channels seek to hold their audiences and advertising revenue. Gaming and competition from the internet, with its palette of immediate gratification have eroded viewer attention spans, making thoughtful presentation of difficult scientific concepts increasingly unlikely. In today’s television world, if a scientist’s clip isn’t succinct and pithy, its fate is the cutting room floor. Has this changed the way we understand science? Has it changed the way we look at scientists and science education? So many questions.

In this book I want to explore the relationship between television science programming and science; where it came from, where it currently stands and where it is taking us. This desire comes out of my observations over the past 30 years where I have had the opportunity to be involved in almost every kind of factual science production on television, in almost every facet. It also comes from my education in physics and mathematics, and my profound interest in helping to solve one of the greatest crises that besets our society today, global warming, through the mass media, through education and through science. From this, it could be construed that this is a positivist stance, and though it does play a role in my perspective regarding information and data, I also believe that data and information also have a subjective nature. The non-scientists, the viewers, the producers and broadcasters, all contribute to how science is portrayed on television. In fact, it could be argued that non scientists, through the popular medium such as television, and in politics, have a significant impact on scientific study and outcome.

“How Does Television Represent Science?” becomes an important question, one that we need to think about in light of the increasing number of adults who believe in non sciences presented as science. Examples of such practices include many alternative medical practices like faith healing, that anthropogenic climate change is a conspiracy, that vaccinations cause autism, that intelligent design is a scientific theory and Creationism is an alternative to Darwinism and should be taught in our schools. The public perception that authors like Von Daniken and Velikovsky use scientific method comes from a misunderstanding of scientific method. Both authors were able to construct arguments that resonated with their readers and viewers, because publishers and producers had so little understanding of scientific method and how it worked. And when these arguments are believed by viewers in spite of their lack of veracity they have a powerful influence over our world. Television is a lens through which we see the world. How does that lens influence science, effect education and educational choices? Does it change the way we perceive the world issues, deal with scientific crises and the decisions we make?

Why is this study important? Without putting too fine a point it, it is a matter of our survival. This statement is not hyperbole. We, individually and as a society, are beset by problems from all sides, over population, diminished agricultural output, nuclear power, global warming, pandemics, ocean acidification, just to mention a few, and almost all these issues have their roots in science. The solutions to these and most of our societal threats are equally based in science. How we respond to those problems is in a large part based on how well we understand the science behind these issues. Given the fact that so much of our understanding of the science and the issues based in science potentially comes from television, television becomes an important intermediary between society and its understanding of science. How television portrays and represents science has an important role in our understanding and education in the science.

Television is many things to many people. It is entertainment, a friend, a source of trusted information and a guide and reflection to the nature of the world and society we live in. Many of the great benchmarks of our society are television benchmarks, the first landing on the moon, the Desert Storm television war against Iraq and the bombing of the World Trade Centre. Television, for many people, is the primary source of information, and an educational role model and it moulds our educational perspectives. Television is seen as truthful and trustworthy. Walter Cronkite was the most “most trusted man in America” because he read the news and was seen nightly delivering good news and bad, reliably and predictably. Today’s television personalities, though perhaps not as influential as Cronkite was, continue to advertise the mantel of trustworthiness that television brings. CTV’s commercials call their anchor, Lloyd Robertson the most trusted news anchor in Canada. If television colours or skews issues relating to science, that skewing and tinting, of what is a fundamental component in the fabric of our society, becomes important. If the television message we receive compels us to choose to ignore science because television places a low priority on science and on science education, if television tells us, through its messages, its representation of the science, that it is less important than sports or entertainment or other news, that is important.

Television has been and remains a very powerful medium and as it merges with the web, it is able to present programming of all types on demand in many different formats. Understanding how television represents science currently, will help us understand how it will represent science as it adapts to technological change, how that technological change will affect programming and in turn affect our understanding of science is an important issue. 

And last, but certainly not least, the importance of television’s impact on education in today’s society is hard to over state. Right from its inception television was intended to play a role in education and information. In its modern form it is arguable that its role in education is if anything, even more pronounced than in the past. Numerous studies have shown that television plays a very significant role in a number of educational processes. It is a primary source of science information for the pay person. It has also been shown that what appears on TV is taken to true and that people make their decisions about the impact, importance and immediacy of science based on what they see on television. Its relationship to science and to science education is important because of how it influences what the lay person thinks about science and science education and in turn how that influence is acted upon and how it is passed down to children. It is well known that parental influences play a large role in the educational decision that our children make.

I am happy to say my thesis, which provided much of the research for this book, was finished, defended and accepted. But while the thesis is finished, my thoughts about how the media, especially TV and its internet incarnations, moulds us and our society continues. The tendrils are long and deep. I am now moving on to my doctorate and doing more research and reading which I hope will help improve my understanding in how to deal with what appears to be an almost intractable and devastating effect that it is having an enormous detrimental effect on our science understanding.

Richard Zurawski’s Book of Maritime Weather

1. 
   

2. The Big Snows
   

The year was 1904 and it was the start of Nova Scotia's "winter of the big snows". The summer left early and cold weather quickly froze the lakes. Even though he first half of the winter started early, it was normal enough. But January 1905 was barely off to a start when the first ice storm struck on the 4th. Twenty four hours of freezing rain and ice. Telephone and power lines were out almost everywhere. Then, January 7th, gales, the 14th, bitter cold ranging from -14C to -45C! .....on the 23rd another freezing rain storm to the south and 40 centimetres of snow in Moncton. But the real storm struck on January 25th. It lasted 36 hours. The railways were shut down, stalled in 10 metre snow drifts. From Halifax to Sydney to Moncton drifts 2-3 metres deep shut down all travel. Then another storm on the last day of January....insult to injury.

On February 7th PEI got its turn. Another blizzard struck and within twenty-four hours the worst storm in 30 years buried the Island. Then, February 12 brought more snow to Halifax.

It wasn't yet over, because on February 16th another blockbuster of a snowfall which buried Nova Scotia. Snow was three metres deep in the city streets on top of all the previous offerings. The rail lines were almost unmanageable with no regular service anywhere.

On the 27th, 60 passengers were rescued from a stalled Londonderry Express after being stranded for 72 hours. By February 28 a few more snow bound trains were shoveled out and finally, the worst was over. The cost to the Department of Railways for snow removal alone was $100,000. Not much in today's money, but when compared to the total federal budget of the day, 1.2 million, the effect of the storm staggers the imagination.

The "Winter of the Big Snows" left an indelible weather mark.

This was 1904-1905

The saying goes:

"In the Maritimes, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes or move five miles".

And while this shouldn't be taken too literally, there is a great deal of truth to this homily. The weather's ins and outs in the Maritimes can make a liar of the most dedicated forecaster and frustrate the best intentions.

Having said that, Maritime weather has something for everyone and offers the widest array of weather and climate anywhere in the Canada. All types of weather, except for desert conditions, frequent the east coast. For those who love change and the incredibly diverse parade of cycles, the Maritimes conjures up an adventurer's paradise and a forecaster's nightmare. There is never a dull moment or time to be bored - from thunderstorms and the great Nor'easters, followed by bountiful sun on near pristine beaches.

SurpriseFact

The Maritimes, as diverse climatically as they are, have no world weather records. Canada, for that matter, has no world weather records either. As bad or as good as you think the weather may be there is always some place else in the world that is more extreme.

But why is the weather in the Maritimes so variable and changeable?  In a word its water. The ocean obviously plays the primary role in the making of the weather, but there is more to it than that. There are other places in the world that are on the shores of great oceans and their weather patterns are nothing but paragons of consistency.

No, there is more to Maritime weather than proximity to water. We have to consider the flow of the Gulf Stream, the prevailing winds, as well temperature and latitude, and a host of other weather factors like barometric pressure and humidity. Our weather is unique because where we are in the world is unique. Its a complex and intriguing group of factors that make up the climate and the weather of the Canadian Maritimes.

ConfusionFact

Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick make up the Maritimes, probably more in name than climate. Because most of our weather comes from the west, the interior of the continent, it has a distinctly "continental climate" flavour. We do get large fluctuations in weather, like cold snaps and hot spells that come from this continental influence. The moist ocean air does hold considerable influence on the Maritimes though, and that moderates the weather we get. It's that ocean influence that softens the weather enough to make our climate a unique combination of maritime and continental weather.

And while some might call weather and weather forecasting a combination of science and hocus pocus, we have come a long, long way in a relatively short time. In a space of two generations computers and satellites and dozens of other advances have made the study and forecasting of the weather a true science. Every day millions of people look to meteorologists for weather information to help them in their daily pursuits. The weather forecast's influence can be almost trivial or crucial. It can recommend an umbrella to ward off the rain or help scientists and engineers decide whether the space shuttle should be launched. Either way, we all listen and look for the weather forecast, because the weather plays an important role in our lives.

But there is more to weather than the utilitarian. The ocean of air we live in is a fascinating and dynamic place, one of beauty and wonder. It inspires the heart and soul as well as the mind. The simple pleasure of watching a beautiful sunset appeals world wide no matter what your language or inclination, as does the power and majesty of a thunderstorm.

Whatever the weather, it is never dull, especially in the Maritimes.

St. Stephen, New Brunswick holds the record for the greatest number of consecutive days without precipitation, in the Maritimes...........

..........53!!!! Talk about a dry spell!

Ocean Conveyor

The Gulf Stream current transfers a huge amounts of heat from the tropics to the more temperate regions to the north. This gives is the Maritime moderation that we come to rely on and have counted on for the past thousand years. As a result the east coast of North America and northern Europe bask in a relative warmth that they would otherwise not get. A quick comparison between locations with similar latitudes shows the vast effect. The interior climate of North America and Asia have much harsher and extreme weather conditions than do the those areas that border the Gulf Stream. The flow of the Gulf Stream is paramount to the moderated climate.

Here is the problem. As the Greenland melt accelerates and puts ever increasing amounts of fresh water into the North Atlantic, the flow of the stream is being interrupted. Over the past two decades, it has been determined that the Gulf Stream has declined by almost 30%.

More than any other place in North America, the Maritimes and Atlantic Canada would bear the brunt of a change to the global conveyor. Increased ice berg activity, longer and more severe winters as well as a shorter summer season would all make life more difficult, not to mention much cooler.

Core samples have indicated that the entire Greenland ice cap has traditionally melted every interglacial and the last time this happened was 110,000 years ago. The last few decades of the melt put such vast amounts of fresh water into the North Atlantic, that the Gulf Stream shuts down entirely. The upshot of this is that we get to a tipping point and what we then experience is a rapid flip from interglacial to the beginning of a new Ice Age advance.12

The problem is not that we can in any way prevent this or that we can change the Ice Age process. The problem is that we have influenced the climate in such a way that the process of switching from an interglacial to ice advance is now not left to nature and predictable processes13, but dependent of the influences of our global effluent and activities.

End of the Interglacial

To summarize, the flip from interglacial to new ice advance is inevitable. We know that from the great past records, from ice core sample, ices scars, glacial tills, glacial scouring and a host of other evidence. If we could discount the effects of people and their activities then in almost certainly the past twenty of so cycles of glacial advance and retreat would once again repeated over then next thousand or so years.

But we have intervened and it appears that all bets are off. We have added a huge amount of new greenhouse gases and we quite frankly don’t know how bad, sudden or intense the changes will be. But we know that there will be changes and based on what we have seen has happened in the past, the changes will tend to be rapid and once they happen the conditions will not reverse for many years, perhaps even centuries, until the trends again reach a tipping point that reestablishes a more benevolent climate regime.

In the past 13,000 years, within the overall context of a global warming trend, as the Earth entered its latest interglacial, there were four events, three of them rather dramatic coolings that presented major challenges to humanity.14 They are in order of the oldest first

1. •The Younger Dryas, a dramatic cooling 12,700 year ago where the average temperatures in the North Atlantic region abruptly plummeted nearly 5C and stayed that way for 1,300 years, before rapidly warming again.
   

2. •The 8,200 - Year Event, similar to the Younger Dryas, but not so severe and of shorter duration, only about a century.
   

3. •The Medieval Period, an abrupt warming that took place about 1,000 years ago. It was not nearly so dramatic as the previous two coolings listed above, but none-the-less allowed the Norse to establish colonies and settlements in Greenland.
   

4. •The Little Ice Age occurred between 1300 and 1850, where the climate turned abruptly colder 700 years ago. It had profound agricultural, economic and cultural impacts in Europe and was the cause of the Norse abandoning many of their northern settlements, most notably in Greenland.
   

These four events illustrate that our climate has changed dramatically in a short space of time and that the changes lasted for prolonged periods before settling back into the general trend. By virtue of the fact that they have changed, it tells us that dramatic change is a part of the over normality of the climate. In addition, in spite of the fact in the past 13,000 years we have been in a state of warming, an interglacial, three of these dramatic climate changes were coolings. This also tell us that even though the overall trend of the climate may be one of warming, there have been occurrences where the changes have gone against the trend.

Saturday, January 29, 2005, Day 13

After Bud left my room last night, I turned on the TV to see what was available and watched for a bit. Everything was in Farsi and there were no Western programs or anything that was understandable to me, no BBC or Deutsche Welle programming for English speaking viewers. I watched a news show with a female host and listened to a Mullah on another channel. In both cases what was said mystified me. I was able to catch a bit of a drama that seemed to involve some family intrigue, a father and his two daughters creating interesting social problems with suitors. It was kind of comical and over acted, but then not understanding the language probably made the exercise farcical to begin with. I imagine the same could be said of anyone who didn’t understand English programming and who had the chance to watch a soap opera. Talk about over acting!

I head down to the mezzanine where I am told that breakfast will be served. Bud and I are on the fourth floor, and though there is an elevator, it is easier to walk down the stairs. The hotel appears to be 1960s or 1970s vintage, and most of the fixtures are well worn, but in reasonable shape. I guess by Western standards the hotel is in need of renovation, but this is Iran and, since the revolution, there has been little emphasis on reconstruction, renovation or attracting Western investment. So much of the Iranian infrastructure had gone into the war, at first trying to defend itself against the aggressions of Iraq then, in the latter stages, trying to bring down Saddam and refusing to end the conflict. I thought about the casualties, more than a million on each side, and wonder how that must ripple through the social fabric of the country.

When I get down to the mezzanine, there are a host of waiters clustered around what had obviously once been a bar, but since the revolution of 1979 and the banning of  alcohol, now serves as a way station for waiters waiting for their inevitable customers. The breakfast is a buffet style meal, which suits me.  Our travel research indicates that the hygiene of the consumables is not an issue the way it is in India. Here, all the food can be consumed, including the fresh fruits and vegetables, and water does not have to come from a bottle. That is such a relief.

The waiter approaches me and motioned to the buffet. I nod and ask whether I could have some coffee. At first he frowns, and then he understands and immediately turns and goes back to the bar, where he gets the coffee ready. I go, plate in hand, to the buffet and see that the food is tastefully laid out and quite appealing. It is the standard fare of eggs and sausages, which I assume are porkless, cut up fruits and vegetables with dips, toast with jams and marmalades, fresh orange juice, and milk with various types of cereals. Everything that I could have wanted, and more, for my breakfast. The waiter reappears with a couple of Nescafe-clone instant coffee packages and a stainless steel pot of hot water. I am a bit disappointed that there isn’t “real” coffee, but instant will do. I am addicted to my morning hit of caffeine, and the instant will provide that in a pinch. I had assumed that Iran would have fresh and exotic coffee. And I have been looking forward to sampling what is, in my mind, something akin to Turkish or Greek coffee, strong, sweet and laced with aroma and taste. I am mistaken. In the two weeks in Iran, other than the first cup that Bud and I experienced in the Tehran airport restaurant, it will be instant coffee only. I look at the packaging after I have sprinkled its offerings into my cup, poured the steaming water over it and added my ration of milk. At a glance, the colours and writing suggest Nescafe, but nowhere do I see the brand or trademark. The writing is all in Farsi, so I can’t say for certain it isn’t Nescafe, but something about it says that it isn’t. I take my first sip and, though it tastes like coffee, there is something that is a bit off in the taste. It’s not bad, but it isn’t Nescafe.

I make my rounds to the buffet table and fill my plate. The eggs are hard boiled eggs in the shell and I take three, along with the sausage, some fruit, bread and jam. There is also a bowl that contains what looks like Heinz ketchup. I grab a few packages and headed back to the table. Bud has materialized in my absence and is just pouring his pseudo-Nescafe. We exchange comments, smiles, and surprise that there isn’t any strong Turkish caffeine to be had.

I begin to dig in and Bud gets up to do his buffet round. I peel my eggs and grab the ketchup for a closer look. This too is covered in Farsi script, of which I know nothing. Though the package has a very similar look to the Heinz brand that we have back home, I suspect that this, too, is an Iranian knock-off. I open the package, and I have to say it is every bit as irritating to open as the pouches back home. In that they have reproduced things exactly as they are in the West. The colour is what I expect of ketchup, but as soon as I taste it, I realize that some of the recipe is missing somehow. It isn’t that it is bad, it is just that isn’t what I expected, sort of the taste surprise you get when you mix up salt and sugar in a recipe. Both are white and both are good, but that is as far as the similarity goes. That is sort of the taste sensation that I got when I tried the coffee and the ketchup. This theme, I was to find out, runs into just about everything. There are a few Western products, like Pepsi for instance. No matter where I went I found I could get a Pepsi, which was a bit of a surprise. But if I ordered a pop that wasn’t Pepsi, but was carbonated black soda water, its labeling bore a very strong resemblance to another Western carbonated drink, yet tasted nothing like the original.

Breakfast, other than the coffee and ketchup, is what I expected and is good. We have a few more coffees together, and then Bud decides that he will have his post-meal smoke and then be ready to go. He will retrieve all the equipment that he thinks he will need. After the discussion of last night, there isn’t any need to go over things again. I will go up and get my paperwork and my 35mm Pentax K1000 and half a dozen rolls of film. In addition to the PD170, Bud also makes sure that the small miniDV cam is charged and will bring it as well. Between the two of us, we will be getting as many of every type of picture as we can.

By 8:00 we are back in the lobby and ready to meet Mr. Moghadan. He doesn’t disappoint us. He is on time and ready to go. When I go outside, I notice that the city is alive and moving. The traffic fills the streets, even the narrow side street that the hotel is on. The businesses around the hotel are all open. Most of them are book stores, small shops that seem like convenience stores, and other service stores that sell either food or trinkets or souvenirs. There also appears to be a number of other hotels close to the one where we were staying.

I greet Mr. Moghadan and he says that we should step inside and talk before we go. We sit down in the small lobby and he outlines the tour rules. We are supposed to stay close, not wander off, and we will be free to take as many pictures as we want. He notices the tripod and immediately a pall falls over his face. He asks why we hadn’t requested a permit before we came.  I reply that I hadn’t thought that something like this cheap tripod would be any issue at all and that it was, at most, just an oversight. He shakes his head and says that he will see what he can do but he cannot promise anything. I point out that when we filled out the forms to get the visas there were only two options, one for journalists and the other for tourists. There was nothing that said anything about tripods. He responds that we should have cleared it before because the permit is very important and that, while it isn’t impossible to bend the rules, the authorities don’t like to do that. The totalitarian government rears its ugly head. I say that if he needs more money for the permit, that isn’t an issue. His response is that it would take a minimum of 2 weeks for that to happen, but he will see what he can do.

In the meantime, we will bring it and the rest of the gear with us. If we aren’t able to use the tripod, that won’t be an issue. Mr. Moghadan appears to be concerned that no one see us use the tripod and says that we could be stopped by the police at any time, and they might ask for our permit. But that hasn’t yet happened, and we will make sure that we are as low key as possible. He really wants know why we need a tripod at all and why we had brought it. I feel that it is best just to play stupid and to pretend that we didn’t known any better. It is important for Mr. Moghadan to believe that we are tourists and nothing more.

After the talk in the lobby we pile into the car and begin our tour. The car is small and noisy and technologically reminded me of the cars of the 1970s and 80s. It is a not a Friday, which is the Muslim Sabbath, and we expect to see many people out and about. This is the coolest part of the year and the time with the greatest number of rainy days, so any time it is cool and dry, people try to make the most of it. I am told that, in the summer, the weather would be ferociously dry and hot. As drive through Shiraz, Mr. Moghadan begins his tour. We are to find that he is a huge wealth of information and a very talented and interesting man. He is about my and Bud’s age, a smallish, wiry man, who is fiercely proud and a very loyal Iranian. He clearly loves Iran, its heritage, its way of life, and its deep and great history. He seems to be a bottomless well of information about the history and the heritage of Iran. He is the perfect person for us. He also tries to make sure that what he is going to show us is what we want to see. He is trying to anticipate our interests and our needs and trying to integrate those with what he is allowed to present to us. We are primarily interested in anything that is Zoroastrian and Persian. Anything more is a bonus.

I am struck with the sophistication of the understanding that Mr. Moghadan has. He had been a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war in which more than a million Iranians and a million Iraqis had died. He had risen through the ranks to become a Lt. Colonel in the army and had seen more than his fair share of death. He had fought for eight years and had served in the worst of the worst battles involving the use of chemical weapons on Iranians by Saddam’s troops. He had fought on the outskirts of Basra where thousands had died in an almost endless march of death. And somehow he had survived. He was obviously a man of great depth and a compassionate man who had been through more in his life than we in the West can imagine. Friends, family, compatriots, and strangers alike had died in front, around and beside him. He had to endure and go on, and somehow, after the war and the battles, he found the strength to create a travel agency that caters to people who want to see the great ruins of the distant past.

As we drive through the city we pass monuments to the fallen soldiers of the horrible 8 year war. There is one in particular, near the outskirts, that is absolutely huge and seems to be carved in the side of a mountain. There is a statue of a giant soldier and a war memorial that stretches perhaps a couple of city blocks along the highway out of town. There are a series of steps constructed along the length of the highway with a series of plateaus where you can overlook the city. It is heartrending to think that there is probably no family that was untouched by the war. The numbers of young men who died, not to mention the numbers who were wounded, are staggering. What strikes me is that, during that time, Saddam was being portrayed as someone who was fighting for us and in a proxy war against a vicious and unremitting enemy. As his atrocities became worse, we began to portray both sides as equally dangerous and justified the immense arms sales by saying that they would wear each other out by fighting against each other. They were on the other side of the world, and it really didn’t matter that they were dying by the thousands and the tens of thousands. No matter what we think of the governments, it is something that we have created through our policies and greed for oil that stretches back almost a century. We destabilized the region for our own interests and then vilified the monsters that we had had a part in creating. I feel ashamed at the role of the West. Here I am, by their standards and the standards of the poor everywhere, a wealthy tourist and voyeur, benefiting from their poverty. We have hurt a great and strong and proud people. And my way of life is part and parcel of the problem. What is amazing is that everywhere I look, I see strength and pride and grace. No matter what I think of the Mullahs and their system of government, I truly don’t understand the context of what they have been through. It must have been like the worst of the Second World War. Certainly the poison gas and the endless waves of boys being thrown into battle after battle and being martyred by body ripping machines of war makes comparisons of atrocities a losing exercise. So many thoughts go through my mind and I want to ask Mr. Moghadan so many questions, but I think better of it and let my questions be restricted to the nature of the memorials, when they were built and other mundane, obvious questions.

Leaving the city, I realize that Iran is not the country that I read about in my newspaper back home, that so much of what we consider to be news is nothing more than a tawdry repetition of a manufactured Western consensus. My perception of Iran is based on the reporting that I have seen, the 20 second TV clips of the hysterical radicals and the repetitive articles in Time and Maclean’s. Now that I can walk down the streets and see the people of Iran, I realize that it is so much more than the two dimensional horror stories that I have been reading about for all these years. It isn’t that I think the United States is the great Satan, responsible for all the things that are wrong in the world, I also understand that the government of Iran is, indeed, radical and oppressive. But Iran is so much more than what the Islamic government tries to represent it as. The history, the people, the culture, the day to-day-living, the social interactions, making a living, and so many other facets never get reported to us in the West.

As we enter the outskirts of Shiraz, Mr. Moghadan points out the irrigated fields and the crops that are lined up as we pass by. He tells us about how self-sufficient Iran was, that she grows all her own food and that she manufactures and has the technology to manufacture what is needed. He is very proud that, in spite of the terrible toll the country has paid over the past 20 years, she is a strong and proud country and can weather the worst that is thrown her way.

The first indication that we are nearing Persepolis is a large stand of cypress trees, lining a beautiful boulevard. Mr. Moghadan points out that these tress were planted at great expense by the Shah before the revolution to mark the 2500th anniversary of the beginning of the Persian Empire. The trees are now almost 40 years old and have been well cared for. While they look beautiful, I am sure that they were but a shadow of the forests that must have existed during the Achaemenid times. Mr. Moghadan points to the end of the road as we drive up the boulevard. I have seen pictures of the ruins of Persepolis so many times, yet somehow I am not prepared for them. I remember what it was like to see the Rocky Mountains for the first time during a motorcycle trek that I undertook back in the seventies. I was in Colorado and approaching the chapparel, the high plateau shelf that rises ever so slowly west of the Mississippi-Missouri Rivers. It was flat and the sky was big and clear and, off in the distance, I could see the faintest line rising above the horizon. My maps told me that I was still almost 100 miles from the first peaks so they caught me unawares. I remember parking my bike and just standing by the side of the road marveling at a grandeur that could be seen, though ever so faintly, from such a distance. Well today, I am so much closer, and this time I am witnessing the works of an ancient civilization, not the eons-long generation of mother nature. Yet the feeling is similar. The plateau upon which the palaces were constructed is itself spectacular. From the entrance via the boulevard, the face of the foundation stands perhaps 60 feet above the road. A twin set of opposing steps run parallel to the wall face and lead to the top of the plateau. The plateau itself is huge, over 30 acres in area, with a rim of small craggy hills overlooking the back of the ceremonial city.