The Longmenshan belt did not appear, for example, on a recent priority watch list of likely trouble spots.
The Amazon is being besieged by deforestation, fires, oil spills, and "unsustainable megaprojects (dams, drilling, pipelines, roads)," according to a recent Amazon Watch report.
"Everything we do to watch our communities is helpful," said Aidge Patterson, a leader with People' Justice, at a recent cop-watch training in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
"Our average is 2 minutes and 10 seconds," she said, standing in the street on a recent day, watching the girls leave the building.
"Kids need to do something constructive," said Edna Smith, who sat in Harlem Art Park on a recent Saturday, watching her son rake leaves as part of a community service project.
I spent a recent morning watching about 30 Stanford surgical residents take time off from their operating rooms to participate in a series of team-building games out on the alumni lawn on campus.
Erica Michel, a day care provider who was sitting in a local park on a recent morning watching her charges, said her husband lost his job two years ago and now commutes to the Denver area.
This relic from the days of colonial Spain brings young tourists such as Charles Newman, who on a recent day watched Indian Quechua miners endure 40C heat below the earth.
In a recent piece, Watching TV Commercials For Fun And Profit, I pointed out that one third of television programming time is devoted to commercial and interstitial content.
