May 24, 2013 (Morning Edition) — A Stanford MBA who used to work for Google returned to Myanmar to be an Internet entrepreneur. But it's tough to start an Internet company in a country where the power goes out every day.
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May 23, 2013 — The National Council of the Boy Scouts of America has voted to allow gay Scout members, but to continue a ban on openly gay adult Scout leaders. The policy change would take effect Jan. 1, 2014.
May 23, 2013 — In a major speech, the president rejects the idea that the country can fight an opened-ended "global war on terror." In setting his own guidelines, he defines the standards for using drone strikes and again calls for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.
May 23, 2013 — Central Oklahoma has been hit repeatedly by killer tornadoes. For many residents of the town of Moore, that history offers proof that they'll be able to rebuild, not evidence that they should leave.
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May 23, 2013 — A test of third-year medical students in North Carolina revealed biases against the obese. The author of the study says these thoughts, often subconscious, could affect how doctors treat their patients and whether those patients trust them.
Nay Aung is the founder of Oway, a tech startup in Yangon, Myanmar. He used Taste Cafe as his unofficial office when he started his company -- in part because it was one of the few places in Myanmar with a stable Internet connection. (NPR)
Can This Man Bring Silicon Valley To Yangon?
by Robert Smith
May 24, 2013 (Morning Edition) — A Stanford MBA who used to work for Google returned to Myanmar to be an Internet entrepreneur. But it's tough to start an Internet company in a country where the power goes out every day.
Like a proud father, Nay Aung opens up his MacBook Air to show me the Myanamar travel website he's built. But we wait 30 seconds for the site to load, and nothing happens.
"Today is a particularly bad day for Internet," he says. This is life in Myanmar today: Even an Internet entrepreneur can't always get online.
If Nay could show me his website — Oway.com.mm — I would see a travel site that lets people around the world reserve rooms in small hotels in Myanmar, and book flights to towns that weren't even on the grid a few years ago. He says he's getting about 500 bookings a month right now.
The Internet outage doesn't seem to phase Nay or the dozen staff members in his office.The power was out completely a couple of hours ago, so even a very slow Internet is an improvement.
"Sometimes it's totally out of your control," he says. This is calm side of Nay Aung, who calls himself a devout Buddhist, and who was born and raised in Myanmar.
But Nay is also a product of the United States. He got his MBA at Stanford and worked for Google in Silicon Valley. He still has his stylish haircut and Ralph Lauren shirts. And this version of Nay Aung was a little more high strung when he came back to Myanmar a year and a half ago.
"When I first got here, it really aggravated me," he says of the challenge of running an Internet company when you can't get reliable Internet.
Nay had always wanted to return, and he saw an opening a few years ago. The government was moving toward more democracy, and Western countries were considering dropping economic sanctions. Nay wanted to be one of the first Internet pioneers in this incredibly poor country.
But being the first means you have to figure out how to build a company when the power goes out all the time. At first, Nay moved around the city with his laptop, working in coffee shops and restaurants where the power was on and the Internet was working. He eventually found the best internet in Yangon, the capital, at a coffee shop owned by someone with a connection in the government.
He also had to find foreign investors — some of whom didn't know much about Myanmar. "They literally brought in a huge map, and they asked me to point out where Myanmar is."
Nay eventually got his investors. He hired web developers in India and put servers in Singapore. A bigger challenge was getting mom-and-pop hotels in Myanmar to sign up for his site. Many of the hotels don't even have bank accounts," Nay says. They do business only in cash. Nay has to bridge the two worlds.
While I was at the office, I saw an order from Germany come in for six nights at a small hotel in Yangon. The guy who booked the room paid with a credit card on the website; his money went halfway around the world in the blink of an eye.
But the last few miles took considerably longer. To make the reservation, Nay pulled U.S. dollars out of a safe and gave them to a young delivery guy who went outside and took a city bus to the hotel.
At the front desk, the transaction is entered into a three ring binder — just before the lights go out because of a temporary power outage.
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Harrison Gowdy of Dayton, Ohio has accumulated various Indian spices, guava paste and coconut oil -- among other things. (Courtesy of Harrison Gowdy )
Guava Paste And Tamarind? What To Do With Weird Food Gifts
May 24, 2013 (Morning Edition) — Have a food that has you stumped? Submit a photo and we'll ask chefs about our favorites!See this
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This is an installment of NPR's ongoing Cook Your Cupboard, a food series about improvising with what you have on hand. Have a food that has you stumped? Submit a photo and we'll ask chefs about our favorites!
Harrison Gowdy of Dayton, Ohio, has developed a reputation among friends and family of liking everything and wasting nothing.
"Sometimes I'll even find things like Swiss chard dropped off on my doorstep," she says. And sometimes she receives foods that stump her.
To Cook Your Cupboard she submitted a photo of various Indian spices, a gift from her traveling sister; some guava paste from a friend in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and coconut oil.
She discussed these things on Morning Edition with NPR's David Greene and with self-described home cook Mollie Katzen, author of the forthcoming cookbook The Heart of the Plate: Vegetarian Recipes for a New Generation. Katzen, who specializes in vegetarian cooking, had a few suggestions:
Guava Paste:
It's a combination of guava pulp and often sugar and pectin. A popular item in Caribbean and Spanish cuisine, "its favorite food companion is cheese," says Katzen — such as Manchego.
What To Do With It:
Take slices of Guava paste and equal parts cheese and wrap in tortilla, phyllo or empanada dough.
Place it between layers of vanilla cake batter and bake.
"Guava plus cheese or guava plus cake: Ticket to popularity," says Katzen. "It's one of those easy things that makes you very impressive."
Spices From India:
Katzen instructs to grind them all up together in a coffee grinder devoted specifically to spices.
What To Do With Them
"Grind them up and call it curry powder," says Katzen.
Or put the spices in a tea ball — and infuse basmati rice with the spices as it cooks.
Coconut Oil:
It's solid at room temperature, but it's not a trans fat, says Katzen. It also has a high smoke point, which basically means it's good for frying if you want your food really crisp.
What To Do With It
Use it as an oil for making popcorn. ("It imparts a very subtle coconut flavor," Katzen says.
Fry the homemade curry powder right in the coconut oil and fry battered vegetables in it.
Bonus Beauty Tip:
Katzen says that if your tamarind pulp has seeds, don't trash them! They can be used for facials. Follow that up with some coconut oil, which, she says, is a great moisturizer for skin and hair.
If you have culinary conundrums, join the Cook Your Cupboard project! Go to npr.org/cupboard and show us a photo. You'll get guidance from fellow home cooks, and you might even be chosen to come on the air with a chef.
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Sally Edwards, 80, (left) and Lue Hutchinson, 71, visited StoryCorps in Cincinnati. Their sons, Jack Edwards and Tom Butts, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (StoryCorps)
Military Moms: A Bond Borne From Shared Loss
by NPR Staff
May 24, 2013 (Morning Edition) — Two mothers whose sons were killed during the first Gulf War talk about how they became friends after their sons' death. The last 22 years would have been tough without the friendship, because, as one tells the other, "what's in our hearts we share."See this
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In 1991, Kentucky residents Sally Edwards and Lue Hutchinson had sons serving in the Gulf War. Sally Edwards' son, Jack, was a Marine captain. Lue's son, Tom Butts, was a staff sergeant in the Army. The two men never knew each other, but today, their mothers are best friends.
Both soldiers were killed in February of 1991. Jack was 34. "They were the cover for a medical mission. The helicopter lost its top rotor blade, and they didn't make it back," Sally says.
After Lue's son Tom joined the Army in 1979, "he did something absolutely stupid: He learned how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes," she says. "But he loved it," She learned he died the last day of the war. He was 31.
"I worked in Wal-Mart, and we found out the war had ended. I was ecstatic when I went home and came home to a driveway full of cars. Not knowing at that time, until my stepson came out, and told me Tommy was gone," she says.
His death was in the newspaper, and Sally saw it.
"I wanted somebody to talk to because it wasn't like World War II and Vietnam when everybody had a neighbor who'd lost somebody, so I wrote to you. I thought if you responded maybe I'd have somebody that I could talk to about how you felt and how I felt." Sally says.
The letter, Lue says, spoke to her. "Those words 'If you need help and you want to talk, I'm here,' and that's what I needed."
And that's what Sally needed, too, she says, or else she wouldn't have reached out. "The last 22 years would have been hell without you, Lue."
"It would have been hell without you, too," Lue says.
"Because what's in our hearts we share," Sally says.
"When you're the mother and your child dies in that horrific way, the memory gets tolerable but never really, really goes away," Lue says.
"I don't know what I would do if on a bad day, I couldn't pick up and the phone and call you and share it," Sally says.
"Neither could I."
Audio produced for Morning Edition by Katie Simon.
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After his shocking ballet, The Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky branched out in surprising directions. (Getty Images)
Igor Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring' Counterrevolution
by NPR Staff
May 24, 2013 (Morning Edition) — Not long after his shocking ballet, the composer branched out into a broad range of styles, ushering in new musical trends far from the violent tone of his iconic Rite of Spring.See this
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As the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring approaches, commentator Miles Hoffman reminds us that — as earthshaking as that infamous debut was — the composer soon branched out into a variety of musical styles that would surprise his fans and critics.
Hoffman says that, up until the infamous (and riotous) Rite of Spring debut — on May 29, 1913 — the public had never heard anything like it. Still, it can be viewed as the end of an era, as opposed to the start of something new.
"In some ways, The Rite can also be seen as much as a culmination as a revolution," Hoffman says. "It was the culmination of what one music scholar called 'musical maximalism.' Throughout the 19th century, the orchestras were getting bigger and bigger; the power and intensity of unlimited musical expression with orchestral forces had been growing. And with The Rite of Spring, maximalism reached a kind of peak."
Where to go from there? The composer, Hoffman says, went just about anywhere he wanted, stylistically speaking.
"If Stravinsky started out as a revolutionary, it wasn't too long before he became a counterrevolutionary," Hoffman says. For his 1920 ballet Pulcinella, Stravinsky borrowed from music written in the 18th century and gave it a fresh twist. It was a far cry from the jagged rhythms of The Rite.
"This piece ushered in a whole new style, or trend, in 20th-century music," Hoffman says. "It was called neo-classicism. The big forces were stripped down; old musical forms were resurrected and the emphasis shifted to a kind of musical cleanliness. There was clarity, sparkle, pungency, humor, even irony in the music."
It was ironic in the sense that Stravinsky was capable of shaking the heavens. But in Pulcinella and his other neo-classical works — like the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto — he chose small groups of musicians to bring these modest old musical forms to life in a new language. Stravinsky was always remarkably adventurous.
"He went wherever his artistic ideas took him and wherever he thought he could do something good and interesting," Hoffman says. "Later in his life, he even wrote pieces in the so-called 12-tone style pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg."
But is there a unifying Stravinskian trait? Hoffman points to Pablo Picasso for an explanation.
"I think there's a parallel with Stravinsky," Hoffman says. "His style never stayed exactly the same, but there's always something in his music that grabs you. Something that's inescapable. And that's why we still care about Stravinsky. The revolutions, the counterrevolutions, all the categories, all the trends he set, they're all important. But ultimately, they are only important because they were the work of a unique genius."
Miles Hoffman is a violist with the American Chamber players and the author of the NPR Classical Music Companion.
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After his shocking ballet, The Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky branched out in surprising directions. (Getty Images)
Bridge Collapses In Wash. State; People, Cars In Water
by Krishnadev Calamur
May 23, 2013 — TAn unknown number of people and vehicles are in the Skagit River, and rescue crews are looking for them. The bridge collapsed at 7 p.m., but the reason is unclear.See this
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Krishnadev Calamur
The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River at Mount Vernon, Wash., collapsed Thursday, leaving an unknown number of people and vehicles in the water.
The Skagit Valley Herald reports: "Rescue crews have swarmed to the area to redirect traffic around the site and look for people still in the river. Traffic is reportedly backed up at several roadways and authorities are in the area attempting to help people out of the water."
The newspaper reported that three rescue boats and several private vessels are on the river, trying to reach people sitting on their cars in the water.
Trooper Mark Francis told The Associated Press that the bridge collapsed at 7 p.m., but did not why.
Local radio station KGMI in Belligham, Wash., is covering the event live, as is KING 5 News in Seattle.
Update at 11:59 p.m. ET. More Details
NPR's Martin Kaste just spoke to our Newscast team. Here's his initial report:
"From what we're hearing from initial reports, a steel bridge going over the Skagit River, this is an interstate bridge between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., collapsed right around 7 p.m. Pacific. There are sketchy initial reports that perhaps an oversized truck may have struck part of the bridge although that's unconfirmed."
We also have more links to coverage of the collapse:
KOMO News has live video, as does KIRO TV. The Seattle Times is also covering the collapse.
Update at 12:45 a.m. ET, Friday. More Details
The Associated Press quotes authorities as saying there were no fatalities or suspected fatalities. Three people were rescued from the water and were sent to area hospitals.
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