...in this great kingdom. So many simple kindnesses between the coasts amongst neighbors. Sure, there the usual problems that everybody sees in the newspaper and has to mourn as the Death route passes from the church to the graveyard to bury the soldier.
But the kindnesses of Middle Americans to each other more than make up for the bad news they only are a tiny cog of. They have bake sales to put on and basketball tournaments and none of the stuff we all struggle with has any any reality in, say, Wichita Falls, Texas or Topeka, Kansas.
It feels so goof that we can go there if things start to burn on the immoral costs. In the Midwest folks were brought up right, always going to church on Sunday after the baseball game Saturday night.
Middle America is truly magic, a place you wouldn't dare steal the pie cooling of the kitchen window.
Convoys of Americsan fuel trucks are being struck regularly at a Paki-Afghan border point while several groups of terrorists are are stalking the streets of Europe with automatic weapons and grenades, waiting for the opportunity to create a Mumbai style incident (started, incidentally, by a renegade CIA officer in Mumbai).
I would say it safe to say that things are moderately to very moderately out-of-control - by anybody's estimate.
I think it's time to say that there is nothing to be done here except, in coalition with US allies, use WMD to show we ain't fucking around anymore. Which is, of course, an unacceptable option for sane people.
The work of the tiger protection teams in Central Suamtra has actually led to an increase in tiger numbers there. They do amazing work. You can find out more and how you can help at
http://www.fauna-flora.org/2010_tiger.php
WIldlife Alliance is working on direct proteciton of tigers and other wildlife in Cambodia.
http://www.wildlifealliance.org/forest-protection/
Wildaid do great work on trying to stop the wildlife trade in Asia
http://www.wildaid.org/index.asp?CID=1
Keep us updated on your thoughts and progress gonzo
Saving tigers is truly a worthwhile cause.
And in the meantime-the notorious kung-fu kicker DeJong (outrageous kick at Spain's Alonso) has been dropped from the Dutch national team for at least 2 games, for breaking a player from Newcastle's leg. The 2nd player's leg that this brute DeJong has broken. He made me ruin a perfectly good flyswatter, and kudos to the Dutch national team coach for making this decision.
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By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean.
Mark Twain
I am thinking of finding a couple of NGOs like from the Japanese (strangely enough they might want to throw some cash in the way of their whale fiascoes) and from the Australians and perhaps the Dutch or Germans or Swedes or Norwegians -- maybe the old-line US environmental's too. Even a budget of ten milion dollars could put a sizable force on the ground in Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkhim and Darjeeling, plus a few surrounding areas.
The problem is corruption. If this had huge fanfare to start with & government support in total it would only take about a year for the poachers to get back to work, their very grisly work -- which, I might add, is NOT nonviolent. Not least of all from the tiger's side, though they (the tigers) seem to have more justification than anybody else.
Even if funding could be kept constant, the voracious Chinese demand for "medical" parts, with very little scientific evidence on the "medical", would be almost impossible to abate without starting some wildly untrue rumor like "all Asian tigers have aids."
You start to see the problems involved here and despair is a byproduct. Imagination may be the key. Bright thinkers with keen incite - C'mon, know you're out there.
Just another tiger in a trance
looking for a St. of Circumstance