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Hope comes in the most unexpected forms. This story spotlights the dangers faced by both Ethiopian girls and Ethiopian lions.

Because news articles disappear so frequently, I’m including both the link and the text:

Lions rescued kidnapped girl, say police
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June 21 2005 at 03:55PM
By Anthony Mitchell
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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia.

The men had held the girl for seven days, repeatedly beating her, before the lions chased them away and guarded her for half a day before her family and police found her, Sergeant Wondimu Wedajo said Tuesday by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 560km west of the capital, Addis Ababa.

“They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest,” Wondimu said, adding he did not know whether the lions were male or female.

‘A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub’

News of the June 9 rescue was slow to filter out from Kefa Zone in south-western Ethiopia.

“If the lions had not come to her rescue then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage,” he said.

“Everyone in thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people,” Wondimu said.

Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said that it was likely that the young girl was saved because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.

“A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they (the lions) didn’t eat her,” Williams said. “Otherwise they probably would have done.”

The girl, the youngest of four brothers and sisters, was “shocked and terrified” and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu said.

He said that police had caught four of the men, but were still looking for three others.

In Ethiopia, kidnapping has long been part of the marriage custom, a tradition of sorrow and violence whose origins are murky.

The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where the majority of the country’s 71 million people live.

Ethiopia’s lions, famous for their large black manes, are the country’s national symbol and adorn statues and the local currency. Former emperor Haile Selassie kept a pride in the royal palace in Addis Ababa.

Despite their integral place in Ethiopia culture, their numbers have been falling, according to experts, as farmers encroach on bush land.

Hunters also kill the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1 000 (about R6 000), despite a recent crackdown against illegal animal trading across the country. Williams said that at most only 1 000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild. -
Sapa-AP

A lot of people tell me that they’re open-minded, but their everyday world presents a very narrow view of reality. I challenge everyone to step outside their comfort zone for a day, even if it’s just online.

PART ONE

Choose 3 blogs at random that are in direct opposition to you politically.

Read at least 1 post in each blog from start to finish. THINK about what you’ve read. You probably won’t agree with what you’ve read, but you’ll have much better insight into how “the other side” thinks.

Reality isn’t divided into “us” and “them”, or “good” and “evil”. Real solutions require cooperation, sometimes between sworn enemies. For example, animal rights activists and hunting enthusiasts have successfully worked together to save wildlife habitat. Democrats and Republicans have worked together to achieve common goals too many times to count.

Your enemy may one day be your most important ally.

PART TWO

Pick a foreign country from this blog directory.

Choose 3 blogs at random and read at least 1 post in its entirity at each one.

Chances are that the 3 blogs you’ve chosen will disagree on some point. Nowhere on Earth does there exist a nation or a group where everyone agrees on everything. Be wary when news reports insinuate otherwise. Our variety (intellectually and biologically) is a beautiful and powerful thing. Without it, we would never have survived as a species.

Here’s what I wrote to the DNC yesterday:

What are you thinking?!!!

I received two letters related to Howard Dean tonight. One was from the DNC, insulting Republicans for their high priced dinners with elite donors. The other was an invitation to be an elite donor at a high priced dinner with Howard Dean.

Please, please, PLEASE… Don’t be hypocrites. You might as well paint a target on the forehead of the Democratic Party. The Bush administration has certainly given you enough legitimate fodder for a hundred years worth of letters.

Remember that when you set yourselves up for a beating in the media, it’s the grassroots who take the brunt of it.

Then today, I was informed that a group of congressional Republicans are trying to repeal the 22nd amendment, which confines a President to two terms.

My first reaction was to assume this was an urban legend, but I couldn’t find evidence of that. Then I checked Thomas, the database for Congressional bills, and discovered this jaw dropping piece of work:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. (Introduced in House)

HJ 24 IH

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. J. RES. 24

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 17, 2005

Mr. HOYER (for himself, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. SENSENBRENNER, Mr. SABO, and Mr. PALLONE) introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

`Article –

`The twenty-second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed.’.

The more paranoid among us have been predicting this move since at least 2001, although I thought the danger was past. After all, wouldn’t you want to introduce this vile thing when the president’s approval rating was still high?

Note that one of the bill’s sponsors, James Sensenbrenner, is also the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, to which this bill was referred. Shouldn’t this qualify as a conflict of interest? Representative Howard L. Berman, another of the bill’s sponsors, is also on the Committee. Nauseatingly enough, Berman is a Democrat.

On a positive note, Rep. John Conyers, who is fast becoming a true hero, is the ranking minority member on the Committee. There are also other Dem heroes in the group, including Reps. Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. This ought to be quite a showdown!

Also note that the bill’s text avoids referring to what the 22nd amendment actually is. Here’s a refresher:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section. 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Ratification was completed on February 27, 1951.

What I find particularly interesting is that this was ratified during the height of the McCarthy era, widely recognized as the closest the US has ever gotten to being a fascist state. I can’t help but think of a conversation I had with John Stanford, who was endlessly investigated and harassed during those years.

He told me, “I’m more scared of the government we have now than I was then.”

We all need balance. Whenever the negative gets to you, let the world’s friendliest fish cheer you up. He always puts a grin on my face! Thanks to photographer Shelley Sanders for such a great pic.

I’ve just joined the virtual march on Washington at StopGlobalWarming.org. My petition entry reads:

“The impact of global warming is the equivalent of a nuclear war unfolding in very slow motion. The difference is that this is a war we can reverse… if we act now!”

While this statement may seem overly dramatic, it’s not far off the mark. I hold a minor in Environmental Geography, which encompasses much of the science behind global warming. As I studied, I was shocked by the depth and breadth of this threat, and even more shocked that the American people aren’t being fully informed of the danger they face.

Please help me get the word out by joining the virtual march today. Thank you!

On a related note, the New York Times reported yesterday that Philip Cooney, the man hired by the Bush administration to “fact check” global warming studies before they were passed on to the White House, altered documents to eliminate evidence of a link between petroleum use and global warming.

Not surprisingly, the White House hired Cooney away from the American Petroleum Institute, where he worked as their “climate team leader” (hilarious spin article here) and a registered Washington lobbyist. News reports assiduously avoid stating the obvious, but clearly, the Bush administration hired Cooney precisely so that he’d do exactly what he did.

(BTW, for a laugh, check out the CEQ website. It reads like very dry satire. I guess if you use the word “clean” enough times, people will believe you’re telling the truth.)

A little history:

Early 2002: Exxon-Mobile successfully lobbies the White House to have Dr. Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), removed from his position after he concludes (based on his organization’s research) that global warming is a real and imminent threat.

September 2002: The Bush administration edits the climate change section right out of the EPA’s annual air pollution report.

June 2003: The Bush administration tries to change the EPA’s draft Report on the Environment to soften it’s global warming conclusions.

Early 2004: A secret climate change report authored by the Pentagon is leaked to the press. The report concludes that the affects of global warming will be catastrophic and that it poses a far greater threat to national security than terrorism. The White House remains mute.

There’s more, but the pattern should already be clear. Cooney wasn’t acting on his own.

At a recent Vegetarian Society meeting in my area, we were shown a package of Vegetarian Intestines. No, these aren’t the intestines of some unfortunate vegetarian, but rather an Asian manufacturer’s attempt to cover all vegan meat-substitute needs.

As the package made its way around the room, I heard the same question over and over: “Who eats INTESTINES?!!!”. The answer is, plenty of people. Why else would there be more than one vegetarian version?

“Tripe” is the fancy word for cow intestines. Apparently, the more disgusting the innard (gourmands call them “variety meats”), the more highly it should be elevated in the dining pantheon. I remain skeptical. If people really think these things are so yummy, why do chefs use secret code names?

Foie is liver. Sweetbread is the thymus gland or pancreas of a young animal. Head cheese is a pressed, cheese-like block of boiled feet, the head and sometimes the heart and tongue of an animal. Andouille is intestine sausage. You knew I’d get back to intestines, didn’t you?

In South Texas, we have menudo. No, not the 80s boy band, although I do have to wonder who came up with such a nauseating name.

Menudo is the popular Tex-Mex way of serving up intestines. It also uses “veal knuckles”, which is a sliced up calve’s foot, plus some better ingredients to fool people into thinking it’s digestible. (Ok, I’m biased.) Other authentic Tex-Mex dishes include barbacoa (tongue) and tacos de sesos (brains).

Chinese gourmands will eat intestines from almost anything (geese, fish, cows), preferably in combination, but like to start with an appetizer of duck wing, sliced kidney or tongue. Cajun chefs try to fit multiple innards into one dish, like cowboy stew. At least the Cajuns tell it like it is, referring to variety meats as “debris”.

Soul food afficiandos call intestines chitterlings or chitlins. The famous Scottish dish haggis is packed into sheep’s intestine.

Greek Easter Lamb Soup or “mageritsa” uses the intestines, heart, lungs, liver, feet and head of a lamb. This last one particularly confounds me, since the promise of Easter (so I hear) is that God’s peacable kingdom will come when the lion lies down with the lamb. Am I missing something?

In the end, I suppose, it’s better to eat the whole animal if you’re going to kill it in the first place. Waste not, want not! Or maybe not…

Mad Cow Disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) has caused periodic bans on variety meats, particularly brains and intestines. In early 2004, the USDA declared a ban on “production” of these items. (Didn’t the animal that grew the organs produce them?) However, they allowed brains and intestines already on the shelves to be sold, and reversed most of the ban before the year was out.

Other countries haven’t felt quite so confident about our bovine-sourced products, including, in many cases, beef. These are collectively called “BSE risk commodities”. The US government is leaning hard on countries with the strictest bans, usually by threatening to ban their exports. In the meantime, Americans can feel free to enjoy Mad Cow risk foods to their heart’s (or intestines’ or brain’s) content.

Vegetarian intestines, anyone?

I haven’t done a very good job of covering what’s going on in Costa Rica. In a nutshell, President Pacheco quelled the strikes with the old bait and switch. He changed the focus to a corruption investigation of former presidents. And whaddya know?

After all was said and done (and if my scorecard is still up to date), 2 former presidents landed in jail and one is afraid to re-enter the country for fear of arrest. Can you imagine the damage to the national psyche that would occur if this were to happen in the US?

The unrest of last year was due to an overall hostility towards foreign intervention. One of the primary targets was CAFTA, called TLC in Costa Rica. It looks now as if Pacheco will use various stalling tactics to put off the final vote on CAFTA until after he’s left office. As it is, he’s battling new corruption charges every week, and his position is tenuous.

I can’t say that I blame him. If CAFTA is voted into effect, the country is sure to be rocked by another series of strikes and protests. In all likelihood, they’ll be worse than those of last year. In the meantime, I’m heartened that the US Congressional Hispanic Caucus voted 14-1 against CAFTA. (Shame on you, Rep. Henry Cuellar!)

For those of you interested in keeping up with the goings on in Costa Rica, here’s your best sources:

The Tico Times:
Long-running English language paper catering to foreigners living in Costa Rica

A.M. Costa Rica:
New English language paper with a more informal tone, but strong on opinions. Sometimes reports on stories that the Tico Times would rather stay away from.

La Nacion:
Costa Rica’s most popular newspaper. Publishes a weekly news roundup available online in English.

For those of you who are bi-lingual, here’s some other major Tico newspapers:

El Dia

La Prensa Libre

La Republica: “Costa Rica’s Business Daily”