Myanmar's Unemployed Elephants
WA KALU PU, Myanmar — Dragging giant tree trunks up and down the steep hillsides of sweltering jungles is a tough job. But there is something worse, say owners of Myanmar's logging elephants: having no job at all.
Shrinking forests and a law enacted three years ago that prohibits the export of raw timber have saddled Myanmar with an elephant unemployment crisis. Hundreds of elephants have been thrown out of work, and many are not handling it well.
“They become angry a lot more easily,” U Chit Sein, 64, whose eight logging elephants now work only a few days a month. “There is no work, so they are getting fat. And all the males want to do is have sex all the time.”
Elephants hold an almost mystical place in Myanmar, home to the world’s largest captive elephant population. For hundreds of years, they helped extract precious teak and hardwoods from jungles that even modern machinery still cannot penetrate.
Solitude & Industry Collide
SHINDE, India — When a Chinese truck company wanted to open a factory in India, its president looked at sites that had a mountain in back and a river in front — especially auspicious locations in the traditional practice of feng shui.
The company, Beiqi Foton Motor, found a seemingly ideal spot, securing 250 acres of farmland in this western Indian village. Foton wants another 1,250 acres nearby to build an industrial park for suppliers.
But the mountain here is sacred to many Hindus. For at least 2,000 years, the cliffside caves have been home to generations of monks. One of the most revered Hindu saints is said to have attained a pure vision of his god during the 17th century while meditating in the highest cave overlooking what is now Foton’s site.
The culture clash was immediate.
Foton erected barbed-wire fences and hired uniformed guards to keep out trespassers. Cattle herders and Hindu pilgrims have repeatedly trampled the fences. The monks do not want a noisy neighbor.
“In today’s life, spirituality and science are both important, and neither should deny the other,” Kailash Nemade, a monk, said during a pause from chanting religious poems. “But this factory should not come here, because it will ruin the spirituality of the mountain.”
From Bible-Belt Pastor
to Atheist Leader
Late one night in early May 2011, a preacher named Jerry DeWitt was lying in bed in DeRidder, La., when his phone rang. He picked it up and heard an anguished, familiar voice. It was Natosha Davis, a friend and parishioner in a church where DeWitt had preached for more than five years. Her brother had
The Blue Faience Hippopotamus
The Blue Faience Hippopotamus is a folktale about a saddened Egyptian Princess and a hippo who fell in love with her. It is a story of selfless love as the hippo uses his last wish from a magician to simply make the princess find happiness even though he himself can never be her true love. The illustration depicts the moment he sees her for the first time gracefully swimming in the river but is to scared to approach her, for he is a hippo.
Beware Runoff
