If diamonds are forever, so is the pain they cause. Though this strain of diamond fever—with its corresponding blood diamonds—doesn’t call Sierra Leone and Guinea home, it does bear a strong resemblance to the one(s) found there a decade ago. This time, however, it’s hit Zimbabwe, as Mugabe’s sickening government looks to one of the country’s natural riches to spice things up economically.

But diamond fever’s not the only illness plaguing Zimbabwe’s borders. The country’s hoping to gather international aid in its fight against a cholera epidemic, which has been declared a national emergency. When will someone cut this oppressed, violent, inflation-stricken, refugee spawning, utterly ravaged country a break?

And on another side of Africa lies Rwanda, stirring up trouble for its neighbor, the Congo. The beleaguered former Belgian territory is preparing for an internal rebellion, and neighboring Rwanda, harboring a series of “strategic interests” is content to fuel the fire by sending over hundreds “if not,” as The New York Times put it, “thousands of troops to rebel front lines.”

A blood-spattered Mumbai has led many—powerful and otherwise—to ask whether Pakistan is doing what it can (or, worse, what it shouldn’t) to battle militancy. The most recent carnage has raised questions of how effective the country’s current government is when fighting that extremist-spawned violence.

More than a half a year since the disastrous Sichuan earthquake struck China, couples victim to a one-child policy are trying to rebuild. While still in mourning, many middle-aged couples are seeking government-funded medical help—such as reversing vasectomies—to start again by having another child now that so many of the country’s single children were lost during calamity.

Obama to the rescue! Burning up in California? Well, President-Elect Obama’s got your back. Our boy’s campaign website is asking folks to help the victims of the southern California wildfires by volunteering their time or donating to the cause through his website. Finally! A president that gives a shite.

China finally decided to check itself. The Chinese government announced today that will implement some food safety standards and start regulating its dairy producers. At least four babies have died over the last three months, due to complications from ingesting milk products contaminated with an industrial chemical. This isn’t the first time China has promised to clean up its act, so let’s not hold our breath . . .

Flying private jets to ask for handouts? Here we go again. Top execs from the three big auto companies—Ford, Chevy, and GM—flew to Washington, D.C. on their fancy private jets to ask for fat taxpayer handouts for their struggling businesses. During their meeting, they also promised to streamline their operations to cut down costs—you know, like, instead of drinking sparkling water, they’ll now drink regular ol’ bottled water on board those private jets. It’s a tough concession, but somebody’s got to do it.

Canada officially wins the Miss Congeniality award. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled today that obese people are allowed to reserve two seats for the price of one on airlines. The one-person-one-fare policy is a significant win in the ongoing dispute over whether airlines should mandate individuals over a certain weight to purchase two seats when they fly. The airlines argue that patrons seated next to these folks are denied a certain degree of comfort and space on flights. My question is: What comfort? And what space? Unless we’re any one of the execs from the three big auto companies mentioned above (ahem, ahem) we get no comfort and space up in those jets.

Hey Mickey, you’re so old. You’re so old, you smell like mold. Hey Mickey! Everyone’s favorite animated mouser turned 80 years old this week. In honor of the occasion, I hear the animators are going to replace those fashionable red trunks with an even better look—a Disney-themed adult diaper. W00t! W00t!

In Order: A Late Registration to Anger Management? Kanye’s in the limelight again, but not for the right reasons. Dealing with the first anniversary of his mother’s death as well as a deeply ingrained propensity to get up in paparazzo faces, Kanye attacked another cameraman: this time in Newcastle. The self-proclaimed “voice of this generation” had a scuffle with a photographer lurking in wait for the rapper to leave club Tup Tup Palace. The point and shooter said Kanye cut his face and bruised him while shouting “Get the fucking camera off me!” The Northumberland police took the 31-year-old performer into custody but have released him without charges.

Can’t Keep up with the Jones if it’s Going Down OPEC’s cutting key production. Exxon Mobile’s down. Chevron’s low. Freddie Mac keeps getting worse. Just as investors were hoping to witness an economic seachange, today found Wall Street back in a quagmire with the Down Jones Industrial Average plummeting 230 points.

The State of Things for State Schools These schools used to be cheap,  comparatively speaking. Well, they’re still not at private 40K levels, but students at UCs and Cal State schools are likely to face a 10 percent tuition hike. Given the state’s pitiful budget, the young academics may see UC prices, for example, reach nearly $9,000 per year levels, which would, when added to living expenses cost nearly 15 grand. For those staying in state for good schools they’re used to seeing cost far less than other options, that’s a lot.

FDA may see it as the Land of Honey, but not of Milk The nation’s Food and Drug Administration has begun barring Chinese shipments carrying milk and milk powder-using products (e.g. cookies and candy). China has been known to add melamine, a chemical used for plastic and fertilizer, to its milk because of its ability to enhance the amount of protein in that substance. Seeing as how it’s an industrial chemical, and the past few months have brought some highly disturbing Chinese food and health-related issues to light (such as those involving tainted baby formula), “federal food safety officials” have stated they wish to take no chances and have halted the imports until their contents may be tested.

And here I thought the taboo was strong enough never to make the substance available as anything but a black (er white) market ware; I was wrong.

Merchants in Namibia held a closed door auction for nine tons of ivory (the product of roughly 10,000 dead elephants) yesterday morning. Six buyers from Japan and China purchased 7.2 of those tons.

The argument for that sale: Now that there are more than 312,000 elephants in Africa, the animal can no longer be considered extinct. Moreover, the ivory sold in Namibia purportedly comes from both elephants dying from natural causes and those selected from a group of government operations-owned animals (that doesn’t sound sinister at all). Lastly, those throwing the auction, one of a planned four “internationally authorized sales” presenting a net 108 metric tons (or 238,032 pounds), have promised those events will precede a nine year “resting period” in which no ivory will be procurable in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. That period, the equivalent of letting the field lie fallow on the seventh year, would be observed in order to “safeguard stocks.”

Not to sound like a crazed PETAite or even a softie, but facing the idea that ivory may be bought legally makes me slightly ill.

Even if, as the merchants claim, the elephants died a natural death or were carefully gleaned from preserves, how can these merchants be themselves sure any number of the pachyderms were not poacher trophies? Like the one conflict diamond that gets cut and mixed into a more purely obtained batch and sullies the trade, that one poached elephant piled into the haul suddenly turns the whole ivory business rogue.

Why does having more elephants suddenly send the message that an ivory selling fest is what’s in order? And while I’m on a simile-making kick, I’ll compare that to procrastination. Finding yourself in the unique, wonderful and implausible position of having been given the gift of extra time to spend on a project when you least expected it, will you use it to finish the piece at a leisurely pace? Not likely. You’ll somehow end up squandering it in such a manner as to be in the dire straits you were caught in before. I don’t think witnessing a healthy growth in elephant numbers should imply that more of them ought to be killed. Why not enjoy their presence in peace, remembering that ivory’s mien may easily be mimicked by cream-colored plastic?

I guess you can say that it would be a waste not to use the ivory that’s been languishing in safes or faults or wherever these years since it became illegal (nine years ago and one year ago on eBay), and that extant ivory-wielding jewelry or figurines, chess sets or pianos should be sold regardless. But as much as that makes sense, and as an antique lover, I do understand the rationale, I can’t shake the feeling (and please don’t liken me to an anti-legalizing drugs finger waggler) that making all of it available will remind those who didn’t know about or miss it how “nice” or “pretty” it is, eventually increasing demand for this tusk-stealing material.

Banning anything’s a slippery slope. Most things we use, even for decorative purposes alone, involve some form of direct or indirect killing or oppression: silver/gold/precious stones (mining, often slave-like and definitely dangerous), wood (tree chopping, cheap and/or forced labor), bone (self-explanatory and much like ivory), plastic (cancer producing through factory emissions and deadly to those working in them), etc. Even were we to limit ourselves to the use of obsidian, we could conjure up collective memories of those slain by lava.

So there’s no easy solution.

But why risk endangering elephants again? And if it was, until so recently, illegal, why mess with a good thing?

Mom may have given the big speech, but little Piper stole the show. Is it just me, or does this six-year-old make the Republican party a little more tolerable?

Prosperity was the RNC’s official theme on Wednesday. And the unofficial theme? Better get down on those knees and start begging for forgiveness, you sick, sorry, good-for-nothing, beside-the-point “media” types.

No one pays attention to the pollsters, except when we like what they have to say. According to this totally legit poll, Obama has a narrow lead in two of the three battleground states. As for that other state — the one that decided the last election — well, the heat is on. It’s a straight-up tie.

The quake hit back in May and Chinese officials are just now acknowledging that — okay okay, the schools that crumbled to the ground during the shake were kinda sorta built . . . quickly.

MTV just spilled the beans on a well-kept secret: “It’s Britney, B*tch.” Ms. Spears will be the first thing viewers see when they tune into the VMAs this Sunday. It’ll be just like last year! Remember last year? There’s something to be said for an opening act who can’t remember where she is or why the heck these clubbers (ahem, backup dancers) are so in-synch . . . wait, what y’all?

And McCain will speech it up tonight and close out the RNC the only way he knows how — town-hall style, yo. Be there or be . . . selling out seats at Invesco Field. Mmm-hmm.

Maybe McCain DOES get the Internet: The Los Angeles Times blog Webscout is reporting that on the site Digg “in the last 30 days, at least 28 stories critical of GOP Sen. John McCain have been mysteriously “buried”— meaning enough Digg users have voted against a story that the submission may no longer appear on the site’s high-traffic front page.” Digg, like Wikipedia, has an open, user-controlled interface, so it has always been susceptible to certain types of fraud. Like Academia, Technologica (I just made that up…backpat) is left-leaning, so two things jump out: 1) whether McCain’s camp is behind this or not, the mere suggestion is enough to pin it on him in most minds and 2) it probably won’t disseminate much to the people who have no clue what Digg is, which is where this news could really change some minds.

Riding the Partisan Pendulum: With the Obama VP pick still a giant mystery to pretty much everyone, the Washington Post discusses the ramifciation of Sen. Chuck Hagel as the pick du jour.  Fellow PnP’er Tricia Romano was quick to point out the plethora of political double negatives right now.  Obama entertaining a Republican as his VP choice, McCain talking Lieberman (a 15 to 1 shot according to oddsmakers), and a host of Republicans defecting to a Democrat (Obama) because their current Republican (McCain) used to ask too much like a Democrat.  Huh?

The Sino-Facade: The jaw-droppingness of the Beijing games opening ceremony is a horse long dead.  As my wife put it, China was basically throwing out a beautifully disguised eff you to the world, all the while saying “you should be very, very afraid of us.”  But the first week has shown its fair share of controversy, from the (under)age of its female gymnasts, to CGI being used in the televised firework footprints, to a lip-syncing little girl.  What has faded more quickly than a Santa Monica morning fog, however, is the dicussion of pollution as cyclists pedal their way through the city, or even its effect on the US, for that matter.  Or, as 200 million Chinese citizens living in poverty might be wondering, “why spend $40 billion on the games and nothing on us?”

Photography as a Weapon: The NY Times blog section has an interesting post by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris on how photography can be used as a weapon without any of the Photoshopping that has pretty much destroyed personal photography as evidence in courtroom’s these days.  (thanks to BoingBoing for the tip)  The man behind the Oscar-winning “The Fog of War” and “Standard Operating Procedure,” an upcoming doc on Abu Gharib, of course discusses the topic in the context of political propaganda, circa Colin Powell’s trip to the UN with “proof” of WMD in Iraq.

The OTHER Dirty South: MyWay is reporting that Russia halted aggression against Georgia, declaring that “the aggressor has been punished,” tongue firmly planted in vodka-stained cheek, I’m sure.  No sooner had they delcared a French-brokered truce before they started sinking ships and rolling more tanks around, though.  The cease-cease-fire was ignited by looting on both sides, according to the AFP.  Once this whole mess ends, McCain figures out how to pronounce the Georgian president’s name, and Obama figures out how to act presidential, it may be trouble for…Ukraine?

“My main objective in my discussions on religious freedom is to remind
this new generation of leadership that religion is not to be feared but
to be welcomed in society…” Oh, I think he listens, absolutely. I think he’s interested. . . . He absorbs, he takes in, he listens.”

The Post notes that Bush is amongst the most friendly of U.S. presidents toward China, meeting with the government a record four times. He’s emphasized the importance to reign in repressive governments in Burma and Sudan; he’s also mindful of their overreaching security.

“They’re hypersensitive to a potential terrorist attack,”
Bush said. “And my hope is, of course, that as they have their security
in place, that they’re mindful of the spirit of the Games, and that if
there is a provocation, they handle it in a responsible way without
violence.”

As a religious man, that issue weighs most heavily on him:

“I mean, this is a closed society in many ways,” he said. “The Internet
provides interesting opportunities for people to express themselves.
Sometimes it’s open, sometimes the filters are there. I’ve talked to
the evangelicals who go there who feel like the underground church
movement has gotten a few steps forward, a step-and-a-half back. It’s
really hard to tell.”

Bush Says It’s ‘Important to Engage’ China

McCain steals back some of the spotlight. For perhaps the first time in ages, this past week has not been soley about the “One.” Journalism.org is reporting that McCain made as much news as Obama this past week in journalism shocka. Coupled with Drudge Report’s breathless headline, “‘Approving Roar’ For McCain in Heartland,” you’d think McCain was up by 24 percent in the polls, which are still, inexplicably, neck and neck.

This account was sent to me by Christa Grenawalt, who is traveling in India right now. Recently, she spent several weeks studying under the Dali Lama. She also participated in marches there supporting Tibetan monks who are protesting Chinese persecution of monks in Lhasa, Tibet. While Christa was sitting in a café near Dharamsala, Tenzin gave her his story of fleeing China in 2000.

– JB Powell

*****
“My name is Kunchok Tenzin. I was born in 1981 in the Khansu province, Shahog County in Tibet. I became a monk at the Lhabrang Monastery near Lhasa when I was 14 years old.

In 1997, I had to undertake the Patriotic Re-education Campaign started by the Chinese government. Monks are made to denounce his holiness the Dali Lama as a separatist. Many Tibetans are arrested and do not denounce His Holiness. They are often not released and sent to work in labor camps; on the roads, railway, fallen trees or elsewhere.

On top of that, I was only 17 at the time. As part of the Campaign, any monk under the age of 18 was forced to leave the monastery ending the education of young monks. Due to these difficult circumstances, I decided to come to India with a pure aim to receive blessings from the Dali Lama and pursue education. I was not able to tell anyone about my plan to go to India, including my parents.

My childhood friend, Kunchok Gyatso joined me and we made our journey to Lhasa in 2000. We didn’t have any official documents to come to India so we had to escape. We were part of a group of 28 people accompanied by two guides on a small pathway. The trip on foot to cross the border is difficult and dangerous to hike due to challenging terrain and cold weather. On the 28th day of our tireless travel we ran short of food and our guides left us.

When we reached the Nepal area called Zeri we were arrested by Nepalese soldiers. We were taken to a local police station and imprisoned there for two days. All our precious things were snatched away from us. We were released after two days and then hired a vehicle. The driver took us straight to an army cantonment. As we entered the cantonment, my heartbeat ran faster and I became terribly fearful and thought we may be handed over to the Chinese or may be killed by them. All the people got so terrified that every one started to jump out of the vehicle and we got scattered. As we ran the soldiers surrounded us and we became helpless. However, some of us took up stones to defend ourselves. The soldiers commanded us in their body language to put down the stones. Some of the Tibetans at the back did not listen to the command so they kicked us bitterly and beat us strongly with the handles of guns.

Soon the armies went off and we started to head down the road. In about fifteen minutes, the Nepalese soldiers, in full army dress started to chase us. They shot at us and one of the monks was hit in his leg. As we ran I felt a stone flying in front my head. Then I was hit under my left arm. The bullet came out my back and I became unconscious. When I woke, my group mate, Dugcham was supporting me. I saw that he was shot in two spots. I also saw my friend, Kunchok Gyatso shot on his cheek. My childhood friend could not say a word. He held my hands with tears in his eyes. I told him that I am going to die and not to worry about me. Again, I fell unconscious.

When I awoke again, I witnessed a girl shot in her foot. Blood was oozing out. Meanwhile, one of the soldiers came up and kicked away my friend who was supporting me. He then stepped on my neck and pointed the gun at my head. I was dragged and thrown into the truck like a corpse. After five hours we reached Kathmandu. Meanwhile, blood continued bleeding from the check of my friend. I was trying hard to stand up, but I could not. Then a Chinese [note: I think he means Nepalese here. JBP.] soldier sitting at the back door of the truck came up to me; he kicked me and punched me very heavily.

On the way to Kathmandu, when we stopped for a rest, the local people and doctor were very frightened by the police that they dared not check on the wounded among us. Before the day was over, we reached the hospital. I stayed in the hospital for around three months.

My friend, Kunchok Gyatso died before we reached the hospital. The doctors and nurses did not tell me at the time. They were afraid that I could not stand such a shock as I was also seriously injured by the gunshot. I was eventually released to the Reception Center in Kathmandu. When I came to India, my health was so poor that I could not lift a bag myself.

I never think of making revenge from the people who killed my friend, but I am afraid that the killing has a connection with the Chinese Government. My story is one that faces many Tibetans escaping from Tibet to India; some of them are shot, some die and some go missing. I am really concerned with that. I want to, if given the chance, to tell all the people around the world that something inhuman is happening at the border of Tibet and Nepal.

Now owing to the blessing of His Holiness the Dali Lama I am in Namgyal Monastery.”

——
Image of Tenzin: Christa Grenawalt

A perennial holiday gift favorite should be crossed off the lists of any self-respecting patriot. Dallas local TV news CBS 11 gave Bill O’Reilly’s “War on Christmas” a run for its money yesterday, reporting that those beloved American Girl dolls that “teach our heritage” aren’t really American. The little darlings are infiltrators, “born” in Communist China and stealing around American bedrooms right now, as we speak!

You’re asking yourself: “How did the enterprising journalists over at CBS 11 get the big story?” By “investigating” the doll packaging and “uncovering” evidence in the form of large labels that say “Made in China.” If that’s not Pulitzer-worthy reporting, I don’t know what is.

The expert analysts featured in the report contend that where the dolls are made is essential to their essence as toys and to their usefulness as learning tools. Dr. Daniel Howard, a professor of marketing at Southern Methodist University, poses a provocative rhetorical for concerned viewers: “To have an American Girl doll made in China seems like a contradiction, does it not?”

Maybe not when you take in consideration that 80 percent of American toys are made in China. Apple-pie products such as that cap you don when you root, root, root for the home team and the stars and stripes you stick out of your car window on the Fourth of July are nearly all made in China, too.

The good news, it turns out, is that despite their nefarious origins, American Girl dolls won’t kill you. As part of its investigation, CBS 11 tested samples and found the dolls were free of lead and other hazardous chemicals. Nice try, though. Glad they’re watching out for us, rooting out the evildoers this holiday season, over there at CBS 11!