Mumble Herder

I'm going to try to be regular about this again. Of course, I'm about to head out traveling for two weeks, so "regular" may be a relative term for a bit.

It appears that Indonesian villagers poisoned four rare Sumatran elephants, probably to protect their palm oil plantations. Last month two male elephants were poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples in the same area.

Kenya--which is still in the midst of a drought--has seen a wave of elephant killings by poachers, who are also killing other wildlife for food. Also in Kenya, work to excavate a rock quarry in Amboseli Park may cut off wildlife migration corridors for elephants and other animals.

Lastly, some good news from Kenya: a pilot study has found that fences made from wire, wood, and beehives can be an effective deterrent against elephant raids on farms. Seems the elephants recognize the shape and smell of the beehives and steer clear: "The bees aren't likely to be able to sting though an elephant's thick hide. But they can and do sting elephants around the eyes and inside the trunk. It seems that this only has to happen once for an elephant never to forget the experience."

Most of the time when my news alert sends me elephant stories they are about something that I already knew; but this is both new and awesome:

The race to save Kimani began two years ago. The Kenya Wildlife Service had already reluctantly shot five elephants from the conservancy who refused to stop crop-raiding, and Kimani was the last of the regular raiders. The Save the Elephants group wanted to see if he could break the habit.

So they placed a mobile phone SIM card in Kimani's collar, then set up a virtual "geofence" using a global positioning system that mirrored the conservatory's boundaries. Whenever Kimani approaches the virtual fence, his collar texts rangers.

They have intercepted Kimani 15 times since the project began. Once almost a nightly raider, he last went near a farmer's field four months ago.

For a while there it didn't look like this was going to happen.

*

That's President Kibaki on the left, Odinga on the right, with Annan looking on.

The country seemed to let out a collective hooray as Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, sat down at a desk in front of the president’s office, with a bank of television cameras rolling, and signed an agreement that creates a powerful prime minister position for Mr. Odinga and splits cabinet positions between the government and the opposition.

It seems clear that things are a long way from good, but this is a start.

*Photo by Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images

The NYT talks about the present and likely future of Kenya, now that tribal tensions have erupted in such a way that it'll be impossible to paper them over again. From the article: "Kenya used to be considered one of the most promising countries in Africa. Now it is in the throes of ethnically segregating itself." Be warned that this is not a very uplifting read.

Kenyan Pundit points to Vuma Kenya, an organization which seeks to bring attention to and work toward solutions for the current crisis. They're planning a benefit concert on February 2nd at the Roxy in Boston, so if you're in the area you may want to check it out.

Looks like the presidential race is down to two on each side; reports are that Giuliani and Edwards are both dropping out. I wonder if this will all be figured out by convention time. Speaking of which, I am NOT looking forward to having scads of Republicans crawling all over my town come September. Shall I protest? Shall I pretend it's not happening? Shall I scramble to see if anyone wants freelance coverage from someone who has an imperfect understanding of politics but lives within walking distance of the convention center? I can't decide.

Because I am neurotic (no sense trying to hide it) I am beginning to obsess over stupid things, like how shall I dress for book-related stuff? I am a person who dislikes "dressing up" in general, but I'm not sure that the jeans/t-shirt/hoodie look is how I should be presenting myself. Since everyone knows that all great fashion choices are made by committee, OBVIOUSLY this calls for a poll:

[Poll #1129997]

This isn't helping.

Kibaki speaks. The suggestion to seek redress for an election possibly rigged by corruption in the courts, which are presumably just as vulnerable to corruption, seems rather disingenuous. At least there's a call for an end to the violence; I saw a report earlier that Odinga had done the same, but I can't find it now. Unfortunately not everyone seems to be listening. Things have calmed down a bit in the past couple of days, but it's not over. From the article: "On Wednesday night, residents of a usually quiet town in the Rift Valley said that a mob of Maasai killed four Kikuyu shopkeepers and then looted their stores."

It's gotten worse, and may continue to do so. Kibaki, the incumbent, has been declared the winner. 94 people are dead so far in the rioting. Live television coverage has been suspended. International observers are saying that Kibaki's totals have been inflated, and members of the country's election commission have seen irregularities. "In some areas, more people voted for the president than there were registered voters," is a telling quote.