For Stephanie's peace of mind

A few months ago, my friend and fellow blogger read this post, watched this video, and made the following statement:

Shouldn't we be concerned that an elephant is able to buy all that stuff just swiping a card and no one checks his ID?

Well, worry no longer, Stephanie: Elephants in India get ID cards, by Ashok Sharma, AP.

Wildlife groups have created individual photo identification cards for wild elephants in southern India to help track the effects of poaching, conservationists said Thursday...

...The project focused on male elephants because "unlike African elephants, where both males and females have tusks, only male Asian elephants have valuable tusks, so they are specifically targeted by poachers," said WCS researcher Varun Goswami, the main author of the study.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the elephant featured in the video was male, or of Indian descent. Oh well.

I liked these, too!

From ColorLines, via Feministing, The Segregated Blogosphere, by Celina De León.

People of color make up 40 percent of bloggers, but only 26 percent of Internet users. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's "Blogger" report, which was based on findings from their February through April 2006 tracking surveys, 11 percent of bloggers are Black, 19 percent are English-speaking Hispanic and 10 percent are some other race or ethnicity.

There are no bloggers of color with the kind of exposure and influence of superstars Matt Stoller of mattstoller.com or Duncan Black of atrios.blogspot. The result, according to [blogger Chris Rabb], has been a typical white liberal/left dialogue in the political blogosphere.

"They won't talk about the racial element of anything that's been deracialized by mainstream media. They're not going to talk about affirmative action, about the racial element of the immigration issue," Rabb said. "Whenever issues of race come up, it's seen as a distraction."

From YouTube, via Feministing, Sexism in Reality TV:


From YouTube, after seeing it on TV last night, the MasterCard paypass Elephant commercial:


I need some elephant care, too. Someone should bring me soup and tuck me in. And was that Ernie Sabella from The Lion King and those beach club episodes of Saved by the Bell? Where has he been?