I see that even Scott Adams — who revels in explaining why whatever Trump does is some genius "master persuader" move — thought Trump blundered ridiculously. Even though (if?) Trump's plan made good sense at the real-world factual level, it was horrible messaging at the emotional level, which is what matters in politics, and he shouldn't have done it. In that view, Trump's quick turnaround was a correction, abandoning rational policy to realign with emotional politics.
But let's undertake the thought experiment: What if it was a good idea to temporarily waft the idea of ending the ban on importing elephant trophies? I've been toying with a few thoughts on the subject.
No elephants actually died. The idea was out there and then squelched, just something to think about. What most people seemed to think about was how great elephants are. We love elephants. They're just about the favorite animal on earth. I mean, what's the competition? Dogs? Giraffes? Human beings? Pandas? We just got all balled up in our warm, enthusiastic love for the gigantic beasts with the big ears and the long trunks.
It's an almost childlike response. Didn't you draw elephants when you were a child? Every drawing of Noah's Ark has an elephant. We've been trying to draw elephants for a long time:
An elephant is the first thing the author tries to draw in "The Little Prince":
We have many soft buttons about elephants. The first thing I saw this morning on Facebook was an old photograph of a little girl sitting on a stool next to an elephant. The elephant is also seated (I guess because getting elephants to sit down was a standard circus trick imposed on captive elephants), and the girl has her arm as far as she can get it around the elephant. The elephant doesn't have its arm around the little girl because elephants don't have arms, and it's unlikely that the elephant loves the little girl. But we see love, because the love is in our heart.
But did you know that just in India, 100 to 300 human beings are killed by elephants every year? I'm reading that at the World Wildlife Fund website:
Elephant-human conflict poses a grave threat to their [that is, the elephants'] continued existence.... When elephants and humans interact, there is conflict from crop raiding, injuries and deaths to humans caused by elephants, and elephants being killed by humans for reasons other than ivory and habitat degradation. Elephants cause damage amounting from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars. Every year, 100 humans (in some years it may be 300 people) and 40-50 elephants are killed during crop raiding in India....We have no wild elephants in America, and I notice the "Pleistocene re-wilding" plan (blogged here in 2005) didn't get too far. We don't have elephants trampling cropland and little girls in Nebraska. For us, elephants are like unicorns. They live in Imaginationland. If Trump kills them, he kills out dreams.
Do you think he didn't know that? I'm going to suggest that he knew he could make elephants fill our brain. They are huge, not just in real life, but in our mind. You won't be able to ignore the elephant in the room that is your head space, and Trump put him there. The question is what were you not thinking about when you were thinking about the elephant? It's the most perfect distraction ever. It was so distracting that you didn't even notice what was that thing about Trump that we'd have been harping on if it weren't for the SAVE THE ELEPHANT!!! I think it was Roy Moore molested children, therefore Trump should be impeached.
Yes, we were thinking about big unruly penises, but a human penis looks like nothing compared to the elephant's trunk. Look at that thing! It's huge! It's prehensile!
By the way, "trunk" sounds like "Trump." And elephants "trumpet." Don't you hear them in your head now? Trump and elephants begin to merge in that deep part of your psyche that makes no sense. Suddenly, you love Trump. You were loving elephants, and Trump is saving the elephants now. All is good, the arc of elephant-saving bends toward justice.
Once the Trump and trumpet wordplay had us screwing around with blowing Trump's crazy hair:
But now Trump is trumpeting like an elephant...
... an elephant that in real life might like to trample you to death, but an elephant that exists in your mind as the lovable creature that Trump saved.
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73 comments:
“We don't have elephants trampling cropland and little girls in Nebraska.”
But we do have thousands of deer eating crops and crashing into cars in Cuming county. But it is not a problem that the media reports on because of Bambi.
A few years back some female Creighton undergrads were killed by Beatrice in a deer-car collision.
President Elephant Man
Not a RINO.
The blind men and the elephant is an apt description for the definition of what is and is not sexual harassment now.
Even the blind men touching the trunk can't agree.
I am Laslo.
I'm not buying it but I like the effort.
I have two levels of interpretation:
1. Selfish: he wants to import the trophies from his family's elephant hunting
2. Symbolic: he wants to display the trophies of how he dismantled the Republican party
Surprised you totally ignored the Republican party elephant symbol aspect. Too obvious?
His saving the elephants is a symbol for his saving the Republican party? To his fans, maybe.
There have to be a lot of people in America who don't actually think about or get spun up about elephants, though.
Hyena carrying a lion's head.
Hah, David Begley. Wisconsin Highway 35 runs along the border with Minnesota. It's a beautiful drive, and used to be very popular with weekend motorcyclists from the Twin Cities. Now it's considered too dangerous, because there's so many deer. It used to be that dusk was the crazy time, but when the population gets high, they'll run out and across the road at any time. In a car or pickup, you'll most likely survive. On a motorcycle at highway speed, your odds are not good.
Someone probably told Trump, "Here's the deal. Hunting fees pay for the conservation programs over there. So allowing a limited, quite expensive hunt actually protects the herds from the poachers, who know no limits." He replied, "Fine. Let's do the smart thing."
The Republican party is the party of the elephant whereas the Dems are asses.
As of yesterday, there are three less deer on my property. We call it, deer huntin'.
Thai elephant.
First, quarter an elephant.
Ban the importation of bowling trophies too.
We should rescind the ban on elephant parts and allow the Africans to start raising elephants for profit. It would "save" the elephants and provide a steady income for the Africans.
See if Trump bans the importation of trophy wives.
"But did you know that just in India, 100 to 300 human beings are killed by elephants every year?"
Considering India's population problem, the elephants are doing India a favor.
*I know - I'm horrible*
I love elephants because they are intelligent and they mourn the death of other family members.
Alexander Warburton points out that the elephant is unique among animals in having no ridiculous aspect.
Gahrie said...
We should rescind the ban on elephant parts and allow the Africans to start raising elephants for profit. It would "save" the elephants and provide a steady income for the Africans.
Spot the problem with this plan.
It's not that hard to see.
Spot the problem with this plan
You've got me.
I think most Americans think hunting animals for trophy is repugnant. Not only the animals that live on the African or Asian plain, but our own animals - bears and things with antlers.
Hunting for food - OK. Hunting for trophy - you're an asshole.
Elephants trumpeting remind me of Chewbacca.
What are they saying?
Hunting for food - OK. Hunting for trophy - you're an asshole.
So cats and dogs are assholes?
Once in a while, you hear about an elephant who escaped it's tortuous capture, and tramped the captor to death. Go elephant!
The plan only works with strong property rights, so that the guy raising the elephants doesn't lose them to poachers.
Cats are assholes, yes.
Don't forget the Tim Conway elephant.
Despite the fun dig at Trump there's no black and white as related to the policy, only shades of gray. (Heh)
There's something like 40,000 elephants in the mopane forest between the Chobe River and the Okavango in Bostwana. They're thick like rats. Since elephants are such voracious eaters a forest that should look like Northern Wisconsin or Minnesota looks more like Naples after the hurricane.
Suckers are like rats.
See if Trump bans the importation of trophy wives.
Somebody got a good night's sleep...
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/19/india-passenger-train-hits-kills-2-endangered-asian-elephants.html
Don't forget the Tim Conway elephant.
I still lol when I see that clip.
The plan only works with strong property rights, so that the guy raising the elephants doesn't lose them to poachers.
More than likely, because of scale etc, it begins as a government run program...so the same people protecting the elephants from poachers today would continue to do so...there would just be an increased financial incentive to do so.
What's gray and comes in quarts?
Quite possibly an elephant, Bob.
I wonder how many people remember the speech where the environmentalist admitted killing 40,000 elephants to stop desertification ?
So our government formed a team of experts to evaluate my research. They did. They agreed with me, and over the following years,we shot 40,000 elephants to try to stop the damage. And it got worse, not better. Loving elephants as I do, that was the saddest and greatest blunder of my life, and I will carry that to my grave. One good thing did come out of it. It made me absolutely determined to devote my life to finding solutions.
06:47When I came to the United States, I got a shock, to find national parks like this one desertifying as badly as anything in Africa. And there’d been no livestock on this land for over 70 years.
So, it was all a theory.
Naturally, we now have a better theory. Global warming and we must get rid of the petroleum engine.
And so it goes in the world of the left.
Cats in the wild are not assholes. They don't hunt for trophy - they hunt to eat. and they help thin the herd. All good.
AllenS said...
As of yesterday, there are three less deer on my property. We call it, deer huntin'.
Congratulations, now come and work on our herd.
I think most Americans think hunting animals for [trophies] is repugnant.
I hunt and fish. And I'm one of those who dislike trophies. When I haul up a fish what goes through my mind is the anticipation of its delicious flesh on my plate. I the idea of hanging his carcass (or a facsimile thereof) on the wall strikes me as silly. The same goes for deer. The last time I shot a "trophy" buck, a ten-pointer, his meat turned out objectionable gamey. My deerhound ate most of him. Since then I hunt for young and tender venison. Same goes for feral swine — I shoot at young sows preferably. Each sow killed in March is ten fewer piglets in April and their pork barbeques delectably compared to the barely edible boar.
"Shooting an Elephant," an essay by George Orwell.
In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people — the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter...
All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better...
One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism — the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem...
I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant — it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery — and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow...
But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it...
I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.
But I did not want to shoot the elephant...
Read the whole thing.
If we had to live with wild elephants roaming around our neighborhoods, we'd be glad to shoot them, eat them, and sell the tusks to compensate for the damage they'd done.
Hannibal used War elephants. And U of Alabama calls it’s team Red Elephants. That must be the linemen. And then there is Dumbo who lost his mother. So elephants are honorable animals.
Sam L. said...
If we had to live with wild elephants roaming around our neighborhoods, we'd be glad to shoot them, eat them, and sell the tusks to compensate for the damage they'd done.
Fortunately, Clovis Man seems to have taken care of that problem for us.
AA--"No elephants actually died."
Interesting point. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you're suggesting we might allow the trade in existing ivory but continue to ban any further hunting. It's an interesting proposition. It reminds me of some of the training I had at Whidbey Island in the Navy. We were told how long we might survive in cold water at different temperatures. How do we know this? Nazi medical research. (The Japanese did similar things and if I recall we made an arrangement to get the data.) We certainly would nevr condone research like this, but is it moral to even look at the data?
Unknown, there is more recent precedent in President GW Bush's banning of the creation of new stem cell lines but permitting the use of existing ones.
So cats and dogs are assholes?
They certainly can be! Haven't you ever had a dog or cat?
The sainted Indians killed all of the pachyderms in North America, either that or it was just a coincidence that they all died when the Indias showed up. African elephants co-evolved with humans, and so kept up in the evolutionary arms race until guns showed up. Mastadons first met modern humans fully evolved. Tough luck for those guys. I wish we could bring them back, but the Indians killed them all, like we did the passenger pigeons.
"Once in a while, you hear about an elephant who escaped it's tortuous capture, and tramped the captor to death. Go elephant!"
Yes!
Is it just the looks of the elephant that made them desirable in circuses? Then as we became aware of their brains and let us say nobility, we wanted the performances stopped? We have just lived through the end of the circuses that had performing elephants. I for one will miss them--and I've never been to Cirque de Soleil, a circus without elephants.
The megafauna. also disappeared in Australia when modern humans showed up, I am sure it is a further coincidence. Just like they did from the Eurasian Arctic. Lots of other megafauna disappeared from North America when the Indians showed up, but they don't have analogues in extent animals, like the mastodons do. Why do antelopes have such huge Secretariat sized hearts that allow them to run so damn fast and far? Probably because when they evolved, they were hunted by cheetah like cats...
It's all pretty sad, but once the ocean was full of nothing but worms and jellyfish, until some creature evolved teeth.
You post this nonsense and two posts latter complain about Tribe not knowing about occam's razor. Your lack of self awareness is astounding
The elephant is likely doomed unless they are actively farmed like livestock- that is the brutal reality, and given their nutritional needs, farming isn't likely to be profitable.
"given their nutritional needs, farming isn't likely to be profitable."
Their only chance is to be made valuable to the locals and the left is busy stamping out that chance,
The concept of a prehensile penis is indeed intriguing. I wonder why natural selection didn't allow us to develop such a useful and entertaining anatomical feature. This might be an argument for intelligent design. God simply does not want us have such a good time during our stay on earth.
Not too long ago, there was a news story about a man who was killed while guiding a hunt for an elephant. It was being shared with glee on Facebook and other social media. That elephant was chosen for the hunt because it was an old bull that was preventing younger bulls from having any of the females. His possessiveness meant no calves were being born. Americans and Europeans think they have a better idea of how to manage elephants than the people who actually live around them. I put them in the same category as the stridently anti-GMO people who care more about feeling good about their choices than they care about whether people on another continent are starving.
The plain fact is people who love elephants should encourage licensed hunting, which includes taking trophies and importing them into the United States. People who actually live with them, which includes African subsistence farmers often are in competition with wild elephants for basic survival. Few if any Americans face starvation caused by the depredation of wildlife on standing crops. (Farmers who have lost thousands of dollars in crop yield to the activity of feral swine can more fully understand the plight of Third World farmers, however.) These people kill elephants every day as a matter of self-interest. Elephants are of no value to them and represent a positive threat. A number of countries have adopted a more enlightened policy which encourages their farmers to value the elephants as an economic resource. A typical 15-day elephant hunt costs $20,250 plus a trophy fee of $4,000-$18,500, with much of that going directly to farmers whose lands suffer crop raiding as damage settlement.
Vickie, I'm sure will tell anyone who cares to listen how much she loves animals and haters hunters. Cheap love, indeed.
Trump steps on his dick and you folks want to kiss it and make it all better. What's it like to be a mark? Based on what you are willing to do and say, it must be some sort of ecstasy or nirvana like Chris Matthews experienced: I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.
Elephants are not humans. Conservation requires Planned Predator and Prey.
What about Barbar?
"Elephant rumble” should replace ”dog whistle" as a popular idiom/go to metaphor.
NPR: Elephant Conversation
We Americans don't own the elephants. We don't govern the countries where the elephants live. We do, however, have a lot of money. So if we want to we can pay for incentives to encourage the countries where the elephants live to preserve as many of them as possible. For example, Americans could pay huge sums of money to go on safaris to see elephants and other wild animals in their natural habitat, and even huger sums of money to hunt them and bring trophies back to the US. The money so raised could be used to protect the elephants.
Of course, that runs into the problem that there are (judging by this comment thread) a disturbing number of people who value elephant lives more than human lives, and others who are opposed as a matter of principle to humans hunting animals. Perhaps we could set up a system whereby the pro-elephant folks can pay to go on safaris where they will see elephants destroy Africans' subsistence crops, or even see Elephants stomp African farmers to death. The funds could then be used to support and protect the elephants.
Many deer hunters hunt for trophies AND meat - they are not exclusive. They put the venison in the freezer and the head on the wall. I'd think after a certain number of 10 point trophies on the wall, you'd stop hanging them (or the missus would make you stop). I wouldn't want a zillion deer heads on the wall.
However, I'm sure this guy has hung this somewhere prominent:
http://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/2017/11/14/missouri-hunter-bags-39-point-buck-after-four-years-trying.html
Blogger Dickin'Bimbos@Home said:
"Considering India's population problem, the elephants are doing India a favor."
That's a rather Maltusisan thing to say. Sort of like saying the Irish potato famine wasn't so bad, since Ireland was overcrowded anyway.
I like elephants too. But if one was on a rampage and headed toward me or my loved ones, I fire a damn cannon at it if I could and I wouldn't hesitate for a second.
And while I would never go trophy hunting myself, I'm a bit tired of all the moral outrage over pursuits that are legal. It isn't for American animal lovers to decide if hunting big game animals in Africa should be illegal - that is for Africans to decide. Should endangered species be hunted? No. Should hunting elephants be banned because I personally consider it stupid and a waste of money? No, because my preferences and tastes do not rule the world. If they did, I would have banned liver and lima beans a long time ago. There are many pursuits I consider stupid and a waste of money that I do not think should be illegal. Generally speaking I want governments to leave us alone. I don't want to say, "Leave us alone - except for these things I don't like."
Howard wrote... "What's it like to be a mark?"
Don't see many marks around here, but it seems like you should be able to answer this: What's it like to be an a**hole?
I see Ann rmaking fun of and riffing on the whole thing, and, outside of a few exceptions, people poeple picking up the threads and going off on the tangents she exposed. Since I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough to think your approach would convince anybody, Occam's razor suggests two possible conclusions, neither of which speak well of you.
Back on topic, it's unfortunate that so much of our public discourse, with our without Trump, is so soundbite- and now Twitter driven. A limited ivory trade can actually be beneficial for habitat and population maintenance for the elephants as it would give the people who live there incentives to help preserve them. Instead it's all chyron and soundbite driven. It's hard to even blame Twitter because 140 (and now 280) letters seem to be more than most media persons can keep in their little heads.
(That and this is another case of where thoughtless "empathy" actually hurts the cause it's supposedly marshaled in support of. Sometimes it's hard to tell if its just stupidity or actual malevolence.)
" What's it like to be a mark?"
Is that some more of that bathhouse talk, Howard ?
Here are your choices:
1) Make elephants an economic resource that benefits villagers in Zambia and Zimbabwe, so they want to preserve the elephants against poachers.
2) Watch Zambian and Zimbabwean villagers assist poachers who get rid of the crop-destroying pests that threaten their lives and livelihoods.
Trump's "mistake" on the issue was being an adult and choosing good policy over good politics. Trump's actual mistake was letting himself get stampeded into abandoning good policy by the bleating of people with the mentalities of children.
Rigelson: The problem with a limited ivory trade is that it makes it easier for poachers to sneak in their products. Plenty of folks will pay to kill elephants even without trophy's, so it's not an either-or issue. In fact, quite a few rich hunters do trank hunts, which takes quite a lot of balls.
It is too bad that the discourse around the President is on Twitter using sound-bites and name calling, I'm really at a loss why that is. I mean it's like politics has devolved into a parody of a reality TV show. I suspect this is a secret plot by the elites to fool the deplorables into voting for their own economic interests.
I don't have your hubris to think I can change any minds, but it fun to be an asshole to bullies and bully enablers.
A typical 15-day elephant hunt costs $20,250 plus a trophy fee of $4,000-$18,500
So you are talking $40,000 tops. Now for every rich asshole who is willing to spend $40,000 to kill an elephant there are probably 100 (and that is probably conservative, I bet it is more like 1000) upper middle class people who are willing to spend $5-10,000 to observe wild elephants in their natural habitat and take no trophies other than pictures. You conservatives like basic economics except when it conflicts with your world view.
If ivory's worthless because no trade in it is allowed, that's one less reason to value the local herds. If there are fewer hunters coming around to hunt for trophies because they can't take them home, there's that many fewer dollars coming in locally to offset the crop damage a herd does.
Each reason you take away for the locals to value elephants, you move that much closer to a local taking a $30 AK-47 and gunning down the young and females to get rid of a destructive pest.
You can keep saying "Well, but this just one way of profiting, there are these others . . ." until the elephant is extinct, or you can stop deliberately reducing the cash value of elephant herds. It is either-or.
the Harari Herald points out why conservation and culling can improve both the herd and discourage the real probblem, which is illegal poaching
http://www.herald.co.zw/us-climbs-down-on-trophy-hunting-move-to-boost-zim-elephant-conservation/
Blogger Freder Frederson said...
A typical 15-day elephant hunt costs $20,250 plus a trophy fee of $4,000-$18,500
So you are talking $40,000 tops. Now for every rich asshole who is willing to spend $40,000 to kill an elephant there are probably 100 (and that is probably conservative, I bet it is more like 1000) upper middle class people who are willing to spend $5-10,000 to observe wild elephants in their natural habitat and take no trophies other than pictures. You conservatives like basic economics except when it conflicts with your world view.
Legal hunting curbs poaching.
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