Vervet monkeys in one Kenyan village have taken to stealing vegetables from local farms and acting in ways the women farmers find offensive.

In addition to stealing their crops, the monkeys also make sexually explicit gestures at the women, they claim.

"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts. We are afraid that they will sexually harass us," said [resident Lucy] Njeri.

No word on whether the monkeys work construction jobs on the side.

Labels: gender issues, wildlife

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said yesterday that a terrorist attack before next year's election could do serious harm...to Democratic efforts to grab the presidency.

[I]f certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world.

So that's why she hopes there isn't a terrorist attack? Because if it happens, it would help the Republicans? How about not wanting an attack because it would injure and kill innocent people?

I'd like to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt and presume that her concerns about any perceived Republican advantage were a distant second in immportance to concern for the safety of the would-be victims. Because frankly, I'm tired of malfeasance or the threat thereof by terrorists or despots being used as political weapons.

Unfortunately, it isn't just politicians who do this. I have never been able to shake the sick feeling I got when, upon hearing about the capture of Saddam Hussein, a liberal friend of mine said dolefully, "This is going to be great for Bush." No comment about the Iraqi people he tyrannized.

It isn't just Bush-haters who do this. Republicans have maintained that the reason we haven't had another attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001, is because we've had a Republican in the White House. But that seems less distasteful than telling people that you hope no more innocent civilians get killed so you can win an election.

Labels: politics

I didn't believe the right-wingers who said Democrats area against the Iraq war only because Republicans are for it. Maybe I should have.

Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.

Good thing something is still going wrong, or we'd have to talk them all in off the ledge.

Labels: war