Scriber on vacation

Scriber is headed off to the country of Zambia for most of September.  One of the attractions is to view and photograph real elephants.  Real elephants are highly intelligent and social animals.  They care for their young and mourn their dead.  And they are being subjected to an unrelenting attack by poachers.  I could not pass up the opportunity. (And I sure wish the Republicans had a symbol other than the elephant.)

Oh, did I mention giraffes, lions, hippos, lions, Cape buffalo, lions, cheetahs, and lions?

For the ultra-curious among Scriber's readers, here are the websites for the camps where we will be.  For the ultra-techies, the GPS coordinates are embedded in the URLs for the Google maps.

Kaingo

Website

Map

Chindeni

Web site

Map

Chiawa Camp and Old Mondoro Camp (common owner)

Chiawa web site

Old Mondoro web site

Map

The Sky Island Scriber's blog will resume at the beginning of October.

skyislandscriber.blogspot.com

Action alert: Help explain why Dicey Ducey is Bad4AZ

A lot of bad things could happen in AZ in this election, but at the top of my list is Dicey Ducey winning the Governor's race.  This guy is seriously bad news but is dodging debates and even meetings of his own supporters to create Ducey in Disguise. (I feel a song coming on - with apologies to the Beatles:  Ducy in Disguise with Diamonds.) 

Pamela Powers Hannley at Blog for Arizona needs your help in her campaign to educate voters about Dicey.

The dire scenario in which Ducey becomes Arizona governor (shudder) prompted me to write the Top 10 Reasons Why Doug Ducey Is Too Extreme for Arizona Voters and start a Twitter campaign (@Bad4AZ) to educate people about Ducey’s platform and why he and other Tea Party candidates are #Bad4AZ.  (Check it out Twitter here and website here. Fellow Tweeters, help me out.)

Check out her post to get the relevant links. If you tweet or blog or do anything with social media, please get involved and help her out.  If you don't call or canvas, this is something you can do.

Mental virtues

This is a guest post from Michele Manos (www.michelemanos.com).

Need something inspiring and sensible to read? Take a look at David Brooks' recent column "The Mental Virtues." This stellar piece outlines and refines concepts from the book “Intellectual Virtues,” by Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood. Virtuosity is posed as a delicate blend of learning, courage, firmness, humility, autonomy, and generosity.

Brooks' concise essay should be required reading for all elected and campaigning officials. Imagine a government where all strove for virtuous decision-making and truly thoughtful communication. As Brooks concludes, "wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing how to handle your own limitations."  Amen.