Alan Rabinowitz

December 18, 2007
A Conversation With Alan Rabinowitz
Zoologist Gives a Voice to Big Cats in the Wilderness

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

Among zoologists, Alan Rabinowitz is known as the Indiana Jones of wildlife conservation. But he is actually more the Dag Hammarskjold of biology.
That is because Dr. Rabinowitz, executive director of science and exploration at the Wildlife Conservation Society, is a kind of international diplomat for big cats — jaguars, leopards, pumas.
For 20 years, he has traveled the world, imploring the power elite of democracies and dictatorships to dedicate large parcels as reserves for these imperiled felines.
In the 1980s, he persuaded the leaders of Belize to establish the world’s first jaguar preserve. More recently, this Brooklyn-born biologist prevailed on the junta in Myanmar to transform 8,400 square miles of forest into the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve.
Dr. Rabinowitz, 53, recounts his Burmese adventures in a new book, “Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in the Land of Guns, Gold and Greed” (Island Press). An edited version of a two-hour conversation in New York follows.

Q. With so many of the world’s animals in danger, why do you mostly advocate for big cats?

A. Because cats get to the human psyche. People love big cats. If I go to a government and say, “If you don’t do something quickly, you’re going to lose your tigers,” they listen. If I say, “You’re about to lose all your wolves,” they won’t care. But leopards, tigers, jaguars — people have a huge admiration for them,
My real goal is to save large sections of pristine wilderness for all types of wildlife. One way to do that is to make sure that the top predators have enough safe territory to thrive in. Because big cats need so much territory, when you save them, you’re really saving whole ecosystems and you’re saving the other animals down on the food chain. This is what’s called the “apex predator strategy” in conservation.
The other thing I’ve seen is that no government, even if they are doing a lot of development, wants to lose their big cats. Even when you’re talking to the most authoritarian of dictators, none of them wants to be the guy at the helm when the last of his country’s tigers go extinct.

Q. How does a conservationist negotiate with dictators? Do you employ special strategies?

A. I don’t go in with a plan. I just talk from my heart. These guys, they are used to people coming to them with hidden agendas. I think they can see that I don’t have any other than the wildlife.
When I first went to Burma-Myanmar, for instance, there wasn’t a lot of trust there (laughs). I was told, “You don’t look like a scientist.” But the situation for the Burmese tiger was desperate. Between habitat destruction and hunting, they were almost gone. We did surveys, and in a lot of areas where tigers were supposed to be, you saw none. I was pretty blunt about that.
Sometimes, personal things worked for me. In 2003, I was diagnosed with a slow-growing form of leukemia. Some of the toughest leaders in the Burmese military, they just couldn’t fathom why anyone with cancer was repeatedly coming to their country and going into the jungle when in their mind I should be meditating or having a more easy life. “So what if I have cancer?” I told them. “The tigers still have to have a home.” I think my personal situation helped win some trust.

Q. Because of gross human-rights violations, the military government of Myanmar is under economic sanctions from the United States. There are people who wonder how you could work with such a government. What’s your answer?

A. Tigers have no control over what human governments they live under. If we’re going to draw lines on what is an acceptable political landscape for saving wildlife, where can we work? Wildlife always ends up taking a back seat to what’s going on among humans — always. If we’re going to save wildlife, I’ve got to give it a front seat. Nothing we do hurts the people of Burma.
But if I based conservation on what I considered moral subjectivity, I’d be doing the wildlife no favor. And we’d be virtually guaranteeing the extermination of tigers from Burma. They’ve been almost hunted out for their skins and for the traditional-medicine trade.

Q. How are the tigers faring since the preserve was established?

A. Tigers don’t come back so quickly. When you’re down to very low numbers, you have to get a male and female just even meeting. With so few, it’s not easy for them to find each other. Even when you get them meeting, the young stay with the female for about three years. She doesn’t breed again until those young leave her. So if the tigers are coming back, we won’t know it for a few more years.
For the meanwhile — since hunting has been banned and since we’ve started some economic development projects for the local people — there’s been an increase in the prey-species that tigers eat: wild pigs and sambar deer. We’ve set up “camera traps” on animal trails where you can photograph everything that passes. We haven’t seen a lot of tigers yet.

Q. We understand that you’ve been trying to negotiate with the North Koreans to set up a wildlife sanctuary.

A. In the Demilitarized Zone, yes. We think there are a lot of animals in there. It’s forested. And because it’s so heavily fortified, there isn’t human settlement. We reached out to the North Koreans. We thought, why not make the DMZ into a peace park?
We first approached the North Koreans years ago to try to study the Siberian tiger that migrates into there. They wouldn’t let any Americans in. We were able to get one British scientist to visit their capital city, a birdwatcher. They never allowed him out of the city. There’s no story to tell there.

Q. What originally drew you to conservation?

A. As a child, I had this horrific stutter. In school, I was put in what was called the retarded classes. I was very angry that people couldn’t see past the stuttering. From the second grade on, I stopped talking, except to the little green turtle and the chameleon I kept at home.
Talking to the animals, I realized they had feelings. I didn’t know if they understood me. But I saw that they were exactly like me. They weren’t broken, but people mistreated them because they can’t communicate. I thought if these animals had a voice, people wouldn’t be able to crush them and throw them away. When I was a child, I promised the animals that if I ever got my voice back, I’d be their voice.
It makes me feel whole, knowing that I’m allowing more animals to live in this world. Every time I set up a protected area, I feel I’m paying them back for helping me speak. When we got Hukawng established, I thought, all those turtles, otters and tigers, they now have a chance to live.

shibboleth

"Shibboleth” takes its title from the Old Testament story in which the ability to pronounce the word was used by the victorious Gileadites as a test to identify members of the tribe of Ephraim who were trying to sneak back into their home territory. Those who couldn’t say it correctly were revealed as Ephraimites and killed.

Gutai

The Gutai Manifesto
Yoshihara wrote the manifesto for the Gutai group in 1956. The full text of the "Gutai Manifesto" is available in English at the website of Japan's Ashiya City Museum of Art & History [2]. Among its preoccupations, the manifesto expresses a fascination with the beauty that arises when things become damaged or decayed. The process of damage or destruction is celebrated as a way of revealing the inner "life" of a given material or object:
"Yet what is interesting in this respect is the novel beauty to be found in works of art and architecture of the past which have changed their appearance due to the damage of time or destruction by disasters in the course of the centuries. This is described as the beauty of decay, but is it not perhaps that beauty which material assumes when it is freed from artificial make-up and reveals its original characteristics? The fact that the ruins receive us warmly and kindly after all, and that they attract us with their cracks and flaking surfaces, could this not really be a sign of the material taking revenge, having recaptured its original life?...." [3]

Transautomatism

Transautomatism
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Transautomatism is a modern style of painting, founded by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It is a kind of surrealism, which also point of the viewer's fantasy. Different people see different things in the same picture. It is less what the artist wants us to see, more about how we interpret it. The transautomatism is based on the different styles which Hundertwasser developed, e.g. the spirals and drops.

Many of the Dream Last Night

Mental excretions
piling up
creating oily walls that talk
in the thousand languages of touch
Every brick every word
a window
leading between flicking dimensions
a dream
into
a dream
retelling the middle of tales
and letting go
of beginnings
and endings
as loose ouroboro tails
flailing to find one another
to make sense
of senselessness
under the guise
of sleep

the two of us

He knows the number
Of people he’s kissed

I don’t know the number
Of people I’ve fucked

He knows how it feels
When he is in love

I am not sure
That kind of love exists

He is a child who is a man
Who knows how to ask

I am a woman who is a girl
Who stopped asking

He remembers something easy
Without using his memory

I focus to understand easy
By abandoning my memory

He is not innocent
Because no man is

I am innocent
Because everyone is ignorant

from the room next door.

Near by
Huddled in the far
Corner-less
Horizontal wood
Left eye to the floor, seeing gravity
Feeling a long slant of light
Next on the nose
Guiding forward
As arms and legs slide effortlessly
Toward
Some forward
Some center
Now warmer, now less resistant
From wherever it is
You came

Popped Bulb-No ideas-Broken Glass

I can’t imagine
The spell
That took you into your own mind
And told it lies
That told it to love
What isn’t love
That told it to ruin
What wasn’t yours

I can’t fathom
The stories yourself told yourself
So that you could
Tell yourself
To tell others
Whatever fit the moment
A shape shifter
Manipulating the air so that the air could manipulate
The mind
The words are trapezes keeping
All souls up in the air
Bouncing upward in anticipation
In acknowledgment
Of imminent decline

I can’t think of
The way you walked
to prevent your own fall
The steps you took
To claim bodies
To cushion the road beneath you

I never imagined I’d be here
At this juncture
In this space
For these reasons
On this day
With no peace
And no mind
And no imagination to help
Light understanding

Technological singularity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

--was this touched upon by Ken Wilber in Boomeritus? Blade Runner?

The technological singularity is the hypothesized creation, usually via AI or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities who rapidly accelerate technological progress beyond the capability of human beings to participate meaningfully in said progress. Futurists have varying opinions regarding the timing and consequences of such an event.

My breath skipped a beat
But its back in synch
Because nothing turns my head around forever
It all twists back
To the origin

colbert

October 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
A Mock Columnist, Amok
By MAUREEN DOWD
I was in my office, writing a column on the injustice of relative marginal tax rates for hedge fund managers, when I saw Stephen Colbert on TV.
He was sneering that Times columns make good “kindling.” He was ranting that after you throw away the paper, “it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.” He was observing, approvingly, that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”
I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”
I Am an Op-Ed Columnist (And So Can You!)
By STEPHEN COLBERT
Surprised to see my byline here, aren’t you? I would be too, if I read The New York Times. But I don’t. So I’ll just have to take your word that this was published. Frankly, I prefer emoticons to the written word, and if you disagree :(
I’d like to thank Maureen Dowd for permitting/begging me to write her column today. As I type this, she’s watching from an overstuffed divan, petting her prize Abyssinian and sipping a Dirty Cosmotinijito. Which reminds me: Before I get started, I have to take care of one other bit of business:
Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn’t have to think about. It’s all George Bush’s fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.
There. Now I’ve written Frank Rich’s column too.
So why I am writing Miss Dowd’s column today? Simple. Because I believe the 2008 election, unlike all previous elections, is important. And a lot of Americans feel confused about the current crop of presidential candidates.
For instance, Hillary Clinton. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be scared of her so Democrats will think they should nominate her when she’s actually easy to beat, or if I’m supposed to be scared of her because she’s legitimately scary.
Or Rudy Giuliani. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to support him because he’s the one who can beat Hillary if she gets nominated, or if I’m supposed to support him because he’s legitimately scary.
And Fred Thompson. In my opinion “Law & Order” never sufficiently explained why the Manhattan D.A. had an accent like an Appalachian catfish wrestler.
Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.
While my hat is not presently in the ring, I should also point out that it is not on my head. So where’s that hat? (Hint: John McCain was seen passing one at a gas station to fuel up the Straight Talk Express.)
Others point to my new bestseller, “I Am America (And So Can You!)” noting that many candidates test the waters with a book first. Just look at Barack Obama, John Edwards or O. J. Simpson.
Look at the moral guidance I offer. On faith: “After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.” On gender: “The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women, the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex.” On race: “While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.” On the elderly: “They look like lizards.”
Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.
Let me regurgitate: I know why you want me to run, and I hear your clamor. I share Americans’ nostalgia for an era when you not only could tell a man by the cut of his jib, but the jib industry hadn’t yet fled to Guangdong. And I don’t intend to tease you for weeks the way Newt Gingrich did, saying that if his supporters raised $30 million, he would run for president. I would run for 15 million. Cash.
Nevertheless, I am not ready to announce yet — even though it’s clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.
What do I offer? Hope for the common man. Because I am not the Anointed or the Inevitable. I am just an Average Joe like you — if you have a TV show.

The real, the unreal, and the neitherness

Every moment of this waking life
An undertow rumbles
Bringing my heel to meet my face
A close encounter
A tumbling weed going along the road
feeling the stretch that bars the east from the west
That encapsulates the between
Rolling in the sun
Guided by the wind
To a shore blocked by mountains
Higher than aspirations and traceable to the first cause
First cause for alarm

Round about the dream cage
An animal rumbles
Looking for daily bread
Expecting a cut
And turning circles until that very something
Becomes a something found
Something tangible and relieving
Like a pillow
Like a drugless drug
A leaving for a higher nothingness that cannot be
But is

Every day the same is altered but seems to mimic
Yesterday in a broken mirror
providing different paths
Of possibility
A reflection bent
Allowing light to find its own
Despite eyes

Does the devil dare to ask?
To want something good for himself?
Can he expect more than failure?
Can he dream while awake about the death of life or about the life of death?
Can the devil expect a change?
Can the devil repent?

The expanse has shriveled into a diamond
Perfectly cut
But not for sale
A caveat meant as a practical joke
So as to make light of
dead weight
So close in appearance
To seriousness

lately

Lately (1)


Lately the leaves are skipping out on all the green
Going straight from red to brown to red
Orange veins reflect a drowned out sun
Asking us to let her in

Lately a permanent nyctinasty
Has taken hold of every flower
They sleep indefinitely
But still skip out on dying
A sleeping beauty

Lately the tiniest rocks
Are roller balls
Taking paws out towards the sea
They hear the roar of a mother
They instinctively go to the source
In a wind driven tide directing
All lungs to water
In a tide driven wind directing
Air inside of waves

Lately the slight movement of time
Is gathering menacing speed
In drawing together shards of something soft
Back into a whole
That never knew
Until the call
Began the call






Lately (2)


Lately the impossible has shed snake skin
Turned into a night moth
Wider than an owl’s wingspan
Speckled in a vacuous brown
On top of brown dust
Reflecting the moon’s smile back onto her

Lately secrets are illusions
A mirage of whisper
Concealing a loudspeaker on a soapbox
Telling the truth without speaking
Revealing the real because the unreal is not

Lately I wear my insides out
Without an armor to bear
All mushy like oatmeal and nutrition
Malleable in your hands
Easily taken and replaced
Impervious

Lately it gets brighter earlier
The sun is restless
Wakes up in the middle of the night
Feels the hangover of insomnia
But comes out relentlessly
To see
What everyone else does

anchor to the floating

Weightlessness
Is the light
Unhinged
Floating
Both still and moving, something paradoxical
A question
That remains a question
Rhetorical from joy
From not needing the answer, or any answer at all

Happiness
is lead
weighted and connected to the floor
an anchor if
happiness
is still unsure
of its grin if
happiness
is still contemplating the future
is still thinking about all that isn’t
but could
and should
or shouldn’t
or couldn’t become

Said the person to the same person

Maybe I can convince you to convince me
We all need this convincing
A voice
Positive reinforcement
To say
What was already said
To say
What I’m already saying
Out loud, in mumbles, in half sweeping statements
That shatter marble
Crawl underneath covers
Underneath the mattress
The door
Clean through to the other side,
outside
where clarity is achieved
So that someone can convince me
That clarity
Is real
In the realm of gray

home

The center of the web
Is a little whole
Entire
Entirely transparent
The center of the web
Is a little hole
Clarity balancing the weave
Traceless
Backlit until the night
Backs off another hemisphere
Comes close again
To claim its territory
The matchless sky
Hiding complexity behind it
As the mask of maya
Asking
For silk
And death

blame numbers

Stringy sidewalk turning towards the road
asking for direction
while the whole thing spirals
saying both ways are good.

Directionless itself is the direction
all is forward while backwards is just
another attempt to anthropomorphize
the non human in the mind of a human
navigating a four cornered world
pretending to know the softness of the round
but rounds don’t gather momentum
between the pillow and the head.

Allegations of progress
reveal the materiality of time
adding up atoms until a blooming
of minutes past
emerge on the edge of a cycle.
Each lizard eye is open
focusing on two different sides
of one self
not asking which one is right
but knowing both are true
true enough to be recorded and burned away.

Blame the sun because she laughs
without flinching
Blame arrogant selflessness
for thinking there was a self to give away
Blame numbers because they suggest
order in a circle.

Synergistic capsule floating against
a rejecting oil claiming continuity
as a non-chore, as fact, as immutable
against water downed claims of the same
not being the same.
Differentiated outside withers against
the backdrop of another one born,
ten toes and all,
recorded in books bound to outlast
the materiality of feather shrouded skin
basking within telos and incapable of denying
not knowing
just the same.

Variations on a Theme: The Wars of Something and Nothing

Blooming to death
for stasis mud puddles
gathering up the edges to focus
on one deep well.

Birthing the end smell of leaves
caught beneath an angled rock
cutting deeply
embedded miles down.
Round hands pull it out forever
creating lines that extend around the Potomac
forcing the tide’s hand
asking what she can do for
a stolid nonchalance
outfitted in the immovable.

Growing outwards in all directions,
lightless for a shaded mark
of the point
that is no point at all
but the coreless sphere
constantly shape shifting the face of an
octagon times an enneagon
of substancelessness

Nano dirt of the outside
closing in while
atmospheric trouble arouses the purple
arcs that reach further
and further yet
towards a center, a teleology to hold
the reason for the single thought.

conversation. work.

I can't top that.

From: Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 3:22 PMTo: : RE: hey ho
the last to pretend
that email
will be
meant in creative
form
was you

-wrote i

From: : Friday, October 26, 2007 2:31 PMTo: Alexis : RE: hey ho
I will,
Pretend:
That the Last
E-mail
You wrote-
was meant
to be
Create-
ive
IN fORm