 The
Indri - Issue Forty-Seven |
 |
|
|||||||
| |
Get
To Know
|
The Election of 2024 by Thomas Reed Willemain
Debate July 2024 was unusually hot and stormy across the Northeastern US. The night of July 23 was especially so, both outside and inside "historic Faneuil Hall." The historic aspect of this debate was not the hall but the candidates. For the first time ever in the American experiment, both candidates were women. Moreover, both were Americans of Indian extraction. Glaring across the stage at each other were President Kamala Devi Harris and Ambassador Nikki Randhawa Haley. On its stage, fortified behind opposing podia, the two presidential candidates lobbed verbal artillery back and forth. One accused the other of toadying to the nominally "reformed" Venezuelan regime. The other responded by citing the recent WaPo exposé of her opponent's unsuccessful overtures to the resurgent John Birch Society. The moderator's initial attempt to frame the debate on foreign policy had degenerated into a staccato exchange of sharp three-liners that left him two steps behind. Harris had assumed office after President Joe Biden was incapacitated by a stroke after thirteen months in office and had himself initiated the invocation of the Twenty Fifth Amendment. Following the tax fraud conviction and subsequent bankruptcy of former President Donald J. Trump, Haley had garnered the support of enough conservative megadonors to defeat the fratricidal attempts of Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz to reconstitute the bitter and restless remnants of the Trump base. Haley's Vice-Presidential pick, Senator Marco Rubio, secured her nomination on the fourth ballot by delivering the new "Latinican" voting bloc. The debate will also be forever remembered for another first. The entire affair was cut short as lightning struck Faneuil Hall twice in rapid succession, setting it afire and creating panic inside. With the roof blazing and the power cut, what America saw was their screens suddenly go black, then stunned network anchors thrust wide-eyed back on camera. What the candidates saw was their Secret Service agents rushing toward them, guns and Maglites drawn, and bodily carrying them both out. What the people in the hall saw was their own crush of bodies, illuminated by hundreds of jostling smartphones. Later, some proudly posed for photos wearing their unrequested gift from Boston Mayor John ("Jocko") O'Reilly: tee shirts proclaiming, "I Survived the Battle of Faneuil Hall". Media coverage of the First Presidential Debate was intense, nonstop, and repetitive. Commentators had their choice of angles of attack: The "questionable" performance of the Secret Service, the personal enmity of the candidates, the ineptness of the moderator, the anchors' fumbling performance. Here and there, a few commented on Venezuela, Trump/Birch, or other substantive matters. But by far the biggest story was what the New York Post headlines had shamelessly called the "Calcutta Catfight". Crisis One month later, preparations for the Second Presidential Debate were derailed by an international crisis. While both candidates were formulating condemnations of Xi Jinping for his recent speech on "The Manifest Destiny of the Chinese People", Chinese forces, executing a lightning strike backed by an explicit posture of nuclear first strike, seized control of much of eastern Bhutan and all of the Indian state of Anchupal Pradesh. The Chinese People apparently needed room to breathe. Bhutan's famous "Gross National Happiness Index" immediately cratered. Its people looked back at the first nibbling Chinese land grabs in 2017 and 2020 with regret. Indian Prime Minister Chowna Mein of the BJP, himself a former leader of Anchupal Pradesh, immediately initiated low-intensity warfare and organized an insurgency that would bleed the Chinese occupation for years. President Harris was faced with a fait accompli, but she sensed options. With too many forces committed to the subcontinent, Chinese pressure on Taiwan and the South China Sea was difficult to sustain. Harris ordered the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Unit, a Brigade Combat Team from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, the 5th Special Forces Group and Seal Team 3 to seize and hold the string of artificial islands in the South China Sea. Simultaneously, President Harris positioned the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to provide air cover for those troops, ordered StratCom to deploy half the B2 stealth bomber force to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, and sent another carrier strike group to the Bay of Bengal. Meanwhile, Ambassador Haley's national security and political advisors were at odds about how to respond. While Democrats had hailed Harris' Indian/Jamaican background, Haley had been forced to soft-pedal her own Indian roots. She needed to seem more American than Cruz and Graham to keep her base: She was not "that Indian girl"; she was "the 116th governor of the Great State of South Carolina." While she had been an attentive student of the last Republican president's anti-Chinese rhetorical excesses, she also had to tread carefully around the topic of foreign intervention. Even her VP choice, Senator Rubio, created problems when caught on a hot mic telling donors that "This country is collapsing under the weight of the Harris-O'Rourke administration's blundering socialism. Latin America is America. The subcontinent is not." President Harris cancelled her participation in further debates by reason of the national emergency. While Haley searched for the center of gravity of her coalition, Harris won her strategic bet when a beleaguered Xi blustered but did not try to retake his artificial islands. However, Harris was forced to postpone her signature domestic initiatives including the "Biden Free College Act" and shift much of her intended domestic budget to fund expeditionary DoD operations. Election Nevertheless, Harris ultimately won election in her own right in 2024 to become the first woman, Indian/Jamaican or otherwise, to win a presidential election. As usual, there were multiple inaugural balls. Most were grand in the usual way, but one had the greatest impact on the national psyche--the one known to history as "The Funky Ball." By the time it was over, the Electric Slide, the Mashed Potato and especially the Funky Chicken had returned to their rightful place in American life. Most importantly, the Boogaloo had displaced the Boogaloo Bois. Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain is a former academic, software entrepreneur and intelligence officer. His flash fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Ariel Chart, Granfalloon, Hobart, Burningword Literary Journal, The Medley, and elsewhere. He holds degrees from Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
|
|||
The Indri is one of the largest lemurs and is native
to the lowland and montane forests along the eastern coast of Madagascar,
from the Réserve Spéciale d'Anjanaharibe-Sud in the north to the
Mangoro River in the south. Herbivorous, they feed mainly on young,
tender leaves, but will also eat seeds, fruits, and flowers. Their
large greenish eyes and black face are framed by round, fuzzy ears.
Their silky fur is mostly black with white patches along the limbs,
neck, crown, and lower back. Different populations of the species
show wide variations in color, with some northern populations consisting
of mostly or entirely black individuals. Their face is bare with
pale black skin, and it is sometimes fringed with white fur and
they have only a rudimentary tail. They are about 64-72 cm tall
and weigh between 6 and 9.5 kg. They maintain an upright posture
when climbing or clinging and practice long-term monogamy, seeking
a new partner only after the death of a mate. They live in small
groups consisting of the mated male and female and their maturing
offspring. Like many other species of lemur, indri live in a female
dominant society. The dominant female often will displace males
to lower branches and poorer feeding grounds, and is typically the
one to lead the group during travel. Many groups move 300-700 m
daily, with most distance travelled midsummer in search of fruit.
They sleep in trees about 10-30 m above ground and typically sleep
alone or in pairs. They reach sexual maturity between the ages of
7 and 9 and females bear offspring every two to three years, with
a gestation period around 120-150 days. The mother is the primary
caregiver, though the father assists, remaining with his mate and
offspring, despite the infant clinging to their mother's belly until
they are four or five months old, at which time they move onto her
back. The indri begins to demonstrate independence at eight months.
They are the only mammal other than humans so far discovered which
can use rhythm. They make loud, distinctive songs, which can last
from 45 seconds to more than 3 minutes. Song duration and structure
varies among and even within groups, but most songs have a three-phase
pattern. Usually, a roaring sequence lasting for several seconds
will precede the more characteristic vocalizations. All members
of the group except the very young participate in this roar, but
the song proper is dominated by the adult pair. Different indri
groups typically sing sequentially, responding to one another. As
well as solidifying contacts between groups, the songs may communicate
territorial defense and boundaries, environmental conditions, reproductive
potential of the group members, and warning signals. Countless variations
are given on the legend of the indri's origins, but they all treat
them as sacred animals who are not to be harmed. Despite the origin
myths and traditional taboos (fady), however, in practice where
western influence is felt and economic times are tough, they are
hunted and their habitat destroyed due to slash and burn agriculture,
fuelwood gathering, and logging. They are a critically endangered
species. While population estimates are uncertain (1000 to 10000
individuals), the population appears to be rapidly shrinking and
may diminish by 80% over the next three generations.