96 Monks Freed, and Eastern Russia Deforested

The Burmese junta has released 96 monks from the September protests — maybe some of them will find a way to tell the story of their months in captivity. And the headline says it all: “Rapping Monks, Nuns Hit Catwalk”. This one comes courtesy of The Worst Horse and was also noticed by Urban Monk. What’s Wal-Mart up to now? Killing Amur (Siberian) tigers, apparently. No, they’re not selling powdered tiger for 89 cents next to a big smiley face and refrigerator-size boxes of corn flakes, but they’re buying wood that is taken from eastern Russia’s forests and is incidentally home to the 510 estimated Amur tigers still hanging on. Their “good wood” practices are unsustainable, according to Al Norman of the Huffington Post. There is little doubt we will see these and several other big cat species die out in the next few decades. What chance is there in Asia with China buying all the wood it can burn from Burma, Russia, and everywhere else? And to its shame the U.S. is on the side of China — too much consumption, and dragging its big, heavy feet on human-caused climate change, most recently in Bali. And MindBodyGreen is a new aggregator site with stories on health, mental health, and environmentalism. Oh yeah, and Noah Levine of Dharma Punx fame is interviewed on Buddhist Geeks. – Philip Ryan, Web Editor