2018
October
18
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 18, 2018
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Yvonne Zipp
Features Editor

The gentlest of giants is taking his final bow.

Caroll Spinney, better known as Big Bird, is retiring this week from “Sesame Street.” His last day of filming is today – for the 50th anniversary episodes of the show.

Mr. Spinney, who also played Oscar the Grouch – fan of all things dirty, dingy, and dusty – has been with the show from the very beginning, when he was recruited by creator and visionary Jim Henson. It was Spinney’s idea to make Big Bird a child, who would learn alongside the children watching TV. The sweet nature of the flightless yellow bird with the big orange feet became the soul of the show.

“Big Bird has always had the biggest heart on ‘Sesame Street,’ and that’s Caroll’s gift to us,” Jeffrey Dunn, the president and chief executive of Sesame Workshop, told The New York Times.

As the sobbing audiences of grown-ups who turned “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” into the biggest bio-documentary of all time this summer know, a childlike spirit and unfailing kindness are rare and worth celebrating. Fred Rogers and Spinney were both puppeteers who thought children’s feelings were important and worth protecting.

So thank you, on behalf of generations of kids, for a half-century of sunny days.

Now, for our five stories of the day.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Democracy under strain

An era of surging activism is generating new attempts to make the process of drawing congressional maps more impartial – and to give more weight to individual votes. But can an inherently political process ever be truly nonpartisan? Third in the Democracy Under Strain series.

The Redirect

Change the conversation

An oil threat, but Saudi Arabia less fearsome than it used to be

Amid furor over the disappearance and alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia gave a verbal reminder of its power over oil markets. But using that weapon could hurt the kingdom itself the most. 

SOURCE:

US Energy Information Administration; BP Statistical Review of World Energy

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Karen Norris/Staff
Pavel Rebrov/Reuters
A woman lights a candle at a makeshift memorial near the scene of a fatal attack on a college in the port city of Kerch, Crimea, Oct. 17.

In the wake of a school shooting, signs in Crimea – as in America – that society is divided between cracking down and seeking to solve underlying causes.

Courtesy of Erika Deakin
Erie, Colo., resident Erika Deakin jogs on a trail near her home.

Depending on whom you ask, fracking has either been a boon for or a scourge on the United States. In Colorado, both visions have played out. And this November, the two perspectives face off on the ballot.

As Native Americans look for better support in schools and more accurate representation in society, a new fund in Michigan is trying a partnership approach that involves give-and-take with communities. 


The Monitor's View

AP
Hameeda Danesh, a candidate for Parliament, visits a school, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Millions of people in Afghanistan will cast ballots this Saturday in an election whose outcome matters less than what it says about the Afghan people’s desire for peace and democracy.

More than 2,500 candidates – including some 400 women – are running for the lower house of parliament and district councils, which is more than ever before. And despite political violence and a flawed electoral process – or perhaps because of them – finding a way to end the long war with the Taliban and other Islamist militants is widely debated.

Getting to this election has been messy. The vote has been delayed three years. There are credible reports of forged voter IDs and stolen ballots. The Taliban claim credit for killing one well-known candidate and are threatening to prevent voting in the more than 40 voting districts they control. Another militant group, Islamic State in Afghanistan, also threatens to disrupt voting with indiscriminate attacks.

While many candidates represent political or ethnic interests, including warlords and political bosses, others embody a new generation of Afghans educated since 2001 who are eager to curb corruption and ethnic divisions and to find a way to peace. Thus, the voting results will send important messages.

The ultimate message is the willingness of Afghans across the country to go to the polls despite the threats and problems. One international election observer underscores this indomitable Afghan spirit by recounting his 2014 meeting with an elderly Afghan who had his ink-stained voting finger cut off by the Taliban. The Afghan was smiling broadly in the hospital, and when the international observer asked why he was smiling, the Afghan proudly held up both hands and said he had nine more fingers to give in nine more elections. 

While acknowledging the serious challenges that remain and the strong desire to end the violence, many Afghans still applaud the relative progress since the US-led invasion that ended Taliban rule in 2001. The election will severely try Afghan authorities and likely reveal serious technical flaws. Yet it will also be an important trial run for presidential elections in April.

The Oct. 20 electoral results are expected to produce a muddled parliamentary landscape. Still, Afghan leaders will need to quickly build coalitions and prepare for the presidential contest. And they need to do this while the Afghan government, the United States, and others are probing a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.

That militant group has clearly signaled that it is interested in peace talks with the US. Yet it is not yet willing to sit down with the Afghan government. Rather the Taliban has intensified attacks around the country to increase its leverage, as exemplified by the killing of a renown Afghan police general and the governor of the southern province of Kandahar on Thursday in an operation apparently also aimed at the top US commander in Afghanistan.  Maintaining trust among the US and its Afghan allies while getting the Taliban to a serious negotiation will be a challenge.

Strengthening the popularity of democracy via elections can erode support for the authoritarian Taliban and build up legitimacy for the participation by all Afghans in choosing their leaders. The Taliban will still try to influence the country’s nascent democracy via violence and political manipulation. But they are running against a tide toward equality and liberty.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

The more we recognize integrity as naturally expressed in God’s creation, the more equipped we are to know and do what’s right.


A message of love

Toru Hanai/Reuters
Reale Avintia Racing’s Xavier Simeon (front) and other MotoGP riders ride mini electric bikes at an exhibition event at the Japanese Grand Prix Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Motegi, Japan, Oct. 18.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for spending time with us today. Tomorrow, we’ll have a profile of Stacey Abrams, who is locked in a tight race in Georgia and could become the first black woman governor in United States history. And Jamal Khashoggi’s final column, about the need for a free press in the Arab world, ran today in The Washington Post. It’s worth your time.

More issues

2018
October
18
Thursday

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