Links and Minifeatures 11 20 Tuesday

Carnival of the Capitalists

You Can't Make This Up Department: Sesame Street released on DVD

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of "Sesame Street" are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just don't bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, "Sesame Street: Old School" is adults-only: "These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

Is there anybody out there who doesn't think the nanny mentality has gone too far?

Dalai Lama may appoint successor.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose 6-year-old Gendun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama, the most exalted figure of Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama. The boy and his family disappeared soon after and have not been heard from since.

China's communist-led government later named Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama and said Nyima and his family were being kept in a secret location for their protection.

Tibetan Lamas are supposed to be reincarnations of the former holder of the office. The Dalai Lama, as the most revered, selects or confirms the lesser lamas (depending upon how you look at it). But it is to the Panchen Lama that the leadership of Tibet is supposed to be given during the search for the reincarnated Dalai Lama, and the Panchen Lama is given the prerogative to accept or select the next Dalai Lama. China, being the paranoid repressive government it is, wants to control this eminently controllable selection process, so they made the "true" Panchen Lama disappear and instead foisted their own choice upon the people of Tibet. If they can make it stick, they will control the succession from here on out.

Their plan is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but in order to defeat it, the Dalai Lama has to break with a centuries old tradition. Since the high Lamas are typically confirmed very young, they are raised in accordance with the precepts they need to live by, and tend to do a much better job of practicing what they preach than the average politician elsewhere. Whether this makes them better leaders is not evident, but it's still sad. I think Tibet may have gone longer without a succession struggle than any other polity in the world.