Elephant Lessons

Making a point about youth violence, writer Lori Borgman tells the tale of the missing elephant dads. Baby elephants at an African game preserve ran wild until mature bulls provided the missing discipline and role modeling to set them straight. Her point: so do young men and women without fathers.

The thing to remember is that there is a soft side to fathers' relationships as well. That gentler, almost teary side is explored in a Japanese cartoon of how a father elephant chooses to spend his last month with his children and wife: