Because I would like to respond to your comment on my previous post, but do not have your email address.
What timing! Why? Because I picked this magazine up when I went to Whole Foods last night for dinner. I actually subscribed a few weeks back, since I buy National Geographic every single month at $5 an issue and a whole year is something like $25! But anyway, yeah, I picked that up last night. I decided to not read the elephants article last night, specifically because I didn’t want to get depressed.. but I did decide to read the Orlando article, and sadly came across some of the elephant pics while flipping through to find it. The cubs killed me, and I honestly got mad at the folks for putting this quote in the magazine because I think it’s so powerful in such a painful way: “Hearing our voices, the two cubs emitted high-pitched growls and squeals. They wrestled and tumbled, not knowing that without their mother, they were now members of the living dead.” Ugh.
I’ll get to the elephant article this weekend, and no doubt feel sick about what people can do to these creatures. Same with the whales. I mean, jesus – there’s no denying they have family bonds, care for one another, mourn for one another, feel pain….. So how could you gun down 16 elephants, for their goddamn tusks? How could you kill the gentle, amazing whale for its.. what the hell do they use whales for anymore? We don’t need their oil for our lamps. We don’t need their meat.
I just don’t understand the ugliness of people sometimes.
It’s really kinda sad – I’ve started retreating from the things I love because of it. I no longer stop on the nature shows on PBS because I know that, sooner or later in the program, they will be upsetting. I will feel like what we’re doing is unfair. I will feel like I wish I could do something, and feel powerless that I can’t. I will wonder what our children’s children will think – that these gorgeous creatures are extinct because people liked trinkets made of ivory. Or that sharks are in the decimated populations they are because people fished them for their fin soup, then threw them back in the ocean to die.
Anyway – onto another subject (that of diving) that you commented on, Tom.
I haven’t been diving since, like, summertime! As soon as the water warms a little, I want to get back in there. And I have to do a lot of diving this summer to make sure I’m good and ready for Costa Rica! We may even go out on the boat sometime! Let me know when you come down to South Florida! :)
