April 4, 2007 - Wednesday

April 4, 2007 - Wednesday
we like fluffy animals

Here's a joke:
What do an Addax, a Dealacour Langur, and a Dwarf Gymnure have in common?

They're the names of Hungarian modern-dance troops.

No…actually an Addax is a one-meter-tall goat that lives in the Sahara and wears a mullet. The Dealacour Langur is a monkey that looks like it just had it's third debit card eaten by an ATM. The Dwarf Gymnure? Hard to say, because it's hard to see; it's basically a tiny hedgehog that hangs out in Sumatra.

Chances are you've never heard of any of them. Oh, and they're all on the critically endangered list. Today I received a bulletin from a friend on my myspace page saying 'please read'.

Dutifully I clicked on her name and was presented with a blog requesting that I go to polarbearsos.org and stopthesealhunt.org and sign the petition therein.

This really pissed me off.

Lately I've been trying to examine why things piss me off. I know this seems a bit obvious, but you'd be surprised by how many people that just bask in their rage without examining it's source. Admittedly, I haven't had breakfast yet, and this might help in my ire. But then I thought:

What do the Harp Seal and the Polar Bear have in common? Well, they're cute and fluffy and have big eyes and small mouths (at least the cubs do; the adult Polar Bear could swallow your head in a single gulp, and the adult Harp Seal looks like a Belgian sun-bather), and they live in Canada. Plus they're white (not, I'm sure, that this has anything to do with them being 'in' right now; just like 300 is not a movie about a few buff rednecks that battle a horde of non-whites which are commanded by a huge tranny who thinks he's God).

Oh, and neither of them are endangered. The bear and seal, not the huge tranny.

Now look, I abhor needless hunting. Anything short of wrestling an animal butt-naked, armed only with a rock or butter-knife is just cowardly in my eyes. Especially when it's needless: i.e. not for food. And, not that animals should be on the endangered species list before we start getting nervous about them. But what about the African Wild Ass, or the Coimbra's Titi? These poor beasts not only have unfortunate names, but have no clue how to set up a website to save their wild asses. Why are these animals –all critically endangered– left to implode?

Certainly there are focus groups out there who are desperately trying to save the Cuban Kite, the Junin Flightless Grebe, and the Sociable Lapwing, but these people are sorely underfunded and not really taken very seriously:

"Good afternoon sir. I'm calling on behalf of the Save the Negros Shrew Foundation, and–"
"Whose shrew?"
"The Negros Shrew. It's a–"
"Why would I want to save their shrew?"
"Ha-ha, no sir–"
"–and should you really be calling them negroes –I mean, in this day and age?"
"Umm, no sir…I mean, yes sir. Well…ah… the Negros Shrew is a critically endangered species, and we are–"
"Can't they just get a new one?"
"A new what sir?"
"A new shrew."
"No-no sir, the Negros Shrew is a type of shrew found only in–"
"Oh, so their shrew is special somehow."
"Sigh. Forget it."
Click…Bzzz

–that is, they're not taken very seriously until a celebrity takes up their cause. Like that fuckwit, Paul Mcartney, who descended on Canada with an entourage of photographers to pose beside cute Harp Seal pups who were being slaughtered by two people: The Inuit, who hunt the seal for food, tools, energy, and clothes; and the commercial hunters, who only hunt for hides. The only part the Inuit do not use is the bladder, which they float to sea as part of custom. The Inuit, by the way, also float their elderly out to sea, as part of custom. There's a joke in there somewhere, but fuck it.

This hunt has been going on for hundreds of years, yet nobody has batted an eye. Suddenly, a few stars with gleaming teeth and patent leather shoes present a video of a cute baby seal getting beaten like a piñata and the whole world collectively goes, "Awww…"

Actually, that's not quite right. Most of the world lives below the poverty line, and as such, couldn't give a fuck about what a few rich celebrities in bulky outfits are doing around the St. Lawrence region. Or to put it more plainly: active worry about animals is a luxury for the idle rich. Meaning 2% of us, comparatively speaking. And the rich, being as fickle as they are, choose which animals we should care about, regardless of whether they're endangered or not.
Consider this: The Harp Seal is currently the animal-du-jour amongst trendy people who are concerned about such things: They don't move around much so they photograph well (sadly, this same quality makes them easy to club), they're heart-achingly adorable when young, and they move comically and make an endearing "Hort?" sound when they're older. They also look kind of like extremely obese dogs with big floppy paws; their unsightly assholes demurely hidden from view. And we all love dogs don't we? Especially one's with hidden assholes. Or maybe that's just me.Now take the Monk Seal. It has all the characteristics of the Harp Seal (except quieter, har har) but it is critically endangered. Almost extinct. Yet the world focuses on the Harp Seal. Why is that? Easy: The Monk Seals need a better agent.

Oddly enough, when I picked up yesterday's paper, this was on the front page of The Globe and Mail (Tues. April 3rd, 2007): "…Inuit polar bear hunters and guides across the [Nunavut] Territory are worried that the U.S. administration may be getting ready to kill off this…industry. Polar bear sport hunters, most of them Americans, inject an estimated $2.9-million into Nunavut's struggling economy, and remote and tiny communities such as Resolute Bay and Grise Ford have grown to rely on the money…"

And wait. This in today's paper (The Globe and Mail, Wed. April 4th, 2007):

"…In just four months [a Polar Bear cub named 'Knut'] has been: Abandoned by his mother; threatened with lethal injection; trademarked and licensed; accused of killing a world famous panda; appeared with Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover of Vanity Fair…handed his own television show; and greeted by tens of thousands of visitors, including the Premiere of Nunavut…"
Just to clarify: The lethal injection was demanded by British animal rights activists who felt Knut should die naturally as his mother had intended. In the ensuing media fervour the world forgot about a panda in Japan who wouldn't fuck despite the Japanese –I'm not kidding– showing it panda porn. Whether this was scratchy footage of a she-panda seductively making eyes at the camera while masturbating with a bamboo shoot, or a little voyeuristic panda gang-bang action, is beyond me. Whatever it was, it didn't work. They now suspect (sheepishly) that their panda might be gay (What, it liking 300 was not sign enough?). Leonardo DiCapario is a Hollywood star that looks perpetually perplexed and dies at the end of his movies. Nunavut is a newly created territory in northern Canada designed to squirrel away it's embarrassing indigenous population. I seem to be the only person that noticed that 'Nunavut' sounds suspiciously like 'none of it'; which is precisely what parts of the Canadian apparatus they still have relevance in.
Anyway.

Creeping Jesus, the serendipity here is almost too much. I read the bulletin from a friend and the very same morning I read about Polar Bears on the front page of Canada's most renowned daily. So, again, what's the deal here? Why the sudden focused concern?

Star power baby. We live in a society where, as repugnant as this may seem, people actually listen to what actors have to say about important issues. The hypocrisy here is strong because we all know that these are not rational people. Thus the Harp Seal vs. Monk Seal discrepancy.
I bet you thought I was just going to rant, as I usually do, and not provide some adequate solution to the mess. You thought I have no answers, no 'action'. Well, I do. But you're not going to like it…

Here's the problem: if stopping the hunt risks the lives of indigenous humans (which were 'in' in the 80's) where does that leave us in terms of saving the animals they hunt?

The websites above offer you an opportunity to sign a petition to put pressure on the Bush administration to stop the commercial hunting. Sorry, but this is simply retarded. Aside from the Bush administration all being avid hunters –right up to the Vice-President, who is so avid he avidly shot his elderly friend in the face– when has the Bush administration ever listened to what people actually wanted? If you have any doubts about what I'm saying talk to the U.N. If they're not answering their phone (which they won't, because they're all debating whether or not to send U.N. troops to Rwanda in 1993) talk to 38-million U.S. voters.

So, our names don't help, and public outrcy falls on deaf ears. Where does that leave us?
Well:

celebrity + cause = safe animals
And we know that:
celebrity = money
So:
money + cause = safe animals
Or simply:
Money = safe animals

And there you have it. In order to stop the hunt while saving the indigenous peoples we need to give them money to compensate for their $2.6-million loss. In terms of you unscrupulously shitting all over centuries of cultural tradition, I won't breathe a word.

So now comes the real test of resolve for all you disposable-income types. Time to put your money where your mouth is; open up your wallets as wide as your hearts and pay to keep the cute animals safe. And forget about saying that the government should subsidize the loss of earnings of the Inuit. That's sloughing it off on the next person to take care of, right? You said we can make a difference right? So, make a difference, cough it up.

Hurts doesn't it?

Imagine how much a sport-hunter (may they be accidentally shot while cleaning out their guns) will wince if he finds himself having to pay hard cash for every polar bear, or seal he kills to get his rocks off. For the kind of safe-keeping of animals that people want, the pressure must be monetary. Truth is, we live in a capitalist society where money walks, and bullshit...well...blah, blah, blah…

A lot of talk and petition signing will not do a bit of good on the governmental level. The only way the government half pays attention is when lobby groups prowl the halls of power and leap into the faces of politicians from behind potted plants. Not only does this scare the shit out of the policy-makers, but it forces them to consider that the government could make money off of hunting while controlling it's practice if there is a fee for every beaten, shot, or laughed at animal corpse a hunter produces (of course, the people that monitor these hunters will need money too). Thing is: Lobby groups need money, and lot's of it.

We live in a world where everything from thought to taste is being commoditized. As rabid as this sounds; why isn't nature? Maybe trademarking Knut is not such a fucked up concept. I mean he's safe now isn't he? Tax people who encroach on natural habitats. Tax them if they pollute. Tax them if they sport-hunt. Tax them if the de-forest. Tax, tax, tax, tax!

And by the way, I –while I'm living in this country– will not take kindly to being taxed based on pressure from a bunch of Europeans who buy into the latest publicized animal fad and whose closest encounter with nature is taking a leak on the side of a highway. The pressure needs to come from within the country where the legislation needs to occur.

At least this way we approach the extinction of animals in a sweeping manner, rather than helping the select few who appeal to us today.

In short:
Money = Action = Saving the Animals

Anyway.

So this Chinese guy goes to see an eye-doctor because of vision problems. The doctor looks at him for a while and then sighs deeply saying, "I'm sorry sir you have a cataract."
The Chinese guy says, "No, I drive a Rexus."