Catharsis & Hope
Catharsis
It’s been hard to come up with entries for the last couple weeks. A. Because we’re busy here and I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, but also B. Gawd, what do you say man?
First of all, before I talk about this stuff, allow me to say that anything I have gone through in the last couple weeks does not even compare in the slightest to what those on the Gulf Coast have suffered. My company is working in conjunction with several groups caring for various families that found their way here to Los Angeles. I am not comparing myself to them in any way shape or form.
When the 9-11 attacks happened I went into “Historian Mode”, I started to collect information: Who, What, When, Where, Why. It wasn’t until several day later after I had a nightmare about working the WTC and looking up from “my bosses desk” to see the plane coming straight at me, maybe a couple hundred yards away and closing faster than I could breathe, that I emotionally reacted.
A similar thing happened with Katrina. I gathered what happened, what was happening (or not happening), I donated money, I made a sign to take to the race to show my support. I went through all the motions. Monday night after the races at Fontana, I was watching the news and they came to this animal shelter, I don’t know where, that had been flooded with about 4-5 feet of water. The shelter employees had “elected to evacuate”, LEAVING THE ANIMALS LOCKED IN THEIR CAGES. They only had smaller stacking cages, the animals in the higher tier of cages survived despite having a foot to 18 inches of water in them. The animal trapped in the lower cages drowned. Yet the Shelter Boss/Head/Whatever was standing there talking about “Triumph of survival” and smiling like she was a damn hero.
I started to yell, swear, throw things at the TV. I was enraged. One would think that a civic shelter would have some evacuation plan for fire and such, in the face of a storm that they were notified about at least 24 hours in advance such a plan would be easy to enact. One would think that even if they could not get the animals away from the area, they would at least have had the compassion, the humanity, to open the cages to allow the dogs and cats a fighting chance.
But no, they just left them locked in, trapped, to watch the water rise and blot out their lives.
If you’ve grown up around water, and you have elder siblings as I did, you probably have had a couple very scary near drowning experiences. If you have not, I suggest you go read one of the final chapters of Sebastian Junger's “The Perfect Storm”, the one the describes in detail, what it feels like to drown. The most horrifying thing is the lights don’t go out as soon as the water hits your lungs, you have to wait for the heart to stop and then your brain to use up all the oxygen before you die. If you aren’t scared shit-less after reading that chapter, you’re stupider than you look.
Now think about the people. All those people in the nursing homes, or those invalids at home, trapped….
But yesterday morning I was listening to NPR on my way to work. One of their reporters is also a volunteer for the Red Cross and he and his compatriots are delivering hot meals to those displaced in Mississippi. He said that many times when he arrived in a devastated neighborhood, people would turn them down because “There must be someone who needs it more than we do…”
And I cried.
I know I am not the only one who has moments like this, moments of extreme anger, sadness and goodness so natural and yet so poignant it breaks your heart. I just needed to get mine out.
And Hope.
See, Tree Hugging Environmentalism Works!
Ten Endangered Species Back From the Brink
Including the Grizzly Bear, the Southern Sea Otter and the Bald Eagle.
“More Than a Symbolic Victory
BALD EAGLE
Status: Threatened, awaiting removal from list
Year declared endangered: 1940
Lowest count in lower 48 states: 417 nesting pairs
In 1782, the Second Continental Congress incorporated the bald eagle into the first great seal of the United States as a symbol of “supreme power and authority.” Unlike the king’s England, where wildlife was the exclusive property of royalty, in this new nation wild animals belonged to all the people.
By the 1930s, the national symbol was in trouble. Bald eagles, once soaring over most of the country by the hundreds of thousands, had plummeted in number to an estimated 10,000 pairs by the 1950s. Hunting, land clearing and accidental poisoning (eagles often ate toxic meat set out by ranchers to kill wolves and other predators) contributed to the decline. In 1940, Congress jumped to the fore with the Bald Eagle Protection Act, which acknowledged the scientific and political reasons to conserve the distinctive white-headed bird with a seven-foot wingspan. “The bald eagle is no longer a mere bird of biological interest but a symbol of the American ideals of freedom,” the law states. It prohibited the killing of bald eagles for virtually any reason.
But the introduction of DDT in 1945 dealt the animal a critical blow. The pesticide, sprayed far and wide to eradicate mosquitoes and agricultural pests, crept into the food chain. Fish ate exposed bugs, eagles and other birds ate pesticide laced fish, and the DDT ingested by the birds so thinned their eggshells that chicks couldn’t survive. By 1963, only 417 bald eagle nesting pairs were found in the lower 48.
In 1972, ten years after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring publicized the insidious threat of DDT, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the pesticide. Still, the hunting and chemical regulations would not have been enough to revive the bald eagle. The passage of the ESA provided critical help by protecting the bird’s habitat. Other federal laws would also contribute. Efforts to decontaminate the Chesapeake Bay, prompted by the Clean Water Act, benefited the eagle by slowly reducing harmful pollutants from prime bald eagle feeding grounds.
Widespread affection for the emblematic bird also made a difference. Eagle lovers monitored nests, educated the public and campaigned to close nesting areas during the breeding season. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) banned hunters from using lead shot nationwide, which can poison eagles and other raptors that scavenge waterfowl that have been struck by the shot. Meanwhile, the eagle itself adapted to living near people—even setting up nests a few miles from the U.S. Capitol.
In 1995, wildlife authorities changed the bald eagle’s status from endangered to threatened, an important moment in conservation history. Today, with about 7,678 pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48, the bird awaits a final OK to be taken off the ESA’s threatened list, a move that many anticipate will come quickly. “People want success,” says Jody Millar, Bald Eagle Monitoring Coordinator for the FWS, in Rock Island, Illinois. She says that the recovery of the beloved national symbol has generated public acceptance of conservation measures. “No government can protect a species if the public doesn’t want it.”
If we can bring back the Bald eagle from the brink, the Gulf Coast will certainly come back from this near extinction. It may take 30 years, but the Gulf Coast will certaily take flight again.
Now you all take care of your national symbol. Don’t make us do this again!
Thank a hippie. ;)
And with that hopeful note, everyone have a great weekend and best of luck to Dale Jr. & Co., Elliott Sadler & Co. and Mark Martin and Co. this Sunday!
It’s been hard to come up with entries for the last couple weeks. A. Because we’re busy here and I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, but also B. Gawd, what do you say man?
First of all, before I talk about this stuff, allow me to say that anything I have gone through in the last couple weeks does not even compare in the slightest to what those on the Gulf Coast have suffered. My company is working in conjunction with several groups caring for various families that found their way here to Los Angeles. I am not comparing myself to them in any way shape or form.
When the 9-11 attacks happened I went into “Historian Mode”, I started to collect information: Who, What, When, Where, Why. It wasn’t until several day later after I had a nightmare about working the WTC and looking up from “my bosses desk” to see the plane coming straight at me, maybe a couple hundred yards away and closing faster than I could breathe, that I emotionally reacted.
A similar thing happened with Katrina. I gathered what happened, what was happening (or not happening), I donated money, I made a sign to take to the race to show my support. I went through all the motions. Monday night after the races at Fontana, I was watching the news and they came to this animal shelter, I don’t know where, that had been flooded with about 4-5 feet of water. The shelter employees had “elected to evacuate”, LEAVING THE ANIMALS LOCKED IN THEIR CAGES. They only had smaller stacking cages, the animals in the higher tier of cages survived despite having a foot to 18 inches of water in them. The animal trapped in the lower cages drowned. Yet the Shelter Boss/Head/Whatever was standing there talking about “Triumph of survival” and smiling like she was a damn hero.
I started to yell, swear, throw things at the TV. I was enraged. One would think that a civic shelter would have some evacuation plan for fire and such, in the face of a storm that they were notified about at least 24 hours in advance such a plan would be easy to enact. One would think that even if they could not get the animals away from the area, they would at least have had the compassion, the humanity, to open the cages to allow the dogs and cats a fighting chance.
But no, they just left them locked in, trapped, to watch the water rise and blot out their lives.
If you’ve grown up around water, and you have elder siblings as I did, you probably have had a couple very scary near drowning experiences. If you have not, I suggest you go read one of the final chapters of Sebastian Junger's “The Perfect Storm”, the one the describes in detail, what it feels like to drown. The most horrifying thing is the lights don’t go out as soon as the water hits your lungs, you have to wait for the heart to stop and then your brain to use up all the oxygen before you die. If you aren’t scared shit-less after reading that chapter, you’re stupider than you look.
Now think about the people. All those people in the nursing homes, or those invalids at home, trapped….
But yesterday morning I was listening to NPR on my way to work. One of their reporters is also a volunteer for the Red Cross and he and his compatriots are delivering hot meals to those displaced in Mississippi. He said that many times when he arrived in a devastated neighborhood, people would turn them down because “There must be someone who needs it more than we do…”
And I cried.
I know I am not the only one who has moments like this, moments of extreme anger, sadness and goodness so natural and yet so poignant it breaks your heart. I just needed to get mine out.
And Hope.
See, Tree Hugging Environmentalism Works!
Ten Endangered Species Back From the Brink
Including the Grizzly Bear, the Southern Sea Otter and the Bald Eagle.
“More Than a Symbolic Victory
BALD EAGLE
Status: Threatened, awaiting removal from list
Year declared endangered: 1940
Lowest count in lower 48 states: 417 nesting pairs
In 1782, the Second Continental Congress incorporated the bald eagle into the first great seal of the United States as a symbol of “supreme power and authority.” Unlike the king’s England, where wildlife was the exclusive property of royalty, in this new nation wild animals belonged to all the people.
By the 1930s, the national symbol was in trouble. Bald eagles, once soaring over most of the country by the hundreds of thousands, had plummeted in number to an estimated 10,000 pairs by the 1950s. Hunting, land clearing and accidental poisoning (eagles often ate toxic meat set out by ranchers to kill wolves and other predators) contributed to the decline. In 1940, Congress jumped to the fore with the Bald Eagle Protection Act, which acknowledged the scientific and political reasons to conserve the distinctive white-headed bird with a seven-foot wingspan. “The bald eagle is no longer a mere bird of biological interest but a symbol of the American ideals of freedom,” the law states. It prohibited the killing of bald eagles for virtually any reason.
But the introduction of DDT in 1945 dealt the animal a critical blow. The pesticide, sprayed far and wide to eradicate mosquitoes and agricultural pests, crept into the food chain. Fish ate exposed bugs, eagles and other birds ate pesticide laced fish, and the DDT ingested by the birds so thinned their eggshells that chicks couldn’t survive. By 1963, only 417 bald eagle nesting pairs were found in the lower 48.
In 1972, ten years after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring publicized the insidious threat of DDT, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the pesticide. Still, the hunting and chemical regulations would not have been enough to revive the bald eagle. The passage of the ESA provided critical help by protecting the bird’s habitat. Other federal laws would also contribute. Efforts to decontaminate the Chesapeake Bay, prompted by the Clean Water Act, benefited the eagle by slowly reducing harmful pollutants from prime bald eagle feeding grounds.
Widespread affection for the emblematic bird also made a difference. Eagle lovers monitored nests, educated the public and campaigned to close nesting areas during the breeding season. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) banned hunters from using lead shot nationwide, which can poison eagles and other raptors that scavenge waterfowl that have been struck by the shot. Meanwhile, the eagle itself adapted to living near people—even setting up nests a few miles from the U.S. Capitol.
In 1995, wildlife authorities changed the bald eagle’s status from endangered to threatened, an important moment in conservation history. Today, with about 7,678 pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48, the bird awaits a final OK to be taken off the ESA’s threatened list, a move that many anticipate will come quickly. “People want success,” says Jody Millar, Bald Eagle Monitoring Coordinator for the FWS, in Rock Island, Illinois. She says that the recovery of the beloved national symbol has generated public acceptance of conservation measures. “No government can protect a species if the public doesn’t want it.”
If we can bring back the Bald eagle from the brink, the Gulf Coast will certainly come back from this near extinction. It may take 30 years, but the Gulf Coast will certaily take flight again.
Now you all take care of your national symbol. Don’t make us do this again!
Thank a hippie. ;)
And with that hopeful note, everyone have a great weekend and best of luck to Dale Jr. & Co., Elliott Sadler & Co. and Mark Martin and Co. this Sunday!
posted by KiplingKat | 11:16 PM
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