Some perspective from the parental side

I read something on line recently regarding the death of Harambe the gorilla in Cincinnati this past weekend.  I've seen all sorts of outrage directed at the zoo, directed at the parents, but I really haven't seen much of this, so here goes.

This photo was taken in the summer of 2000 while we were on a camping trip to Yosemite National Park.  My children were 8, 4 and 11 respectively in the photo.  On this particular day, we had decided to hike the Mist Trail, a popular trail that takes you to the edge of Vernal Fall, which is what you see in the background.  It's over 300 feet straight down at this point.  If any of you have ever been on this trail, you know it's very strenuous, and not to be taken lightly.  The last part is pretty much stair steps going up the rock face with a handrail similar to what you see in the photo.

At the crest of the staircase, my youngest, who had been diligently holding my hand as we climbed up, broke free and made a mad dash to this spot, which I couldn't see at the time.  Needless to say, my life flashed before me several times in what was probably 2 seconds worth of time at the most.  There were other people there who stopped him immediately.  Did I mention it's a popular trail?

The fence/guardrail you see is all the way around like that.  It would have been difficult for him to have made the dash and gotten outside of the fence.  But please remember, he did break free and was headed that way.  AND I WASN'T DISTRACTED BY ANY OTHER CHILDREN AT THE MOMENT!

If you have more than two children, you're outnumbered and you no longer have enough hands to hold onto all of them at the same time.  Think about that next time you start berating the parent of the young boy who ended up in the moat with Harambe.  All it took was a second or two.  

Can you hear me?

I probably talk about the idiosyncrasies of where I work and what I do probably way too much, but over the past 33 years, I've liked what I do.  Let's face it.  How many people do you know who teach the hormonally schizophrenic on a daily basis?  That's right.  In case you didn't know it, I teach middle school, 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

Over the years I've seen gradual changes in my school's population as well as their overall attention span and general attitude.  The photo, although it doesn't show middle schoolers, probably sums it up from my standpoint.  Two guys, probably friends, based upon how close they're sitting next to each other, are totally absorbed by what they're doing and not interacting with each other at all.

This is what I think most of my students do every weekend.  They are so absorbed in their video games, computer and You-Tube channels that they literally never interact with another person/friend of theirs until they come back on Monday morning.

How I can tell this is loosely based on anecdotal evidence.  My first period class, comes into class after a break, be it a weekend, Thanksgiving break, or Winter break and they literally are screaming at each other.  Can you hear me?  They have no volume control, nor would they really want it.  They're two feet away from each other and screaming.  Can you hear me now?

Cell phones, etc., are powerful tools, but I really think they are robbing our children of their childhood.  And consequently, these children will have difficulties dealing with real life situations, because they really don't know how to react to people on a personal level, outside of screaming.  That's my two cents on the subject.

On Safari

I've been recently reading about the Minnesota dentist who went to Africa on Safari and the killing of Cecil the Lion.  The hue and cry over this has been just short of amazing in my opinion.  I have yet to weight in on the subject very heavily, mainly because what I say will little matter in the grand scheme of things.  I've found, many times over, that once people set their opinion about something, there are two chances that you will have to sway them to change their opinion - Slim and None.

Now, my opinion is this.  I was dismayed that the man chose to kill a magnificent beast such as Cecil the Lion.  I do not condemn hunters.  In the past, I've eaten elk and goose that were hunted.  Therein lies the difference in the two.  If a person is hunting and will eat the meat, then I'm all for it as long as the hunting is done humanely.  To hunt, just for a trophy, I feel is despicable.  We already know that we are superior to animals due to our superior intellect, but to take a life of another animal, just so you can mount their head on the wall I feel is just wrong.  That being said, I do feel that keeping the head of an elk, or deer as a trophy is fine, if you're also going to eat the animal.  

Now the uproar over this incident is really interesting. Take a look at the photo I've added to this  entry.  The photo is not mine and is in the public domain.  One of our most beloved presidents, one who is on Mt. Rushmore, was an avid hunter.  Theodore Roosevelt went on an extensive African safari following the end of his presidency.  Roosevelt spent about a year in Africa, collecting specimens for the Smithsonian and other museums.  Collecting specimens basically means shot and killed.  Roosevelt, in a year's time, was responsible for the death of over 1100 animals, including over 500 big game animals.  17 lions, 11 elephants and 20 rhinoceros were among the harvest, including 4 white rhinos.  Today, there are only 4 Northern white rhinos in existence anywhere in the world.

I find it rather contradictory that Roosevelt, who preserved many of our national monuments, including the first national monument, Devils Tower, and helped start the conservation movement in our country, could go on this kind of hunting expedition.  Yet, one could argue that his collecting of all these animals might result in better knowledge of the animal because now those specimens are displayed in museums in many different places.  Roosevelt was quoted as saying, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."

Had Roosevelt gone on his safari in today's Internet climate, he would have been vilified.  I doubt that many people out there know about this chapter of his life. I don't like this aspect of one of my hero's life, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it, because it's in the past.  This is part of his life that balances out some of the good he did during his life.  All people are like that.  

I used to revere Thomas Edison when I was younger.  The more I know about Edison, the more I've come to know that Edison wasn't a very nice person.  But that's beside the point.  Are we going to condemn a man for one incident?  Even if it's a series of incidents, are we going to condemn this man for all eternity?  If that's the case, where's the condemnation of Theodore Roosevelt?

In reality, the uproar over this incident has buried something else.  Social media has excoriated this dentist and in the process has basically forced him to shut his place of business.  Perhaps he can afford to do that, seeing how he could afford $55,000 to bag a lion trophy in Africa.  I would be willing to bet that all of his employees, however, can't afford this time off.  Where's the uproar over that?  And don't try to justify it by saying that they worked for a guy who kills for sport.  Do you know what your employer does in his or her off time?  Probably not.  Think about that for awhile, especially the next time another firestorm runs rampant via social media.

The Awkward Dinner Party - Day 17 of the Chill

Thinking about this prompt, I thought I might want to take a bunch of people from the past and put them all at the dinner table and see where it went.  One would think that it might get awkward putting Jesus Christ at the same dinner table as Thomas Jefferson, but actually, I think those two might get along fairly well.

So then, how might I get a better mix of people to create the ultimate awkward dinner party.  Then it hit me.  Just pick some random people off of the Internet from a social media site and have them come together for just one night.  The only requirement would be, I get to set the dinner conversations.  That would work.

All I'd have to do is throw out one political or social football, like abortion, or Obamacare or the death penalty the rest would be just entertaining to watch.  See?  That's where the problem lies.  I'm sorry if this is becoming redundant, but it just seems like people forget common decency and societal norms when they get on social media.

Even though my parents didn't outright tell me, I knew about the three things that you just didn't discuss in polite society: Religion, Sex, and Politics, or any combination of those, which might be all three sometimes.  Granted, I'm speaking in generalities here, but we seem to have lost our moral and social filters when it comes to social media.  We feel we can just post whatever we want and we don't care who the hell we piss off.

And the sad part is, when most people post stuff, either they're looking for someone to troll, so they can pontificate their side more and bring in other like thinking people, or they actually think they're going to convince the other side to change their own though process.  

Newsflash.  You're not going to convert anyone and all it's going to accomplish is to get every one just madder at the other side.  And for what purpose?  As far as I can see, there is not real purpose that's going to have any positive outcome.  It's probably one of the reasons that I try not to get pulled into political discussions.  Notice that I said try, because sometimes I don't succeed in avoiding the discussion.

However, from now on, I'm just going to avoid them all together.  It's not worth my blood pressure and I have better things to do than to validate someone else's viewpoint that I already agree with, or argue with someone who's not going to change their opinion just because I think I can convince them that they're wrong.  I already know the answer to that one.  I'm not.