Please Happy

From Married to the Sea.

Rachel sent me this comic a few days back. It made me smile. My field hockey friends at Towson High School called me Whales. Rachel brought back the nickname. And I love it. I love this comic as it refers to me leaving my community in Jackson. And I believe the boaters. I would turn right around and swim back (if it wasn’t for graduate school).

Then, I read about the scientists from Australia who are trying to study whales non-lethally. They’re trying to show that killing whales for “scientific study” is unnecessary.

There’s more. Today, the Washington Post reports that activists (not the Australian scientists) “exchanged water-cannon fire with a Japanese whaling fleet they are tailing in the Antarctic Ocean.” Yikes. And on Saturday, the same activists (from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) – think the Monkey Wrench Gang of the oceans – collided with a Japanese harpoon boat (minor damage to each vessel). Early last month, a Japanese whaler struck another boat belonging to the activists, shearing off the boat’s nose, which eventually caused it to sink.

So, how are the whales to know which boats are killers and which are testers? And will it matter if the boats are smashing into each other in the Antarctic ocean?

I’d swim away, too. Fast. I just hope there’s an “away” to swim to! (Cover your ears, Whale! Their “research” could prove deadly.)