Harpers
Originally, this was based on a game I used to play, asking players to name three famous people with a certain name; so for George one might say George Clooney, George Harrison, and George of the Jungle. Okay, that last one was a reach but you get the idea. This was in the days when celebrities and sports figures were few and stood out: Joe Demaggio and Yogi Berra, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. So naming three Mickeys or three Perrys was a small but doable challenge (I used to make the game that of naming 4, which was a bit more challenging). But even today, naming three older names --Rita, Greta, Pearl, Alan, etc.-- gives you an idea of our changing times as once-common names have diminished, just as the Brittanys and Zacharys will for future generations. And it was with this thought that I told my wife that she and I were entering a period where the next ten years would likely have us witnessing even more changes both physically and mentally, not only with some of the friends and relatives who are even older than us, but with the unexpected happening to ourselves. My unanticipated fall some months ago may have been just a preview of what may be coming down the road for our aging minds and bodies (have you noticed how many singers in their 60s are now having tightening of their vocal cords?). Already, several of our friends have come down with prostate cancer, while another recently discovered a large mass in his stomach, and yet another got hospitalized after contacting the recent strain of Covid.*
But Harpers. Where the heck did that come from? Well, there's Harpers Ferry, and of course, Harper Lee (author of To Kill A Mockingbird). But in this case, I was drawn to the magazine, the print version still hanging in there but only by a thread. Even back then the magazine was a pioneer in having a page of side-by-side facts, each presented by a sentence followed by a numerical answer. I was fascinated. It may have all seemed trivial at the time but somehow like a stray piece of lint, a bit of those dozens of data bits would embed itself in my head. It was a section of the reading which I looked forward to each month (this in the days when there was no "online" version so give you an advanced peek). If all of this sounds a bit vague, let me give you a brief example (with sources noted afterward)...
• Amount of money available for rebuilding infrastructure by Inflation Reduction Act: $884 billion • Percent of that money which has been spent: 14% (U.S. Treasury) • Speed of light if converted into miles per hour: 671,000,000. • Estimated number of people with dementia globally in 2024: 57 million. • Estimated number by 2050: 153 million (National Geographic). • Number of spoken languages in the world today: 7000. • Percentage of those languages that have no written record or alphabet: 40 (Fast Company). • Size of the Pacific ocean: 64 million square miles. • Size of Pacific ocean in lay terms: larger than all of Earth's land. • Odds of dying in a car accident: 1 in 93. • Odds of dying from an accidental opioid overdose: 1 in 55 (National Safety Council). • Odds of dying from a shark attack: 1 in 4,332,000 (Florida Museum of Natural History, which has kept track of shark attacks since 1958). • Number of sharks killed each year: 100 million (other estimates say it's 3x that amount) • Number of sharks killed every hour: 11,000. • Average gestation time for sharks to give birth: one year. • Average number of pups given during birth: 2 (although some species can deliver up to 30 pups). • Number of sharks attacks per year as of 2023: <70. • Number of people who died from those attacks in 2023: 14 (higher than previous years). • Number of sharks killed for every human fatality: >1,400,000 • Size of US fishing fleet: 82,000 • Size of China's fishing fleet: 564,000 (responsible for most of the world's shark finning) • Number of worldwide extinctions sharks have endured: 5 (shark data from Emperor's of the Deep).
Gets sort of addictive, doesn't it? I could go on and on but as you can see, the format proves an intriguing way to pull you into the middle of a magazine. And as you can read by the latter batch of stats, I've been reading a bit about sharks. This was a bit odd for me because I've never watched Shark Week, and while I did see Jaws, it didn't impress me as much as it did the many fishing outfits who capitalized on the paranoia to made shark hunting expeditions their main business. And in an ironic twist, Peter Blenchley, the author of Jaws which made him a fortune, later came across a Killing Fields-like scene of thousands and thousands of butchered shark carcasses, all minus their fins, just littering the sea floor, a scene which made him regret all the misconceptions his book had created among readers, and a scene which sent him into dedicating the next 40 years of his life to re-educate the public about sharks...for the positive.
So sharks. What is your image of them? That they attack at the first scent of blood? Wrong, said author William McKeever in his research about sharks. They do have an amazing sense of smell but they tend to focus more on the sensory panic signals of a wounded fish, something backed by numerous divers and swimmers who were bitten but not "finished off," each saying that the shark could have easily done so but opted to leave (in one case, the shark was after the attached bag of fish clipped to the diver's belt). And that belief that sharks don't develop cancer? Wrong, even though the erroneous information came from a 60 Minutes broadcast which was never corrected; indeed sharks develop tumors and other cancerous growths. And that once-popular craze of shark cartilage that resulted in millions and millions of sharks being killed so that groceey shelves could be lined with bottles of cartilage extract? Bunk, and such unproven hype that in 2000, the FDA stepped in to stop the 2 main companies from continuing their claims. With all the useless killing of sharks, apex predators which are often considered the "cleaners" of our oceans, these ancient creatures must have wondered what was going on above the water. Why were so many humans hunting and killing them for seemingly no reason? Although written as a protest song for the Vietnam War, the lyrics of What's Going On could have rung true for the sharks: Mother, mother, there's far too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying...tell me, what's going on?
But there's more. And as a warning, what follows, while accurate, is horrific to read and made my stomach turn (and I've see and read about some pretty inhumane treatments when it comes to animals and slaughterhouses). So stop here if you don't want to feel angry, or ashamed, or tearful, or imbedded with an image you may not be able to erase. That said, I've broken this segment off so you can skip over it entirely if you wish, and start again at a later point. And bear in mind that what you'll read is still happening, an active and lucrative market just as the poaching of other animals for a horn or tusk is ongoing. So proceed with caution...
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To read how our "wild caught" tuna actually arrives on our shelves is, as the author described it, eating "cans covered in blood." The long lines, some nearly 50 miles long, hook and capture everything from sea gulls to turtles...and of course, sharks. These are all considered bycatch and are simply discarded overboard (most of the sea life caught this way is already dead from the stress or being hauled onboard...but not always). But sharks are valuable, or at least their fins are, ready to feed an old Asian belief that using them to make soup will instill sexual vigor and prevent aging; it is also considered a sign of wealth since it is quite expensive to order in a restaurant. So imagine that you're those impoverished and indentured workers who "owe" money to the ship's captain, and have been taken from your families and now find yourself far out at sea for months or a full year and basically stuck on a foreign fishing vessel when sharks appear as the line is winched in. The "fins" of the sharks represent money, some of which the captain will "allow" you to keep. Here is how author William McKeever described what he witnessed: Blue sharks are the most common casualty since, as scavengers, they regularly go after the baited hooks. Hauled on board, a shark can inflict damage, so the fishermen immobilize it by stabbing it repeatedly in the head or gills. There is no mercy now. When the shark is no longer a threat, the fishermen start hacking it apart. Most shark species have as many as seven fins -- two pectoral and dorsal fins plus an anal and pelvic fin on the underbelly, and of course, the tail. None of the fins is allowed to go to waste. The easiest to remove are the pectoral, or side, fins, followed by the shark's trademark dorsal fin. The fishermen saw back and forth, exposing the white connective tissue and raw red muscle beneath the shark's skin. Once a fin comes off, a fisherman tosses it into the fin pile. Some fins are small, like the pelvic and anal fins, which are located toward the tail, but regardless of size, they are all useful for making Chinese shark-fin soup. The last fin to come off is usually the caudal, or tail, fin. Because the caudal fin is the largest, severing it requires more time and effort. Inside the caudal fin, which powers the shark, is a rich supply of blood, which gushes out over the deck. In many cases, even after this brutal removal of all its fins, the shark is still alive, barbarically reduced to a cylindrical stump...To dispose of the shark, the fisherman unceremoniously dump it overboard. Unable to swim, the shark sinks to the bottom of the ocean. (the shark will slowly drown and die at that point) To my mind, I couldn't picture this agonizing slaughter happening to millions upon millions of sharks, other than to think of an alien force coming down to harvest us as humans and wanting only our hands and feet, unemotionally and unceremoniously chopping each limb off while we scream, then leaving us there to bleed out while moving on to the next person. After reading about our cultural beliefs and our willingness to do anything in order to preserve our youth and our status, I question if in the future our species will be remembered for its humanity or its inhumanity...
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There's far to many of you dying, said those lyrics. But for what? Indeed, tell me what's going on? As we supposedly learned from the removal of wolves from Yellowstone (another apex predator), the consequences of such removal can be quick and damaging to an entire ecosystem. In areas where shark populations have been reduced by 90% or more, this is being witnessed. When my state passed a law which allowed the killing of cougars year round and with no limits (due to a strong hunting lobby), new diseases among the elk and white-tailed deer populations appeared (the scare was/is that these diseases would pass onto humans). So I had to wonder if this urge to become the apex predator was predominantly a U.S. notion with our Wild West and our right to own guns, or one created by those with the weapons, the money, the "power," and the egos. Or did this urge to be "top dog" truly span across humanity in general? An earlier piece in the New York Review leaned toward the first scenario: The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Over 200,000 people are serving life sentences across the country. Because the tough-on-crime movement that began in the 1970s gave us ever-longer sentences, effectively decimated the parole system, and scared officials away from granting pardons, most of these incarcerated people have effectively no chance of being freed. Life sentences without parole are "virtually unheard of elsewhere in the world," Ashley Nellis, the author of a 2021 study on lifetime imprisonment, told The Washington Post. The article's title was: Making Room for Forgiveness. But then there was also truth in the words of Gandhi: Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.
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So let me jump over to acupuncture. Every now and then I've gone to an acupuncturist who is both a licensed MD as well as a certified acupuncturist, and as with so many in that field, she believes that the body has a different energy, an energy which we all have within us. I tend to believe this is well, especially when doing visualization exercises, those times when you close your eyes and slowly picture your toes then your legs then your hips and continue upward. With deep breaths and quiet times, I can almost feel that "pulling in" of some sort of energy. But having read so much about this killing of sharks, and our continuing wars, and what seemed a worldwide renewed hatred of peoples and animals, I had to wonder just what was going on with this "shared" universal energy. If indeed we all had such an energy within us, how could my feelings of energy be so different from what so many others seemed to be feeling? Then came the story of 75-year-old Ruben Garcia who heads up the Catholic nonprofit Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas. Wrote the article in The Washington Post: "The attorney general of my state has the audacity to refer to what is holy ground as a 'stash house,' " he said, his voice quavering as it echoed inside an old chapel. "I'm asking you, is that what you see?" Hundreds of migrants needed his help that March day. There was the Guatemalan woman beaten so badly that local police initially thought she was dead. The Columbian family who left their crime-ridden hometown and now, after crossing the border, had nowhere to go. The 25-year-old mother who learned she had cancer after crossing nine countries to reach the border with her 3-year-old daughter. And then there was Wilson...[who] crossed the border on a stretcher. He could not speak or walk. He'd lost so much weight that his fragile, skeletal frame jutted out from his skin. His legs and hands were twisted and locked defensively into a fetal position...Why would the state of Texas want to impede that, Garcia wondered aloud. "I don't have a solution for the exit of people from their home country. But they're human beings...and when we mistreat them, it's our humanity that's lost. Even the Pope had described the effort by Texas Governor Gred Abbott as "madness."
But Garcia is not alone. The cover story in the recent issue of The Atlantic covers the land crossing from South to Central America, a 70-mile stretch into Panama and one which early explorers considered an impassable piece of jungle, the infamous Darien Gap. Said Wikipedia about thia stretch of land: Consisting of a large watershed, dense rainforest, and mountains, it is known for its remoteness, difficult terrain, and extreme environment, with a reputation as one of the most inhospitable regions in the world. This year an expected 800,000 will make the attempt, braving raging rivers, wild animals, swamp-like mud, and a host of inhospitable bugs and diseases, all to flee what are even-worse conditions in their native countries. But here's where the assumptions pull away from what most of us envision. As the article explains, these men, women and children who risk their lives come not only from South America, but from Haiti, Ethiopia, India and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Add in China, Vietnam, even Taiwan...and perhaps, if they could, Gaza. What sort of "energy" was there that seemed to be changing some of us into this temporary drive to conquer something...a people, a piece of land, an ocean? Wired asked a similar question when it asked readers to describe a version of humanity from an alien perspective, all in six words or less. Their winner was: Do not disturb the human experiment; but I found myself leaning toward another entry: Visit Earth. Wipe Memory. Rinse. Repeat.
All of that said, and as truly depressing and hopeless as it all seemed, I still continue to believe in the good of most of us. Even José Andrés, chef and creator of the non-profit World Central Kitchen (which currently provides about 60% of NGO-provided humanitarian aid to Gaza and continues its similar efforts in Ukraine since 2022) returned to Gaza just a month after an Israeli air attack killed seven of his aid workers. Said the CEO of WKC, Erin Gore: We see time and time again that the best of humanity shows up in the worst of times. Perhaps joining up with this continued optimistic outlook, we can change our course and see that, as with this outer energy, we are all connected. It's time, as author Katherine E. Standefer wrote, to: ...begin the hard cultural work of facing the death that is already around us...To treat minerals and materials as the sacred substances they are. In the same way we are "not allowed" to be hysterical within a hypernational health care system, we have not been allowed to grieve our mountains. To recognize that we are rummaging inside a body. To see those veins for how they lace into the earth. Might we walk with different humility if we remembered ourselves this way? Brief, made of mineral, and born of earth. Becoming it again.
Nothing you can know that isn't known, wrote the Beatles. Nothing you can see that isn't shown. There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be...it's easy. So I close with the passing of William Anders. Who?, you may ask? During a time of chaos and before our first lunar landing, Anders was charged with taking photos of the moon's surface; and as Apollo 8 made its 4th pass around the moon, Anders looked up and exclaimed, "Oh, my God!." he clicked his camera and returned with the image so many of us know, that of our blue planet rising amidst the gray, pockmarked surface of the moon. Said Anders on his return: We had come all the way to the moon to study the moon, and what we really discovered was the Earth...[it's] the only home in the universe for us humans. It's too bad we don't treat it a little better.
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