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Slojo

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  1. . Sure. But it should be really noted that the typical HS doesn't teach kids foreign language anywhere near to fluency. Not saying there are no challenges, but, umm, yeah...
  2. because the "health" threads about Candidate _______________ went political so fast. I even saved the screen from last night, but it was inaccessible this morning. I was all ready with my popcorn and everything :lurk5: but actually thought it was going to stick to wacky and unfounded theories about the health status of people none of us have ever met (and I was going to privately award the wackiest one a trophy). Bagging up the popcorn for the next one, I guess... :lol: That's all!
  3. Thanks for this perspective! I don't know how to address the "he's privileged" argument. It doesn't make sense. One - even if the experiences of biracial folks raised by white parents guaranteed that they would be insulated from racism (which it does not), I would hope that there is room in this country for people to take up causes that don't affect them directly. It's called empathy and allyship. Doubly so for "celebrities" that have an elevated platform and who might be able to get the attention of millions. Secondly, his white parents don't follow him everywhere he goes -- he actually has to walk out of his house and interact with people who have no clue about his upbringing -- and if just a fraction of those people have an anti-black bias, then, well, it just really doesn't matter who your parents are. Lastly, so we're acknowledging white privilege, now? We're acknowledging structural racism, now? Great! That's progress because so many people are stuck on "race and racism doesn't matter/we solved most of that years ago" that I was beginning to get worried. So to clarify we're saying that Kaep shouldn't protest because his upbringing with white parents and his class status insulates him from any disadvantages he might have had otherwise? Interesting. Fine - we'll just swap him out for another black dude whose experiences are "more authentically black" (whatever that means). Because surely that will go down really well, and everybody will just be oh so understanding of that? Umm... not sure I buy this. There were actual slaves around at the time who were commonly referred to as slaves -- hundreds of whom sought to fight with the British in the hopes of gaining freedom. Why would Key celebrate the idea that American sailors FORCED to fight for a side they didn't want to fight for would find no refuge from "terror of flight or gloom of the grave?" Why lump them in with the far more willing (and perhaps opportunistic) hirelings? I actually get why one would include hirelings and slaves who willingly went to the other side in lyrics that were basically about triumph over the opposing force. But the interpretation of "slaves" as "captured sailors" just sounds silly at the very least, and perhaps - since this is a children's site -- at best, the site was trying to shield children from the full truth. That's kind of an awful history wrapped up in those lyrics, and I can get the sentiment of wanting to shield children. It's nicer/cleaner for the American narrative if we don't complicate the story. Raising questions in young minds about slaves and just who were "the good guys and bad guys" in this story runs counter to the typical ways in which we handle retellings of the American story to young children. Are we really to believe that Key didn't ever notice, at least every once in a while, that there were brown people running around with the British, many of whom were former slaves who joined to secure their freedom? Are we really to believe that he didn't want to triumph over those former slaves "at least a little bit" for running off with the British? But, sure, we'll just tell Little Jimmy that it was "captured sailors!" Yeah. Perhaps. Kaep should just give that a big shrug IMO. I hope they don't mind donating to BLM and affiliated causes because that's where the money's going ;-)! (Obligatory SNAP!) The phrase "that just burns" takes on a whole new level of meaning right there! I liked the essay a lot. Though I would say that it can honestly be really difficult to ascertain whether "conflict is being correctly handled or mismanaged" in the context of social injustice. What does "correctly handled" conflict look like? It's almost never clear until decades later. The majority of people thought that Dr. King was going too far (many people deemed the Civil Rights movement as one long series of "mismanaged conflicts"), and yet decades later, we teach millions of kids to "do as Dr. King did" (those actions - with the hindsight of history - are now deemed as "conflict correctly handled" and even nobly so). KWIM? Decent people of all stripes can genuinely grapple with "just what is the right thing to do" in the face of injustice. The human condition is filled with all kinds of moral/ethical dilemmas. Of the range of actions people can take, I'd think that sitting and now taking a knee (after being in dialogue with some vets), donating money, and continuing to articulate matter-of-factly and peacefully one's views is about as "constructive" as one can be and still be actually calling attention to the issues. Otherwise, one is kind of left with "just keep your mouth shut and don't ever force anyone to have to sit with being uncomfortable or inconvenienced" -- which kind of defeats the purpose of protest, and isn't what the now revered leaders of the Civil Rights movement did (including a few of the celebrities of the time that lent their celebrity to the cause -- you actually have to speak up, and sometimes, it is most effective to do so when the cameras are rolling). I know there are folks on this board that would have a hard time coming up with ANY scenario in which protest would be acceptable. And that I find -- unacceptable. In a normal job, I would agree, but "celebrity" is this this really interesting phenomenon, and the regular rules get broken all of the time. They do have a platform unlike any other, and an organization that is comprised of 67% African American athletes and makes money off of their bodies (literally) might do well to - maybe - demonstrate that they want to see justice come to a community that has produced so many of its most talented players. That's my social justice-y bent, but, yeah, a little "gratitude" (and leeway) back for those players who, as wealthy as they are, are making YOU even wealthier. The "gratitude" thing can work both ways. We always talk about the "grateful athletes" and never the folks making money off of those athletes developing greater sympathies and "gratitude" for the communities from which those athletes come.
  4. Well, I guess I'd start interrogating myself about what is meant by "intelligence." I see intelligence as very wide-ranging, and at least somewhat malleable and contextual. I do not mean that there are not qualitative differences in intelligence between any two individuals. It just seems like applying some of the intellectual tools of someone who is "intelligent" would help to widen your sense of "who's intelligent" and why it matters. So what about engaging in a line of thinking like this when that feeling or judgment about someone else comes up: - Who is intelligent in what ways? What do I mean by intelligence: rocket scientists, physicians, poets, the repair shop guy who doesn't write well but can put together or take apart anything, etc... In all contexts? What am I NOT seeing in this person that makes me feel this way? What about in this circumstance - would they be considered intelligent? Well, how does that apply here? Etc... I am suggesting to be really rigorous with yourself about what is essentially a non-cognitive (oh, the irony), emotionally-driven belief system about intelligence. Attack it with your own intellect. An intelligent person would just keep interrogating that belief system - hold it up to the light and look at it from as many angles as possible. I think that practice just "widens" the notion of intelligence. At least for me - a lot of what I might consider a lack of intelligence is actually not. It's something else - lack of exposure, lack of confidence, being asked to perform in the wrong "intelligence" modality (e..g., visual learner being asked to perform in an auditory mode...). Life is full of seemingly unintelligent people who just blow me away when I see them in a different context.... And intelligent people who seem absolutely learning challenged when you take them out of their normal environment/routine or ask them to consider ideas or experiences that they just have not considered. There's just so many ways to be intelligent/unintelligent. There's "well, knows five languages" like my mother-in-law intelligent, there's physics professor intelligent, there's started their own company and now just made their first million intelligent, or creative intelligent like the creator of the Broadway hit Hamilton. Each of them in the other person's environment would be seen as quite unintelligent - really - if that's all you saw or knew of them. I like the idea of learning something you're terrible at (for me it was tennis - and boy did I feel dumb in that environment... and learning Chinese along side my children? Hilarity ensues.) I mean, we've seen a brain surgeon make a presidential run and fail at political "intelligence" (that is not meant to be partisan, just trying to come up with an example in the recent news); there was that article floating around about the man who grew up in special education (generally not considered intelligent) and is now a celebrated author, Martin Luther King apparently had low test scores, and I don't think there's a person on the planet would would not credit him with intellectual gifts, one of the most strategically intelligent leaders of a social movement, and among the most orally gifted leaders of the modern era - from Stanford archives "King took the examination on 3 February. A table enclosed with the test report indicates that his verbal aptitude score is in the second lowest quartile and his quantitative score is in the lowest ten percent of those taking the test. In the advanced test in philosophy, King's score (on a scale of 100) places him in the lowest third, while his other scores (on a scale of 800) are in the lowest quartile in all the subject areas except literature, where he placed in the top quartile." Dr. King. Low.verbal.aptitude. The.most.famous.orator.of.the.late.20th.century. Maybe we need to widen our scope for what's considered "intelligent." See if that kind of perspective taking helps you. Then there's always the "if I got transported back in time 5000 to years ago, I'd probably be considered the village idiot or village lunatic..." type of perspective taking. Personally, I'd have all these modern ideas/exposure to modern knowledge in the abstract, but almost zero applied intelligence about how to bring them to ancient cultures (though as a good social scientist, I'd probably be intelligent enough not to attempt to do so), but I wouldn't know how to grow my own crops, sew my own clothes, sail the ocean without modern navigational technology (or with modern navigational equipment, to be truthful), or survive three winters without modern heating, etc, etc... Me? Village idiot, for sure.
  5. This is closest to what it would be in my area. Property taxes would kill ya.
  6. I still don't know how knowing he had a record gets you to any justifiable reason why someone, once pinned down, is considered a threat deserving to be shot in the moment. Martha Stewart has a record. Somehow I don't think she's going to show up on my FB as a hashtag (at least not for this). Okay, moving on to Minneapolis - what's the "all the information" context needed there? What's the context needed for a man with no prior record with an apparently registered gun getting shot in front of his four year old? What's the context we all really need to know? Some of this "waiting for all the information" stance is just denying the full implications of the injustice. As if the "reasons" will make this all okay, make us all feel so smug that we would never find ourselves in such a situation (well, you might not, but I've got black sons...) Sometimes racism isn't a racial slur (would that the only thing any person of color had to deal with was an occasional racial slur) sometimes it's people looking for reasons why a black person deserved (or should have just done X to avoid having) to die. The list of "all the information" circumstances that must be considered before we can just give over to grief and anger, and a call for systemic change gets ever wider.
  7. Wait! What? The only camera doing any recording was a private citizen's camera? Where was the officers' body camera or the car camera that is supposed to be recording traffic stops...you know, the cameras that are supposed to record the events leading up to the altercation? Oh, never mind.
  8. Having a messy past SHOULD NOT be a reason to be gunned down while being pinned down. There is almost always some reasoning why people want to add in elements that are not germane to this issue itself (Freddy Gray, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner we had to hear about the flipping PARENTS of Tamir Rice... now our parents' past also gets to be included in reasons why it was "understandable" to get shot dead? Really, I can't keep up). If he has a past to be dealt with, then, umm, I don't know, ARREST him. What is the point of bringing up the "he was no angel" trope (ala Mike Brown) argument? Maybe it's to make us all feel like it could never happen to us. :unsure: Okay. Do we all feel better now?
  9. I will continue to call "open carry" and "conceal carry" defacto laws that only apply to white people. I think people of color need to be very skeptical about believing that those laws were intended to apply to them. I actually don't think race can be left out of the question (not that you are advocating that). I think race is very central to this particular question and we shouldn't, out of our discomfort, shunt it to the side. Maybe... but it's never a winning prospect to turn your gun on a cop (which, for the record, happened in neither of these cases). I hope people are not buying guns as a response to a potential shoot out with the cops. I thought this was about personal protection against "the bad guys," which aren't supposed to be the cops :huh: (but I can't keep the pro-gun arguments straight anymore, seems like an ever-widening set of reasonings about why the monster that is our out-of-control gun culture continues to need to be fed. How did the presence of a personal weapon HELP the situation in these cases? It didn't. This is a police reform issue. Can people stop sending petitions to ABC to fire the actor Jesse Williams now? Can we admit that body cameras alone aren't a fix? They tend to "dangle" in such situations -- the presence of cameras only means we bear witness to the injustice, not that it actually changes. :crying:
  10. I am a policy analyst for a national think tank focused on issues affecting children and families. I write white papers that maybe 20 people read ;-) and policy briefs that more than 20 people read (because they're shorter) ;-). I craft arguments to shape the direction of policy, help decision-makers sort through their policy options, or help individuals understand how a given evidence base may or may not be able to answer a social policy question. I'm able to work from home with the occasional need to travel to make the case for kids in person. In short, I fight on the side of good, but only occasionally wear the cape! (LOL!)
  11. My! The conversations one misses when one's on vacation! Thanks for holding it down, everybody :lol: ! I'm just going channel Jesse Williams and raise my fist in the air (we need a new emoji with a raised fist)! "Just because we're magic doesn't mean we're not real!"
  12. If age is the only risk factor, most homebirth practitioners are willing to work with you. Congratulations (you make me ALMOST want to go for another - but I'm 4 years older than you, so I'll live vicariously). Super congrats again!
  13. My husband's and my little cousin is an amazing dancer who is in the Capezio dancewear model search competition! PM me if you wouldn't mind voting for him! How's that for light and happy?
  14. Hugs to all of you. I am just heartsick that there are those who are trying to deny the realities that LGBT folks have to face everyday, and are specifically trying to erase them from their own experiences. Praying for love, peace... and rainbows!
  15. I do. We actually moved into a good school area even though we intend to homeschool into the foreseeable future for a few reasons: 1) We may not homeschool forever, and we wanted the "send them to school" option to feel easier, and not fraught with concern. 2) I am a big believer that good school district areas also come with good other amenities that are super-beneficial to homeschoolers -- i.e., parks and rec programs; enrichment programs; sports opportunities; and library programs. That seems to hold true. So while we do not use the resources of the schools, we do use all of those other resources. 3) the other factor for us is that the school needs not only to be a great school overall, but a great school for black boys. When you factor that in, the number of schools that fall into that category drops dramatically. I think all parents need to understand if a school is going to be great for a kid like their kid. Some schools may not have the rankings of the top schools, but end up being great for certain kids. I've heard from parents here that the schools are great for stand-out kids/high achievers, but actually not so great for average kids or kids with special needs. They kind of get lost apparently. It is a reality of this country, is that kids who attend well-resourced schools also tend to get all the other amenities as well. Totally not fair, but that is how this country works, for the most part. I would be happy to see a family that would love to be in our district "take our kids' spot." I know our district is better than others, and that there are families who would love to have the choice. We are fortunate indeed. But like others, I have a slight bias against the way that education, in general, is delivered, even while I can recognize that some schools are delivering it better than others.
  16. I do worry some, of course. But I'm a planner, so I often cover a lot of bases. That said, I am not a really long range planner, except the basics (I have a retirement plan, but is every single possible thing that could happen to me in old age accounted for yet? No. If I live until 100, will the funds run out? As of today, that's possible, working on it...). So my planning applies more to the day-to-day; what is foreseeable in my life stage at the moment (3 - 5 year horizon). I don't find much use in worrying about 30 years into the future other than plunk away a little at a time, who knows what will happen.? I am much more likely to worry about how to manage a decision that needs to be taken in the next 3 months (but I will likely have Plan A, B, and C... and have thought about it enough to be able to scratch up a Plan D in the moment). I also realized that I worry less as I get older. I think it's that I've been through enough crap that I survived to say, I will survive this too! Might not be sure how, at the moment, but I will. I can usually get back to that in a reasonable amount of time, even if I have an initial freak out. I actually like being in that place right now. It feels balanced. Not perfect, but balanced.
  17. I really try not to manage my adult guests. Kids I assume are under an "in loco parentis", and I expect them to do what my kids would do. But I'm pretty laid back so it's really hard to "break" one of my house rules. I will say that I do "make myself very busy," if I really don't want a houseguest to stay or to stay more than 2 days -- oh, I can whip up an away soccer tournament in a minute. ;-). Otherwise, I try to be gracious --- and I try to make certain things "scarce" -- we are just not going to have 92 cans of soda in my house, and once the paper towels are gone - welp, they are gone... This is the problem I have more than that I have a lot of house rules. I've only really butted heads with my MIL, but she is pickier than me about house stuff, and I had to just tell her "let me be the queen of my own modest castle." In your house, I say nothing, and try my best to do as you would do. But my castle is so small, let me have my tiny little kingdom. That's totally cool -- it's just not me at all. In fact, every once in a while I've got to sniff to recall if a basket is clean or dirty. :lol: Oh, and we've been known to get an outfit or two from the laundry basket. That's what I was thinking. Though in the OP's defense, the house guest is a little much. I do not have a lot of rules, but I do hate "greedy" -- and taking all the nuts? Come on? Who does that? Now no one else in the flipping house can have some nuts because you'll scarf it all down while you're here? There's X number of people in the house, and, guess what, they all like nuts (and, oh, I don't normally allow wise-cracks, but I might, in this case, give my most sarcastic kid "license" to loudly ask, "Who stole all the nuts? Are we harboring a fugitive squirrel?"). If I were a nut-hoarding, Coke guzzling house guest, I'd at least be considerate enough to have brought my own nuts and soda. I'd like to think my house guests would be self-aware enough to say, "I kind of go heavy on the snacks -- let me bring some of my own." Yeah - Bye, Felicia! I think you can actually "kick family out" a little easier, and know that you can still maintain a "see you on Thanksgiving" relationship with them. The consideration goes both ways. I do wonder if she is "traveled" -- seems like she hasn't had a lot of experience of doing the "when in Rome" thing, and kind of picking up on cues about how other folks do things in their house, and is maybe needing some "security." Though I think it's fine to gently point out to adults that you can't accommodate all of that, and that her true need is not all the flipping nuts in the house or 96 cans of soda. Not meanly, just in a matter of fact kind of way, "that was all the nuts in the house until the next grocery run. Can you let me know if you have other big snack needs like that?" Or "there's not space in the fridge for that much soda/we aren't really a soda house... so you are welcomed to store a case on the (hot) back porch/in your car."
  18. I guess my first thought is, you have to visit them. Not visiting them at all if they would otherwise be on your list would be more indicative to me of the unexamined attitudes you are hoping are not there for you. I think your daughter is 16/17, so I'd consider her comments about being "racist" with a grain of salt and then add some life experience to them. What I would say, as an African American, is that you should definitely consider your daughter's social anxiety, AND recognize the inherent privilege that you have as a white family in selecting colleges. There are just far more ways for white families to just not have to face the question. Many families of color have kids with social anxiety, and still have to send them to PWIs out of practicality. So the question that I would have you consider is wherever your daughter goes, what will be her support networks? Is the counseling office and residential staff responsive to students with social anxiety? Does it look like there would be some outlets where she could plug in her first semester? Did she have a great time in the dorms on the college weekend? Are you all actively working on her managing her anxiety while she is still in high school, so no matter where she goes, she can navigate? Secondarily, I'd ask: Does she have a lot of experiences with racially diverse peers now? Does she already have a fair amount of cross-cultural experiences, or is she up for learning more? There may be some experiences of social isolation based on her being a white student at a predominantly black college, but a campus is made up of thousands of people - the entirety of her experience is not likely to be social isolation. It's just not. So, unless these schools are otherwise not high up on your list, visit them like any other school, and ask about student life, support networks, etc... and feel free to ask about the experiences of white students. BTW, there has been recent research out there (I'll try to dig it up), that white students fare really well in majority black schools. And, in my experience, black schools often, culturally, hold on to a bit more of that "in loco parentis" attitude than a lot of schools do these days (i.e., professors taking a more personal interest in students; the way dormitories are run, etc...) - which may be a good thing for a student with social anxiety.
  19. Exactly. He didn't run, and said he wasn't running to Canada (and he had more means to re-establish himself in Canada than most). He served the jail time -- time has proven him to be on the right side of history on that one.
  20. The problem with "nothing more than security and protection" is that it looks a heck of a lot different when there is a 425 lb difference between protector and protectee. The protector may indeed mean no harm, but what seems "gentle" to the protector does not feel gentle to the protectee. My protector human boys could have easily hurt their infant sister by "forgetting" that she's not built like them. No aggression needed. Just not knowing that a baby can't stand/walk/hold their head up/keep themselves from rolling off a couch, etc.... all the more so for a gorilla. Intelligent, protector instincts indeed - it it was clear that Harambe was not able to assess that the humans that were yelling were not "threats" to him personally, but were reacting to the situation of the human child. The only thing anyone wanted was to get that human baby back to his human mother. Harambe couldn't have known that. And was getting more agitated (due to humans' natural reaction of screaming. It was terrifying to watch, and screaming seems - well, human). Maybe if there was time to get all the humans out so that the only humans in there were trained to not scream, things could have been different. Additionally, the boy was dragged by the leg and then the arm through water, and was screaming himself. A 4 year old cannot be expected to "remain calm", "no sudden movements." At some point, those screams might continue to agitate. Might be able to coach an older kid or adult through staying calm. But a 4 year old? -- I think the "gentle non-aggressor" argument has to be treated with more caution and thought given the specifics. The other instances in which gorillas aided a human child were children that fell and were knocked unconscious from the fall - thus, no screaming or agitating the animal. Did you see how fast Harambe pulled that baby by the leg through the water (with no ability to assess if the baby's leg was broken, and if that was indeed the safest way to carry a human baby - which, by the way, it's not)? He was probably being "protective" - getting the baby away from all the yelling, but that baby's head could have been bashed against the side, anything, by being dragged like that. You are asking a lot of a wild animal with "Baby Huey" like protective instincts, and the ability to hold or squeeze too tight, all in an effort to keep a human child safe. Harambe was doing his best, but each passing moment of "his best" was still an endangerment to the child. The humans have to do better to make the barrier between humans and animals safer. But once the barrier was breeched, there were real dangers to be managed.
  21. Yep, the kid was climbing somewhere he should not have been. I am not in the camp of "zero fault" of the parent, but I am in the general neighborhood of empathy. Still think it could happen to more people than would like to believe themselves incapable of ever having a kid do that (and I say that as a mom of kids who actually are not impulsive; will stop on a dime at the command "Danger"; often get the "your kids are so easy" "hardly any work" compliments from friends and teachers who have cared for them; and who generally can be trusted to stay out of obviously dangerous situations (not going into the street..).. BUT are still kids, and occasionally, what is obviously dangerous to me does not occur to them as dangerous -- and cr** happens with kids. Never lost sight of your kid once? Not once? I have (and so have you ;-). Not at the zoo, but I have lost sight of my kids. Panicked for 30 seconds, aged a year. Could also happen in the "I thought grandma had him and she thought I had him" scenario. And I have "easy kids." Now that I only have one kid who is in the "panic if I don't see them for 30 seconds" it is different. The others are at least old enough to calm themselves down, find a mom, and ask her to call my cell or take them to security. And they can read signs. I'm not sure what to do with the implied consequences of your post. Of course it wasn't the gorilla's fault. But once the kid was in there, the "faultless gorilla" is a moot point. They were into a "no choice is going to be optimal" at that point. At some point, it was the kid or the gorilla. Armchair quarterbacking from folks who weren't there doesn't help -- tranquilizers were ruled out as they would have agitated the gorilla and could have taken up to 30 minutes to take effect. Gorilla totally didn't mean harm and seemed protective at first, but 400 lbs and "natural instincts" are what they are. The dragging the kid through the moat part of the video was terrifying to watch indeed. It was definitely a "just how many of those dragging episodes could a 4 year old survive" set of moments to witness. Yes, this! Really sad for the gorilla, but don't get it twisted.
  22. Well, very few parents LET their littles into animal enclosures, so that group is thankfully small indeed. I, too, get incensed by "entitled parenting", but I don't know that this is a case of "mommy let little Johnny climb where he wanted." I was angry at the moms who watched and filmed their little darlings pulling at a glass art sculpture, and then -- oh, a piece broke off... oops! This seemed more like, she counted heads and was searching, and he was already through (and not visible in the foliage) in the time it takes to count the three or four heads she had in her care and then several people heard the splash. There were a couple of people who were there that posted that it was much closer to a scenario that most parents find themselves in at least once or twice (losing sight of your child for 10 - 15 seconds - and in that time, he was through and not seeable until people heard the splash), and that she didn't seem like a particularly irresponsible parent. I think the lesson is less "what a horrible mom" and more "as bizarre as this was, it could happen to me." I think we should all take in a bit of "it could happen to me" into our take-away of this story, the same way we might take in a "leaving a baby in a hot car when you thought you dropped him off at daycare." Horrible, freak accident - but each of us needs that small reminder that it could happen to us. Yes. But it kind of proves my point. Zoos seem, more often than not, an unfortunate compromise. Still makes me sad that humanity can't do better. Yes, this. I think some zoos do a better job certainly, but I do wonder about the stresses on animals. I remember seeing a polar bear at a zoo once, and he was walking forward five steps and then backing up nervously five steps, and kept repeating that behavior for 10 minutes. Maybe it was nothing (and I don't know anything about bears), but my friend and I were like, "the bear's gone crazy... poor bear." It didn't seem like something the bear would have done under normal circumstances. I think there is a reason why the Inky the Squid escape resonated with a lot of folks: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/the-great-escape-inky-the-octopus-legs-it-to-freedom-from-new-zealand-aquarium There is a compromise with zoos and similar places that doesn't feel 100% right. This is not an argument for "just let the species become extinct," just acknowledgement that humans are central actors in creating the conditions of species extinction in the first place.
  23. I think it's the fine line between education and entertainment that I think most zoos are walking. I think that the fact that there is no way that the space that zoos can dedicate is anywhere near their natural territory makes it complex. I think that zoos have to have a profit margin and that not every single animal in a zoo is a member of an endangered species complicates the conservation argument. I think mostly, next time I go to a zoo, I'm going to think a little harder about the animals and whether this is indeed the best way to protect endangered species. Maybe I'm leaning more toward the rescue center model as a better model to support. I like the idea of regional centers that allow some access for education, but probably far less access and in a way that many people, with entertainment in mind over conservation (let's keep this real - zoos are in the amusement business) might not fork over the $20 for out of the goodness of their hearts. I don't have the answers - just thinking. No - no one is in that camp. I do know there are poachers, and that some of the protection efforts are extremely difficult and dangerous because of that. I'm not opposed to zoos entirely, but do think we need to continue to rethink them. It just doesn't feel like we are quite at the right balance between the various aims of zoos -- and, zoos have various aims, not all of which are about the animals. I think this is right. A piece of the problem is the idea that the only way to garner support is that humans have to see the animals. I get that humans like connection, but it doesn't quite sit right with me that animals need to be "paraded around" to get the humans to care. Some things should be supported as inherently right whether I get to have a personal encounter with it or not. We wouldn't say that of human crises -- no, I need to personally see Haiti before I can find it in my heart to give to the cause (though I'm sure those people exist). I know there are flaws with that analogy, but there are flaws with the "zoos as the way to build the public interest" argument as well. If for some reason we didn't have zoos - or we removed primates from zoos -- we just wouldn't care as much about the animals? That makes me sad (and makes me want to donate to a rescue center that I've never been to just to prove that one doesn't need to see wild animals up close to care).
  24. I won't post the video of the 4 year old boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit habitat (parts of it are graphic/scary to watch - boy is okay in the end, and seems gorilla wasn't intending harm but may have gotten confused/agitated by all the human commotion). If you want to see it, and haven't you can view it on several websites (again boy is okay, but gorilla was put down to save the boy's life). The incident has sparked a fair amount of outrage over the gorilla (an endangered silverback) being put down. I read several comments (some of which were callous, and not a central part of my interest), and was wondering what folks around here think of zoos? Are you opposed to them? Like them? Do you think they are part of the answer to conservation efforts? Centers for human entertainment that probably shouldn't exist? I am conflicted about zoos. I have gone to them, and my children have gone, but I'm kind of on the side of them not being such a good thing. I think conservation centers, largely not open to the public, might be a good thing for endangered species, but zoos feel a little gray - kind of about conservation, but mostly about human entertainment, and the Cincinnati incident highlighted those issues again for me. What do you think?
  25. That's variable, and it doesn't matter. My mom cost a lot - not because she is particularly spendy, but because she's had a life-long, somewhat debilitating illness that costs a lot in medical bills to keep her at a good quality of life. But absolutely (of course) of value to our family. When my dad had a bout with cancer, the "tables turned" and she was the most gracious caregiver -- having extra understanding of the ups and downs of being sick/not 100%, in a way that the rest of the family struggled more to understand and respond to because we hadn't lived that experience and developed as much grace (not that we were slouches, but she had a leg up in understanding the psychology of dealing with an ongoing illness). Sometimes those that look like they are not "contributing as much" or "the greater burden" end up being the very people you need to turn to at a later point in life. Not that you, SKL, were saying that, but I think that's one of the lessons of this thread.
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