Shark Finning

I'm a huge fan of Chef Gordon Ramsay.  If there's a show with him in it, I'll watch it.  I was especially last week when EW (Entertainment Weekly) was taking shots at him for appearing in something like four different shows in one week (MasterChef, Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, and Shark Bait).  EW has a feature every issue called "What to Watch" where they highlight several shows each night.

For Monday, they highlighted MasterChef with the joke, "Sometimes I think I just can't get enough of that Gordon Ramsay.  And then Tuesday comes.  (This joke has delayed gratification.  See tomorrow's listings!)

Tuesday had this to offer.  "Gordon Ramsay's F Word: Wow.  Again?  It's a good thing Gordon's not on another show tonight or I'd get really sick of him."  And "MasterChef: The final five contestants have to re-create signature dishes from...you guessed it! Gordon Ramsay!"  And "Gordon Ramsay's Shark Bait: Seriously, dude.  Take a vacation."

I was bummed that I forgot to record Shark Bait.  Stupid.  So I was happy when I woke up this morning and BBC America was kindly replaying it.  Until I watched it and sank into a depression and anger I haven't felt in a long time.

He started by discussing his eldest daughter and how she's obsessed by sharks.  Then he discussed shark fin soup.  Now, anyone familiar with Chef Ramsay knows he makes a sport of poking fun at vegetarians (while revering the humane killing of animals and ensuring that all meat is cooked well since an animal gave its life for that meal).  So I was a little scared of where this show was going to go and what was in store for his daughter.  Thankfully, Matilda was left home for this road trip.

He discussed the history of shark fin soup - it was originally served only to emperors and empresses, so it's now a status symbol to eat it, although it's readily available in Asia, even from street vendors.  However, because the shark fins are in such demand, fishers are using illegal means to obtain the fins -- a practice known as finning.

Finning is when they catch the sharks, cut the fins off (usually while the shark is still alive), then throw the shark back in the water to die.  They do this because the shark meat will no longer be valuable when they get back to dock.  Additionally, these morons do not care which sharks they kill.  There was footage of them killing a hammerhead shark, which is endangered.  (This was the point at which I had to stop eating breakfast.  Mind, I've watched surgeries, and I had a hard time watching this.)  Chef Ramsay found a baby hammerhead, which he estimated to be a year old, dead and thrown aside on the back of a truck.  Hammerheads do not reach sexual maturity until 15 years and they can only reproduce once a year.

In the past decade, the shark population has dropped an estimated 60% because of practices related to finning and supplying restaurants with fins for shark fin soup.  This also means that, since sharks are at the top of the oceanic food chain, this is having disastrous consequences for the marine ecosystem.

At the end of the show, Chef Ramsay had gathered restaurant managers from the leading Chinese restaurants in London, educated them, and asked them to stop serving shark fin soup.  They agreed.  He is also now a patron of The Shark Trust.

Since I was mired in a sinkhole of depression after the show,  I decided to see what other progress has been made.

Hawai'i recently became the first place to completely outlaw the possession of shark fins.  So serving shark fin soup at all is now illegal.  Oregon and Washington followed.  California is considering a similar bill, but the Chinese-American lobby is resisting, citing cultural issues.  However, some of the legislators supporting the bill are Chinese-Americans.

World-Wide Need

It is times like these that kind of drive me crazy: an earthquake in Haiti, a tsunami in Thailand, an earthquake in China, etc. The pictures are horrifying, the loss is unimaginable, and the news coverage is non-stop. And then it starts: celebrities suddenly crawl out of the woodwork to tell you how to help. They let you know what they are doing, how much they are donating, and to whom.

Even Ravelry, a site I normally love and adore, has gotten into the act. Designers can tag their designs with special tags, and if one purchases such a tagged pattern a designated portion of the proceeds goes to a Haitian relief effort of the designer's choice. A person searching for a pattern can even filter for the special tag!

Before you keep reading, let me be as clear as I can be. I have nothing but the utmost empathy for what people most be going through in those situations. Obviously, I have not gone through a natural disaster of that magnitude. The closest I have experienced is the Missouri Floods of 1993, which was plenty for me, thankyouverymuch. And before you ask, yes, I participated a great deal in the clean-up efforts. I can only imagine what it must be like for people who have lost their entire families, for people who can't find their families, for people who have lost everything they have ever owned, and for people who now literally have nothing but the clothes on their back. Truly, it's unimaginable.

However, what disturbs me about the outpouring of "Help Haiti/China/Thailand/etc." campaigns is that there is a ridiculous amount of suffering and death on a daily basis that goes largely unnoticed by these same celebrities, media outlets, and dare I say it, Ravelry Powers That Be. For instance:

• Approximately 8,500 people die every day of AIDS-related complications
• Approximately 4,500 people die every day because they don't have clean drinking water
• Approximately 2,700 people die every day of malaria
• Approximately 33% of North Koreans are malnourished

These things happen EVERY DAY. These are problems that doctors, politicians (you know, the good ones - they DO exist; I promise!), public heath practitioners, and human rights advocates fight against EVERY DAY.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't give aid to Haitians right now. I'm not saying that they aren't deserving of prayer and compassion. Of course they are.

What I AM doing is imploring you to give aid to other, equally worthy causes every other day. They aren't as sexy, they won't make the news every day for two weeks straight, they won't have star-power backing them up; I can almost guarantee you that. That's kind of what makes the fight so special and meaningful. It's what will make you have so much passion for the cause later.

So, now that I've implored you to help, here's how you can:

My favourite HIV/AIDS sites/charities:

• CDC Factsheet on HIV
  
• Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
• amfAR, The Founation for AIDS Research

How to help with clean drinking water:

• Thirst Relief International

How to help eliminate malaria:

• CDC information on malaria
• Nothing But Nets

Information on North Korea's plight:

• World Food Programme

The Story of Hoa: Please help her

Some of you met my friend Sara when she came to Philadelphia to visit this past spring. Her friends Dan and Hoa are going through something at once so painful and so ludicrous that I'm having trouble writing coherently and cogently about it. But I will because Hoa and Dan need your help. URGENTLY.

Ten years ago, Hoa came to the U.S.A. from Vietnam to study at Luther College in Iowa. There, she met and fell in love with Dan. In 2008, they got married (in Minnesota, where they then now reside) and eagerly looked forward to starting their lives together. In the meantime, Hoa finished her Master's degree in French Literature, and Dan started his own construction business.

Two months after their marriage in Minnesota, they travelled to Vietnam to celebrate the union again. However, at that time, the status of Hoa's visa became unclear. Upon returning to the country, Hoa discussed the situation with immigration officials. Eventually, she received notice to appear in court on 13 August 2009. Unfortunately, she confused and missed the court date. As a result, she was taken into custody the very next day and has been incarcerated since then.

On 22 September 2009, Hoa's family and friends received the news that Hoa's case will NOT be reopened. She is scheduled for immediate deportation and is barred from re-entering the U.S.A. for five years.

PLEASE consider helping Hoa. You can go here to find sample letters that you can print out and mail (or email/fax) to Minnesota legislators. Please also consider contacting YOUR local state legislators for help. This page also features a link to help you figure out who your legislator is and what her/his contact info is.

While I believe that immigration laws serve an important function in our country, I do not believe that they exist to punish people like Dan and Hoa.

Thank you.

Please visit FreeHoa.org.

An eye for an eye?

In November 2004, Ameneh Bahrami was the victim of an acid attack. She had rejected a guy who was into her, kept harassing her, and proposed marriage to her multiple times. One afternoon, he followed her from her place of work to a train station and threw acid on her face. As a result, her face, hands, and arms are disfigured (the acid got on her hands and arms when she put them up to her face) and she is now blind in both eyes.

Rather than accepting money from attacker Majid Movahedi (a custom known as "accepting blood money"), she requested an eye for an eye. A court ruled that she would be allowed to drop 20 drops of acid into one of Movahedi's eyes (not both - the theory that one man is equivalent to two women apparently applies to their body parts, as well). He will be restrained on a table and his eyes will be forced open as she drops the acid into his eye.

He appealed the court's ruling and recently lost that appeal.

She says she isn't doing this out of revenge. She says she wants this to be a deterrent for future potential acid attackers. She says she won't change her mind.

A lot of human rights activists are up in arms about this. Some say that it violates Movahedi's human rights; the punishment is too barbaric. Some say that since Bahrami now lives in Spain, she should abide by Western humane mores and not participate in such a vengeful, barbaric act. I will admit that the second argument doesn't hold much interest for me. Note that I did not say that I disagree with it, it just doesn't interest me as much as the basic human rights issue does. And I see this as a victim's right issue, as well.

One of the first (and most difficult) lessons I learned in law school is that law and justice seldom go hand in hand. And truth and the justice RARELY coincide (one of my professor went to law school across the street from a church, and his professor often told them that if they wanted Truth, they should go across the street). And I could really do a blog post on the whole law/justice, truth/justice issue later (and I might).

I don't see justice here. I see the law, but no justice. I see the truth (the attack DID happen, Movahedi confessed but is apparently without remorse). I've tried very much since I first heard about this story to see justice. And I just can't find it.

It's tempting to blog about my own journey from a rape/incest victim to a survivor who has forgiven her rapist. But the truth is that that journey took many years, many evolutions, and had its own prices along the way. I can't expect that every victim will feel the same way I do. It's not fair to them (or to me). And I'm not arrogant enough to say that the way I did it was the right way. Survival looks different and takes different forms.

But I wonder if participating in physical barbarism is a necessary step for Bahrami in her journey from victim to survivor. There are things that happened during my transformation that I wish I could do again, do differently, or just altogether take back and erase. While my greatest hope is that she ultimately decides to not do this, my next hope for her is that if she does do this, it does not become a regret in her life.