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.

On Michael Vick

I've got a lot going on in my life. I've decided to transition my career path, I've decided to start applying to grad schools for Fall 2010 admission, I've been dating for the first time in three years (I mean, those three dates in the past three years really weren't meaningful attempts). The schools that I'm applying to are not in Philly, which means that I will be moving in less than a year (unless all three schools reject me), so I'm already looking around at my books and thinking about a massive yard/book sale.

So given the upcoming stress in my life (most of it eustress, but stress nonetheless), it makes total sense that some of my most recent therapy session was centred around none other than Michael Vick.

The issue of Vick has been weighing heavily on my mind. I am known for being a completely leftist, bleeding-heart liberal. I took a lot of heat on my blog from total strangers for defending Ben Appleby, a death row inmate (and high school friend of mine). I won't go into that issue again on this blog post, but you can about it here. What I've been turning over (and over and over) in my head is how I can go to the mat over cases like Ben, but I've felt so ready to nail Vick's ass to the wall. I've felt so ready to join the Vick protests and refer to his return to the NFL with derision.

But where was my compassion? I've had so much compassion for Ben and other criminals. I've always tried to focus on society's responsibility (which I do NOT believe takes away from an individual's responsibility) to a person, whether in rehabilitation, assistance, fostering community, etc.

But with Vick, it's been different. And it's been bothering me. Is it because he hurt defenceless animals who had no voice? Is it because I knew Ben but didn't Vick? But I've also defended and advocated for others with whom I had no personal connection, so that didn't make sense. And this is why I went to my therapist with it.

And she helped me untangle it. It's still a little hazy for me, and I'm not sure why this is so difficult for me to wrap my head around. I'm hoping that my blogging about it and getting some feedback, it'll help me. But basically, here's how Nancy broke it down:

With Ben, if one believes that he committed the crimes for which he is in prison (he had told me he didn't, but testified in court that he did), then justice is being served. The injustice and compassion comes in because it is my belief that society failed Ben in a major way and that had society NOT failed him, he wouldn't be there in the first place. At one point as a young adult, Ben DID ask (in court, no less) for help and none was given to him.

With Vick, he absolutely committed the crimes (he admitted his guilt), but seems to show little remorse. Although dog-fighting was part of his culture growing up, at some point in his life, he must have realised that this mass cruelty was wrong and that bringing other neighbourhood children into this culture was all kinds of wrongity wrong wrong. When he made it big in the NFL, he had plenty of opportunities to pursue other hobbies, but instead kept on with dog-fighting - never tried to change. And now that he's out of prison, has anyone seen him in a shelter? Has anyone heard of him donating money to the SPCA? He's spent plenty of time at the Eagles compound - has anyone seen him at a pound? Didn't think so.

Nancy said she heard that one of the local SPCA shelters is using a Vick jersey to scrub the floors.

Still... part of my brain says, "But doesn't he, too, deserve his second chance? Is any less deserving of my compassion than someone who is accused of murdering and attempting to rape a 19-year-old young woman?"

This is what keeps me awake at night.

Damn you, Michael Vick.

(For more on this issue, please read the Philadelphia Weekly's cover story, Pit Bulls in Pain, which is on Philadelphia's weak history of punishing dogfighters.)

Todays Covers of "Philadelphia Daily News"

Say no more. 'Nuff said.