The news today, as heard anyway on NPR, is that we need to save the sharks.
People, you see, are taking their fins. It's called "finning." This is the technical term. The fins go for about $300 dollars a pound.
I cannot help but wonder how many fins it takes to make a pound, or on the other hand how many pounds there are in a fin, but that's just me.
The fins are used for soup. I guess it's called Shark Fin Soup, but that is just a guess, because I've certainly never had it, nor ordered it in a restaurant.
To tell the truth, I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't had it, given the curious sorts of soups my Indonesian relatives are in the habit of concocting. Yet I can confidently say that I have never found a shark fin in my soup, either swimming or just lying there.
I did find some teeny tiny little fish once that smelled and tasted rather like something the cat had caught, killed, and let to rot two or three days ago--but we don't have a cat, so I an confident that this cannot have been the case. Also there are no fish in our yard. Nor in any of the neighbors' yards.
One time last summer during a bad episode of MS symptoms, I happened to be walking (after a manner) to Powell's Books downtown when I was accosted by an intense young woman who had been beamed in from the 60s and who wanted me to help save the polar bears.
Polar bears?
Is it okay if I pay for my MRI first? Or would this be environmentally insensitive?
Polar bears? You mean those big white beasts that eat Eskimos?
It just seemed the most ridiculous thing, under the circumstances. Well, my circumstances anyway. It would probably have seemed reasonable enough to the polar bears.
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