:: Apparently the big blob o'tissue that washed up on Chile's shores is what's left of a sperm whale.
According to experts, what happens is this: when a sperm whale dies, its body just sort-of bobs along while it decomposes. At a certain point, its skin can no longer maintain enough tensile strength to, well, hold the bones inside, and they literally fall out the bottom, leaving...well, you get the idea.
Oh well, I still prefer my blancmange theory. (And right now the Ray Bradbury story "Skeleton" is playing over in my mind....)
:: And according to Newsweek, commercial whaling is still an issue. It was somewhat to be expected: after all, the "endangered species" argument was the main justification of whaling embargoes, and now that a number of whale species are on the rebound, the countries that want to kill whales are saying, "Hey, there's more whales now! Let us hunt 'em!"
I've never understood whaling; as a rule, I find arguments that appeal to "cultural tradition" unconvincing in just about every scenario in which they are employed, which basically leaves pro-whaling countries left with, as far as I'm concerned, "Whales is yummy!" as an argument. And that doesn't hold water, either. To paraphrase Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction: "Hey, a sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy mother******." There's a lot of yummy stuff in this world, so if we all stop eating one particular set of yummy things, well, who cares?
But there is one cute quote in the article, from a Japanese person who wants to start whaling again: "How would you feel if someone else from a different culture tells you that you should give up eating turkey for Thanksgiving?" Well, first of all, we're right back onto "It's our culture" argumentation here, which is pretty-much bogus. What gets me here is the analogy between a whale (animals with huge brains, documented "cultural" behavior, and at least the beginnings of linguistic communication) and a turkey (animals which are so dumb they can quite literally drown in a rain storm, because they gaze up into the rain with their mouths open). Great analogy there, fella.
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