Saving sharks one signature at a time

My 7-year-old is currently enamored of sharks. Not the clever billiard players epitomized by Paul Newman (RIP) in the "Color of Money," but the toothy, fearsome, swimming creatures depicted so realistically in "Jaws."

We visited an area aquarium awhile back and for reasons I still don't understand but completely respect, it was love at first sight.

Currently working on a shark-themed project that involves reading, writing, research and original artwork, my daughter has also unearthed the gruesome truth about sharks on the verge of extinction largely because of a practice known as FINNING.

Finning is the cutting off of a shark's fins for use in sharkfin soup, a delicacy in places like China.

The shark -- any species will do -- is captured, mutilated while still alive, and thrown back into the water completely defenseless. Unable to swim, it sinks like a stone to the ocean floor.

Its death may take anywhere from several hours to several days.

Why, my daughter asked indignantly, would anyone want to eat soup so badly that they would do this to a shark?

Why, indeed.

Sadly, she's now starting to wrestle with the same questions that began to bedevil me back when I was about her age. A neighborhood boy caught a water moccasin in a drainage ditch near our street, stretched it out full length upside down on the sidewalk for us all to see and then quickly slit it from head to tail with a knife while the animal was still alive. Inside its belly was a large egg.

I was horrified. Not because a dangerous snake was only feet away from me but because I realized that snake hadn't hurt anyone and yet it was being destroyed for the heck of it.

That initial horror later dulled into a deep and abiding sadness from which I guess I've never fully recovered. But it also spurred me on to various volunteer and paid jobs working with animals as well as conducting letter-writing campaigns to everyone from pharmaceutical companies to elected officials urging them to stop one form or another of animal cruelty.

Somewhere along the way I became a vegetarian although in the spirit of full disclosure I do own a couple pair of leather shoes. Oh, and my childproof furniture is also upholstered in cowhide.

Regardless, some of that old fire stirred again in me last night when my wide-eyed, beautiful child with a heart as big as the world itself set her dainty jaw, furrowed her brow and said, "Finning is just wrong and it has GOT to stop!"

Can one child make a difference? No, but as I learned long ago one child (or one person of any age) multiplied by many more very often does sway opinion.

Type in "finning" online and see how many different campaigns are up and running on behalf of sharks. Lots of kids have jumped on the bandwagon, too, perhaps because children do see things so much more clearly than the grownups. If it's mean, it's wrong. Period.

Those of you who live locally and who know our family, I ask you to take time out to sign Julia's "No Finning" petition the next time you see her. The signatures will be forwarded to the Shark Research Institute in NJ for compilation and mailing to governments worldwide in an effort to outlaw this barbaric practice.

Sharks, as we've learned, are a vital part of the marine ecosystem. They keep various populations in balance so that there is enough food, enough habitat for everyone. Their only enemy is man.

You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being attacked by a shark.

More than 100 MILLION sharks are killed every year worldwide and roughly 15 various species are on the brink of extinction.

Julia is right. This has got to stop.

Just say no to "finning."

For more information on this issue, visit the websites of Sea Shepherd International, The Cousteau Society, or the Shark Research Institute.

I had better things to do . . .

It's my own fault. I'm the one who sometime back bought a crafts idea book for my seven-year-old daughter who eerily takes after Martha Stewart when it comes to all things creative.

The book, all about "mermaid" things to make, has proven to be a challenge. Its various colorfully illustrated craft projects are tantalizing but tricky for a young child without extensive help from an adult.

Today, the coveted prize was a "seashell purse" made from formed paper, cardboard, and lots and lots of paint and glitter. Mermaids must have glittery purses, I'm told.

Preoccupied with other more pressing things, I'm ashamed to admit I was relieved when I realized we didn't have some of the necessary supplies -- glitter among them -- to make the purse but then my daughter said, "Well, it IS still daylight. Can't we just go to Hobby Lobby?"

Sigh.

To know her is to love her and to love her amazing sense of pragmatism. It was so simple: Don't have it? Just go get it!

So we did, and when we got home it was really time to start supper but the child said earnestly, "Now that we have everything, I think we should at least get started."

Translated, this means, "Momma, the others don't need to eat but I do need this paper and cardboard seashell purse so never mind everyone else, just help me make the darn thing."

Reluctantly -- because I also really wanted to catch a quick peek at my email before I started cooking -- I sat down with the craft book in front of me and carefully analyzed the half million steps necessary for completing the purse.

Did I mention the numerous steps involved?

An hour later we had completed Seashell Purse Phase I and my daughter was satisfied I wasn't going to bail on the remainder of the project. After all, we'd come too far to abandon our effort now.

Did I say "our"?

I meant, "my" as in "MY effort." While it's true the seashell purse is for my daughter and she is the one who initiated the whole production, I am the hired help who sat and traced and cut and shaped paper and then slathered Mod Podge over the whole thing before blanketing it with colored tissue paper.

To be fair, my daughter did tear the tissue paper into pieces for me. Oh, and she did offer helpful hints when it came time to cut the purse out of cardboard.

So with Phase I in the can, I was allowed to take a breather.

Woefully I began to survey all that had remained undone during my pursuit of a purse to rival those of Louis Vuitton.

A pile of unfolded laundry. Dishes in the sink. Trash to be taken out. Books to be reshelved. Clothes to be washed. Rugs to be vacuumed. Checks to write and bills to pay.

Then I glanced over at the counter where earlier I'd been sorting photos of my children from the past several years. My throat tightened as it dawned on me how little the kids in those pictures were -- too little to make seashell purses or read stories of mermaids or use scissors or glue or sequins. And I remembered how especially in those early days of motherhood I eagerly anticipated a future in which I'd sit around a table with my little ones to share in the fun of arts and crafts.

That's when it hit me hard. Today was that day! The future was now! And I nearly blew it off in favor of a nap or yet another load of laundry?

Suddenly, the seashell purse has became the most important goal I have, and I made a point to reassure my daughter we'll finish it up tomorrow.

Tidying up the house after the kids were all in bed, I marvelled at how quickly the future of a few years back was now sitting squarely upon me as the present. Picking scraps of tissue paper off the floor and scraping glue off the kitchen table reminded me that, indeed, I had better things to do today.

Thank God I figured out what they were and did them.

The death of George Tiller

George Tiller was shot to death while serving at his church last week. It's bad enough to be killed in a house of worship, but it's even worse when your death gets lost amid the neverending debate about the ethics of abortion.

Tiller left behind a wife, four children, and some grandchildren. To them, he was Husband, Dad, Grandpa. He wasn't the infamous late-term abortionist whose very existence was a lightning rod for heated dissent.

He wasn't the man who, on one hand, served his Lutheran church faithfully for years while making a living terminating pregnancies well up into the ninth month.

He wasn't the man who, upon being wounded in both arms once before, vowed to continue his practice, cloaking it in the guise of helping women.

He also wasn't the man who singlehandedly had enough clout to bring about an end to society's acceptance of late-term abortion but never saw fit to try.

Some critics of Tiller's critics said that messages of condolence espousing a genuine respect for all life -- even Tiller's -- were insincere and that secretly they were glad he was gone.

I'm not sure "glad" would be the right word. Perhaps relieved?

Tiller committed no provable crime according to the laws of his state or the federal government so I can't support his murder, nor can I agree that depriving his children and grandchildren of his companionship is acceptable.

But Tiller did commit moral crimes, hundreds of them, and I'm not surprised it finally caught up with him.

Some would call it bad karma. Others would eschew such a supernatural law.

Me, I call it going out on a limb one too many times. Eventually it breaks and brings you down with it.

Tiller had choices. He just didn't make a good one.

Aren't they always "good boys"?

One thing I've noticed over the many years of reading news stories that nearly every time someone's son, juvenile or adult, is implicated in a heinous crime their behavior is dismissed by family or friends because, after all, he's a "good boy" and thus incapable of rape, molestation or murder.

And so it goes with four boys down in Florida, all of them middle school students who have been charged as adults for repeated sexual assault of a 13-year-old male classmate in the boys' locker room.

The boys have all admitted to the crime. One of them is 15, the other three are 14.

Even more frustrating than the fact that such young people voluntarily engaged in such horrific behavior is the fact that the assaults were witnessed on several occasions by others who NEVER CAME FORWARD to let school officials know this was happening.

To say that everyone involved -- alleged perpetrators and witnesses -- suffers from an extreme lack of integrity is an understatement. What compels some kids to do these things and others to be complicit by their silence?

The headline to this story would have been enough for me if I hadn't been so curious to see whether the "good boy" card would be pulled.

Sure enough, towards the bottom of the piece, "Defense attorneys told the judge their clients were good students and had never been in trouble before. Attorney Tim Taylor, representing Randall Moye, said his client's family is among the finest in the community.

So what are they saying? Aliens stole these kids' brains and turned them into hateful, vicious monsters?

Once again, someone has confused good grades and admirable lineage with character.

Soldiers we're supposed to forget

My family tree is riddled with soldiers, so Memorial Day holds deep and varied meanings for me. My earliest documented fighting ancestor decided he didn't want to live under British rule and so signed up to be an American patriot in time for the Revolutionary War. My most recent military relatives include a cousin who spent much of 2007-08 at an airbase outside of Baghdad and another who currently serves in the tarpit known as Afghanistan.

In between my revolutionary great-great-great-great-great grandfather and my cousins there is a whole host of other fighting men I'm proud to claim as my own.

My father's three older brothers each served their time during WWII, one in airplanes over Europe, another on the ground at the infamous Battle of the Bulge, and one in the Pacific. My dad was drafted during the Korean War, doing his time stateside but doing it nonetheless. My mother's brother served in the Navy, and his son is the one who went to Iraq.

Further back in time, though, are the Confederates, the men who took up arms against the North during the Civil War. They had no way to know they were destined to become part of a national identity crisis that some believe will begin to abate now that a black president has been elected.

My great-great grandfather could never have predicted that his descendents would be asked to bury his memory alongside his bones and thereafter speak of him only in hushed, apologetic tones.

Veterans groups nationwide cringe at the thought of including Confederate representation in their parades and commemorations and, indeed, some have banned them altogether. The Politically Correct Among Us are all too happy to protest any symbolism associated with Civil War soldiers from the South, so the pressure to keep things nice and comfy is huge.

Confederates go largely unnoticed by all but a handful of dedicated genealogists, Civil War buffs, and people like me who owe their very existence to the fact that at least some southern soldiers made it back alive.

None of the the men in my family who fought for the South in the years 1861-65 owned slaves. Not a one. They were fathers, brothers, sons, farmers, shopkeepers, several of them were dirt-poor and there was only one with any college education.

Two families each sent three sons to war. One family got all theirs back. The other family lost two.

The surviving son, John Stephens, made it back to Arkansas where he married, had twelve children, and became in time a banker and respected member of his community. One of his daughters taught first grade for 50 years, helped care for her infirm and aging older siblings, believed in God with a quiet tenacity, and raised a child in spite of an alcoholic husband whom she quickly summoned the courage to divorce. That child was my grandmother and she used to tell me stories about her grandparents and their hardships after the war during Reconstruction.

John's two brothers died far from home. The one buried in Macon, Ga. has a tombstone with his last name misspelled. The other, blown to pieces by a cannonball during the Battle of Vicksburg, was never buried because there wasn't much left, my grandmother said.

Another Confederate ancestor was only 16 when he was wounded in battle and piled atop a wagon to be taken to a prisoner of war hospital near Citronelle, Al. He was eventually released and made it home to Arkansas minus an arm.

There are others in my family, but these give a glimpse into the lives and sacrifices of the soldiers we're all supposed to forget.

What I can't forget, and what I won't let my children forget, either, is that these Civil War kin had names. They were someone's son, brother, husband, father, friend. They fought a war without penicillin, clean clothes, armored tanks, anesthesia, night-vision goggles, automatic rifles, the internet, bottled water, USO shows, MREs, or Chapstick and Off!.

I'm proud of them for doing what they thought was right at the time, for having the courage of their convictions and for enduring unimaginable pain and suffering in defense of their "country."

Some of you reading this will not agree. You'll say the southern soldiers deserved every hardship that came their way. You'll want to vilify them for supporting slavery because you'll have not read your history books to know their cause was nowhere near that simple.

But in our family, on this 'blog, on this day, we remember with love and gratitude John H. Stephens, Benjamin F. Stephens, William G. Stephens, Thomas Hamby, Elijah T. Wells, John Blevins, William Blevins, and Hugh A. Blevins, Jr.

They, too, were America's sons. Part of her family. Part of mine.