Guest Blog: Garbage on the Beach by Stefan Sencerz

When I woke up this morning, I checked Facebook (as one does), and saw that I was tagged in this Facebook post.  I’ve recently had some discussions online and in the real world about the needless cruelty humanity does in the name of sport  (the now former Idaho Game and Fish Commissioner Blake Fischer’s hunting sojourn to Africa where he wantonly killed a family of baboons, for the seemingly sole reason of “because I could”)  stands out, but then there was this.

I love stingrays.  When I would stay with my grandparents, they would take me to Pine Island in Florida, and I would also hope we would get there early enough so I could see the stingrays sleeping in the shallow water by the beach – but by the time I got there, they had flown back into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving behind only their diamond-shaped imprints in the sand, the water so calm that the evidence had not been erased by the tides.

Seeing one killed this unnecessarily, for no other reason than laziness, it’s so infuriating.  To see it suffer, slowly suffocating to death… We really don’t deserve this world.

GARBAGE ON THE BEACH

I do not do it myself. I have a choice. I can afford practicing compassion. Others are less fortunate. I understand why some people fish.

Still, wasting life? Putting someone through the agony of suffering and death? Pulling fish out of the water just to let them rot in the sand? That’s an entirely different story.

It’s the same attitude that allows us to club baby seals and skin them while they are still alive. It’s the same attitude that allows us to fire harpoons into the living breathing body of a whale, never mind she is self-conscious, worries about passing away, and perhaps even pays the homage to the Divine in her unique way. It is the same attitude that, we think, gives us a right to rape the earth and the ocean with a myopic greed that leads us to pumping water rather than heavy mud in a drilling hole for a sole purpose to save a few bucks though we have already made billions and will keep making more billions each and every year.

It was an evening at our favorite roaming place on the Mustang Island, right by the Park, right where the dragons smile to me, right where the protective deities have granted us free passage, right where we chant “Namu Dai Bosa — Homage to the Great Compassionate One” into the ten directions, for the benefit of all. My heart was high up in my throat and my fists might have been clenched, too, when we arrived at this place and the first thing I heard was – “I caught a stingray, a really big one, too. It lays down over there by the poles.”

If I had more courage, I would have asked him – “Why do you destroy living beings in such a brutal way? What is your purpose? What have you achieved?” If I only had more courage I would have returned the fish to the ocean right then and there, right in front of him and his children. But I did not.

I hovered around for several minutes waiting until they packed their crap into their gigantic oversized SUV and took off. Only then I returned the fish to the ocean. It was too late. It did not survive. Thinking about it, perhaps it was too late in the first place. Maybe there was no way to help her anyway.

I have to grant them one thing. There was no garbage on the beach once they left.
Namu Dai Bosa
for the fish left in the sand
salt on my cheeks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stefan Sencerz, born in in Warsaw, Poland, came to the United States to study philosophy and Zen Buddhism. He teaches philosophy, Western and Eastern, at the Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi. He has numerous publications in professional philosophy journals as well as several refereed poems that appeared in various nationally distributed poetry journals. He has been active on a spoken-word scene winning the slam-masters poetry slam in conjunction with the National Poetry Slam in Madison Wisconsin, in 2008, as well as several slams in San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Chicago.

 

Protect the Ocean at #PhoenixComicFest!

Not the ocean.

Hey Nerds!  It’s about to go down: Phoenix Comicon Comic Fest,  the most massive Comicon Comic Fest in the American West (seriously, SDCC, be cool and give us back our name).  I hope you all have a good time, but I’m also hoping you do so in a way that protects the ocean.  Now, you might be saying: “Hey, idiot.  We’re in the desert.  I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be harming the ocean in the middle of goddamn downtown Phoenix.”

To quote Troy McClure: “You’ve got some attitude, Mister.  And what’s more, you’re wrong! There’s a lot of ways that what you’re doing is harming the ocean, right now!    So stop it.

But while at the convention center, let me give you a few tips on what you can do to stay Blue while grokking out with Spock (or whatever the hell it is you kids do these days).
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To Save the Ocean, Start at the Ballot Box (Part I)

First off, it’s good to be back!  It’s been over 4 months since my last post, and as much as I want to blame the fact I’ve been busy (which I have been), and work (which there has been a lot of), and travel (ditto – in 2017, I dove two oceans, two seas, and a lake), the truth is I’ve been overwhelmed by events and needed a mental health break.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer pace of everything that’s been going on with the oceans. For every story of hope and goodwill (did you see the story about the people saving sea turtles from the recent cold snap?), there’s fear and hopelessness.  That for all the work we’ve done (and many of you have helped out with!), it could all be for naught because of the American lust for profit.

I’ve also been wrestling with the ideas of political purity versus political expediency.  Basically, how does one reconcile what they want out of politics versus what they can get?  Many people have made some persuasive arguments about propping up the American two-party system does not affect change, but all the while, while engaged in this existentialist wankathon, one party, and only one party, has been plotting the systemic destruction of the one thing on this planet I truly care about.

And I might have remained in this bullshit fugue state for this wake-up call by the Trump administration.

Chyron.jpg
Like an alarm clock made of a Civil War cannon.  

Continue reading “To Save the Ocean, Start at the Ballot Box (Part I)”

The Sharks Would Like to Know… Where’s Kyrsten Sinema?

UPDATE:

On July 24th, 2017 – Rep. Sinema agreed to Co-Sponsor #HR1456, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act!  Read my follow up post:  The Sharks Want to Thank Rep. Kyrsten Sinema HERE!

ORIGINAL POST:

As we all know, sharks are in trouble.  Suffering from a laundry list of problems from overfishing, to habitat loss, to pollution, to a rapidly changing environment brought on by anthropogenic climate change, many species from the smalltooth sawfish to the daggernose sharks are teetering on the verge of extinction. The daggernose shark so endangered that the National Marine Fisheries Services got off it’s ass on May 9, 2017 to declare it an endangered species – under the Trump administration.  That’s like the Flat Earth Society endorsing Buzz Aldrin for President of the Moon.

Daggernose shark (Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus), from Grace, M. (2001). “Field Guide to Requiem Sharks (Elasmobranchiomorphi: Carcharhinidae) of the Western North Atlantic”. NOAA Technical Report NMFS 153.

Continue reading “The Sharks Would Like to Know… Where’s Kyrsten Sinema?”

The Mega-Low Down on the Megalodon

C. megalodon, whether you place it in the genus Carcharocles or Carcharodon is extinct.

Want.

Nothing would give me greater joy, reduce me to childhood giggling, and make me rush toward the nearest research vessel begging for a job than being able to say otherwise, but I can’t.  It’s deader than the Dodo and Disco.  There are theories why it died out, all of them intriguing, but none leave room for C. megalodon to swim in the world’s oceans.  Let’s take a deeper dive.
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Let’s Talk Tuna – Eating Responsibly Without Harming Our Ocean Friends (except the tuna, of course) – Part II (Sushi Edition).

I love sushi.  Spider rolls, seared escolar, ebi, shrimp tempura rolls, etc.   I’ve never been a fan of raw tuna or salmon, not because of the taste, or the idea of raw fish, but the texture of raw tuna and salmon leaves me cold.  Crustaceans  are my jam, which, if I were a shark, would put me in order Orectolobiformes, the carpet shark family. Easy access to crabs, lobster, clams (mollusks are pretty tasty too).  However, as I point out in a post back in February (Fry’s Food Stores and the High Cost of Shrimp), you’re not just eating crustaceans when you order your plate of coconut shrimp or tempura roll, you’re laying waste to the marine environment.

Come at me bro.

Continue reading “Let’s Talk Tuna – Eating Responsibly Without Harming Our Ocean Friends (except the tuna, of course) – Part II (Sushi Edition).”

Sharks vs. Trumps: Big Game

Every day, I scour the internet for news about sharks. When I do this, I will inevitably find something that makes my blood boil, but some of it’s led to positive action (I helped start an investigation that I found out later led to the charter boat Phoenix get fined for illegally taking a hammerhead), and I’m proud of that.  When you add the Trumps to the equation, well, things are going to get heated.

Dramatic Re-Enactment

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No, There Are No Great Whites in St. Louis

One of the things for being the preeminent (because I think I’m the only) shark conservationist on poetry slam’s national stage, are lots of wall posts from my friends about shark stuff.  And don’t get me wrong, I love each and every one of them. Silly shark memes? Love it.  Videos of sharks doing awesome stuff? Love it.  News stories about sharks? Love it…  but…

Oh boy, here we go… Also, Mark Cuban is not a literal shark.

Continue reading “No, There Are No Great Whites in St. Louis”