If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
-- Steven Wright --
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-- Steven Wright --
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Articles abound about Puerto Rican frogs, the tiny thumbnail-sized coqui, showing up and spreading in Hawaii. Every report refers to them as "harmful".
Propaganda! The use of that word "harmful" makes you feel negatively toward them! You immediately assume bad things about them. You are supposed to assume that means harmful to the natural world, the beauty of Hawaii, and of course you want to protect that.
They're tiny. They don't "harm" anything. I mean it's not like they eat baby birds or something. They don't cut down the forest, or move into another species' habitat and make it unsuitable for the original inhabitants, they don't consume more than their share of resources, or over-fish the sea. They don't pave over the world so rain can't get through. They don't kill for the "sport" of killing. They don't push their neighbors into reservations, ghettos, or preserves.
They're just very very very loud, and humans don't like that.
So they're "harmful", and must be eradicated because they're harmful.
Bullpoopy.
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I wouldn't mind if there were some good reason why, like that they have no natural enemies in Hawaii, but that isn't the problem. Birds find them delicious. So far they have caused no imbalances. Their living and dead bodies become resources in about the same niche as the one they occupy. They eat insects, but their offal supports insects.
The sole reason they are "harmful" is their song. We don't like it, so let's kill them!
I wouldn't mind if people admitted they aren't harmful, and the only reason they want to eradicate them is that they are loud, disturb sleep, and may hurt the tourist trade.
But this is not harmful. It's merely annoying. You can't kill things just because they're annoying. (If that were true, we'd have no neighbors.) They have to be "harmful", so therefore that's what they are so we can justify killing them.
A small example of what I meant by propaganda a few posts back.
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PS - This post isn't about frogs. It's about propaganda. Frogs are just the vehicle. Ignore the frogs.
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1 comment:
I got rid of cable tv because I was so disgusted with propaganda that I couldnt take it anymore. We learned about propaganda in elementary school. I bet they dont teach that anymore.
P.S. Poor froggies. I love froggies and wouldnt mind if they were in my neighborhood. People have no tolerance for anything "natural" anymore. Makes me sad. There's no hope for humankind if this keeps up.
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