More Potter

     Last weekend I went and saw The Hunger Games on opening day.  It wasn't a bad movie, and it was a lot more faithful to the book than I expected, but in the film the supporting characters were left undeveloped and what changes they made were almost entirely for the worse.  In short, I feel the same way about The Hunger Games that I do about the Harry Potter series: the movies were decent, but the books were much better.  One can hardly blame the filmmakers for this; when you have such brilliant source material, I think it's all but impossible to capture all of that brilliance in an entirely different medium.  I had low expectations going into the theater, and I was not surprised.

     So why did I go?  If I enjoyed the book so much, and I knew the film couldn't be any better, what did I expect to gain from seeing it?  Well, I guess the short answer is that my friends were going, but then what did they expect to gain?  The Hunger Games and the last Harry Potter film have had two of the three highest-grossing opening weekends of all time.  So what's all the fuss about?  Why do so many people spend their hard-earned money to see a movie following the same plot as a book they've already read?  Most of them will just be complaining afterwards about all of the ways in which the book was better, everything the screenwriters changed or left out.

     One of the common complaints I've heard about the film adaptations of books like The Hunger Games or The Lightning Thief is something that doesn't so much bother me, but seems to really irk a lot of my fellow fans: the eye colors of the actors.  While I usually overlook these sorts of things in order to focus on the more substantial problems, it demonstrates a crucial problem which is universal to all book-to-film adaptations.

     See, one of the wondrous things about great novels is that they paint a picture in your imagination.  Whether or not you realize yourself doing it, as you read, you're probably visualizing the characters and scenes on some subconscious level.  Great novels provoke the imagination.  Countless readers have gone so far as to write out all of the details and extensions that their imaginations have built around the Harry Potter books, creating hundreds of thousands of "fan fictions."

     When you turn these revered pages into movie scenes, with actors and sets and props and special effects, you are overturning the images every reader already has embedded in their mind.  Yet, for some reason, we all go to see these movies anyway.  If asked, some might say that they want to see how the characters or events "really" look and sound.  Perhaps we go to these movies because we actually want our mental images overturned in favor of something that is somehow more concrete.

     And then there's Pottermore, the site I hailed five months ago as an "online, interactive reading experience."  Now I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.  The main draw of the site, for many fans, is new, exclusive text from the author herself about the Harry Potter series, its characters, and its universe - background information that has never before been released.  The site's backbone is a series of interactive artworks depicting scenes from the books.  Following widespread demand from early-access users, just a few days ago sounds were added to these scenes.

     All of this interferes with the imagination, but none more so than the new background notes from J.K. Rowling.  She wrote the books, and therefore we quiver on her every word about Quirinus Quirrell, we sit on the edges of our seats as we read a list of wand woods and their properties, immediately discarding any ideas about them that we might have already had, subconscious or otherwise.  We closely examine every pixel, hoping to find a hidden object that will unlock more secrets about this imagined world.

     Why do we care what that world's originator might say about it now, after it has already grown into a place of its own within our hearts and minds?  When it has already found an organic existence in the collective consciousness of its fans?

     Here I indulge in hypothesis: perhaps we don't specifically care as much as we might think we do about receiving official "facts" about the world of Harry Potter.  I think we respect and enjoy this new text more than fan fiction because Rowling is a great author and has a deep understanding of the world she created, and so we enjoy seeing the depth of her own imagination, but I think that's not the real reason we love Pottermore.  Though we might enjoy the enthralling visuals and, now, the immersive sound, I think they are not, in and of themselves, why we love Pottermore.

     I think we love Pottermore because moving through these scenes in a new way gives us a chance to experience once again the spellbinding power that Harry Potter had on us a few years ago, because reading the new text from J.K. Rowling reminds us of the first time we read the books, and because there are 686,609 other members telling us that it's still okay to imagine.

This Too Shall Pass

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together
 - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Chuck will be on tomorrow at eight.  It's a TV show on NBC.  You may have heard of it; most people I talk to haven't.  It's been my favorite show on the air since it started five years ago.

     Except that it's not going to be on the air anymore.

For five years, Monday night has been the highlight of my week (until it moved to Friday for the current season).  Chuck's consistent entertainment has salvaged my spirits after many a bad week.  No matter how bad the rest of my life has gotten at times, I've always felt better in the assurance that Chuck will be on tomorrow at eight.  I've known since well before this season started that NBC had decided it would be the last, but somehow it never felt real until last week, when I told my gaming group I wouldn't be available for this Friday's session because I'd be watching the Chuck series finale.

     None of them particularly know or care what Chuck is, but for me, this is a part of my life that will no longer be there.  Chuck will never again be on tomorrow at eight.

In October, Irregular Webcomic! came to a close after almost nine years and almost 3200 strips.  In the first place, it will always be special to me because it introduced me to the world of roleplaying games.  Beyond that, it was there for me every morning when I woke up, and I could depend on it for the boost I needed to get me out of bed.  It's now in daily reruns with new annotations - I highly recommend it - but there are no new comics.  I'd felt for a long time that the end was coming: the author had achieved one of his major goals by producing as many strips as Bill Watterson did for Calvin and Hobbes, and all of the various loose ends were being tied up.  Nevertheless, it was still hard to accept when comic #3198 read "The end."

A little before that, Borders bookstore closed for good, after years of death-spiraling.  When I was little, a trip to Borders was to me what a trip to the candy store is for most children.  I fondly remember occasions when I would go through the shelves, pick out an interesting novel, and proceed to park myself on the floor right there until I had read it cover-to-cover…then head to the checkout counter to buy the book so I could read it again when I got home.  I paid one last visit to my local Borders during its closeout sale.  Most of the shelves were empty.  The starry wallpaper in the children's section…I remember attending readings on that step…

Maybe you've never heard of Chuck or Irregular Webcomic!, maybe you're not interested in bookstores (or maybe your local bookstore is a Barnes & Noble), but I think everyone can relate to this feeling of losing something you're accustomed to.  We take a lot of things for granted, but nothing lasts forever.

By a remarkable coincidence, as I was writing this, a friend of mine (and classmate in last year's blogging class) posted about the new TV series, Touch, which premiered last night.  Reading that was a reminder I desperately needed that, while things we love may become things of the past, there is a great deal to look forward to in the future.  There may never be another show quite like Chuck, but I may yet find something to pick me up after a hard week.

And, of course, there's always the DVDs.

Confirmation Bias

Okay, having gotten that pathetic rant off my chest, it's time for me to post something a little more serious.  If you're not particularly interested in Harry Potter, please bear with me; I have a larger point to make.

     As I noted in my previous post, Pottermore's sorting algorithm sorted me into Ravenclaw, choosing that House for me over the other three Houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.  These are the four Hogwarts Houses in the Harry Potter series.  The story goes that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was founded by four people, each with very different perspectives on what traits are most desirable in students.  Godric Gryffindor thought that courage, chivalry and loyalty were most important.  Helga Hufflepuff also valued loyalty, along with tenacity and hard work.  Rowena Ravenclaw preferred students with great intelligence, creativity, and wit.  Finally, Salazar Slytherin expected ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness.
     I have always self-identified as a Ravenclaw - those are the traits I value most in myself - and so I was very pleased when Pottermore placed me in that House.
     Why?
     Well, I suppose I was pleased because I felt that Pottermore - coming to me from the august hand of J.K. Rowling - was somehow confirming my identity.  Looking back on it a few months later, of course that's silly.  The sorting algorithm selected one out of four choices, based on my answers to seven multiple-choice questions (some of which were apparently meaningless).  None of the questions actually tested my intelligence, creativity, or wit - they were all usual personality-quiz stuff.
     So what if Pottermore had sorted me into, say, Gryffindor?
     Well, of course it would be flat-out wrong.  I have absolutely no semblance of courage whatsoever.  I would be completely stunned.  When I recovered from the initial shock, I would tell myself that the computer algorithm was badly written by programmers from "TH_NK" who either had never read the Harry Potter books, or had absolutely no idea how to create a personality quiz, and its answer had nothing to do with me.  The next stage would be to spout long, angry rants to my friends about how ridiculous the sorting quiz was.  I might try to bargain with myself, wondering if perhaps I had somehow answered a question incorrectly.  Eventually I would probably fall into despair: "Maybe it's right, maybe I'm not really intelligent or creative after all…"  I might wish I could create a new account and go through the sorting again, but of course it's still in Beta, and there's no way anyone can create a new account for months, leading to the fifth and final stage: acceptance.
     Of course, I was sorted into Ravenclaw, and so I wrote in a gleeful blog post that I was "glad J.K. Rowling agrees."
     The personality quiz told me nothing meaningful.  I joke about the so-called "five stages of grief," but really I know better than to take Pottermore that seriously.  I have always seen myself as a Ravenclaw kind of person, and no online questionnaire could ever change that.
     I admit to being proud of my mental abilities, such as they are.  Trouble is, I'm not proud of being proud.  Really I've always admired Hufflepuffs.  It's a shame that Hufflepuff is so maligned - most Harry Potter fans see it as the fourth House, which gets the leftover students that aren't brave enough for Gryffindor, or smart enough for Ravenclaw, or ambitious enough for Slytherin.  Not so: Hufflepuff, at least to me, represents all the nicest qualities a person can have.  All the other Houses are, as a whole, stuck-up and self-involved.
     Recently I was surprised when this subject came up in conversation and a friend said that I'm a "Ravenpuff" - part Ravenclaw, part Hufflepuff.  If you're not a Harry Potter fan, I hope I've conveyed the meaning of that well enough that you won't think I'm completely insane when I say that that is probably one of the nicest things that anyone has ever said to me.

     …but this post is not about my ego.  Time to broaden the subject: Who am I?  Or better yet, who are you?  (I said I had a larger point to make.)
     When you were in school (or if you are in school now - well, not right now, but you get the point), were you seen as a geek or a jock?  Popular or a loner?  Regardless of who we are, we are all deeply affected by the boxes that other people put us in.  On some level, we all put ourselves in these boxes as well.  I have placed myself in the Ravenclaw box and the corresponding "nerd" box.  The ironic thing is that, when I think about it, I've always been quite popular, but I've never felt popular.
     There is more to your identity than the actual inherent traits that make up your mind and body.  Your identity is shaped by society, by the people around you, by the situations you encounter and the decisions you make.  "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."  And not choices on a silly personality quiz.
     Of course, like everything else in life, one must account for perspective.  I was thrilled to be called a Ravenpuff (silly as it might sound), but I have friends who self-identify as Slytherins and are quite happy as such.  Some people who think of themselves as nerds are ashamed of that status, while others are proud of it.  That's part of their identity, too.
     So, again, who are you?  Well, let's start with what I know.  You have access to an Internet connection and an Internet-enabled device.  You can read English, or you're using some kind of translator.  Judging by my blog's statistics, there is a very good chance that you are one of my personal friends or relatives.  If not, hello, and I hope you're not too bored.  I tend to ramble.  Blah blah blah blah blah…
     What was I saying?  Oh yes: Who are you?  Well, a biologist would say you are a collection of cells and chemical processes running elaborate programs set in your DNA.  A theologian would say that you are a miracle, a lump of clay into which God has breathed the breath of life.  A philosopher would say that you think, therefore you are (but isn't likely to get any less vague than that).  A politician would say that your vote counts.  Your doctor would call you a patient, your favorite musician would call you a fan, your mother will call you things you pray the world will never hear, and telemarketers will call you just as you sit down to dinner.
     Of course, all of that says a lot more about them than it does about you.  So what's my point?  I don't know.  I guess a person's identity is a pretty complicated thing.  That's why so many people have spent so much time thinking about it.
     And me?  What do I call you?  I call you one of my very few readers, and I thank you.

     When I write some of these more-philosophical blog posts, I feel like I'm asking questions that I don't know the answer to, and then trying to answer them anyway.  I write things that sound like opinions, but really I'm trying to form an opinion as I go.  When I write about myself, I sometimes feel like I'm playing a part, because I'm never sure exactly what to say.  I re-read my previous post, and I think it doesn't sound like me - well, I was in a different mood, a different situation…
     And there it is, there's my point.  I don't know who I am.  I don't know what I want to be.  I am a completely different person now than I was ten years ago, and I have no idea what the next ten years may bring.

Inside Pottermore

I am a Pottermore Beta tester.

For those of you who don't know, Pottermore is an online, interactive "reading experience" from J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.  For the time being, access is limited to one million devoted fans who completed the "Magical Quill Challenge" to earn early access as Beta testers.  The Beta period was just extended again, meaning the general public will have to wait a while longer before they can sign up.  Once the site does begin open registration, new users will be admitted gradually; according to the official Pottermore blog, some may have to wait weeks or even months after registration before their accounts are activated.

So, as a public service, and to tide you over until the purple gates open for you at last, I shall attempt to describe Pottermore.  It's no easy task - for something based on books, words are surprisingly ineffective at defining it.  Well, here goes:

Pottermore is a new way to experience the world of Harry Potter, an experience that is completely unprecedented in books, films, games, or anything else.  The centerpiece is a series of immersive artworks, several for each chapter of each of the seven Harry Potter books.  Each of these pages captures a specific "moment" in Harry's story.  Each moment has three layers of depth, allowing the user to zoom in and out, interact with the scenes, and collect various objects: spellbooks, chocolate frog cards, Galleons to spend on potion ingredients, etc.  We as readers are now dropped into Harry's world and join his adventure - as he goes shopping in Diagon Alley, so do we; as he becomes a Hogwarts student, so do we; as he catches his first Snitch, so do we.  Before we can confront the Dark Lord, we must solve Snape's logic puzzle - the same puzzle that Hermione had to solve in the first book.

Scattered along the way are bits and pieces that make Pottermore really exciting for devoted fans - nuggets of pure gold straight from J.K. Rowling herself, thousands of words of exclusive background material about various elements of Harry Potter's world, secrets being divulged for the first time.  Rowling has personally written pages and pages of notes about everything from Professor Quirrell's childhood to the specific properties of each wand wood, which are revealed as you move through the story.

While exploring the first book, users go through two personality quizzes.  The first determines what wand chooses you at Ollivander's shop; the second sorts you into one of the four Hogwarts Houses.  Once you have been sorted, you can earn House Points by duelling other students (users) and making potions (each of which takes well over an hour to brew).  Then the next level of the experience comes into play - social networking.  Each House has its own Common Room (read: chatroom), with nonstop conversation among you and your Housemates, several posts every minute, 24/7.  It's startling how much is posted just by Beta testers - I can hardly imagine how active the Common Rooms will be once the site is open to everyone.

The battle for the House Cup is very competitive, especially between the two frontrunners, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.  The two have remained disturbingly close in House Points, taking turns in the lead.  I am proud to be a Ravenclaw; my friends are mostly Slytherins.  I check the Great Hall several times every day, and make sure to let them know whenever Ravenclaw is ahead; likewise, they take care to rub it in my face every time Slytherin takes the lead.  Statistically speaking, it's incredible how close the two remain considering the magnitude of points each has.  In the first book, Gryffindor wins the House Cup with 482 points; all four Pottermore Houses currently have more than 70,000 House Points each.

In the interest of objectivity, I will note that the website designers are still working out some kinks - the potions system is rather unwieldy, the dueling system has been down for maintenance since August, the comment system is buggy, and the servers keep getting overloaded…but, gradually, things are falling into place.  The site is constantly being improved - after all, that's what we Beta testers are for.

A proud Ravenclaw - always have been, always will be.  Glad J.K. Rowling agrees.

I am not associated with Pottermore or any of its affiliates, beyond having a Pottermore account.

Seen but Not Heard

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights  - United States Declaration of Independence

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.  - U.S. Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment

Have you ever heard of Claudette Colvin?  How about Barbara Johns?  No?
     Let's try again.  Have you ever heard of Rosa Parks?  How about Brown v. Board of Education?  You have?  Of course you have.
     So I'll tell you the story of Claudette Colvin.  She was born in Montgomery, Alabama.  In 1955, she was 15 years old.  It was in that year that she defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her bus seat for a white passenger.  She was arrested; civil rights leaders did nothing.
     Rosa Parks was in fact following Colvin's example when she did the same thing, in the same town, nine months later; Parks then led a boycott of the Montgomery bus system.  Meanwhile, Colvin became one of four plaintiffs in a lawsuit, Browder v. Gayle.  One of the attorneys later stated that Claudette Colvin was the "star witness" in the case, which found the bus segregation unconstitutional and put it to an end.

     Now let's rewind a few years, to 1951, and I'll tell you about the first dramatic step forward in the civil rights movement.  Barbara Johns, 16 years old, was a student in an underfunded, unintegrated "black" high school, and she was having none of it.  Johns, along with a few courageous followers, took over the school and physically removed the administrators and teachers from the premises.  The students organized a strike, and convinced the NAACP to file a lawsuit to end school segregation, which became Brown v. Board of Education.

     You've heard of Paul Revere and his "midnight ride," but have you heard of Sybil Ludington, whose midnight ride was more than twice as long, and took place in pouring rain…when Ludington was 16 years old?
     You've heard of the Braille writing system for the blind, but did you know that its inventor, Louis Braille, was 15 years old when he created the system?  Braille was at the time attending a school for the blind, and the administrators immediately banned the Braille writing system - but, even under threat of severe punishment, Braille continued to spread knowledge of his system.

     There is a pattern here: young people can and do make meaningful contributions to society, but their work is often overlooked or even suppressed, just because of their age.  Young people have no voice: a sixteen-year-old cannot vote, hold public office, sign a contract, or even refuse dangerous medical procedures.  In many places across America, a sixteen-year-old cannot so much as leave their house at night.  A thirteen-year-old cannot drive or have a job.  Even a twenty-year-old, old enough to be required to register for the ongoing draft program, still cannot walk into a bar, and would be criminally charged for ordering a glass of wine.
     Those injustices not mandated by law are often perpetrated by schools.  In most public schools, a student can be punished for just about any exercise of free speech you care to name.  The "offenses" can be as obvious as peaceful protests or using certain words, or as insignificant as wearing a baseball cap to school.  A girl in Pennsylvania was suspended for refusing to take off a bracelet supporting breast cancer awareness.  A boy in Texas was suspended from preschool for growing out his hair, in order to donate it to cancer victims.  The same problem was faced by a high school student, a registered donor to Locks of Love, who was forced to cut his hair in order to return to school.
     Unless their parents have the time and resources to homeschool their children, or the money to afford better private schools, every young person in America is required by law to attend these public schools and be subject to these injustices.  Even if we put aside the 1st Amendment issues for the time being, we all know that public schools across the country are failing to fulfill their alleged purpose anyway.  Falling SAT scores and increased dropouts tell us that compulsory education is a failure.  As one rather intelligent person said:

It is...nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreak and ruin. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.  - Albert Einstein

Young people everywhere know this, but nobody listens, because youth have no voice.
     This governmental discrimination is just one facet of a much broader problem: pervasive societal bigotry.  Yes, I said bigotry.  And its name is ageism.
     Ageism is embedded in almost every aspect of society.  Children are alternately treated as nuisances or property.  Teenagers are subject to an assortment of cruel stereotypes.  Perhaps worst of all, young people are expected to live in their own world, their own "youth culture," not entering the "real world" until after they graduate from college.  That way, adults can go about their lives without being disturbed by the one demographic against which they are still allowed to hold prejudice.  That way, children can be seen but not heard.  And this, dear readers, is segregation.

     Young people do not lack a voice because they are incapable of speaking.  They lack a voice because their tongues have been cut out.

     But now young people have found their voice…and its name is the National Youth Rights Association. With over 10,000 members of all ages, NYRA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to fighting ageism and advocating for the civil and human rights of young people.
     NYRA campaigns to lower the voting age, lower the drinking age, repeal curfew laws, close abusive 'behavior modification facilities,' protect free speech and students' rights, and dispel the myths behind age discrimination with history and science.  One of NYRA's priorities is "empowering young people to participate in the democratic process and self-determination."
     I could rant for pages and pages about how important this cause is, but you don't have to take my word for it.  Here's what psychologist Richard Farson has to say about NYRA:

Most of us tend to view childhood as a time of carefree pleasure. Those of us who have looked at the real condition of children in America, however, see a very different picture--one in which children are victims of terrible discrimination, prejudice, and abuse. They need protection. But the protection they need most is to have the protection of civil rights, so that they can be regarded as full persons under the law. The organization leading that effort, with research, discussion and effective action, is the National Youth Rights Association. Supporting it supports children and youth in the most important way possible.

So what can you do to support youth rights?  Well, to start with, join the movement!  Make a $10 donation and become a member of NYRA.
     The organization, though already effective, could do a lot more - gathering much greater national attention - with more funding.  If you can afford to make a financial contribution, please remember that every donation counts.
     Even better than donations of money are donations of your time.  Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper - or a politician.  Find the nearest NYRA chapter, and, if there isn't one nearby, start your own.
     All that is great, but the #1 best thing you can do for the youth rights movement is to spread the word.  Tell everyone you know.  E-mail them a link to this blog post, if you like.  Send them this URL, too: http://www.youthrights.org/
     Well, I think I've said enough for now, so I'll close with one last quote, and a song.

If 16-year-olds are old enough to drink the water polluted by the industries that you regulate, if 16-year-olds are old enough to breathe the air ruined by garbage burners that government built, if 16-year-olds are old enough to walk on the streets made unsafe by terrible drugs and crime policies, if 16-year-olds are old enough to live in poverty in the richest country in the world, if 16-year-olds are old enough to get sick in a country with the worst public health-care programs in the world, and if 16-year-olds are old enough to attend school districts that you underfund, than 16-year-olds are old enough to play a part in making them better.  - Rebeca Tilsen, 14 years old, given as testimony to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1991

 Note: This blog is not endorsed by the National Youth Rights Association. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.

A Special Day

     Sunday, May 22, two weeks from today, has been proclaimed the United Nations' International Day for Biological Diversity.  According to a report published several years ago by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Earth is currently experiencing a biodiversity crisis that has already become the worst mass extinction event since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.  Many factors have been cited as contributing to this ongoing disaster - poaching, overfishing, habitat destruction, and so on - but one key factor always towers over the rest in the public view.  That factor is pollution.
     The attention that pollution gets is mainly because of global warming, which is caused by the greenhouse effect, which is triggered by pollution of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.  These gases build up in the atmosphere over a long period of time.  There are, however, other kinds of pollution, some very fast-acting and lethal.  Specifically, a kind of fast-acting poison that humans routinely dump into animals' homes.  I refer to pesticides.
     All pesticides are created for the sole purpose of killing things.  They are poured onto farmland; then, when the crops are watered, the pesticide residues run off with the water into little channels, which run into streams, which run into rivers (or storm drains), which run downstream to the ocean…and, at every step along the way, these lethal toxins kill whatever they pass, both in the water and out of it.
     These pesticides have all kinds of unintended (though not really unexpected) effects on all kinds of wildlife, bringing many species to the brink of extinction, and wiping some out completely.  This has got to stop.

     Some of the most dangerous pesticides in existence are aldrin, dieldrin, and endrin, three related insecticides that cause serious nervous system failure in animals including humans, with young children the most vulnerable group.  Rachel Carson described the dangers of these and other chemicals in her 1962 book Silent Spring, often credited for singlehandedly starting the environmentalist movement.  Many pesticides were banned over the following decades, thanks to Carson's efforts.
     Silent Spring opens with "A Fable For Tomorrow," which describes a hypothetical town in the countryside, surrounded with stunning natural beauty.  Carson paints a portrait of serene animal and plant life, the people living every day with the enchanting sights and sounds of nature.
     Then along comes a certain "white granular powder"…and suddenly, the scene dissolves.  The livestock die, the birdsong disappears, the wildlife is devastated by this deadly pesticide.  The fable ends with these chilling words: "No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world.  The people had done it themselves."


     Easily the most infamous pesticide of all is DDT, which builds up in the fat tissues of fish.  When a bigger fish eats two smaller fish, the bigger fish picks up the DDT collections from both of them.  Thus a tiny amount of DDT drifting down to the ocean can become a significant concentration as it travels up the food chain.
     The top of the ocean food chain is the birds that eat the big fish.  Ocean-feeding birds would collect a relatively large amount of DDT.  This means birds such as the brown pelican (pictured), the peregrine falcon, and the bald eagle.
     Some people say that the only thing someone can do to you that is worse than killing you is to kill your children.  Well, DDT doesn't usually kill the birds that pick it up.  Rather, it makes their eggshells so weak that, before being ready to hatch, the eggs actually collapse under their own weight, destroying the unborn bird inside.  This tragic disorder decimated the brown pelican population, and wiped out peregrine falcons on the east coast…and, if you live in America, you probably know just how common it is to see our national bird, the bald eagle, flying around…


     Fortunately, all of the pesticides I have named so far are now banned in much of the world.  Unfortunately, there will always be other, newer pesticides, that can do further damage to wildlife.  There is currently a controversy revolving around the herbicide atrazine, which has been banned in the European Union - which includes the country (Switzerland) in which its manufacturer is based.  It is, however, still widely used in America…hence the controversy.
     Seriously harmful effects of atrazine have been recorded in frogs at an atrazine level equal to approximately one-thirtieth of the concentration that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows in drinking water.  With that tiny amount of atrazine, male frogs have suffered "severe sexual deformities," and that is all I'm going to say about that.  The point is that, if you live in America, you could be drinking thirty times that concentration every day, and the government would do nothing about it…so, to make you feel even better, I'm going to add that employees at the atrazine manufacturer have shown an elevated level of certain cancers.  Just saying.


     So, the pesticides have to go.  The thing is, the chemical manufacturers have a lucrative business going, producing these toxins, and the farmers have a better profit margin, too, when they use pesticides. Both of those industries have an abundance of lobbyists.
     Some companies think that they can produce better pesticides, with fewer harmful effects.  Some people say that it doesn't matter, anyway: we shouldn't be worrying about these animals in the first place.
     First of all, there are plenty of organic farmers who are doing perfectly good business without using pesticides.  As far as the pesticide companies are concerned, I'm sure they could find work in a much healthier field of chemical production - medication, perhaps.  They simply cannot be allowed to continue disintegrating our world.
     As far as 'safe' pesticides are concerned, I contend that there is no such thing.  A chemical produced for the sole purpose of killing cannot possibly be a safe thing to have running into our water.  Finally, if you think we shouldn't protect animals because we're superior to them, consider this: the world's ecosystem is a delicate balance, and a tangled web.  When one species goes extinct, it has an effect on everything else that lives in the area.  This can turn into a chain reaction that would result in the loss of financially relevant resources.  Even if you cannot accept that, I have provided above several examples of pesticides directly harming humans.  Endrin kills children; atrazine may provoke cancer.  These are hardly the only cases - search the Internet if you want more examples.


     Now back to the International Day for Biological Diversity.  On May 22, try biking or carpooling instead of your usual drive.  Recycle.  Buy organic.  Tell some people about the dangers of commercial pesticides…and the great thing is, if you can do that on May 22, then you can do it on May 23, too…and May 24…believe it or not, every day is a good day to bike or carpool, recycle, buy organic, and spread the word.
     Once a species goes extinct, there's no getting it back.  As I said at the beginning of this, we are smack in the middle of the most devastating mass extinction in 65 million years.  We may not hear about all of them, but more species are going extinct every day.  Let's do what we can to end this crisis before it gets any further.


Sources:
http://www.cbd.int/idb/
http://www.livescience.com/652-humans-fuel-worst-extinction-dinosaurs.html
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/news_pesticides09.aspx?menuitem=43119
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001395.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Spring-Rachel-Carson/dp/0618249060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304852343&sr=8-1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/72825507@N00/2205729974/
http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/DDT_and_Birds.html

http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/atrazine.html