Crackin Teeth

Guess I should sort my beans better. I bit down on a tiny rock today. Holy ouch! Felt like I cracked a whole tooth out of my mouth. You can imagine the horror I had for a split second upon running to the bathroom mirror and looking at my upper left molars seeing what looked to be a huge chunk of something hanging off. Oops, just a piece of chewed up uneaten bean that was stuck to my teeth. Durrrrr.

I watched The Cove yesterday. It's a documentary film about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan. It's filmed and put together very well. The music, the timing of tensions, the editing that puts a laughing Japanese fisherman in frame right after watching a dolphin bleeding out and sinking below the surface all come together to evoke a powerful emotional response. I admit, I tend to anthromorphisize dolphins, and the movie had me in teared up knots by its end.

Aside from the obvious ugliness of the slaughter, there are other crucial issues such as the extremely high levels of mercury in Dolphins and Japan's history with mercury poisoning followed by the idea that the Japanese meat industry sells mercury rich dolphin meat as whale meat. Supposedly the Japanese government is covering up this fact. Seems kind of sketchy to me, but after hearing about the government's treatment of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagaski, maybe it's true.

There's still this loose understanding of how the Japanese culture, their history, and traditions continue to support their efforts to hunt whale and other cetaceans. Is it really just to give the western governments the finger, so to speak? It seems like the Japanese are far too practical for such an emotional grudge. But I'm no expert so who knows.

There's no denying though that the movie produces heated debate about animal rights, culture, and animal intelligence. Ultimately, it just makes me feel a bit more guilty for being a carnivore.