the hubby and decided we needed to check out the movie the cove - especially because we lived in japan for a while- and because its good to get educated on what's going on in your world. we sat down on our lazy sunday afternoon to see what the hype was about and found ourselves horrified by the complete lack of concern for others the japanese fishers and government "cover-up" artists had.
i also learned the iwc (international whaling commission) is a HUGE joke. most of the people who were the reps for their respective countries had no clue about whales in the first place and most of them were falling asleep during the meeting. this of course begs my question: how are these people in charge of anything? how can we send these people to represent our countries on a global scale and think they make us look good? disgusting.
the most interesting part of this documentary for me was that the man spearheading this fight to protect the dolphins is flipper's trainer himself. after spending so much time with flipper (actually named kathy) realized that captivity is not a good life for these animals.
if you have some time, i would recommend anyone checking out this movie. i was glad i took the time to watch! also check out: www.takepart.com
Loved this documentary. Hated the misdirected hatred toward the Japanese it provoked.
ReplyDeletei don't think it was towards the japanese people as a whole... just to the fisherman and the gov't cronies who were backing them. the rest of the japanese clearly didn't have a clue as to any of that happening. the whole mess is just crazy.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I've personally heard a few comments ranging from "damn Japanese" to "need to drop a bomb on Toji," which seemed pretty inflammatory to me. I'm all for bringing down the companies that endorse this business (ahem, Sea World?), but the poor people of Toji, whose children will be paying the price, don't need to carry the blame of a booming dolphin industry (which our own American tourism helps feed) launched by a few shameless fishermen in their town. I just hate seeing the wrong people take the heat. It's not the Japanese - it's the demand in the industry that's the problem. It's anyone who supports venues where dolphins are held in captivity (I know I have), venues where people can swim with dolphins (yup, done that too), and the shady meat-packing plants selling dolphin meat off as whale meat.
ReplyDeleteHaha, what a high horse I'm riding. I better get off before I fall off. GREAT documentary. Anything that makes me talk this much about something other than Hannah, music and vegetarian cooking has to be good. ;)
yeah, i would say that is completely ridiculous to say stuff like that. clearly, the people who say things to the extreme didn't watch the same documentary, OR they are just completely ignorant people who are severely close-minded. i think it is disgusting that people are so lacking when it comes to educating themselves about an issue they want to comment on. yuck.
ReplyDeleteanywho... thanks for the convo :)