On Feb 11, 1:24=A0pm, Taylor <tayl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Headline Of The Week Weak
> Filed under: Headline of the Week > Hayden Panettiere
>
> "Fried dolphin on menu in Japanese town"
>
> Someone call Hayden! CLICK HERE to read the article accompanying this
> headline!
>
> [Image via WENN.]
>
> Mention a dolphin to someone in the United States and they'll think
> about a trip to Sea World, maybe, or Flipper, the dolphin that was the
> star of the mid-1960s TV show.
>
> Talk about a dolphin in rural Japan and some people think of supper.
>
> Fishermen hunt dolphins about every day in Taiji, a town of about
> 3,000 in southwestern Japan that juts into the Pacific Ocean. The
> sounds of waves cra****ng onto a rocky shore mingle in Taiji with the
> screeching wails of dolphins being chopped and hacked to death by
> fishermen.
>
> Locals know they offend Western sensibilities by eating dolphins, but
> they say it's a tradition hundreds of years old. And they say
> outsiders have no more right to tell them to stop eating dolphins than
> they would have to demand that Westerners stop slaughtering chickens
> or cows.
>
> "I know there are many different ways of thinking in different
> societies, but for us who've been eating this for a long time ... it's
> an awkward thing to be criticized for," says Kayoko Ta****a, a retired
> middle school teacher. "I either fry dolphin meat or turn it into a
> stew."
>
> That disgusts Ric O'Barry, a 68-year-old retired dolphin trainer from
> Miami, Florida, who makes a second home in Taiji, where he goes to
> unusual lengths to fight against the tide of local tradition.
>
> O'Barry sometimes dresses as a woman or wears a large surgical mask to
> disguise his Western identity on trips to spots overlooking the ocean.
> He prowls the cliffs with a video camera, hoping to catch fishermen in
> the act with footage that could stir emotions and raise awareness in
> the West.
>
> "This here is ground zero for the largest slaughter of dolphins on
> planet Earth," says O'Barry, who trained five dolphins to play
> "Flipper" on the TV series of that name. "It's absolutely barbaric and
> it needs to stop."
>
> He says the dolphins face a cruel fate.
>
> "It takes a very long time to die. They bleed to death. And some of
> them are dragged in the boats with hooks while they're still alive,"
> he says. "Many of them are gutted while they're still alive."
>
> Looming beyond questions of whether the slaughter is humane, however,
> are larger and more complex questions of culture and perspective.
>
> To some puzzled people in rural Japan, the question comes down to
> this: What's the difference between killing and eating a dolphin and
> killing and eating a fish? Or a chicken? Or a cow?
>
> Australia challenges Japan's whale hunts
>
> Most Japanese do not eat dolphins -- it's common in a few small fi****ng
> villages -- but the government respects the rights of people in towns
> such as Taiji, says Joji Mori****a, the international negotiator for
> Japan's Fisheries Agency.
>
> Many Japanese consider the deer a sacred messenger from the gods, he
> says, but they would never suggest that people in other parts of the
> world stop venturing into the woods on a quest for venison.
>
> "We don't like to play God to say this animal is just for food and
> this is not," he says. "Because we know nation to nation we have
> totally different ideas."
>
> That's obvious in the growing dispute between Australia and Japan over
> whale hunting.
>
> Japanese ****ps crisscross southern oceans each winter to capture and
> kill up to 1,000 whales. Whaling is allowed under international law
> when done for scientific reasons, which Japan cites as the legal basis
> for its hunts.
>
> Legal justifications aside, however, the whale hunts offend many
> people in Australia, where new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has turned up
> the political pressure on Japan.
>
> His government has dispatched a customs ****p to monitor and videotape
> the whalers. And Rudd says Australia could even file charges against
> Japan in an international court to try to stop the whaling.
>
> Back in Taiji, the fishermen are well aware of the Western sentiment
> that motivates whaling opponents. They realize the danger to their way
> of life that can come with prying cameras from other countries.
>
> When CNN trained its cameras on fishermen gutting some freshly killed
> dolphins, the fishermen erected some tarps to obstruct the view.
>
> Representatives of the Taiji Fishermen's Union declined CNN requests
> for an on-camera interview. So did the town's mayor and several
> others. And O'Barry says he's gotten into a few shouting matches with
> fishermen, who resent him and his camera.
>
> High levels of mercury found in dolphins
>
> So what does O'Barry say to their claim that he has no right to tell
> them to abandon a tradition that has flourished in their small corner
> of the world for more than 400 years?
>
> "If someone came to my hometown and told me what to do, what to eat,
> I'd be outraged," he says. "But that's not going to stop me from doing
> it. I mean, tradition? It used to be traditional for women not to
> vote. So do we keep that going because it's traditional and cultural?
> Of course not."
>
> Complicating the debate are findings suggesting that eating dolphins
> may not be good for one's health. The Japanese government said in 2005
> that bottlenose dolphin meat contains 12 times more mercury than blue
> fin tuna -- high levels of mercury in fish can cause health problems in
> pregnant women and young children.
>
> A city councilman in Taiji, Junichiro Yama****a, grew so concerned
> about mercury levels that he persuaded locals schools to stop serving
> dolphin meat at lunch. He even plucked some of his hair, sent it off
> for testing and discovered that it contained seven times as much
> mercury as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.
>
> The mercury findings have not swayed Masaru Matsu****a, a Taiji fish
> dealer. He says that dolphin activists like O'Barry only see their
> needs without understanding the culture in his town.
>
> "I understand that they think the dolphin in a cute animal, and I
> agree they're cute doing performances," he says, "but it is our
> culture to eat dolphins."
>
> Posted: February 11, 2008 at 1:50 pm
>
> http://perezhilton.com/2008-02-11-headline-of-the-week-weak-85
>
>
_______________________________________________http://www.groups.yahoo.com=
/group/hayden_panettiere/
>
> hayden_panetti...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
does it say she doesn't care about cows or chickens?
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