Fish Are Off-Topic

Happy Birthday to Us: What started out 230 years ago as a grand experiment in democracy, and the sort of battle in which one feels happy to root for the underdog, has turned itself upside down. The United States is now a corporate dictatorship and a mean bully (with a lot of competition in the arena) to the rest of the world. (This, by the way, is a fact.)

An appropriately American story appears on the front page of the New York Times today. Apparently the sturgeon of Florida have a habit at this time of year of leaping from the water. I dunno, some weird biological thing. Anyway, sometimes they have the gall to do it right on top of the many people who are plying their right to overrun every inch of space on the planet. And these boaters get hurt. Some terrible cynic might think, "Hmmm. Not entirely bad, in a general, not specific way: one of the very, very few incidents of another species taking some well-earned revenge." Not like, say, Florida's manatees, who graciously stay underwater, so they can be shredded to death by boats' propellers.

The American way of dealing with any problem of our own making: Kill them. Deer eating your hydrangea? Kill them. Geese making a mess of the condo's "pond"? Kill them. Wolves eating the elk you want to kill instead? Kill them.

Some day, someone is going to stand up and say, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear: There are too many humans.

Every problem begins and ends with this.