Get motivated, watch a movie!

Thank God for September and the weather, that has finally dipped below 90 degrees. At 85 today it seems quite pleasant! Most importantly, September brings new seasons of all my favourite TV programmes! I am so excited about the new season of , "Dexter" the handsome and darkly funny serial killer who kills serial killers, and "Brothers and Sisters"  the always tear inducing drama set in California about the most fantastically good looking family and their endless personal and business failings! Not to mention of course, "Desperate Housewives", "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"...you get the picture! I have become some what of an addict here I must confess and there has been almost a month with zilch on the box and I have resorted to watching shows like "DC Cupcakes", about 2 women who run a cupcake shop - it is not about how to make cupcakes, but mostly about their trans-gender sales person and incompetent delivery man! I have even watched the News which is really desperate! 
The other night however I tuned into a film called "The Cove". Now I don't know if you have seen this or even heard of it but you must get a copy and watch it. It is a documentary (don't switch off just because I don't say Rom. Com!) that will have a profound effect on you. It tells the story of the dolphin trade in Taijii, Japan and it is horrifying. 

The fishermen in Taiji, go out in small boats to known dolphin migratory routes. Positioning their boats strategically, they space out to form a line and wait for the dolphins. When the dolphins arrive, the fishermen drop long metal pipes into the water, and by banging on the pipes they create a wall of sound. The sound interferes with the dolphins' ability to navigate - it disorients and panics them. The dolphins swim away from the sound, and the fisherman maneuver their boats herding them into a small shallow bay. Once in the bay, nets are drawn across the mouth of the bay to keep them penned in. The fishermen draw the nets in, forcing the dolphins closer to shore where they kill them by stabbing and slashing them with knives and hooks. The dolphins thrash about for as long as six minutes each as they slowly bleed to death, turning the sea literally red with their blood.

After the massacre, the bodies of the dolphins are taken to a slaughter house to be butchered. The meat contains toxic levels of mercury and is packaged up and taken to supermarkets to be sold with no warning.

The film documents the efforts by animal rights activists and marine wildlife organisations such as Ric Barry and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who are trying to stop this horrific practice by exposing the atrocities to the world. They are relentless and somewhat James Bond like during their covert missions with night-vision goggles and nerves of steel. Jumping fences, planting cameras disguised as rocks and diving down into the unknown with underwater sound equipment while constantly on the lookout for Japanese officials or worse, angry fishermen.

The very first "Yama" or ethical rule of a spiritual Yogi is ahimsa, non-violence or non-harming. Now of course you don't need to be a yogi to realise that violence is bad and that you should live as peaceful and harmless a life as possible. The slaughtering of these beautiful, highly intelligent animals is at the very least shocking and should be stopped. However as well as the dolphins being killed, the dolphin meat is killing people. That it is sold for public consumption at all is a disgrace; that it is sold without the Japanese government warning its citizens that eating dolphin meat is hazardous to their health is irresponsible and negligent.

I admit, I am not a huge animal fan. Not that I don't like them, I just never had the need to go all gooey over a kitten or got the urge to own a dog. This however is not a case of  "do you love animals?", it is a case of doing the right thing. It is a case of having a conscience about the planet on which we live and the things that have a right to  live alongside us. 

Watch the film, "The Cove" and go to http://www.seashepherd.org/ and get involved. You don't have to donate thousands or fly to Japan and take on the government to help. http://www.takepart.com/thecove

I know this isn't my usual light hearted, chatty blog format, but I feel so strongly about this, having seen the film and I needed to do my little bit to help. Hope you can too!