Im just saying

October 25, 2005.  A date that history will remember as a crucial turning point in the evolution of animal kingdom hierarchy that rules this planet.  The Guardian broke a story stating that "Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico."  According to the article, "Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest."  One scientist's concern was that "they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises."

 

As many of you may know, I'm not so fond of dolphins.  There are only two animals that really repulse me, and those are pigeons, because they are just rats with wings, and dolphins.  Of the two, dolphins are by far the most worrisome.  Dolphins have complex communication abilities that we are only beginning to understand, the ability to spend significant amounts of time above and below the sea (compared to our sucky land-only breathing ability), and an intellect that, compared to ours, is not only competitive but, I suspect, superior.  Luckily our opposable thumbs have allowed us an advantage over our mammalian nemeses, but as will be shown in the rest of this blog entry, the advantage is not necessarily a permanent one.

 

Until recently dolphins have been able to convince most of the human race that they were at the least harmless dumb fish, and at the most FRIENDLY, entertaining ocean mammals.  Until now, largely due to my non-believer, dolphin-duped friends, I thought I was alone in my belief.  Even with the news constantly barraging us with hints about the change in until-recently pacifist dolphin policy towards humans to a more aggressive, openly challenging policy, my friends continued to scoff at my ideas.

 

What news events you ask?  Well, first let's look at one of the most important missions for the US military currently, Iraq.  In this war against terror, a US dolphin named Takoma has gone AWOL after only being there for 48 hours.  "Takoma's role was to sweep the way clear for the arrival of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Sir Galahad. US officials had said that dolphins, first used in Vietnam, were a far better bet than all the technology on board the flotilla of ships."  This clear refusal to follow military instructions and disregard for the safety of the Royal Fleet shows the basic subversive nature of the dolphins.  Dolphins have been noted in Mississippi as tricking and training HUMANS.  The BBC article that reported this claims that this is a discovery by humans in to the intelligence of dolphins, but I can't help wonder if this is actually the dolphins experimenting with the limitations of our intelligence.  Not only that, dolphins are also starting to show up in highly unusual locations.  Does this point to underwater positioning for some sort of future (attack) plan by dolphin society?  Probably.

 

Recently I have found out that I am not alone in my distrust of our mammalian evolutionary competitors.  "Controversial neurophysiologist John C. Lilly has argued that dolphins represent a non-human form of intelligence on this planet" and while I am not sure that dolphins are aliens, it is an interesting theory that probably deserves more research. 

 

So please people, educate yourselves.  Follow the links in this article.   Check out The Truth About Dolphins, a great site for beginners who want to learn more about the treacherous nature of dolphins.  Excerpts include: -The dolphins are the only known proof that Communism can succeed. 
-They even have no need for clothing. Dolphins used to wear clothes, but they are above them now. They no longer look upon each other with lust. They mate when necessary, and do not give into carnal desires.
-As a collective, the dolphins decided to move away from the rest of God's creatures. 
-This is why they swim up next to divers. Not to have fun, but to mock us.

 

 Get prepared for the battle, for it is eminent.  Until then, keep eating the non dolphin-free tuna.  And I leave you this an excerpt from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, one of the first humans "to know":

 

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason.

 

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as assuming attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.

 

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the "Star-Spanngled Banner", but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.

 

In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures' plans.

     I just saw the movie Matrabhoomi.  While the film dragged on at times, it was a pretty stark look at female infanticide in India.  The basic premise is that, at some unknown point in the future, there is an entire vollage area in UP/Bihar that has no females.  Finally one family of 5 brothers and a father finally manage to buy a "wife" to share amongst themselves.  The story that follows is that of the life of the lone female and men of a village, and the the problems that arise.  It's a dark, unrelentingly pessimistic (and seemingly quite probable) look at how a society can unravel when there is a imbalance in the male-female population ratio.

     Interestingly enough, there are a lot of side effects to not having enough women in your population that I didn't realize.  My first assumption was the scarcity of females might drive up their value in societies where females are traditionally not valued.  The first , and most obvious, examples of such societies that come to mind are rural India and China.  (And to all the desis reading this please do not give me the whole line about how Hindu culture reveres women by pointing to historical or religious anecdotes because while our culture might mouth such ideals as respect and reverence for women, [mostly in situations where their roles are regulated to traditional Mother and/or Wife, which in their traditional stereotype are both interestingly enough defined mainly by servile behaviors] we as a society do not FOLLOW this mind set.  If we did, there would not be 50 million girls missing from India's population.)  Due to the government's long-standing one child policy coupled with the pressure to have a son, in China there are starting to be entire villages that are now dealing with a lack of women.  In these areas instead of increasingly the societal value placed on women, females are instead treated as a commodity and increasingly bought, sold, kidnapped, raped, etc.  Violence in general has escalated in these areas, and people have begun to resort to inbreeding (usually with first cousins) and other practices which go against social norms in a twisted effort to establish families and procreate.

     So after watching Matrabhoomi I tried to think about what these "all male" towns would look like lead to in India.  I have a lot of desi friends whose parents have pretty specific criteria for their offsprings' potential spouses.  A suitable match is not limited to the same national background, religion, and family values but instead include detailed criterion such as the same state and sometimes even village background, the same sub-caste, compatible mangliks, etc.  Oh and if that guy/girl could be a doctor too, that would be nice.  I can only imagine the situation in India is worse.  In fact I know for a fact that these criterion are looked at much stronger when assessing marriages in India.  But if there are no women in their village group, people will be forced to look out of their narrow definitions of what is acceptable marriage material.  Maybe you'll see some intervillage marriages.  In time this could lead to inter-state marriages being so commonplace that Daler Mehndi won't even find it interesting enough to sing about!  If there aren't enough women to marry in India, maybe Indians will start to look outside their borders to marry.  I'm guessing due to the large quantity of English speakers, their mates would probably derive from, if not neighboring countries, the West.  This has a lot of interesting implications, especially since I truly believe that culture and its the values that derive from it are usually past down by mothers. 

     This influx of Western brides could have many positive changes for the Indian subcontinent.  I can just see call center managers all over India salivating at the prospect of a whole generation of potentially accent-free offspring from these Western brides.  Since some of the most dire statistics of female infanticide come from Punjab, let's think about what a watered down Punjab could look like.  I see a bhangra and Riverdance fusing into Bhangdancing, a combination of turbans, kilts, pajama kurthas, and those cute little heeled tap shoes.  The Khalistan movement is almost dead anyways, but I can't see it surviving a generation whose mothers feel more strongly about east coast vs west coast rap than they do about anything having to do with Indian politics.  Gujarat is another top contender for high rates of female infanticide.  Maybe Navratri celebrations will start to include the tango and cha-cha alongside the garba/raas celebrations.  Maybe instead of participating in FOGANA (Federation of Gujaratis Assembled in North America), future generations will be a part of FOGANA, Federation of Gujarati Americans, (emphasis on the American) Assembled in North America.  Due to the fact that many South Indian states have fewer female infanticide rates, maybe their population will increase proportionate to North India.  Don't those southern Indian states have much better literacy rates too?  Since they seem to be doing things better down there in general already, this might be a good thing.  Except racist Aussies will have to stop calling desis Curry Munchers and switch to calling them Sambar Slurpers to keep up with the changing demographic trends.  With the increase of international marriages, I think a lot of racist terms will have to change in general.  The English will have to stop using "Paki" as a derogatory term, not only because it loses its effect when one billion people agree with you.  Maybe Brittish teens can instead yell out "Paki-Irish" to insult their Indian-British citizens instead. 

     But what will happen to all these parents who have such specific criteria for their children's spouses?   (And if you think this caste thing is an exclusively Hindu problem, let me share some insight on that- YOU'RE AN IDIOT.  I seriously do not understand how well educated people say this when: I went to college with Muslim Pakistanis who were looking for "Rajput" brides, on our trip to Tamil Nadu we were shown "Brahmin" churches and "untouchable" churches, and my Sikh friends wrap their turbans differently to indicate the sub caste, oh excuse, i meant Jat, they belong to.)  While I've been mostly joking around, here's the basic underbelly of this beastly musing: Women teach their children culture, pass the torch of cultural rituals and beliefs from one generation to the next.  A society that does not value women inherently does not value their own culture.  A society that takes this disrespectful belief a step further and kills off their female children is effectively killing off their ties to their own past and watering down their culturaal future.  I don't know whether the damage done in India and/or China is permanent or whether these trends are reversible.  In the mean time, I'lk kepp my eye out for "bhang-dancing".