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My Son, the Environmental Activist
Nov. 6th, 2016 09:12 amA poacher shot an eight-point stag on the S________ compound. He didn’t kill it, and the poor animal ran around in agony for hours before drowning in the pond.
It’s not even hunting season yet.
I hate humans.
###
I don’t actually mind hunting.
For several years, Max was a vegetarian, but he continued to eat certain types of meat. Venison was among them. During his last year at Deep Springs, Max had been the school’s butcher, charged with slaughtering the meat that fed the college. So I found Max’s vegetarianism very intriguing.
“Oh, it’s not a health thing,” he told me. “I suppose it is a political thing: I refuse to eat animals that I know have been raised and slaughtered inhumanely. If I know the hunter, and I know the kill was clean, I’ll eat the venison.”
###
RTT is off to the Standing Rock Pipeline this week. He actually texted me – we rarely speak by phone: I'm thinking about going to North Dakota for a week if I get professor permission. Are you okay with that? I'd be safe wouldn't attract unwanted attention.
What could I say?
He’s an adult, 22 years old.
He gets to do what he wants.
Of course, his first priority has to be to graduate in December. Because if he doesn’t graduate in December, that’s just it so far as I’m concerned. Despite what they tell you, maternal love is not unconditional. Or rather, the LUV may be eternal but the tangible demonstrations of that luv are strategically incentivized.
Well, you know, if you get yourself arrested, there’s not a damn thing your father and I will be able to do for you, I texted back. Because neither of us has the money for bail or a lawyer.
I was thinking of E___ and R___. They drove across North Dakota on one of their cross-country jaunts, and they happened to be going 15 miles over the speed limit in a speed trap. Their car got stopped, and for whatever reason – California plates? – got searched. They had something less than five grams of weed in the car, but it got found, and R___ ended up doing six weeks in the county clink. North Dakota is not a place where you want to mess around with local law enforcement.
I want to go because I think I have a moral obligation to be there as an environmentalist, he texted. I think you do too, and anyone else who claims they care about the preservation of the environment.
I can easily look at it as why not just send supplies other people can go- but if everyone thinks like that, who's voice is left to be heard? Who's going to stand up when everyone else is tired of getting beaten down?
Canny RTT!
Turns out he has organized a supply drop-off with local churches and colleges. And somehow talked Syracuse University into providing him with a van! And somehow talked three of his cronies into driving (since he doesn’t drive.) And coordinated with a group of other colleges and universities where they’ll be stopping along the way to pick up more food provisions, winter sleeping bags, and tents.
He also coordinated a leave of absence with the Syracuse University/Environmental Science deans, pitching them that this mission was no different than the permissions they give traveling sports teams. He’s leaving tonight. He’ll be back in a week.
Wow.
Impressive.
The kid definitely has mad organizational skills, he’s really smart, he’s really charismatic, and, of course, he’s the most insanely handsome human male on the planet:
Now, if he can just keep from self-destructing…
It’s not even hunting season yet.
I hate humans.
###
I don’t actually mind hunting.
For several years, Max was a vegetarian, but he continued to eat certain types of meat. Venison was among them. During his last year at Deep Springs, Max had been the school’s butcher, charged with slaughtering the meat that fed the college. So I found Max’s vegetarianism very intriguing.
“Oh, it’s not a health thing,” he told me. “I suppose it is a political thing: I refuse to eat animals that I know have been raised and slaughtered inhumanely. If I know the hunter, and I know the kill was clean, I’ll eat the venison.”
###
RTT is off to the Standing Rock Pipeline this week. He actually texted me – we rarely speak by phone: I'm thinking about going to North Dakota for a week if I get professor permission. Are you okay with that? I'd be safe wouldn't attract unwanted attention.
What could I say?
He’s an adult, 22 years old.
He gets to do what he wants.
Of course, his first priority has to be to graduate in December. Because if he doesn’t graduate in December, that’s just it so far as I’m concerned. Despite what they tell you, maternal love is not unconditional. Or rather, the LUV may be eternal but the tangible demonstrations of that luv are strategically incentivized.
Well, you know, if you get yourself arrested, there’s not a damn thing your father and I will be able to do for you, I texted back. Because neither of us has the money for bail or a lawyer.
I was thinking of E___ and R___. They drove across North Dakota on one of their cross-country jaunts, and they happened to be going 15 miles over the speed limit in a speed trap. Their car got stopped, and for whatever reason – California plates? – got searched. They had something less than five grams of weed in the car, but it got found, and R___ ended up doing six weeks in the county clink. North Dakota is not a place where you want to mess around with local law enforcement.
I want to go because I think I have a moral obligation to be there as an environmentalist, he texted. I think you do too, and anyone else who claims they care about the preservation of the environment.
I can easily look at it as why not just send supplies other people can go- but if everyone thinks like that, who's voice is left to be heard? Who's going to stand up when everyone else is tired of getting beaten down?
Canny RTT!
Turns out he has organized a supply drop-off with local churches and colleges. And somehow talked Syracuse University into providing him with a van! And somehow talked three of his cronies into driving (since he doesn’t drive.) And coordinated with a group of other colleges and universities where they’ll be stopping along the way to pick up more food provisions, winter sleeping bags, and tents.
He also coordinated a leave of absence with the Syracuse University/Environmental Science deans, pitching them that this mission was no different than the permissions they give traveling sports teams. He’s leaving tonight. He’ll be back in a week.
Wow.
Impressive.
The kid definitely has mad organizational skills, he’s really smart, he’s really charismatic, and, of course, he’s the most insanely handsome human male on the planet:
Now, if he can just keep from self-destructing…
