Life without mirrors . . . & elephants

“How simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten.” – Daphne duMaurier

Imagine how wonderful it would be to have no mirrors – no reminders of what we don’t like or need to fix or want to hide from. No idea of what to powder or touch up. No periodic checks on (fill in the blanks). No worries about what we look like now . . . compared with 10 minutes ago, or less.

Imagine the time we’d save, not to mention the worry and self-consciousness, if  judgments about us were based on our brains, our humor or friendliness, . . . in other words, the parts of us that are comparatively permanent. 

“How simple” – for sure.  >sigh!<

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It is possible that in our lifetime, African elephants could go extinct. Painful as it is just to say that, the very real possibility it will happen because of human greed and cruelty is far worse. These awesome and majestic animals may disappear from our world simply because they have tusks that some crazies will kill them for, to sell to other crazies who will make them into ivory trinkets.

A piece of ivory jewelry or an ivory statuette is nothing more than the symbol of a innocent elephant who was brutally murdered for those tusks. No ivory tchotchke in the world is worth taking an elephant’s life.

And yet, the demand continues so the murders continue. Nor does it stop there. The deaths of adult elephants invariably means the creation of orphaned baby elephants, creatures who lose their mothers – and the wisdom and culture they traditionally receive from them during their years together.

Now, finally, the media is filled w/ stories about the elephant poachers, the orphaned babies, the so-far ineffectual attempts to halt poaching and redirect the craze for elephant tusks, and ivory.   

The largest land mammals in the world, African elephants are intelligent, family-oriented and family-dependent. They directly affect their landscape as seed dispersers, influencing forest composition for other species. But now, elephant populations are in crisis, w/ as many as 30,000 killed annually to feed demand for the illegal ivory trade, as the World Wildlife Fund (worldwildlife.org) and other animal welfare organizations report.

“Elephants are in extreme danger. The danger is so severe that if current poaching rates continue, elephants will go extinct in our lifetime,” according to the Humane Society International (his.org).

The facts and numbers are there. The warnings are clear. But it’s also clear that no one and no government is doing enough, fast enough, to stop the slaughter of African elephants.   

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