Silkwood is a movie that has stayed with me ever since I saw it in 1983. Meryl Streep portrayed Karen Silkwood, a blue-collar whistle-blower whose groundbreaking efforts to improve worker safety at an American nuclear fuel production plant may have cost her her life. The film also cast Cher in a breakout role that proved she could really act. Silkwood was a good movie, but it has lingered in my mind for all these years because of a single line of dialogue.
Kurt Russell plays Drew, Karen Silkwood's live-in boyfriend and plant co-worker. Though he grudgingly believes in her cause, he's also terrified of the price he fears she may have to pay for her stubborn activism; he wants her to let it go. When she refuses to stop, they quarrel bitterly. He tells her, "Don't give me a problem I can't solve." I understood exactly what he was saying, and I thought of his words today when I read about the live animal key chains being sold in China.
What is wrong with we human beings?
These are the moments when I think it would be easier if my head just exploded. Because there is no place to keep a story like this once I have read it, but I can't forget it, either. I cannot, cannot, imagine being a person who would buy one of these things knowing full well that the living animal sealed within would eventually die. Don't they know what a living thing is?
For now, I guess this journal is where I'll park such a wretched story, if only to keep it out of my head.
8 comments:
Sad and disturbing. There are so many things that go on in the world of which I would prefer I was ignorant. This is one of them. :(
You and me both, RHR.
I am pointedly NOT clicking on that link. I don't want to know :(
This is a horrible situation. I can't imagine what goes through a person's mind to come up with these items and I can't imagine what goes through a person's mind when they purchase the keychain. It sickens me.
Here's a link to a petition if you're interested:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/ban-live-animals-as-key-rings/
Thanks so much Wolfie. Any tiny bandaid will help. I'll go there.
Smaz, I get that too.
I've come to believe that there are basically two kinds of folks in the world. People who see themselves as part of the animal kingdom - one of the myriad species, and people who believe they are separate from, and more importantly, above it.
The latter must maintain their superior status in order to justify their actions. The same type of dynamic that allowed / allows slavery and mistreatment of women and children.
I know karma will come around to those miserable losers...
It's hard not to be able to fix every wrong out there and certainly frustrating.
I'm with CFS. There are two types of people and I have to believe the takes of the world will get what they deserve in the end. It's the only thing that keeps me sane in all the craziness.
I have learned recently to ignore the bad - reward the good. Before I let myself get physically sick with worry. If only all of us could only talk about the good there would be no more time or money or energy going in the "bad guys" direction. Every time a horrid thought or story comes in my brain I try to replace it with some good a person did to help animals. That way, my energy is only spent on the people who deserve it. Sorry if it sounds like I am an ostrich. It is my only way to fight - take away their power by not giving them any air time.
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