TAMU Zoo?

Today's news item describing PETA's request that Texas A&M stop using live elephants for the annual Elephant Walk tradition reminded me of details of a pet project I've been mulling for a number of years: A zoo at Texas A&M University.

In my notes, I have dubbed this dream project "The Texas A&M University Wildlife Habitat and Center for Conservation Science," but I should note that I have neither sought nor received any official buy-in.

This is a very rough sketch, and I'm mostly posting it now for posterity, and on the off-chance that an angel investor might read this and decide to bankroll the project. If that happens, I'd at least like to get a season pass.

The broad strokes:

• We are a land-rich campus and have the opportunity to pick up farmland in the area to make natural habitats.
•  Augment Elephant Walk tradition by having a (secondary?) mascot elephant(s)…these wouldn’t be carted in for a performance, but would be friends with whom we would develop a relationship
• *Bonus: "Ol' Sarge" the elephant helps build the first on-campus bonfire after we are allowed to have them again.
•  Opportunity for cheap labor by utilizing undergrad and grad students in related majors for labor.
• Bonus: Enhances the Vet School’s offerings by allowing specialization in zoo exotics.
•  Attract top notch scientists to work on an interdisciplinary endeavor.
•  Adds value to the community…provides a source of revenue as a family/tourist attraction.

The potential shareholders (again, these are my thoughts, and this should not be taken to represent buy-in from any entity named below):

• TAMU Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences – Conservation Biology and Biodiversity (CBB)
• TAMU Bioenvironmental Science
• TAMU College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Science
• Dr. Mark Holtzapple, TAMU Chemical Engineering – Biomass Fuel
• Whoever is working on solar power
• Whoever has the land
• Whoever is working on cleaning up river water
• Cities of Bryan & College Station
• American Zoological Association
• International Zoo Educators Association
• Stephanie Boyles (Wildlife Biologist at PETA when I first dreamt this up)

I've noticed that there is roughly 700 acres of land along the Brazos River where TX-60 crosses it heading southwest out of town. The Cameron Park Zoo in Waco (the closest zoo to Bryan/College Station at about 100 miles) is similarly situated on a river. It seems to work well for them!

Injustice Anywhere

I am still trying to process and respond to the news that Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, was shot multiple times and killed Saturday in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, MO. 

I was in St. Louis at the time and didn't hear about the issue until I saw militarized police responding to unrest on the news while traveling home on Sunday. Truly, there are two Americas. 

Watching and reading the news of response to this latest atrocity, especially the rioting in Missouri, I was reminded of Frantz Fanon's assertion that violent subjugation leads to violent freedom. I'm not content to leave the issue here though, because to do so seems to remove other options for agency, especially nonviolent response such as was advocated by Dr. Martin Lither King, Jr. 

The essence of waging nonviolence, or satyagraha as Ghandi called it, depends on a moral consciousness that can be shocked into action. I am not convinced that the fourth estate is robust enough or its American audience sensitive and attentive enough to be moved. I hope I'm wrong, but even Dr. King recognized the limits of his tactics:

"And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard."

Excerpted from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's speech "The Other America" delivered at Grosse Point High School March 14, 1968. Read the entire speech at http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/

Merely condemning riots or condemning systematic violence against black and brown bodies is not enough. Are we willing to be personally invested (and then stand to be personally divested of comfort and freedom) in the hardship we don't yet face ourselves?

Some of us are still here

Some of us are still here

Sitting, no longer expectantly,

Behind grey windows and brown walls

Whose vacant stare we’ve adopted

As defense against the loss of hope

We sit, whiling the hours till it is time to leave for work

Or not.

Work that pays just enough to pay rent, and food, and transportation

To get to work and back

Or not.

Sometimes, when we forget ourselves,

We hate you, just a little bit, for making it out

We are jealous of your successes large and small

But only when we forget ourselves

When we return to sense

Your success is our pride

We love you because you made it out

We don’t want anything from you

Except that you remember,

In the midst of that money, and power,

And bright life

That some of us are still here.

March 2009