Sharknazis

Viewers of ersatz reality TV are interested in titillation and the once nature-oriented cable channel, Discovery, realized that it was sharks and Nazis that really sold those ads for tiny elevators for the dog you grossly overfed

and reverse mortgages that gobble your house so Discovery doubled down and now feature sharknazi programs.

Discovery is producing increasingly fraudulent documentaries some so egregious that The Donald drops his Kentucky chicken bucket in ecstasy spilling greasy white meat across his Chinese-made size XXX pink golf shirt as he attempts to rise from his golden throne screaming: “Yes! Yes!, finally, my kinda ultrafake-news!”

Recently Discovery ran a story complete with a marine biologist (actually a paid actor) claiming that they found WWII footage of a prehistoric Megalodon shark (that ate his last lunch four million years ago) cruising next to a Nazi U-boat off the coast of South Africa during the War II. Never mind that the tip to tip shot of the fin and tail was double what the paleontological record shows or that there were never any Nazi subs in South Africa.

Discovery also ran a fraudulent news story to promote “Shark Week” of a shark being caught in Lake Ontario where salt water fish don’t live. This prompted the Canadian government to issue a shark warning for swimmers. Apologues all round for that one, so Canadian.

All in fun except mass producing blatant lies is now a serious game with millions of players. Discovery is producing a new show this year on the return of the Megalodon which will further inflame the shark fearing public.

We all know that sharks are murderous predators fixated on eating you, your children and biting the middle out of your boat. Confirmed kills worldwide in 2020 totaled 13 (not including pets). This is far fewer than are abducted by aliens each year and just ten more than the speculation that Bigfoot killed three pot farmers in California last year (I think the Bulgarian mob did it but I’m no statistician).

Sure, it’s no fun to be eaten by a shark but a stunning fact about sharks is that shark finning is still raging at an unsustainable pace; primality in the waters off Asia and the Pacific. In 2020 between 70 and 100 million plus sharks were killed and their fins cut off to supply the shark fin soup on menus in China.

Sharks

Shark fin soup has almost no flavor but is laden with MSG and high status. It’s a must have for many extravagant Chinese feasts and there are a lot of rich Chinese folks these days. The definned carcasses of the sharks are dumped overboard even though it could be eaten. Many Chinese are gung-ho for status. I was in a store in Shanghai where they sold white beach stones fetching thousands because they look like kidneys or something and there is a thriving market for rhino horn dong stiffening medicine. By the way, this medicine really does work especially when cut with Viagra.

In the last 40 years about half the sea creatures in the ocean have gone to heaven, where it’s damn hard for the fish to breath (note to self: ask priest if fish go to heaven). The sharks are leading the parade to the total annihilation of life in the sea which will not be good for Star-Kist or for our backsides that we will be kissing goodbye too, along with all the tuna.

Here’s the thing. Humans are animals and animals eat and humans eat other animals. Some vegetarians will tell you that we don’t need to eat meat and some say it isn’t even natural. Natural or not it’s happening. We could beat ourselves up about it or we could recognize that Man is an unstoppable voracious consumer and will be until—TV remote in one hand) the last slimy drumstick goes cold in The Donald’s other tiny hand.

We are all doomed. That’s life. But much the Pacific Ocean if you in over your head you can drown; but if you happen to be on a tropical island it can be paradise on earth. There are, what I like to call islands-of-grace in the vastness of the entropic universe. The following video shows one of these islands. Thanks to Russ Isaacson for this.