Pam Omidyar to Earth, re whales: “Nice fish. Where can I get me some more giant gold coins?”

June 27th, 2010

Days since I began a hunger strike to protest multi-billionaire / surfer /

biologist / luxury resort collector Pam Omidyar’s

refusal to save the whales:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Date that the International Whaling Commission granted Greenland

the right to resume harvesting humpback whales

for “subsistence” purposes:

June 25, 2010

Average household income in Greenland:

33rd of 227 nations measured

Average household income in the U.K.:

34th of 227 nations measured

Ranks of Germany, France, and Monaco:

37, 40, & 45

Place where most whale steaks and

“snacks” are sold in Greenland:

4-star luxury hotels

Number of luxury hotel resorts owned by the

self-described “prominent U.S. family”

of Pam and Pierre Omidyar:

A shitload

Rank of Pam & Pierre Omidyar’s “prominent U.S. family”

on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans:

40

Price of the world’s largest gold coin, sold on the same day

the IWC greenlighted the “harvesting” of humpback

whales after a decades-long worldwide

moratorium brought them back

from near-extinction:

$4,020,000

Number of those 100 kg gold coins that Pam

and Pierre Omidyar could afford:

1,368

Number it would take to end whaling on Earth,

according to Paul Watson and

Sea Shepherd:

14

Manifestation of God — kanaloa —

in Hawaiian culture:

Whale

Number of her own children with whom Pam Omidyar swims

with humpback whale mothers — na kohola — and

their children in the waters off her home in

Hawaii and off her luxury resorts

elsewhere in the world:

3

Whales existed before man,

but they have been known to us only for

two or three generations: until the invention of underwater

photography, we hardly knew what they looked like.  It was only after we

had seen the Earth from orbiting spaceships that the first free-swimming whale

was photographed underwater.  The first underwater film of sperm whales,

off the coast of Sri Lanka, was not taken until 1984; our images of these

huge placid creatures moving gracefully and silently through the

ocean are more recent than the use of personal computers.

We knew what the world looked like

before we knew what the

whale looked like.

Philip Hoare