 The
Moor Macaque - Issue
Thirty-Five |
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Our Division is Not Making America Great Again by Susan Grant If you think this article will be paragraph after paragraph
of vitriolic dogma about how our country is going to hell because of our
president, you will be disappointed. If you are expecting an unenlightened
endorsement of everything Trump, you'll also be let down. I am here to
say that many of our outspoken people in the news, in entertainment and
the general public, on all sides of the political spectrum, are not making
America great again. Not even close.
As a teacher of middle school students, I want to apologize to them for the behaviors of many of our adult leaders, public figures and media. I expect my students, at the ages of 11 and 12, to have black and white views about everything (if they have developed "views" at all yet). Part of the DNA of a teenager is to develop a worldview and, out of insecurity, fail to explore opposing ones, but I cringe when I see this same rigidity among adults. I am not here to say you should not support the political views you believe are important. This is a privilege of being an American. It's important to know the issues at stake in our governmental actions and to lobby for changes we believe should be incorporated. What I am questioning is the way many on all sides of political issues are making their statement. As I read my social media feeds, I am saddened to sense such hatred and bitterness on all sides. I wonder if this is the frog in the kettle scenario-- the hatred and bitterness have crept up so gradually many do not realize it's killing them. The anger, the venom, the intolerance of those who do not hold our same views has become the norm. These things do not make America great; it makes us an easy target. A wise man once said, "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand" (Mark 3:25), and this is the very thing that endangers our country. The words of Founding Father John Dickinson state, "By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall," and the truth of this statement scares me. What precedents of acceptable public behavior are we making? What type of role models are we for the next generations? What has happened to common courtesy and kindness? We preach tolerance but I see little of it--unless you are on my side of the issues. In my grief and sorrow over what I see in our country, I have considered what it might take to unify our country again and it terrifies me. What will it take to bring back reasonable behavior between those with opposing views? What sort of horrific thing will be necessary to grab our attention and bring back graciousness and mutual respect? I do not know the answer to this but I know respect is not a result of making others fearful. It cannot exist when one human being treats another in degrading ways. The one who "wins" is not the one with the biggest mouth. The meek truly do inherit the earth. Let he who has ears to hear, hear!
Susan Grant been a teacher for 33 years (both in North Carolina and Maine). She is a member of the Maine Writing Project, the National Writing Project and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her first book, 100 Minutes with God was released in December. She has published pieces of non-fiction, fiction and essays in literary magazines and newspapers such as Longridge Review, Chattanooga Writers' Guild and The Bangor Daily News. She can be found online at https://www.susan-grant.com/
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The Moor Macaque is endemic to the tropical rainforests and
grasslands of the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Their diet consists
of they eat figs, bamboo seeds, buds, sprouts, invertebrates and
cereals. They have brown to black body fur with a pale rump patch
and pink bare skin on the rump and are about 55 centimetres in height.
They are sometimes called a "dog-ape" because of their dog-like
muzzle, although they are no more closely related to apes than any
other Old World monkey. Adult male moor macaques do not interact
frequently, although the interactions that occur frequently involve
affiliation rather than aggression, with greetings being the most
common form of interaction. The greetings enable males to show their
willingness to invest in the relationship, and may represent one
way for adult males to ease social tension and build social bonds.
The moor macaque is threatened mostly due to habitat loss from an
expanding human population and deforestation to increase agricultural
land area. The population is estimated to have decreased from 56,000
to under 10,000 from 1983 to 1994. In 1992, Supriatna et al. conducted
an extensive survey and found only 3,000-5,000 individuals of the
species. The survey estimated densities to be 25-50 individuals
per kilometre. Several Sulawesi macaque species are endangered,
and information on their ecology and behaviour is desperate needed
if conservation plans are to be effective.