by Gerald A. Honigman

I have a tendency to tick some specific groups of people off. I offer no further direct comment about this, except to say that I guess I am a passionate person and a bad liar...

I have recently retired, for medical reasons, from a career of teaching science to thousands of students (and fellow teachers via inservice) over the years. Biology -- especially ecology and environmental science -- has always been one of my life's passions. Ever since my father, of blessed memory, spoke to me about the beautiful world God created as we watched the sun rise on the lake on one of our many fishing trips together since I was in diapers, I got hooked. I have led numerous folks (including college professors) on my wetlands ecology and biodiversity field trips over the decades.

I have always been a firm believer that God did not place man on this planet to trash the place nor to abuse others which God placed here as well. Stewardship is the term that some have used to describe what this relationship should be... and it's a good one. I have had a poster greeting students and others entering through the doors to my classrooms summing this thought up...

Treat the Earth well... It was not given to you by your parents... It was loaned to you by your children.

I have not been an extremist in these regards, but I do know -- without out any doubt -- that man has indeed not been as careful over the ages (especially in modern times) as he needed to be... often with horrendous consequences.

As just one example, think of the billions of pounds of carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic chemicals (many extremely persistent) which have been dumped into various ecosystems, working their way up and through assorted food chains.

Because of this, if mistakes are to be made, my assessment has been to make them on the side of caution -- yet, with an open-minded quest for solid, scientific truth, not that born simply out of passion. Having said that, most times we cannot wait until we have "100 %" solid evidence before we should act. By then, the results would often be irreversible.

Tragedy struck at Sea World in Orlando a few days ago.

Tilikum, a magnificent male Orca, killed his trainer. Other trainers have suffered similar fates with these cetaceans -- a troubling curiosity since they have never been known to attack humans in the wild... and they have had the chance to do so.

Orcas are giant dolphins and, as such, have one of the most sophisticated brains in Kingdom Animalia.

That brain -- and its owner -- are indeed mind-boggling to scientists who continue to study them. But the same might also be true of other critters. Man, for a variety of reasons, often purposely avoids finding out that kind of stuff... it's easier to accept what he often does to them.

What happens when you take an animal which relates to its environment largely via echolocation -- bouncing sonar-like waves off of objects to locate and identify them (and which lives in close-knit, communal pods, often migrates hundreds, if not thousands, of miles at sea, where such bounced sonar waves dissipate, etc.) -- and stick it into a confined, concrete aquarium where such waves come bouncing back into the cetacean brain is still up for grabs. Most scientists agree that it's not a good thing... to say the least.

Unlike some land-based animals kept for display (not that their life quality is really "better"), the life span of cetaceans in such artificial bath tubs is greatly reduced from those living in the wild. Many dolphins are dead within just a couple of years in captivity as opposed to an average of thirty years in the open ocean.

The tiger that deliberately or otherwise gravely injured his popular entertainer/ trainer in a Las Vegas performance, the elephant which suddenly appears to go crasy in a circus, and so forth are all sending a similar message to the one that Tilicum did.

For years, I refused Sea World's invitation for free admission to myself if I'd take my students there for a visit or such. It was a dilemma of sorts...

On the one hand, Sea World does educate the public, assist in saving wild animals in trouble, and so forth -- good stuff, no doubt.

But the bottom line for me is that the use of such magnificent animals -- cetaceans -- to make money, while knowingly shortening their life span and imposing an artificial, harmful new set of conditions upon them -- was/is a price too high to accept.

True, the tigers and elephants mentioned above are endangered in the wild -- also only due to man. And so are wild dolphins -- many also killed by human activities... fishing nets, pollution, and so forth. But this doesn't mean that we should add insult to injury and pour salt on that wound by forcing animals to perform for human entertainment while endangering them even further -- despite what the professed good intentions are.

Shifting gears, besides those who don't give a hoot about the above, among others whom I also tick off are probably at least some of my Orthodox Jewish friends.

The Sabbath is supposed to be reserved for just Godly things. Such stuff as writing is prohibited, in their view.

Working a full time job for decades, I often found that my best thoughts about "other stuff" came to me on weekends. Often I'd wake up at night with thoughts screaming to come out of my head... really.

Now, having to wait to write them down was indeed a risk... one which I have opted, right or wrong, not to take. My friends have often asked me if I ever slept when they noted the times of some of my e-communications.

This article you're now reading is one such product...

However you describe this, I believe that God places those thoughts in my head -- as God does with all other folks as well. That this often happens to me on a Friday after sundown or Saturday until dusk (Shabbat -- the original Sabbath -- introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible) may be attributed to my mind finally being able to return to non-science-based thoughts... or to, perhaps, something Higher -- if you get my drift. God inspires all of us.

So, of all of my sins, I'd like to believe that my writing about my God -given passions -- whether for relative justice for all peoples in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, caring for Earth and the creatures God created, and so forth -- will be the one I will be held least accountable for when I meet my Maker. Indeed, too many of those who would condemn such things as my Sabbath writing have displayed far greater sins, indeed... and committed against their fellow man, let alone God's other creatures.

Please see my new book at http://q4j-middle-east.com which Brigitte Gabriel and other major commentators have called "a must read."