Two dolphins collided during a performance at SeaWorld<\/a> this weekend, with the 30-year old female dying from the impact.<\/p>\nI’m pretty sure that if a human had died performing a similar stunt, it wouldn’t make me as sad as this story did. Oddly, I think this is a common reaction. Look at the other stories on the Local 6 News page – a woman killed in a boat collision; a woman shot for $1; one person fatally shot while sitting in a car. Yet the top story from the site is the dolphin accident.<\/p>\n
I know why I don’t care much about any of these people and their unusual deaths: I don’t know them, and I hear about shooting and accidents every day. Maybe I should care more – but I think if I did, I would become emotionally exhausted. I also know that lurking underneath that excuse is a darker one.<\/p>\n
I tend to assume that many – though certainly not all – people at least partially deserved their fate. The person shot in the car could have been an upstanding citizen, a father, a model human being. Or he could have been a pedophile, a terrorist, a gang leader, a murderer. Before I get weepy about the shooting, I need to know something of the story.<\/p>\n
But with the dolphin, Sharky, I just feel bad – almost as if I am somehow responsible.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(This photo, of a dolphin named K-Dog used by the U.S. Navy for hunting mines, is in the public domain.) [digg-reddit-me]Two dolphins collided during a performance at SeaWorld this weekend, with the 30-year old female dying from the impact. I’m pretty sure that if a human had died performing a similar stunt, it wouldn’t make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[203,206,205,204],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morality","tag-dolphins","tag-k-dog","tag-orlando","tag-sharky"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-6W","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/da\/NMMP_dolphin_with_locator.jpeg\/499px-NMMP_dolphin_with_locator.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![K-Dog<\/a> used by the U.S. Navy for hunting mines, is in the public domain.)<\/small><\/p>\n[digg-reddit-me]Two dolphins collided during a performance at SeaWorld<\/a> this weekend, with the 30-year old female dying from the impact.<\/p>\nI’m pretty sure that if a human had died performing a similar stunt, it wouldn’t make me as sad as this story did. Oddly, I think this is a common reaction. Look at the other stories on the Local 6 News page – a woman killed in a boat collision; a woman shot for $1; one person fatally shot while sitting in a car. Yet the top story from the site is the dolphin accident.<\/p>\nI know why I don’t care much about any of these people and their unusual deaths: I don’t know them, and I hear about shooting and accidents every day. Maybe I should care more – but I think if I did, I would become emotionally exhausted. I also know that lurking underneath that excuse is a darker one.<\/p>\nI tend to assume that many – though certainly not all – people at least partially deserved their fate. The person shot in the car could have been an upstanding citizen, a father, a model human being. Or he could have been a pedophile, a terrorist, a gang leader, a murderer. Before I get weepy about the shooting, I need to know something of the story.<\/p>\nBut with the dolphin, Sharky, I just feel bad – almost as if I am somehow responsible.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(This photo, of a dolphin named K-Dog used by the U.S. Navy for hunting mines, is in the public domain.) [digg-reddit-me]Two dolphins collided during a performance at SeaWorld this weekend, with the 30-year old female dying from the impact. I’m pretty sure that if a human had died performing a similar stunt, it wouldn’t make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[203,206,205,204],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morality","tag-dolphins","tag-k-dog","tag-orlando","tag-sharky"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-6W","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/Image:NMMP_dolphin_with_locator.jpeg\"){kind=link}