Sunday, June 5, 2016

World Environment Day and Dead Tigers & Trafficking in Thailand Temple

World Environment Day and Dead Tigers & Trafficking in Thailand Temple

This morning, the weather was rainy, and I was was rather uncomfortable, and it was just so hard to get out of bead. All the stretching I did several times throughout the day was as tho' it hasn't happened at all, and all of my muscles, tendons, and ligaments were so sore and tight, and my joints swollen... so, I finally forced myself out of bed once I realized the clock passed 10 AM.... then, I started brewing HOT coffee (since it's a very cold day this morning) even tho' it's JUNE (unthankfully due to climate change), and turned on my computer....
It's WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY (and I'm an Environmentalist & Eco-Geek) which I'd completely forgotten.... and I opened my YouTube Subscriptions to THIS:


The headline was "Dozens of dead tiger cubs found at a Buddhist temple in Thailand", and the image its self was disturbing!

Unbelievable!!!! I watched the video in utter disbelief & horror!
After al week getting Buddhists and karma believers shouting down my face over eating meat, and now this! It's like a weird modern version of a corruption story of of the "Xi You Ji" (The Journey West by Wu Cheng En about the Monkey King) where monks or monestaries had become overrun with demons, or officials had become corrupt... only, there were no Guanyin Pusa or Sun Wukong to set it right...

It reminded me, very much, of a key plot point in my film/story that I'd written back in the 90s originally (Zenith Beyond Eclipsing The Dragon's Rue) which I am re-developing starting this year, as you already know...  This was somewhat similar to something my main villain/antagonist character was doing, and specifically with tigers and other endangered species... There were animals in jars, but a big scene in the film/story/screenplay was originally with my main villain doing a speech and holding up a tiger skin... (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2016 COPYRIGHT KANDICE KATHLEEN ZIMBLEMAN) it was very neoliberalism/libertarian/anarchist/anarchocaptiolist greed driven brazen machoism in a suit & tie.... and, back then, after I'd written it it was one of those things I'd felt was TOO disturbing and TOO unbelievable, that needed to be toned down and audiences would probably not accept someone to be this evil....

What a horror to awaken to!

This WOKE ME UP!

I wanted to know MORE! So, I began investigating the news all over the internet... and BOY did I find it!

Well..... suffice it to say TIGER SKINS were ALSO in the mix. This story got worse and worse the more articles I found. Animal abuse, corrupt monks, tiger meat, tiger body parts, animal trafficking, plus the fact that its Buddhist AND a monastery/temple makes it even MORE loathsome!

Also, I originally had Ao Xingtao with more Tiger motifs than dragons... I made him more dragon motifs now, but, I think I will utilize them both now... like those old scrolls in Chinatown Philly with yin/yang dragon & tiger artwork.

I will probably incorporate some of the tiger motifs again with Ao Xingtao again... and I think it makes the scene with the main villain/antagonist work better now. Also, it separates Xingtao from Djehkäujaa a lot more because I don't want them to be too similar, even tho' they have similar connections that are secrets or unknown.

WARNING CAUTION:

Anyways, the disturbing truth of the news can be found all over the news. here are just a few of the newest articles:

BBC 40 Dead Tiger Cubs Found in Thailand Tiger Temple
Aljazeer What really Happened at Thailand's Tiger Temple?
Wall Street Journal Thailand's tiger Temple Probed For Links To Animal Trafficking
 CNN: Thai 'Tiger Temple': Five charged with possessing endangered animal parts

As I'm writing this NOW several other news articles are jumping onto this horrific story!


As an artist, I can't even express what tigers mean to many many artists.

For me, personally, tigers always had a special presence to them. In ancient times, people even thought tigers were gods. being in the presence of a tiger is different than other animals. They have distinct personalities, and even enjoy swimming.

Seeing a tiger REALLY stays with you once you've actually seen one even from a distance. I remember the very first time I went to a zoo with the intent of drawing them with other artists in middle school. There were many many animals. But, drawing the tiger has a whole other look, and feel.

Every single time I go to a zoo, or sanctuary, and see a tiger there's just SOMETHING about them. No other animal has that SOMETHING. No other animal can have that vibrancy in art either, which is why I've often drawn tigers in my artwork. It's almost magical, or majestic.


I recall, back in the 1990s, when I was a big fan of Jackie Chan, one of the major animals he was trying to raise awareness over in Asia to protect was TIGERS. they were on the top of the list. And, I even did a painting based on the photo graphics from his old website. 

I hope as not to offend any sense of the tiger lovers here. I've included my artwork as my expression my love for tigers. Please do not conflate the issue as an exploitation of a tragedy to self-promote my work. I'm not even popular at present so it wouldn't make any sense at all anyway.

Therefore, I will not include more than 3 links to my gallery artwork, and just keep them isolated to this blog post. If you wanted to see the full versions of these artworks, you could obviously find them easily on my gallery and searching it there, independently. (I do get questions anyway, if I don't include a link, and if anyone really wanted to find more, its a simple matter of using a search features)

In Honor & Tribute to Tigers:











I think this shows the relevance of WHY we have things like WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY... and yet, on Social media it's all but forgotten... FB has no intention of showing the holiday whatsoever... ALL THE HARD WORK to promote things like this in my youth, and it seems for naught, and all in vain...

I tweeted to Dr. Jill Stein this morning on Twitter a happy World Environment Day (presidential candidate for the Green Party) and I think even she FORGOT it. :(

That's really sad! Must be all the gun violence and insanity of the GOP and people poisoned from lead in the water that everything is decaying... :(

Here are a few things from Twitter:







I think this makes it more behooving of me to create my film/story because I feel people NEED IT. There's a VERY BIG Environmental and humanitarian moral to my story... altho' it's Fantasy/Sci-Fi it's a vision of what the world actually COULD BE, or COULD HAVE BEEN, NOW. I feel that so many Sci-Fi stories are about The Future or Futuristic... mine is what the world could be NOW, and what is SHOULD BE.... but, I admit, I'm am also making it a different, or alternate reality of this world, and NOT this world.

It is probably a good thing that I will major in philosophy in the fall. Perhaps I need more studies with Immanuel Kant.


BTW, I did log into Care2 today.

Its as if they are the only place left still conscious of things that often matter a lot.



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