Elephants and Education

Today was my birthday and it was also Super Bowl Sunday. So, my opportunities to post were limited. I seemed most of my posts were in reaction to the wonderfully marvelous material that qnjones left for me.

I have actually seen a minor-scale elephant riot before. I was visiting the zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when I lived there (Colorado Springs, not the zoo). They had 2 elephant areas, in which the 2 males were separated. The male elephants could not see each other, due to the high walls, but they were most certainly aware of each other. On the occasion I was there, the 2 male elephants started trumpeting at each other and the trumpeting got louder and louder. Then they started pushing against the wall that was between their areas.

The things I remember most about the incident were:
a. Elephants are really loud when they get worked up. I mean, like rock concert, hurt your ears, kind of loud.
b. If an elephant wanted, it could take down the walls of its cage without any trouble. This didn’t happen in the Colorado Springs zoo because:
c. If elephants start getting really loud, every zookeeper in the place comes running. And at least, back then, they really did use these giant cattle prods to get the elephants to calm down.

To snark today’s strip, I started by researching the 1st Nations in Ontario absenteeism policy today in an attempt to show that the trap line business was a misrepresentation. Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case. The school systems in Ontario have on-line listings of their school attendance for pre-school, kindergarten, primary and secondary and post-secondary schooling. I went through one school after another and found limited to no participation in pre-school and kindergarten. The primary schooling had decent numbers, but then it dropped severely in secondary schooling and the number in the post-secondary schooling was also very limited. In addition, I found a larger body of statistics talking about the school attendance for single mothers from ages 15-20 categorized in terms of how old their children were. Then there were a large number of articles talking about what an awful problem this was. It was depressing reading.

I don’t know if Lynn was trying to address this at all in the strip. I am sure that most people would realize that missing school to smoke fish or set trap lines is unusual. I don’t know if Lynn’s readers will make the connection to the very real problem facing Aboriginal Canadians and the education of their children. They may just say, “Oh those quirky Mtigwakians.” Still, it is interesting that Lynn would address the issue, even tangentially.

Tomorrow’s strip: Elly reveals that we are not done with Lilliput’s yet, not by a long shot. Even though she plans to sell the place to Moira, she is still going to keep a hand in it, i.e. make Moira’s life a living hell.