David Strike wrote:

> Having said that, on those occasions when I've watched them being fed,
I've
> seen nothing other than something that was mesmerising.

Me too.  Nobody ever said I would be consistent.  While I do not support
shark feeding, for reasons that may be a bit different from your opinion,
that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the ones I attended.

>  > At a personal level, I've never heard operators who conduct shark feeds
> suggest that it was 'safe'!

Perhaps because you've were not participating in a political process
designed to determine whether shark, actually all fish, feeding would be
banned in areas close to some of the most popular tourist beaches in the
world (Ft. Lauderdale Beach).

> I might disagree with the practice of feeding
> any wild critters and building up a dependency

This issue came up too.  This is the point where our opinions may differ.
While it is clearly possible to cause land animals to become dependent on
human feeding, I have not found the same to be true, or at least not as true
of sharks.  The amount of food available does not seem to be sufficient to
allow, let alone develop such a dependency.  My objection is more along the
lines of causing animals to associate people with food.  Here in S. Florida,
this has been a frequent problem with alligators.  An alligator who
associates people with food, losing it's natural fear and caution, usually
has to be destroyed.  It's too much of a danger.  Sharks can't come up into
your back yard as an alligator can, but they can come into areas where
humans are enjoying the water.  The more sharks there are in proximity to
humans, them more "mistakes" they are likely to make at the expense of the
humans mistaken for possible food and, eventually, for the sharks
themselves.  Humans tend to destroy what they fear and wholesale distruction
of sharks seems a much more likely result than avoiding the water where
sharks live.

> The only derogatory comments that I've heard about anything to do with the
> Olympics have been made by Australians about Australians!!!  :-)
> Therefore, I'm not altogether certain what you're sugggesting??????????

I'm not suggesting anything, only repeating what I've read.  I really don't
know who said what to whom.  There seem to have been several things said
including something people with darker skin found offensive (whether they
were Australian or American) and something said about Americans
specifically.  To be honest, I tend to ignore such foolishness.  If you
chose to consider me to be inferior because of the country I come from or
the color of my skin, you're welcome to do so.  In my opinion, all such
foolishness does is give me a competitive advantage.  If you don't think I
can perform, you're more likely to be taken off guard when I do.  If, on the
other hand, you think to deny me rights because of your foolish expectations
based on color or nationality, my reaction is likely to be prompt and
decisive.   Of course the "you" in these statements does not mean you
personally.  It's the generic "you" that so often helps us be misunderstood.

I know where I saw the article.  While it was far from complete, mostly
dealing with the after effects of something previously done, I'll share the
names included in the article later today.  It's in my office, and I'm not.
I soon will be.

> > Better yet, perhaps the angry U.S. representatives should
> > simply use their anger to fuel improved performance, combating perceived
> > insults the best possible way, by kicking the offender's butt in
> > competition.
>
> Well! Yes!  But it's not as satisfying as a punch up the throat! :-)

Few things are as satisfying as sucessful physical action against someone
who deserves it.  On the other hand, it's not productive in cases like this.
Much better to prove someone is wrong, helping them learn better, than to
leave the prejudice in tact but hidden by fear of physical retribution.
Supressed prejudice has a way of festering until it explodes.  Much better,
in my opinion, to defuse it in the first place.

This is becoming much more of a thread than I intended, so I'll temporarily
withdraw with the following observation.  The U.S. has a few enemies, a lot
of neutral relations and a few good friends.  Personally, I count Australia
as a friend and I'm not happy when I perceive that one person's intolerance
for another or one person's intolerance for the intolerance of another
damages even the image, let alone the friendship.

Lee