Honolulu Lite
My seventh-grade daughter was a little worried about an upcoming rite of passage which, thankfully, at least from my point of view, has nothing to do with dating. Her science class is getting ready to dissect frogs, which, in these days of extremely political correctness, I was surprised still happened in schools. Frogs are still
quite the little
cut-upsI thought the ritual cutting up of animals even for scientific purposes would long ago have been banned as being too traumatic for young minds. And there must be a study somewhere that shows that dissecting frogs started many a serial killer on his grisly path.
I figured they must use plastic or foam-rubber frogs in science classes today. No, my daughter assured me, they'd be cutting up real frogs.
Ah, yes, I said nostalgically. I remember when I killed my first frog. Poked him in the back of the skull with a little sharp skull-poker thingy. (Science and its lingo weren't my strong points in school.)
My daughter looked at me like I was insane. "We aren't going to kill them," she said. "They are already dead. They are vacuum packed."
Vacuum packed? These kids don't have to off their own frogs? Man, they are spoiled. It turns out that the frogs are humanely killed, vacuum packed and mailed to schools everywhere so that eager young minds can get a hands-on look ... Wait. Eager young minds get a hands-on look? What kind of a mangled imagery is that? Let's try it again. The frogs are pre-croaked and pre-mailed so that students can concentrate on anatomy and not have to go through the trauma of taking a life in order to get a good grade.
I don't see anything wrong with kids dissecting frogs, although the frogs would probably disagree. Just how did frogs become the official designated dissectees of the science world? My father dissected frogs, his father dissected frogs, and his father before him dissected frogs. We are a country of frog-dissectors.
But isn't this some kind of forensic rut? How about dissecting a vacuum-packed squirrel from time to time? Or how about cutting up a mongoose? I suspect it is because they belong to the "cute" family of animals. You don't dissect something with a fuzzy face.
Amphibians, now, that's another story. They are COLDBLOODED. They can't nuzzle. They aren't cute. They are science projects.
Nevertheless, it won't be long before frog dissection is stopped in schools. Today, there are virtual frogs on the Internet. I found several Web sites, including the Virtual Frog Dissection Kit, which allows you to dissect a frog online. Another site has color photos showing the proper way to carve up a toad.(Let's practice: Pinning the frog.) Seeing the little guy on his back, pinned to the dissection pan through his feet and hands, I couldn't even get to the next step. (Let's practice: Horizontal incisions.)
Other than planting an unerasable memory in my brain, I'm not sure that my frog dissection experience really helped me in life. But who am I to question tradition?
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
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