No, I’m not dead yet; and don’t give me crap about the layers of dust you see around here.
Geeze almighty, you never had a dry spell…?
Although I got to admit, not having a regular post schedule to live by for the first time in five years is taking a little getting use to. Three gets me four I turn seventy in, oh, (mumblemumblemumble) years from now, and three months after I start my retirement, I find myself filling out applications for even real low paying jobs. By then, there’s probably going to be a market for old men willing to use Windex and DOS to keep everyone’s second generation Google Glass-based products clear, both their surfaces and caches…
Until then, there be pirates to look at. Again.
As in this article at gCaptain by Rawley and Berube (thanks to Annalee Newitz at io9 for flagging this one) that discusses modern pirates as “maritime non-state actors,” in particular the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Apparently, since the last we looked at them back in 2009, this group was declared pirates by the Ninth Circuit back in February. Which probably makes them worthy subjects for examination, on some level, although the Somali operations the last few years might seem better candidates for the piece. Unless you consider the tone the authors take towards SSCS, which seems less in awe of their capabilities than it does an opportunity to take on some folks at sea that can be associated with “the ninety-nine percent,” which makes me wonder who is the more engaged in “media manipulation” as noted in the article…
And yes, what’s written above is a valid point to make, as historically one of the defining characteristics of all pirates are their willingness to challenge the status quo. So if you have two naval analysts willing to paint this group as enemies of the way things should be done, that must make their letter of marque more valid.
Still, I’m not sure I can picture Sea Shepherds being able to walk through Tortuga and blending in as well with the rest of the pirates there. Part of me thinks Seamen Rawley and Berube stretched their definitions to speculate a little far afield, with a few valid points as to what to expect while trying to make the data fit their hypothesis. Not having the right groups to offer as examples from Xarardheer, or even say West Seneca, they tried to use a natural target for their mutual disinclination as the proper bogeymen for their thesis.
Could their ultimate MNSA group of real pirates ever come about? Well, you find enough disenchanted folks among the ninety-niners with some seamanship who have some harder issues to take to the waves with, like economic injustice, then we’ll see…
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And while we wait for that floating drum circle to come together to put out to sea, it’s back to trimming the sails here. During the slow spells, I may try and follow Chuck Palahniuk’s writing advice (thanks to Aaron Williams for flagging this one).
And should the wind pick up soon, I may have something special to note here…
James Ryan 